The Sneaky Magpie

This year I have seen more of Britain than ever before and next year I am intending to continue this way. Within a short train trip you can be in the most beautiful countryside or precious little town, learning British history and sampling delicious food.

I went to Wales twice: for Easter and Guy Fawkes night in November. I go to Wales very often as my mother-in-law lives there, every visit is very enjoyable and full of activities be it shopping car boot sales and antique shops, visiting wool mills or walking along the coastline. This year we went to Mwnt and Aberporth. Mwnt is a small beach near Cardigan surrounded by hills with some amazing flora and if you are lucky you can even spot a seal or a dolphin in the Irish Sea.

Aberporth is a small holiday town with great coastal walks and a waterfall on the beach.

Springtime saw me in Oxford discovering the Pit Rivers Museum and enjoying cream teas.

Summer was about Kent. I went to Rye which is truly stunning with its wiggly cobbled streets, harbour nature reserve and lobster dishes.

And to Whitstable – a little fishing village specialising in oysters and colorful beach houses.

The last trip of the year was to Leeds but if I am really lucky I could squeeze perhaps another one during the Christmas break.

I didn’t travel that much abroad, only Poland and Paris, both very enjoyable though.

There is no holiday plans for 2010 yet but I definitely want to visit Bath and Chawton inspired by the Jane Austen guide, Bexhill-on-Sea, Margate, Hastings and Dover, Salisbury and Stonehenge and some of Oxfordshire.

As for bigger holidays I really don’t know, of course there are places I’d like to see like Morocco, Croatia and some more exotic destinations, definitely Amsterdam (my friends’ infants are growing fast!) so fingers crossed something will come out of it.

It was so nice to visit Paris after 10 years. All my previous visits seemed so hectic and this one was very relaxed and enjoyable.

We stayed in Montmartre, in a hotel that looked great on the website but turned out pretty grotesque. The location was excellent though. We promptly left our room and went to get a bite to eat.

Our first lunch was at Un Zebre a Montmartre which was busy with locals and the food was delicious.

Afterward we hiked up the hill to the Sacre Coeur basilica where the view of Paris was spectacular.

Next was a lovely cafe, Cafe Les Deux Moulins, in Rue Lepic for a cup of hot chocolate followed with wine to warm up, the first day of our visit was freezing cold. The cafe was buzzing with young trendy crowd and it didn’t take us long to realise it was the cafe Amelie Poulain works at in the film (Amelie reminders are scattered all over the place).

The whole Montmartre is full of patisseries, boulangeries, fromageries, great food shops, sea food stalls and proper butchers.

I would recommend Les Petits Mitrons on 26 Rue Lepic and Patisserie Arnaud Delmontel in 39 Rue des Martyrs. The first one specializes in fruit cakes, pastries and quiches, and the second one in cakes, macarons and bakery goods.

Day 2 started with a trip to Louvre where I did have a quick look at Mona Lisa because I have never seen the painting before but it is so far and covered with so much glass it’s very difficult to see it properly.  We very quickly moved away from the crowd and went to see the Dutch and Flemish paintings which we both love. It was just my luck that one of the two Vermeers was on a loan to US, the other one called The Lacemaker was stunning though. There was an amazing collection of Rembrands and one very good Frans Hals as well as a tiny picture by Bruegel called The Cripples. The place is truly overwhelming and one would need numerous visits to take it all in just like with Del Prado in Madrid or The National Gallery in London.

Next stop was Marais, stroll down the streets, Place des Vosges and a tasty lunch at Au Petit fer a Cheval on Rue Vielle du Temple where I had confit de canard which is the first proper piece of meat I have had in 2 years. M had steak frites and we both shared the best creme brulee ever.

Marais is full of fashion shops I love however Euro is so strong it is cheaper in London so sadly I left empty handed.

Fantastic vintage shops:

Cuisinophilie

Shop which name I have forgotten…

Milk, best haberdashery shop ever

Being very greedy we managed to have eclairs at a local patisserie and few drinks on our way back to Montmartre.

Day 3 started with a Parisian breakfast in Montmartre.

