Umbria

From Lake Como the route south bypasses Milano on the network of motorways running through northern Italy's industrial heartland. Past Parma, Modena and just beyond Bologna, almost on the east coast, we turned west into the centre of Italy - now hilly and green with ochre villages - heading for Perugia and beyond.

By mid afternoon there was a view of a slice of Umbrian hillside from a bedroom window in a house surrounded by olive groves.

The sunflowers are drooping and finished by now, in mid-September

but the hillsides and vineyards are deep green from Italy's rainy summer that has done wine production no good.

Vineyards at Tenuta Castelbuono winery, producers of Montefalco Rosso and Sagrantino wines

Avenue of cypresses at the Fattoria Colsanto in the Montefalco DOC

And the sun's shining in the little walled Roman town of Bevagna in Umbria's wine producing region

Simple good food at a taverna in Bevagna: panzanella, truffle omelette, gnocchi with Sagrantino wine sauce.

Road trip

When the journey is at least as much the point as the destination, when you can see three countries in one day, isn't a road trip just the best?

France: misty dawn at 6.30 am on the road from Épernay, leaving the capitale du champagne's vineyards behind and heading north-east into Alsace-Lorraine.

Via Nancy and Metz, the road climbs into the mountains of the Vosges, before we turn south before Strasbourg, through historically German territory, hugging the German border.

Crossing the border at Basel, we're in Switzerland and suddenly it's a different territory altogether: neat A-framed houses and the cleanest cows you'll ever see, dotted against the greenest meadows. They seem to polish the grass here and line up the trees in tidy rows. Ordnung muss sein.

Spotless, efficient motorways bisect picture postcard scenes of mountains and lakes.

No winding detours here - wide, well-lit tunnels cut straight under the mountains. (A road tax demanded at the Swiss border ensures you pay for the privilege of using, and maintaining, these beautiful roads). 
The Gotthard tunnel is 17 kms long, making it the third longest in the world. Boring directly through the Gotthard mountain, it gets you from central Switzerland to within a whisker of Milan in 15 minutes.

And before you know it, you're in Italy ...

... and marvelling again at how striking the difference can be from the moment of crossing a border - from the gently chaotic infrastructure to the faded romantic houses clustered haphazardly on winding roads.

Late afternoon there's a haze on Lake Como and the day's driving is over.

Time for a campari maybe, with a view over the lake 

Resident kitten, lake views and Italian design at Villa Nina B&B, Carate Urio, Lago di Como

Ristorante La Baia, Moltrasio, Lago di Como

Antwerp affinity

Brussels is grand, but in a contest I'd pick Antwerp in a heartbeat.

Antwerp feels full of life and interest and so very gezellig.

It's a design and fashion mecca (think Martin Margiela, Dries van Noten, Ann Demeulemeester ...)

There's art and culture, old and new 

The Rubenshuis above and below, where Rubens lived and painted for most of his life

Even the Hare Krishnas were there on a Saturday morning, bringing vivid reds to the Groenplaats.

Like every other Belgian city there's a crazily high density of (good) restaurants 

Belgians getting typically serious about their food over lunch at Bourla, in Graanmarkt

... and if it isn't a restaurateur it's a chocolatier: masters of the dark art Marcolini, Wittamer, Neuhaus lead the way in chocolate perfection and in vying with one another with sculpted creations.

Just ahead of the football world cup, the chocolatiers were indulging in soccer themes - my favourite a white chocolate rendition of Rio's Christ the redeemer ...

Works in progress at The Chocolate Line, Paleis op de Meir, Antwerp
July 2014

In the ville de Bruxelles

Heart and capital of European government, Brussels has the feel of a serious city, full of weighty institutions, politicians and foreign diplomats. 

Round and about the Grand Place, the Beaux Arts and Galeries Royales

Children playing on the almost deserted square in front of the Brussels opera house, La Monnaie/De Munt, a few hours before it filled up with opera-goers for a startling production of Orphée et Eurydice (see here), based on a real-life case of a young Belgian woman with locked-in syndrome.

Peering up at the grand vaulted glass ceiling of the colonnaded 19th century Galeries Royales 

... a perfect place for a pre-opera drink.

And from the sublime to ... Europe's oddest tourist attraction? the jolly little Manneken Pis, unadorned by outfits on this day but still drawing the crowds. 

Brussels, June 2014

On a sunny Sunday in Cascais

this was the view from the terrace of the Albatroz hotel over the Atlantic

On a warm, still day before the start of the busy summer season, the beach was almost empty except for some carefree children running, shrieking, from the icy waves.

This beach - just a few miles along the coast from my home and school - was one of many I played on at their age and older.

Amo-te - ? was all I could make out at a distance of this boy's writing in his sand-heart. Praias de Lisboa? a sentiment after my own heart.

In Belém

A monastery built at the entrance of Lisbon, on the banks of the Tagus

Mosteiro dos Jerónimos, Belém

 became a house of prayer for sailors leaving and returning from the voyages of discovery to Africa, India, Indonesia, South America, China, Japan. 

Vasco da Gama is entombed here, and the poets Camões and Pessoa with equal reverence.

And when one is all done with veneration,  there's an espresso and one or two pastéis de nata to be had just down the road.

At the Fábrica de pastéis de Belém, the pasteis de nata are the best in the universe; the recipe, created by monks at the monastery (with leftover yolks from egg whites used to starch the nuns' habits), a tightly guarded secret since 1837.

Perfectly light and melt-in-the-mouth fluffy, this is as close as you'll get to their creation - looking through the window to the kitchens, where on an average Sunday morning 20 000 of these little heavenly tarts are baked

to satisfy the queues of Lisbonites that snake out the door and down the street 

My favourite coffee place in the world.

Lisbon, April 2014