Love, Food &
The Open Road

To mark our 25th wedding anniversary, we decided to spend 10 days travelling from Portugal to Italy and back on a food tour...

_{(please forgive mobile phone photos taken from a moving car with a dirty windscreen)}

Day 1 (562km)

Setting off northwards on a long trip from Cascais, it is customary to stop off in Fatima for blessings, electrons and a tosta mista before heading up to Guarda to charge again and then turning right into Spain.

The road from Ciudad Rodrigo to Salamanca was so beautiful and serene in the afternoon light, as we passed through small quiet villages before Salamanca came into view.

In Salamanca, we stayed at Hospes Palacio de San Esteban, an old monastery with nice rooms and a charger to rejuvenate the car overnight.

It is a lovely town with some fascinating history and buildings, such as the University founded in 1218, over six decades before Coimbra University was founded in Portugal.

After wandering the squares and alleyways, we settled on the small but stylish Cuzco Bodega for tapas. Great duck tacos and baked cheese with caramelised onion were the favourites, and the server was generous with advice on glasses of Ribera del Duero and Rioja to try.

Day 2 (511km)

The morning brought single digit temperatures, which we had not felt in a long time, and prompted some tyre pressure warnings that went away as soon as the day warmed up on the drive north.

One of the great things about the Tesla supercharger network is that many chargers are located at hotels, often Novotel or Ibis, so there are often better options for coffee and food than at service stations. On the way north, we stopped to charge at the Burgos supercharger, which afforded an opportunity to visit the adorably weird fairy-tale castle hotel that is Landa Palace. I wish we had taken more photos.

Bilbao was a bit rainy and dull, and I confess that the wonderful LACMA exhibit in Los Angeles made me something of a Frank Gehry sceptic, so we only had a walk around the Guggenheim building and area, and then pressed on east towards San Sebastian.

We found our way out of town and up the hill to the chosen location for our anniversary night dinner, the famous 3-star Akelarre hotel and restaurant, which has been such a totem of the Basque food movement since the 1970's. We were able to charge the car overnight in an underground garage easily accessible from our room on the first level below reception (recommended for the sea views), and the hotel was pretty flawless: modern, Scandi wood but both stylish and functional. The spa was good and welcome after the drive, and we had time to chill before dressing for a dinner we were really looking forward to.

Like many others, who have formed a kind of support group in the 1-star review category within TripAdvisor, we had not felt much need to dig into other peoples' experiences of the restaurant, and booked on the basis of its history and reputation alone.

We were in for a shock.

It was not just below par for any level of Michelin starred restaurant - it was comically bad in every possible respect. So much so that we were looking for hidden cameras in the event this was all a hilarious prank, but it was real.

The design and execution of the dishes would have been poor even in 1978 when it received its first star. But the give-away was the service. Two matronly older ladies patrolled the floor with clipboards - I imagine they were charged with suppressing dissent - and nobody exhibited any training or skill whatsoever. The sommelier was not a sommelier, and I would hazard a guess there was no chef in the kitchen, just instructions for assembling dishes, some of which were clearly pre-made and came straight out of the fridge (e.g. the white bean dish).

For a Portuguese patriot, the ultimate insult was the Sardine dish. I had no idea Sardines can be robbed of both taste and texture, but they managed it. I am not exaggerating in any way when I say that every dish was not only tasteless, but technically inferior to a menu do dia local place anywhere in Lisbon.

At home, we are able to enjoy amazing Basque food in places like 50 Seconds and Eneko, so driving for two days to be so disappointed was quite unexpected. We eat in a lot of Michelin starred places, and when you see a kitchen like Porto's Yeatman in action, you realise what goes into high-level food service, so we don't get upset if a place has a bad dish or a bad evening.

Luckily, our experience of Akelarre was so bizarre that we laughed ourselves stupid all evening and embraced the surrealism inherent in driving two days and spending <a lot of money> to be served a piece of chewy lobster under a poorly executed (pre-made?) pastry lid surrounded by limp, undressed salad leaves from the market.

I gave it a glowing review on TripAdvisor.

Day 3 (536km)

Still chuckling, we left San Sebastian and headed for Béziers in France, hitting a wall of rain storms on the other side of the Pyrenees.

Some quite challenging driving for a couple of hours, but then the weather improved and we were finally grateful to see the entrance to Béziers.

Why Béziers? We love the whole area, but for some reason this town touched our hearts when we were last there about twenty years ago, but we were young and poor with a baby in tow, so we didn't get to fully enjoy it. This time, we stayed in a gorgeous former palace, Villa Guy & Spa, which has just a handful of rooms set in a large, pretty garden. Free charging overnight on a basic plug, which did the trick. Superb, large room with a garden view, and the manager was super friendly and helpful.