Followed with a walk down the river bank to Musee d’Orsay. The day was beautiful.

View of Montmartre from d’Orsay.

The museum was as overwhelming as Louvre, too many wonderful pictures from the permanent collection to take in as well as an a couple of exhibitions.

After a good couple of hours of art we headed to Rue Bonaparte to Pierre Herme for some mouth watering macarons. I am so glad they deliver to England. The cakes look incredible too. I could probably eat there every day.

Our last dinner was at Le Petit Parisien in Montmartr where yet another scrumptious meal was consumed. The service was very poor though.

We had few hours yesterday to kill before the train home so we headed to Musee d’Art Moderne, we also managed to visit a nearby food market which made me so jealous of all European markets. It’s all about seasonal food and high quality. My farmers market is so sad in comparison. I bought some sweet chestnuts and they were delicious. The mushrooms were the most impressive though.

Every single greengrocer had this standard of food.

We ended up buying some jams, cheese and cakes before heading off to Gare du Nord and saying goodbye to Paris.

This autumn is looking very good indeed. Last month I came to realise I have got three weeks of holidays to be used up this year and no clear plans.

So I decided to stay in London for a week and just hang out.

I will be also going to Paris for few days, then a long weekend in Leeds to see friends and hopefully a full week in Amsterdam to revisit the city that used to be my home for 7 years.

Tickets and hotels are booked and planning has begun!

After a three hour train journey from Warsaw we found ourselves in Silesia in southern Poland, very near the Czech border, this place is home. I had wonderful time with my family, ate very well and played with my parent’s crazy dog. It was blissful and I started to miss it from the time I arrived at the airport.

We went on a couple of trips too, first one was to Pszczyna to see a beautiful palace and an open air museum with XVIII and XIX century huts.

Next trip was to The Beskids where we hiked up Skrzyczne while picking and eating a lot of berries on the way, we also managed to take some back home and had them with ice cream later on.

Our 3rd day in Warsaw was spent on exploring. We started with a breakfast at Kafka which was super delicious and consisted of cheese, cold cuts, jam and bread.

Afterward we went to the river Vistula, had a look at the Warsaw University Library along the way, it has a great roof garden.

On the way to the river we bought a bag of cherries from a small green grocer, what struck me immediately is that the shop only sold seasonal home grown produce cheaply. I miss these kind of shops so much. We sat by the river and ate, it really reminded me of my childhood.

We spent most of the day by the river, crossing the Swietokrzyski Bridge, getting lost in Warsaw streets, eating doughnuts and buying produce from street merchants. I got some nice honey and bilberries. In the evening we met up with a friend and drove to the beautiful Wilanow Palace – a baroque country retreat for the royals now turned into museum. It was really nice to leave the buzzing city behind and have a drink in a park.

Our last day was spent on organising train tickets from the absolutely horrible and dirty central station. The station is overshadowed by the monster of Warsaw – The Palace of Culture and Science – Stalin’s gift to Poland.

I stared and stared at the building and was trying to understand how anyone could approve the plans for it. It’s huge and bulky, Gothic and classical at the same time, horribly ornamented and clumsy. Understandably, hated by Varsovians.

Sculpture of youth with The Communist Manifesto

On the way back to the hotel we visited Zacheta National Gallery of Art, it only had a very small show on and not a very good one either, the main part was closed.

More eye pleasing architecture near our hotel, on Pilsudski Square, is The Metropolitan building designed by Sir Norman Foster. I found it interesting and elegant.

Our last dinner in Warsaw was at Zapiecek, bit too folky, bit too touristy but very very delicious! Each of us had a plate of dumplings, mine Russian style and hubby’s with wild mushrooms. After dinner we walked to KOM for a cocktail, the interior is average but the service and drinks were excellent. I heard the food is pretty good too.

We were sad to leave the city but excited about vising Silesia. In the end we decided to skip visit to Lodz, maybe next time, we had way too much fun in the capital.

I definitely haven’t seen enough of the city so will surely be back.

