affordable – Breweventures

Ye Olde Pub Crawl

It’s no accident that several of the pubs here have “olde” in their names; the most recent among them was created in 1905. This crawl is a great way to while away an afternoon into the evening– particularly if the weather’s chilly and the pubs with fireplaces have them lit while you’re getting lit. Start off at the Holborn or Chancery Lane Tube stop. Try to do this crawl during the week if possible, as pubs in this part of London can have funny hours or be a bit dead on the weekends. NB: This is not a very long walk, so pace yourself with the pints or you will indeed be crawling.

Barrels in London Pub, Cittie of Yorke — Roll out the barrel at the Cittie of Yorke

Pub 1: The Cittie of Yorke, 22 High Holborn, WC1V 6BN
While the building that houses this pub was rebuilt in the 1920s, the Cittie of Yorke’s interior has been deemed historically signficant for its much older fittings, like the large triangular stove that helps warm the high-ceilinged main bar in the winter. Though the main floor is very spacious, the dark wood interior and huge barrels on the walls make it feel intimate.

Particularly cozy and good for conversation are the Victorian cubicles along the wall, once used by lawyers to consult with clients since the Cittie is situated in the heart of legal London. The lawyers and their clients always must have been thirsty, as a pub has apparently been situated on the location since 1430. The Cittie of Yorke is a Samuel Smith’s pub, so serves only its own brand of beers, wines, and liquors (all very good!) for more reasonable prices than a lot of the other pub groups.

Pub 2: Ye Olde Mitre, 1 Ely Court, Ely Place, EC1N 6SJ
This pub can be tricky to find, but that’s part of the fun. The easiest way to reach Ye Olde Mitre is by walking down a very small, doorway-sized alley just off Hatton Garden. Hatton Garden itself is worth a look; there are all sorts of wholesale jewellers on the street, buying and selling gold, diamonds, and other precious doo-dads.

Such finery would have been perfect for the Bishops of Ely, who used to have a palace where Ye Olde Mitre sits, hence the pub’s name and symbol– a bishop’s mitre. The pub was purportedly constructed for the servants of the Bishops of Ely in 1546 and, because the land was owned by the Bishops of Ely, the pub technically used to be a part of Cambridge. According to lore, Queen Elizabeth I danced around a cherry tree in front of the pub.

More recently and better documented by film, Ye Olde Mitre was featured in the movie, “Snatch.” A Fuller’s pub with a lot of great guest ales, the toasties at Ye Olde Mitre are also excellent, particularly when eaten by the fire in the snug bar at the front. There’s a friendly elderly bar man who will enthusiastically tell you much more about the pub’s cinematic appearances and history if it’s quiet and he happens to be working when you visit.

Pub 3: Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, 145 Fleet Street on Wine Office Court, EC4A 2B4
Another Sam Smith’s pub, Ye Old Cheshire Cheese features a lovely, very dark snug bar upstairs with a sweet fireplace and a cavernous basement– literally caverns. The vaulted cellars may go back to the 13th century, when a monastery stood on the site.

A pub has been situated here since the 1600s and Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese has quite a few historic associations as a result, particularly literary ones. Dr. Johnson’s house is around the corner, prompting much speculation about the frequency of his custom. Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese was also frequented and well-documented by Charles Dickens, notably mentioned in A Tale of Two Cities.

Stained Glass in London Pub, The Bell Tavern — Find illumination at the Bell Tavern

Pub 4: The Bell Tavern, 95 Fleet Street, EC4Y 1DH
Though the interior of this pub feels more modern, particularly since it’s part of the Nicholson’s empire, The Bell is worth stopping by for a pint. The building was constructed by Sir Christopher Wren (whose most notable accomplishment among notable accomplishments is St. Paul’s Cathedral). One of Wren’s other commissions in the 1600s after the Great Fire of London was to rebuild the nearby St. Bride’s Church. Wren constructed the building that’s now home to the Bell to house stonemasons working on the reconstruction.

Pub 5: The Blackfriar, 174 Queen Victoria Street, EC4V 4EG
When considering both interior and exterior, the Blackfriar is the “newest” pub on this crawl, built back in 1905. The Blackfriar is also a Nicholson’s pub, but the interior here is impossible to modernize. The Blackfriar is one of the most gorgeous pubs in London– a lush, amazingly detailed demonstration of Art Nouveau by an architect and artist who were proponents of the Arts & Crafts movement.

