cheeriobrigado

[cheeriobrigado]

[cheeriobrigado]

The Algarve

Well.... time flies when you're having the time of your lives. Which is part of the reason Cait and I have been a bit latent in our blog post. Nonetheless, we had an amazing time in our time in the southern region of Portugal as many of you have seen in our Facebook and IG posts. Albuefiera is a beautiful beach town and the resort we stayed at, Salgados Dunas resorts, was a stone's throw away from the beach, just a short walk over wood-planked boardwalk over the dunes leading to the beach. When we arrived our first day, it was quite the journey as our flight was a little delayed. We got there around 8-9pm and had a quick dinner at the Jazz lounge while listening to some live music and winding down from our travel day. I had Prego, a beef sandwich with garlic...lucky I am married, now seeing as I had quite the garlic breath. Cait had a salad and mixto sandwich, which is just ham and cheeeeeese. We washed them down with a caipherina for me and an Aperol spritz for the wifey. After we appeased our appetite, we retreated back to our room to get ready for our relaxing days to come. Our first full day was really getting our orientation to the new setting and seeing what kind of routine we wanted to fall into. We sauntered over to the beach to check it out. Seeing that we didn't have any sunscreen, we only spent a short time there the first day but enjoyed our time there nonetheless. After having a couple of veggie sandies and some drinks, we moved poolside and relaxed before getting ready for dinner at the "fancy" restaurant L14. Before dinner, Cait and I decided to have drinks at the roof top bar at the resort and had a couple of cocktails to build our appetite. When we took the elevator up to the bar, we were greeted by the most chill bartender ("Heeey friend, welcome to the bar - relax - have a seat") We had an amazing view of the sunset and reflected on the hectic months and days leading up to our honeymoon and all the people who made our wedding such a memorable day. After dinner, we headed back and gameplaned for how we wanted to spend our next few days. The next days were kind of a blur it was basically us sitting at the beach enjoying the view, Cait reading her book, and me listening to mine, gotta love audible. Now you might notice that I haven't really mentioned much about the meals we had, which really hadn't been anything special... up to this point. Well, all that is about to change. While hunting for a lavatory, Cait stumbled upon a restaurant on the beach that served some of the best seafood we have had, so good that we had lunch there two days in a row. Our first day, we started with some fresh cheese followed by clams and shrimp cooked with garlic, olive oil and oregano... sooo good. Then I had grilled sardines and Cait had grilled octopus washed down with vinho verde. The second day was somewhat of an encore of the first, subbing the cheese for anchovies and sardines/octopus with grilled seabass. I will remember those meals for the rest of my life. After our second lunch there, Cait and I shared an amazing walk along the beach, Cait collecting rocks and seashells along the way, stopping for every kodak moment, capturing our post-wedding glow at every turn. I still can't believe how lucky I am to be with this amazing woman. Our last full day, Cait and I took a beach BBQ trip leaving from Marina de Albufeira. It was tough to force ourselves to get up and get there at the buttcrack of dawn... actually, it was 10AM, but when you are in paradise, who's gonna judge? But we both couldn't be happier with our choice. We were treated to a tour of the most beautiful caves on the coast, most famously Bahia, and then to a beach along the coast only reachable by boat and a BBQ lunch. There we strolled along, swam in the clearest ocean waters we have seen, and sunbathed next to a cacophony of people from the U.K. We met a lovely British couple there on holiday that seemed to be on our wavelength and shared a great conversation with them on the boat ride back. Once we returned to the resort, Cait and I went back to the jazz lounge and listened to an amazing artist who had a beautiful voice and listened to some old time jazz music before dinner. The past five nights, we were treated to some of the most beautiful beaches and seafood in all of Europe and will truly cherish the time we spent together. Now on to the next journey, Lisboa! Obrigado Algave!

[cheeriobrigado]

[cheeriobrigado]

[cheeriobrigado]

