Tag: Travel

Thursday Landscape

Travels

Salzburg (2004)

Quote from the Son&Heir, on seeing the Alps for the first time from his hotel room:

“C’mon Dad, that’s not real — that’s a poster someone’s stuck on the outside of the window!”

Personal Recommendations

Architecture, Food & Drink

Here’s a list of “proper old” Brit pubs, for those who are either of a Brit persuasion or else part of a vanishingly-small number who actually want to visit Britishland.

For the record, I’ve been to four of them (The Bell, The George, The Coach & Horses and The King’s Head) and had a great time in all.  (By the way, the interiors of The George and The King’s Head are stunningly alike — when I saw the pic of the latter in the article, I thought for a moment that it was the George.)

That said:  when I was at The Bell, the beer selection was absolute shit — even Mr. Sorenson had trouble finding something decent, and we ended up drinking cider (ugh).  The George, of course, serves Wadworth 6X and their lamb pie is excellent.  I don’t recall much about the C&H because I was drinking there with either The Englishman or Mr. Free Market, and after those kind of epic sessions, memory is frequently foggy:  probably caused by sundry pints of Fuller’s London Pride, in retrospect.

I don’t know about the other pubs mentioned in the article, but they look excellent.

Missing from the list, however, is my absolute favorite, The King’s Arms in All Cannings:

…as is Salisbury’s Haunch of Venison:

Very much worth a visit, despite the lack of 6X.

RFI: Wetherspoons

Food & Drink, Travels

This one is especially for my Brit Readers, and it was sparked by this article.

Since visiting her first Wetherspoons with her now husband Andrew in 2024 — it was The Moon Under Water in Watford, in case you’re wondering — Stacey Gitten has now visited 71 Wetherspoons up and down the country. It’s a mission that has seen her travel as far as Edinburgh from their home in Southampton, and she ‘even went to Wales just to go to a Wetherspoons’, she tells me. 

But despite having visited 71 of the chain’s carpeted pubs — a mission that she has documented on TikTok under the handle @staceyintheUK (she moved from Chicago to be with her husband) — Stacey has tried surprisingly little of the menu. In fact, she has a go-to order; her control she uses to compare across the ‘Spoons outlets.

(It’s Eggs Benedict, by the way.)

For my Murkin Readers, Wetherspoons (or “Spoons”) is a budget-friendly alternative to the typical pubs and restaurants Over There, with a common menu across almost all establishments, with some local variations.

Okay, I have an admission to make:  I’ve never been to a Wetherspoons pub.  There’s no reason for this, unless it’s a subconscious desire not to go to any chain restaurants when I’m Over There.  I remember being tempted by The Bear in Melksham (I went to that town often because it’s just down the road from Free Market Towers), but never went inside.

Perhaps I should have.  (Unless it was because they didn’t serve Wadworth 6X?  I dunno.)

Anyway, is our Murkin transplant in the article an idiot?

All input will be gratefully received.