Black Friar at the Blackfriar London pub — Follow in the footsteps of friars

Friars appear throughout the reliefs and mosiacs, as the pub sits where a friary once stood, hence its and the train station’s name, Blackfriar(s). In the back sitting area, the walls are adorned with credos that are worth pondering– particularly now that you’ve likely had a few.

Eurotrains When Backpacking Has Passed You By

In 2009, my husband and I embarked on a trip around the world. Our goal for the European leg was to travel from Ireland to Istanbul solely over land and sea. No airplanes. Because we had backpacked before, we knew to turn to Eurail for some train passes, which would also cover some ferry travel.

Unlike the last time we backpacked around Europe 15 years ago, we were no longer under the age of 26. Thus, the 15-day flexi-passes cost about $1000 each. <<Gulp.>> It should be noted that the higher priced passes for those of us in advanced age (a.k.a. anyone over the age of 26) are for first class, rather than second class. Though this may sound like good news, my husband and I became mildly concerned that we would we be too grubby for the high class trains we’d be taking.

Our concerns were for nought. We didn’t look any grubbier than other first class passengers, and even if we did, we didn’t care. We were too busy enjoying all the first class amenities. In France, we were served an excellent meal with fine wine on one beautiful train trip through the Alps. All over Germany, we were constantly given free snacks and drinks and English language newspapers. In Italy, we luxuriated in the only car where people weren’t illicitly smoking. In Greece, we rode in the only car that didn’t smell like a very old, dying goat. In short, it was a stupendous experience, though now my only fear is that I will never be able to afford first class rail travel again.

If you’re thinking about training around Europe, even if you’re visiting only two countries or a single country, visit http://www.eurail.com/
Eurail has passes that offer substantial savings to people of all ages for a variety of European destinations. Passholders are eligible for discounts on local attractions, lodging, and other transport. For example, even though the UK isn’t covered by your Eurail pass, you can get a 30% discount on a ferry from Belfast to Scotland.

If you’d like to stop and visit a few of the places you’re training through, but don’t want to live on trains for a month or more, the Global Flexipass may offer you the best value. With a Flexipass, you get 10 or 15 days of rail travel which you can take at your leisure over 2 months in nearly all the Eurail countries.

After getting from Ireland to Istanbul over land and sea in just under 2 months, here are some general lessons learned during our European train adventure:

1. Buy a ticket and a seat. This is something that’s hard for Americans to understand, but in European countries, you have to buy a ticket and a seat reservation if you want to secure a specific place to rest your posterior. Because I didn’t understand this distinction, during one very hot summer, I once had to ride eight hours on a hard plastic pull-down seat in the stifling space between train cars from Paris to Marseilles.

Some fancy high speed trains, like many TGV routes in France, require reservations. Although some trains don’t, if you know you’ll want to sit down, make sure you’re buying a seat with your ticket. Even if you have a Eurail pass (which is a ticket), you will still need to make reservations for certain trains and/or specific seats. The Eurail staff at most major train stations are very helpful with this.

2. Make triple-sure you understand what your tickets say. When you keep moving around a lot, it’s hard to keep track of every country’s train ticket and what everything means.

In looking at the wrong box on my Italian train ticket, I read the carriage number for the time of departure. (I can neither confirm nor deny that there was a small amount of wine involved in this mishap.) Needless to say, we missed our train from Naples and didn’t get to Bari until much later in the evening than we had planned.

3. Remember that, in Europe, how dates and times are displayed differs from the U.S. For example, “April 1, 2011,” is written as 4/1/11 in the U.S. In Europe, the same date is written 1/4/11. Clearly, this reversal of months and days could have serious ramifications for a train reservation.

Train times in Europe are also displayed differently, with less reliance on A.M. and P.M. to indicate morning or evening. Train times are shown on the 24-hour clock, so that 1:15 p.m. is displayed as 13:15 in Europe. (Subtract 12 to get the time.) In Europe, if a train table says 1:15, you’d probably prefer being in a bar or in bed.

Of course, there are a few location-specific lessons that may be of use to you if you’re planning on riding the rails around Europe. Some, we learned the hard way. Hopefully you won’t have to:

Design Hotel in Paris’ 15th

Sublim Eiffel

If you’re looking to stay in a place with good rates and some design flair, without a lot of the usual scenesters and tourist sprawl that accompanies those things, check out the Hotel Sublim Eiffel in Paris’ very residential 15th arrondissement. Should you stay out well past your bedtime as often happens in Paris, the rooms are wonderfully dark and quiet for some good do-do action. (NB: “Do-do” is French for “sleep” and is not related to the American “doo-doo,” which does, admittedly, happen in hotel rooms, but let’s not discuss that here.)