First Stop: London

After getting 8 hours of rest time on the airplane (more than I've gotten per night the past week) and arriving at Gatwick airport, Jason and I hopped on the train to London's city center, stopping off at Victoria and taking a few more stops via the Tube to land at Soho and our hotel. After exiting our teensie weensie hotel, we headed for brews at The Crown, our first pub stop. Ah...THERE was that nice, room-temperatured ale we'd been waiting for. (Wadsworth pale ale) Amongst groups of old friends or gents grabbing a beer after work, with some of their button-downs having escaped the tucks of their suit and trousers, it was a lively, tiny little joint to converse over some drinks. We also spotted plenty of Landon champagne at the pub, which we had for our wedding dinner. At long last, Jason and I stopped in to a small chippie spot and got some fish and chips and also a beef and mushroom pie...it might not have been the #1 spot in town or anything like that, but it was excellent and satisfied our salty, savory cravings. Searching for more beer to wash down our pre-dinner "snacks", we stepped into a different pub, caught some of both premier and pre-premier soccer games, and watched Messi score (for the first time against that particular keeper...you're welcome, Messi!) while enjoying some Camden Lock lagers. Crowds were pouring out of the pub and onto the cobblestone sidewalk just outside, more professionals winding down with friends after work. By the time we headed to dinner, it was dark and we'd wet our appetites, ready to taste some delicious bites at Nopi, a restaurant of Yotam Ottolenghi's - a chef of one of our favorite cookbooks, Plenty. Complementary champagne was served as the waiter congratulated us on our honeymoon. I had a delicious Classic dirty martini and Jason had a Hendricks punch which had Hendricks gin, Aperol, juniper and coriander syrup, cucumber, mint, and aromatic bitters. We started off with a seeded house made lavash with a burnt onion dip.. fancy crackers and dip. Then we had roasted aubergine, which is really eggplant.. the brits even fancy up their veggies. Along with that was a dish of Cornish Hake with tamarind yogurt, pistachios and pickled lemon. After which they served us roasted butternut squash with tahini, pine nuts and za'tar. Along with the squash they served us or final savory dish of roasted quail with braised chicory and verjus... so fancy. The dinner was topped off by Caitlin and I bingeing on desserts... I mean pudding. I had a strawberry mess because as Caitlin would say, I love my fruity desserts. After breaking the fast of our wedding diet, Caitlin indulged herself in a roasted peanut and caramel ice cream with chocolate and peanut brittle. Our walk back was pleasant, even so with it drizzling and a little chilly. Bellies full and eyes ready for sleep, we hastened back to our hotel and got a night's rest before getting ready for the next morning. (Getting rest on the plane over was great, but this was a solid one-up with a standard hotel bed.) Waking up, we decided to let the morning defeat us a LITTLE and rose up a little later than planned...after getting dressed and heading out, we grabbed some breakfast (lunch) at a place that was built in the 1300s...after wrapping up our meal and preparing to continue our explorative walk through Soho, we glanced out the window - POURING rain, in extreme wind...we did a Londoner and ordered a beer to wait it out. Not 20 minutes later was the sun back out, amused at its cleverly played trick, and well enough for the rest of the day. We stopped back at the hotel to change, and met our buddy Chad at the fabulous Mr. Fogg's Gin Parlour - a dapper, quaint little parlour with delicious libations and an old, elegant ambiance cuter than the little old ladies you'd find chatting on the Tube. Dinner, later, was terrifically authentic yet upscale at St. John Maltby's - one of Fergus Henderson's quaint restaurants. We started off with bread and butter.. salivation over carbs. Then we had runner beans vinaigrette with our very British Welsh rarebit. We did have to ask our waitress... "what is Welsh rarebit?" And her reply was "cheese toast"...which was really a cheese, Guinness, mustard and lea and perrins - better known as Worcestershire sauce. Umm yes please! Then we had deviled kidneys, which was lamb kidneys spiced with cayenne, over toast along with our roasted pigeon with Savoy cabbage and bacon...absolutely delicious. At this point our eyes were a little bigger than our stomach so we decided to split a dessert of Lancashire cheese and an eccels cake. So far, we're amazed how you can just walk into any joint and use the loo with no judgment or fee, that we can't get over how conscious we are of constantly needing to walk on the left side, and that it's clean and everyone is generally all about 'getting on with it' and being pleasant. It's also pretty neat that most beers we've consumed have been served in glasses of their own branding. Cheers! C & J

[cheeriobrigado]

Cheerio! And Obrigado!

Well, here we are! We’ve arrived - to our honeymoon, that is! After a beautiful weekend, Jason and I are sitting in the Oakland Airport at our gate, waiting to board our flight to London. We’re staying in London for two nights and then we’ll be flying to Faro, Portugal to spend some time in the warm, beachside Algarve region. After that, we’re heading north to Lisbon, spending two days in the capital city, and then continuing north to Porto, then heading east towards the countryside to do some wine tasting in the Douro Valley, and then back to Porto to explore the city and taste more yummy Port wine!

Jason and I are so happy, relaxed, and excited for our travels ahead - it’ll be a good, healthy mixture of adventuring through pubs and high tea in London, lazy leisure and seafood on sunny beaches in Albufeira - in the Algarve of Portugal…cultural exploration, fado, food in Lisbon…gorgeous river valleys and wine tasting in the Douro Valley…and more (what else?) food and wine experiences in Porto.

Cheerio, family and friends! Obrigado for a beautiful day last Saturday!

Caitlin & Jason

PS: PROPS to Jason on the awesomely punny blog name! A man after my own heart.