81. Tue 18/4/17: Restaurante Asador, Madrid

Beer: Mahou 5%

Last bar of the evening is a small standard tapas bar on the square; nothing much to say for or against it. There are some nice hanging plants over the window and bar. The gratis tapas are a very acceptable variety of green olive. The beer is served in chalices. The beer is Mahou.

I have vague recollection of Real Madrid v Bayern Munich on the telly – and our not really wanting to watch it; and our looking for the bar advertising their screening Leicester v Atletico (and our, oddly, giving a toss) and our not finding it, and going back to our flat instead. We’re tired.

199. Thu 5/10/17: Piazza Calle Labradores, Alicante

Beer: Mahou 5% 

We sit outside again, watching coverage of England v Slovenia World Cup Qualifier. It's a boring game, and after a while Steph gives up on it and wanders over to take a look inside the cathedral.

This bar is right on the Alicante tourist drag but A) there aren't many tourists about B) it's very reasonably priced C) it's a lovely spot right outside the cathedral and D) Carmen and her kids live metres away – within earshot of the buskers in this square, and the tips-bell at Sento, equidistant from her flat in the other direction. It really doesn't seem such a bad place to live...

We'd planned to pop round and visit Carmen, but she'd just put the kids to bed – and her flat had been hit by a power cut. Of course she might have just said that to avoid meeting us, we wouldn't blame her, but we were right outside when we called, and the whole building was dark... again, she could have asked a big favour of her neighbours and had everyone’s electric switched off.

So, with Carmen not out, we return to Piazza to watch England unexpectedly grab a last minute winner – and thereby win the right to ignominiously fail in the finals.

After that we return to the apartment, and the next day we return to Blighty (on the top deck of a 747 jumbo jet, to Gatwick, courtesy of Monarch having gone to the wall the day after they flew us out).

 

80. Tue 1/4/17: La barro del teatro, Madrid

Beer: Mahou 5%

Right next door to the theatre in the square and apparently owned/staffed by Indians, which is odd but good to see.

Mind you, it is WAY too hot in here. The pub is wide and open (not airy), with a single bar pump serving Mahou.

Disappointingly the tapas are pretty standard fayre – would it be too much to suggest Indian food? I could kill a curry (upon my return to Blighty, I kill two in two days). There’s a smell of curry coming from somewhere – it smells lovely, and makes me feel homesick.

There are big queues for the theatre outside. Not sure what’s on – there are giant billboards for two shows outside (I should have photographed them). The queues die down by the time we depart.

 

187. Tue 3/10/17: La Cava Aragonesa, Benidorm

Beer: Mahou 5%

After a strangely bewildering wild goose chase (involving Steph’s folks, who aren’t going to meet us after all, and an apartment – which we can’t find – that they wanted us to look over on their behalf…) we end up back at the LCA. It’s nearing mid-afternoon.

This place is bright and bustling, and just a bit better in every respect from the local competition… anyway, the music is still too loud and cheesy… but what the heck.

This turns out to be our last visit to La Cava Aragonesa this time round.

192. Wednesday 4/10/17: Calle Labradores, Alicante

Beer: Mahou 5%

Carmen, it seems, isn’t going to show up. We’re five minutes late when we arrive at The Piazza, our planned meeting point, and wait around another ten before deciding to do the tourist bit and have a look in the cathedral. Just before we enter, Carmen arrives. Lovely to see her. She has kids and parents in tow – and it’s nice sitting outside with the extended family.

The Piazza seems like a tourist trap – on the square, right outside the cathedral, along with vendors and buskers. It’s possibly (actually, almost certainly) somewhere we’d not have gone to on our own – we’d have headed into the back streets – but in the company of a resident family it’s fine. And it is fine. Carmen, who studied photography with me fifteen years ago, noticing that I’m snapping away, produces her own camera – and a website on which she stores her photographs. She is, and always has been, far more accomplished than me – she takes some fantastic pictures. She doesn’t, as a rule, habitually photograph drinks in every pub she visits. More fool her, eh folks? “It’s not just beer”, she suggests.

No, there’s football too – on the Piazza tellies there’s coverage (a replay it turns out) of Man City v Shaktar Donetsk. Shaktar are apparently playing in Luton Town’s 1983 home kit. They still lose – as Luton Town were wont to do in 1983… although famously not at Man City (but they were wearing the away kit then).

Unlike the archetypal tourist trap we suspected this place to be – the bill for the beer was very reasonable.

179 Sun 1/10/17: Pikoteo, Benidorm

Beer: Mahou 5%

We kind of know where we’re going, Steph and I; but we do get to places we probably wouldn’t consider when we’re with company. Pikoteo is a very small Old Town backstreet tapas bar – specialising in the free (customer selected) tapas per drink. It’s a good system. My choice is for a small (but fat) chorizo sausage in a little bun. Very nice too.

This place is very understated and small, but good for that. There’s no wall to wall La Liga in this class of establishment – which would be perfectly fine other than the alternative entertainment is the ubiquitous little sound system, which in this place, is blasting out some really obscure (but extremely dull) English 60s pop music. I don’t recognise any of it, and could have done without.

Not that, had Itchycoo Park come on, I’d necessarily have been delighted.