On my recommendation, some friends of mine recently stayed at the Sublim. They also loved it, attesting to the hotel’s excellence and value. Of course, immediately after that, the hotel appeared in a major newspaper’s write-up of “hidden gems” among Paris hotels. Hopefully, this won’t ruin the vibe or the value.

The Metro stop SEVRES-LECOURBE is right in front of the hotel making it easy to get around Paris. However, the hotel is also an easy walk from the Eiffel Tower, the wonderful market at Motte-Picquet, rue Cler, Invalides, and the Musee Rodin.

Address: 94 Blvd. Garibaldi (15eme)
URL: http://www.sublimeiffel.com/

A Great Reef, but No Snorkeling

Rainbow Vista from the Best of the Westerns

Though there is no snorkeling in Utah’s Capitol Reef, it is one of the best places for an introduction to the geology lesson that the Great American West provides from the Western edge of Colorado to the chasm of the Grand Canyon. Along with impressive insights into the natural forces that made the 100-mile long monocline known as the Waterpocket Fold, Capitol Reef National Park also provides a glimpse into the people who have left more temporary traces on the area’s landscape, including the First Nations, pioneer settlers, the likes of Butch Cassidy, and the modern ranchers whose cattle are the most dominant life-form in the area.

One of the best and most “western” hotels in the Best Western chain, The Capitol Reef Resort, can be found right at the gate of Capitol Reef National Park. A great base camp for park exploration, the hotel even has a hot tub where you can contemplate how the changing light alters canyon hues while soaking hike-weary bones.

To wash down the trail dust and fuel up for back country exploration, a bar/restaurant across the street from the hotel, The Rim Rock Patio/Spaghetti Western Cafe offers some of Utah’s finest beers and a very satisfying pizza. The outdoor dining area has some of the nicest dart set-ups I’ve seen in any bar, and, if you’re able to extend your arms after a full day’s hike, it’s a fun way to spend the evening. The night we visited, the very kind-hearted woman proprietor showed us where we were on her groovy, vintage topographical wall map on which decades of rubbing fingers from all over the world had lovingly erased our location.

Before and/or after getting beered, hot-tubbed, and generally satiated, you will, of course, want to visit the main attraction, Capitol Reef National Park. You could spend one or several days hiking, biking, and off-roading in this geologic marvel.

One of the best ways to get oriented to the park is the self-guided drive. A map of the self-guided drive stops (along with fabulous fun facts) are available at the park’s visitor center for a nominal fee. At the end of the self-guided drive’s car-based route, a 4-mile round-trip hike takes you through Capitol Reef Gorge, where you can see some of the park’s odd sandstone formations up close, along with the signposts of people who came before.

The most visible of the earliest human traces in the park are amazing

Fremont Petroglyph on Capitol Reef Gorge Trail

petroglyphs, left by the Fremont people, some of the area’s earliest inhabitants. On the Capitol Reef Gorge hike, you can get right up close to a few of these rock carvings, and ponder whether they were made for religious and/or informational purposes. It’s hard not to ge excited when standing inches away from something carved by human hands thousands of years before. Elsewhere in the park, on a large canyon wall, giant Fremont petroglyphs are visible from hundreds of feet away. Gigantic shaman, bighorn sheep, and other animals carved into the red rocks leap off the rocks.

After the First Nations, pioneers traversed the area to head Westward, and on the Capitol Reef Gorge hike, you can also see their names lining the walls, some dating back from the 1840s and 1850s. Butch Cassidy didn’t sign any rock walls, but he allegedly hid out in the area. (Butch Cassidy connections are touted a lot in this particular neck of the woods.)

Later in the 1800s, Mormon settlers recognized that the valley’s ample water supply would be good for farming, particularly fruit trees. Orchards of apples and other fruit trees planted by these intrepid settlers still line Capitol Reef’s valley.

The National Park Service still maintains these fruit trees, and, when the trees are bearing fruit, you can eat an apple, pear, or other fruit for free when you’re in the orchard. If you’d like to take any fruit with you, bags and picking equipment are available, along with a box to leave payment.