We arrived in Warsaw on a sunny Saturday morning and after a short bus ride we got to our hotel. Unfortunately our room wasn’t ready yet (a couple of hours before the check in time) and we wandered through Krakowskie Przedmieście. Equipped in a map we marked all the places we wanted to visit/eat at, while drinking cold beer. Before we headed back to the hotel we popped to Zakąski Przekąski, part of the Gessler empire (the Conrans of Warsaw according to Wallpaper*) located at the old Europejski Hotel, conveniently just opposite our hotel. Zakąski Przekąski is a great snack bar, zakąski meaning snacks to go with vodka or simply starters and przekąski meaning snacks in general. All the food is PLN8/€2 and all the drinks are PLN4/€1 including vodka shots! The food it very simple and served with a roll, all very meaty, for someone like me the choice was limited to potatoes with sour cream or herring, went for the latter, M had pate with cranberry sauce and horseradish relish. This place is open 24h a day and gets packed with young fashion crowd in evening for a cheeky shot of vodka before or after a night out.

When we got to the hotel after the check in time our room still wasn’t ready and we got immediately upgraded to a suite, yay!

Later on we had coffee at the very quirky café Kafka. A fab little place near our hotel but off the beaten track where we would eat our breakfast every day.

The café is at the bottom of old building with tables and chairs outside, it also has got a grassy bit with deck chairs and blankets. The interior is pretty wacky with lots of books they saved from a skip, these can be bought now for PLN10/€2.50 per kilo.

At dinner time it was back to Hotel Europejski, restaurant U Kucharek which is one of the Gessler places. We dined outside on a chilled beetroot soup for me and wild mushroom broth for M. The nice thing about Warsaw is that the pavements are wide so every restaurant and bar have outside areas which with the 30 degrees temperatures where blissful and reminiscent of southern Europe.The food was absolutely delicious and I couldn’t stop staring at the color of my soup.

On Sunday we had a breakfast at the oldest patisserie in Warsaw, Blikle, the breakfast was ok but massively overpriced. The cakes and doughnuts are fantastic though.

The day was hot and we decided to spend it in Łazienki Park – The Royal Baths Park. The park is beautiful with a number of palaces like the neoclassical Palace on Water or The Ujazdowski Castle, the latter is a home to a modern art gallery and a restaurant.

Palace on Water

The other spots worth visiting in the park are the Old Orangery, Little White House, Mysliwiecki Palace, Belvedere and the statue of Fryderyk Chopin. We headed to the Roman Theater near the Palace on Water to listen to a classical music concert. We were hoping to see the Chopin piano concert (played near his statue every Sunday between May and September at 12.00 and 16.00) but the heat chased us away – the weird thing about Polish parks is that people don’t sit on the grass only on benches. There is yet another concert played behind the Old Orangery, all concerts are free and performed by the best musicians in the country and beyond.

For lunch we headed to Ujazdowski Castle to Qchnia Artystyczna, a trendy Warsaw restaurant, found out later that it’s also owned by one of the Gesslers! The interior is simple and the food tasty, I settled for potato cakes with wild mushroom sauce and M for a simple pasta dish, and beer of course.

We had a quick look at the Centre for Contemporary Art at the castle and walked back to the town center and walked passed the Polish Parliament and Senate back to the hotel.

The evening was spent on a walk to the Old Town centre, dinner under a starry sky at Pierrogeria where we stuffed ourselves silly with delicious dumplings.

We finished the evening walking to the New Town centre (don’t be fooled by the name, it’s an old part of Warsaw too but was named New some time ago! ). We had tea at Belle Epoque, an eclectic and wacky looking café in belle epoque style where a man played piano – more Woody Allen than Chopin, and drank tea with rum.

On Sunday we went to catch the train to Whitstable from Victoria. We missed it by 2 minutes due to insane queues at the station. I was rather disappointed and on top of it one of the rail workers told us that we should have just bought tickets on the train. I was upset. Had to wait for another hour at the nasty Victoria Station on a hot summer day.

We got to Whitstable just in time for lunch. It was whitebait and chips with some really nice local beer (I am usually very healthy when it comes to food but cannot resist chips on the beach).

