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Portugal
Porto? Nuno? Goodo. You need another reason to visit Portugal? We mean, the custard tarts. The weather. The wine. The port. The seafood. The custard tarts. Yes. We know. But we REALLY like the custard tarts. Anyway, if that lot wasn’t enough for you, Portuguese chef Nuno Mendes has opened two new places in Largo…
30 Weeks, 52 Stars, 25 Chefs Not to mention 30 years. VILA VITA Parc knows how to celebrate an anniversary. Anything that’s lasted 30 years deserves a party. At Portuguese clifftop resort VILA VITA Parc, they’ve just gone a little further than opening a bottle of champagne or booking a nice restaurant. They’ve organised some…
Vila Joya literally means ‘jewellery box’ which is appropriate, given that the boutique hotel is one of Portugal’s hidden gems. Blissfully exclusive, the oriental palazzo overlooks the Albuferia coastline, and as some of the world’s finest golf courses are within eyeshot, if you’re heading there to improve your game you’ve picked the right place. Golf is the main diversion here and head pro Jose Ferriera…
It was with great interest, excitement, and some trepidation, that I headed out to Porto. The great writer Robert Graves had told me in “Goodbye to All That” that the Portuguese are the dirtiest people in Europe and not in a good way. I went there in search of new wine and found an old wine…
The first time I drank port I was 17. My local football side had just been knocked out by our arch rivals and in an act of youthful rashness, I grabbed my fathers Port and proceeded to drown my sorrows. It was during this tumultuous time a great thing happened, I discovered this smooth and…
Not because of the weather and shortened daylight hours, although the former has been particularly frightful this year. No, November signals something much worse, it is the month of my birth and therefore cannot possibly fail to remind me of my fast approaching senility, along with the distinct possibility that Roger, as he never fails…
Guide books are always banging on about what good fun it is to get “lost” amongst winding streets of medieval cities – but I can tell you from hard experience that it isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. At least, it isn’t a good idea to go the wrong way under the glare of…