If DIY fruit picking’s not up your alley, or if you visit out of fruit-bearing season, you can always enjoy the valley’s fruits at the Gifford Homestead. Located in the old Mormon settlement in the valley, the historic home sells pies made from fruit grown in the area, along with other baked items and preserved goods– great for a pre or post-hike picnic. (The pie made from apples grown in one of the orchards was particularly tasty after hiking the Capitol Reef Gorge trail.)

Though the apple trees and the settlement and the pioneer grafitti and the Fremont petroglyphs all seem to point to the permanence of man’s hand in the landscape, Capitol Reef leaves you with the feeling that we humans are newcomers and short-timers on the planet. The greater permanence of nature, as evidenced by Capitol Reef’s 100-mile long sandstone monocline, endless canyons of every color, harshly dry landscapes that suddenly swell with water– all formed over eons– dwarves our feeble human efforts to leave a mark. In short, we should enjoy the apples, and the apple pie, while we can.

Do:
http://www.nps.gov/care/index.htm

Eat:
Rim Rock Patio/Spaghetti Western Cafe, Right across from Best Western

Stay:
Best Western Capitol Reef Resort, 2600 East Highway 24
http://www.bestwesternutah.com/torrey-hotels/

In the Land of Giants

Grant's Tree in Parts, Sequoia National Park

When you hear words like “the largest living thing,” or “the widest,” you know you have to see them, though you’re also slightly afraid that the object(s) in question may not live up to the hype.

The sequoias at Sequoia National Park do not disappoint. The fact that they adjoin a valley, Kings Canyon, that rivals Yosemite (and may actually be superior due to lack of crowds), makes this location all the better. (Warning: if you’re driving from SF, you will most likely take Highway 198 to get to the park. On Highway 198, you will encounter a series of bad smells until you reach the town of Three Rivers. These smells include, but are not limited to: the massive stench of industrial stockyards, an overwhelming aroma of pressed garlic, an acrid sulfuric chemical odor, and more oppressive odors emanating from super-sized stockyards. However, in spite of these perils, Sequoia & Kings Canyon are well worth the trip down the Road of Bad Smells.)

The Sequoia visitor center provides a lot of interesting background about the world’s largest trees, along with a good orientation to help you plan your visit. Though there are several hikes to take through the various groves, you shouldn’t miss the two most notable walks: the Sherman and the Grant. The Sherman Tree walk takes you on a descent to the base of the world’s largest living thing by volume. The walk through the lovely grove around Grant’s Tree (the widest of the giant Sequoias) has some of the prettiest tree specimens and a lot of amazing sites, including an old, dead sequoia, “The Monarch,” you can walk through that was once a miner’s refuge and a bar.

When you’re peckish in Sequoia and in need of a food/wine stop, Wuksachi Lodge has a nice restaurant with a lovely mountainside view. (Thankfully, food has come a long way in our national parks since the days of foil-wrapped cheeseburgers.) The wine list has a good variety and is surprisingly reasonable given the relative remoteness of the location.

Don’t miss a good hike or two in Kings Canyon, even though it’s a bit off the beaten path. The majestic peaks frame a verdant valley with a babbling river running through it, culminating in lively falls rolling over large boulders. Camping spots seem a lot sweeter in Kings Canyon than in Sequoia, so if you’re up for a few nights in a tent, do the Kings thing.

For nights with a roof over your head, a good base camp outside the park can be found in the town of Three Rivers. The affordable Comfort Inn has shuttles into the Park (shuttles are mandatory at certain times of year), along with a swimming pool and hot tub.

Two great places to spend your post-hike evenings can also be found in Three Rivers. The Cider Mill Restaurant stays open later and has outdoor seating. Many of the selections are grilled by a nice guy tending the BBQ out front. The wood-grilled Carne Asada (along with several ice cold Tecates) was the dining highlight.

The River View Restaurant & Lounge has a nice perch above a perky river run, where you can sit outside and listen to the river race by. There’s often live music here, and if there’s not, the kind folks at the River View were playing some awesome live concert Grateful Dead tracks the night I visited. Even better, the beer was ice cold, and the onion rings were some of the best you’ll ever have.

Cold beers. Big trees. Bigger canyons. Fewer crowds. Sequoia/Kings Canyon are definitely worth a visit.

Do:
National Park Info, http://www.nps.gov/seki/index.htm

Eat:
Cider Mill, 40311 Sierra Dr. (Highway 198)
River View Restaurant & Lounge, 42323 Sierra Dr. (Highway 198)

Sleep:
Comfort Inn, 40820 Sierra Dr. (Highway 198), http://www.comfortinn.com/hotel-three_rivers-california-CAA26