Followed by a long walk on the beach. They have some pretty houses and huts there. I want one!

We ended up at the Old Neptune pub and enjoyed the views for few hours.

Whitstable is a very picturesque place with amazingly cheap oysters, at £0.40 per piece and as fresh as they come. Perfect place for a day trip.

Had a fantastic weekend. I spent Saturday on Portobello Road, strolling around, eating, drinking Prosseco in sunshine, and I bought a really good basket for my bike. Now I only need a helmet and I’m ready to go.

Mermaid Street

On Sunday we visited the ancient town of Rye in East Sussex. It is a truely picturesque place. The town centre is tiny and built on a hill, mostly medieval buildings and narrow cobbled streets. You can walk the whole place in half an hour. The most beautiful street is Mermaid Street, cobbled with stones and leading to the Lamb House where Henry James used to live and further to the churchyard and the watch tower.

After we walked through the town we went for a fabulous lunch of lobster and chips at the Fish Cafe. It was so good, especially washed down with a bottle of Riesling.

Camber Castle

Then, we decided to go to the beach, we started walking through The Rye Harbour Natures Reserve, have not seen many birds but a whole lot of sheep. We never reached the beach however we did stumble across a medieval castle built for Henry VIII, Camber Castle.

Rye is a fantastic place for a day trip, especially if the weather is good. There are some amazing places nearby too: Winchelsea Beach, Hastings, Battle and Bexhill.

Today the weather is pretty lousy so I decided to stay at home, made a superb hollandaise souce to go with steamed asparagus and poached eggs, afterwards I ironed a lot to burn the calories off, it’s all ebay ready now. I also watched a Polish film called Interrogation, it was incredibly good.

My office closed for two weeks during Christmas and New Year and we spent it peacefully at home watching movies, reading books and eating way too much.

Trying to get festive we decorated our window with baubles, made some mulled wine and I tried a couple of Polish recipes: hunter’s stew ‘bigos’ and potato salad.

Bigos is a sauerkraut stew with dried mushrooms with lots of all spice berries and bay leaf, I make a vegetarian version but it should have sausages and speck. The trick is to cook it for ages and make breaks in stewing so the flavours really marry together.

Polish potato salad consists of all kind of root veg: potatoes, carrots, parsnips, celeriac; it also has got salted pickled cucumbers, onion, apple, tinned sweet pea. All mixed with mayonnaise with bit of mustard and seasoned well.

After an overdose of all the goodies I decided it is time to go on sugar free, dairy free and wheat free diet.

Back in October I went for a week to the wonderful city of Naples. The place is simply stunning. Old grand buildings, narrow streets and beautiful churches make for magic surroundings. Naples is run down which adds to its charm: graffiti everywhere, rubbish, buildings falling down. Somehow it all works.

Centro Storico

Culture wise there is whole lot to do with the finest museum of archeology, good share of modern art galleries and easy access to world’s most famous sites.

On our first day we took a 30 minute hydrofoil ride to Capri. The island is so beautiful with its colorful houses, abundunce of flora and fantastic coastal views. We took a hike from Capri Town to Arco Naturale, Grotta di Matermania and Belvedere do Tragara. It’s a fifteen minute walk through the island to reach the most fantastic views and not many other tourists, most people aim at the antient Villa Jovis. We stopped at a cave that used to be a shrove to water nymphs, followed the coastal track where we passed a bizzare Bond-ish looking villa, this used to belong to Curzio Malaparte, a Tuscan writer. The hike takes about hour and a half, I absolutely loved the views. The track leads back to Capri Town where we had a quick lunch at a local deli, R. Buonocore. Fantastic mini pizzas and good esspresso. We also stocked up on super delish cookies loaded with Amalfi lemons (they are truely incredible), almonds and hazelnuts.

Our second stop was the other caprese town – Anacapri. Trying to escape all the German turists we took another hike off the beaten track and reached Belvedere di Migliera. There are two viewing points of the sea and the coast.