We headed out for dinner to L'Alter-native, the second restaurant by Gilles Goujon. The whole service team were very young, but very diligent and knowledgeable, so there is clearly something special going on behind the scenes in terms of building a team. The food was all fish- and vegetable-based, and from start to finish it was accomplished and imaginative. The executive chef was kind enough to chat, and we gushed about the experience.

Also, a brief shout out to the "Balkan Shop" we bought water from on the way home, where the Kosovar bodega hangouts explained where their homeland was by making a machine gun noise and with the words Mitrovica and Milosevic, but looked at me blankly when I waxed lyrical about Prizren and Pristina. Truly weird.

Day 4 (621km)

We started the day with a lovely, relaxed breakfast in the Villa, and a final wander around the grounds.

Then, we headed towards the Alps with a couple of stops for coffee and electrons, and some further reading on the influential history of the House of Savoy. We took the tunnel route through the Alps into Piedmont on a dull, cloudy afternoon and most of the tunnels were subject to contraflow because of maintenance work, so it was a tedious drive.

But we were soon roused from monotony by the experience of navigating rush hour in Turin. Wow. It took every ounce of courage and calmness, and all the car's defensive electronica to avoid being side-swiped on several occasions. In the end, we were crying with laughter as it seemed we were in a weird video game where every kind of NPC was jumping out in front of us.

We made it to the city centre hotel and then navigated our regular nemesis: tiny underground parking garages with sharp turns and spirals, which were designed for Fiat 500's, not a big-boned American SUV with a poor turning circle.

The hotel was an old, city centre place. A place for congresses and corporate events, and with all the olde worlde design problems that annoy me. But the location was great and walkable to a lot of the older part of town. We couldn't get a table anywhere great at short notice, so we opted for a simple place down the road where I used my menu literacy skills to order the Milanese I guessed they did well, but my dining partner ordered Spaghetti a la Vongole, which they did not. Anyway, our first Barolo in Turin was a welcome milestone.

Day 5

Rainy. Good coffee. I chilled in the hotel and followed Ukranian military successes with my usual level of infovore obsessiveness, so as not to slow the missus down during speed-shopping. I got a very nice top out of the deal.

Later we went to the original Eataly to forage for Piedmont delights that we could take home. Salamis, hard cheeses, deli items, hazelnuts, Barolos, Barbarescos, Gavis and some Tuscan Brunello di Montalcinos were all obtained and packed into the sub-trunk of the car. Ubers are annoyingly difficult to book, but we made it back and dressed for dinner.

We had booked a car ferry from Genoa to Barcelona for the following day, because we thought the extra 850km of driving would be too much. I stupidly thought a plastic-wrapped sandwich or some other rubbish eaten in our cabin would be all part of the rich and varied food tour experience. But I read the reviews in detail, including the chaotic boarding in Genoa that might involve 4-5 hours queueing in the vehicle, and there were some horror stories about cleanliness on board and figured this could ruin the vibe. So we cancelled the ticket and resolved to drive all the way from Turin to Barcelona in a day, which would give us an extra night to enjoy Catalan delights.

We went for dinner at Carignano in the hotel with low expectations, but it turned out to be the best meal of the trip - truly wonderful, and the wine pairing was educational. Every dish was excellent and the service in an intimate 5-table dining room was perfectly pitched. Wine of the day was a simple Nymphae Monferrato bianco, which was delightful on the nose, and I wish we had bought a case before we left.

Day 6 (845km)

We had no idea just how beautiful this drive would be.

We took the mountain roads towards Aix-en-Provence and the weather was perfect. The mountains were stunning and the French ski towns were delightful, before we headed through stunning scenery towards Aix and then around the coast, past Béziers again, Narbonne and Perpignan and then into Catalonia.

The drive into Barcelona was long, but we made it finally and were glad to find a good underground parking spot with brand new 11kW chargers at the hotel, plus a nice room upgrade.

The Ohla hotel in Eixample was pretty cool and nicely located for walks. We didn't manage to get a seat at Xerta, their restaurant, but we had a great Tapas and wine evening at Vivo Tapas, which was trendy and showy, but also with some good dishes.

Day 7

We walked a lot around all the usual bits of Barcelona, reminding ourselves why we love the architecture of this special city.

In the evening we tried a grill place called 3 Focs, which made a nice change even if we went a bit overboard on the grilled aubergines.