Furnicular

Travel through Capri is very easy, from the harbour you can take the furnicular to Capri Town, buses also operate between the towns and the island’s harbour.

Malaparte villa

A piece of advise – don’t buy anything in the harbour, the prices are insane.

On the second day we decided to make another day trip. We took the Circumvesuviana train to Pompeii. I don’t have to rave about this place, it is one of the world’s most amazing archeological sites. We spent good five hours walking through the ruins and didn’t manage to see everything. Amazing, amazing, amazing.

Back in Naples, it was my other half’s birthday and we set off to have a nice dinner. We went to Piazza Bellini, a charming little square, had fabulous Aperol spritzers and…..Bellinis. Afterwards we started our hunt for a perfect little cafe, first we followed the Lonley Planet guide, this failed, we wandered into Piazza Dante and saw a tiny place, full of locals and decided it was it. We ended up having a proper Italian feast, starting with simple grilled veg and bread, good local red wine (they believe in local produce, the wine list consisted of one white and one red option, loved it), followed by spaghetti a la vongole for one and gnocchi with simple tomato sauce and mozzarella for the other. By this point we were rather full. As it happened to be end of the night all of a sudden we were served small portions of potato pasta, followed by bean pasta, followed by fried calzoni! We could not move, it was all really delicious but way too much, we had to try it all as it seemed to upset our waiter when we didn’t. Needless to say we did not order a dessert. The restuarant doesn’t like to waste anything and gives food away at the end of service. The place is called Leon D’Oro.

Pasta a la vongole	Bean pasta
Gnocchi with tomatoe sauce	Potatoe pasta

Following day, to burn the calories, we decided on a hike up Vesuvius. Short ride on Circumvesuviana train to Ercolano and crazy mini bus ride up the mountain takes you to the bottom of the crater. Even though it was a sunny day Vesuvius was covered by clouds, we walked in total fog and started to literally melt – my hair was dripping with water and any cream or sunscreen was rejected by our skin. Unfortunatelly we couldn’t see much when we reached the peak which was a shame but hopefully we will be back one day.

Mount Vesuvius looming over Pompeii

One could travel to many places round Naples – all the ancient sites, lovely towns and islands however it was time for us to see some of Naples. We decided to loose ourselves in Centro Storico. The old area has got many narrow streets, churches, cafes and weird shops selling nativity figurines, it was so nice to just stroll through them and observe the city life go by. There are lots of small altars peppered everywhere (one of Diego Maradona!) and lots of graffiti by different gangs marking their territory. In the evening we popped into the city’s biggest modern art museum, Madre. I consider myslef very lucky to catch the Robert Rauschenberg show, the permanent collection wasn’t very exciting but it did have few good pieces. The day was finished by a dinner at a very sweet pizza place. The pizza in Naples is the best.

Pizza with tomatoes, mozzarella and rocket

Calzone with ricotta and tomatoes

We also visited the Museo Archeologico Nazionale which houses a lot of finds from Pompeii, Herculaneum and other ancient sites. You need to spend a good few hours there to see everything and definitely get the gallery guide which costs few Euros as the exhibit descriptions are very poor. The museum houses lots of sculptures, artefacts, wonderful mosaics and a secret room with the biggest collection of ancient porn ever discovered.

After the archeological overload we headed for a bite to eat, back at Piazza Dante we popped into a local eaterie for bowl of courgette and shrimp pasta and a cabbage risotto. It was glorious.

Pasta with courgettes and shrimps

Cabbage risotto with speck

The last gallery we had time for was PAN, the current exhibitions were not very exciting but the building is quite amazing.

I shouldn’t forget to mention the bakery goods and sweets. The Neapolitans are true masters in making pastries, the most famous one being sfogliatelle – flaky pastry filled with ricotta custard filling of orange flavour. Had one every day. They are also amazing at making chocolate, a curious kind, rich and not very sweet, very very good. I brough a lot of it home form Gay Odin.

Sfogliatelle

After return to England I had to go on a carb free diet but it was worth it. I’d go back to Naples any time and I surely will be back as there is lots of Amalfi coast left to see.