The sky bar at the hotel has a great view, so we had a drink up there whilst listening in to young people obsessed with money show off their investment strategies to each other before we heard one make his move: "Let's go downstairs, you can show me your trades and I will balance your strategy" <cue the sound of faces smushing> And then they were gone.

Day 8 (612km)

Breakfast in the hotel was entertaining, thanks to a bus load of (presumably non-coastal) American cruise ship tourists who were like bizarre obese babies demanding assistance from the servers all the time and seemingly not knowing how anything works.

We set off for Madrid, excited to see a city we knew less well than the others. The drive was easy enough and quite pretty. Spanish driving seems pretty chill compared to Portugal and especially Italy.

Another rush hour city arrival, but we are getting better at learning fast in these situations, so it was OK. Except for finding my chosen parking garage, which seemed to have an exit but no entry, so we drove round the block a few times until we realised this was in fact both entry and exit. None of the chargers worked without using a QR code to download an app, but the garage had no cell service on that level, so we gave up. A bit tired and brain dead at this point, we got to the Only You Boutique Hotel but it was so "designy" that it took us a good while to find reception, but finally we were all good and the hotel was actually very nice.

The Taverna recommended by reception was poor, but hey - not every meal is going to be perfect on a trip like this, so we opted for cocktails in the swanky bar and I got sucker punched by a strong Negroni, as I often do.

Day 9

A really wonderful last day in Madrid. Lots of walking.

Mercado San Miguel was delightful.

The palaces, gardens, cathedrals. And then a surprisingly light, wonderful lunch at a Tapas place that did amazing marinated Mackerel, fried peppers, Bonito salad and a kick-ass garlic-laced sauce, all washed down with a robust Verdejo.

I went back to Ukraine stan'ing whilst my better half did more speed shopping, and then I was dressed up like a catwalk model in an unnervingly modern style for such an old man, before she went back and swapped for slightly different variations on the outfit, which worked better.

We had hoped and planned to try the 2-starred Smoked Room, but despite sniping their new corporate booking system for months, we couldn't book for 2 (only 4+, which is weird, right!) and when we called corporate bookings they said they only had access to the same website, so we ended up on the waiting list and it wasn't to be. The word 'corporate' is why we can't have nice things in life, I guess. Next time, I'll get my people to schedule a call with their people to have a meeting to discuss how to press the button.

In the event, our last official meal was far more accomplished than the restaurant or price would suggest - a real gem called Restaurante Morgana, that offered masterful Octopus with sweet potato and spinach tuile, plus expertly cooked Monkfish with coconut rice, followed by a minimalistic but purist take on lemon meringue pie and cheesecake that showed somebody in the kitchen has strong opinions and good skills.

Day 10 (696km)

Time to head home.

We made it to the supercharger at Getafe on low charge, and then headed south-west past Zaragoza and through the desert-like hinterlands before Mérida. We like Mérida, which used to be an important Roman town but is now a bit forgotten, and planned to have lunch there, but instead, for a final step in our culinary journey, we opted for a truck-drivers canteen at a service station with a supercharger. The bean casserole and tortilla with padron peppers were solid and straightforward.

Re-entering Portugal after Badajoz is always a warm feeling that is undimmed by the suicidal and totally unnecessary tailgating on Portuguese highways. A quick stop at the wonderful L'And vineyards for a final charge (their own restaurant is really worth a visit on its own BTW) and then onwards towards the glorious Vasco de Gama bridge and finally the A5 highway that means we are nearly home.

Both young adult offspring and cat were still alive, so we celebrated with a final meal using some of our Salami haul and an Alentejo red to feel the terroir of home.

I think the most surprising thing about the trip, aside from Akelarre, was just how easy and meditative the driving was in a Tesla. It was comfortable, physically undemanding, smooth and safe, and the charging stops were welcome breaks. I could not imagine trying this in either an ICE vehicle, or an EV without the supercharging network. You just put your day's destination in the navigation system and it works out the best charging stops based on your driving, sometimes re-routing to a different option if a smaller supercharger (e.g. Aix-en-Provence) seemed busy.

It was also interesting to follow Ukraine's heroism and the UK's slow-mo collapse on the radio, whilst hurtling through beautiful landscapes, which really did feel like 'news from elsewhere' as the Nick Cave song goes.

These days, flying is such an unpleasant experience that it feels like going through a portal where a kind of psycho-geography fissure occurs between places and times. To feel every kilometre under your feet and to see the journey that connects it was less tiring and more enjoyable, I think. All in all, a blissfully happy 10 days filled with love and food.

But I must confess, we love Portugal so much that we might stay local for a while.

4383km. Transport costs of ~ €800 (road tolls, charging, parking & ubers)

👌