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This week I marked a very exciting end to travel restrictions, taking the 7.30AM flight out to Lisbon for the Press Association. It was a full flight, though there were very few people travelling with a traditional vacation in mind.
So, why were people so eager to be on that first flight out of the country? The resounding answer was family. While papers have been predicting a mass flooding of tourists back to green-listed beaches, no-one I spoke to that first morning had a sun bed in mind. Instead, sons, daughters, friends and long-distance partners were eagerly anticipating being reunited in a rather sleepy Lisbon after months, or even a year, of separation.
Anya Edwards, aged 20, was off to see her boyfriend for the first time since summer. Despite the early hour, Jill Osborne, 48, simply couldn’t stop smiling at the idea of being reunited with her family after a year living alone. Though perhaps the most heartwarming story, and one the press were quick to jump on, was that of Miguel and Natacha Rodrigues, both nurses at Frimley Park Hospital in Hampshire, who were taking their 7-month-year-old son to meet his grandparents for the first time.
Arriving in Portugal, we were taken straight to our hotel – the H10 Duque de Loulé hotel, where you can book four nights’ B&B from £398pp, including flights (ba.com). Located in Avenida Duque de Loulé, the four star hotel is simple, but beautifully styled with elegant parquet floors and traditional Portuguese tiles. The rooftop bar is definitely the selling point, offering panoramic views across the Lisbon skyline, right out to the sea.
Lisbon itself was stunning as ever - perhaps more so in the absence of crowds. The dusty, terracotta terraces and sleepy side streets felt like something from a film as we wandered Portugal’s capital city, stopping off for a pastel de nata as an excuse to duck out of sun – yes, sun!
Though the tourists are yet to starting flooding in the way predicted by the UK press, I’m sure over the next couple of months we will begin to see a slow trickle of tourists repopulating this gorgeous city. For those who return, it will be a different kind of holiday. Masks are still compulsory indoors and out, and bars and nightlife are off the agenda, with a 10.30pm curfew still in place. But with a beautiful climate and glorious golden beaches, I’m certainly already plotting my return. After all, working from home, means working from anywhere. Right?
I’ve been learning Spanish during lockdown–for something to keep my brain busy. Every Wednesday I take a two-hour class with International House London, and now I can read short stories in another language. Pretty cool, right?
This July, they briefly lifted travel restrictions, and I jumped at the chance to escape the monotony of my life in a rented London box-room. Of course, being me, I didn’t book a traditional holiday. I went to a Spanish school in Barcelona for a weeks’ intensive language course.
The school, Camino Barcelona, was just a five-minute walk from Urgell metro stop, 15 minutes from La Ramblas and 20 minutes from the gothic quarter, perfect for sightseeing, cafes, bars or even a cycle down to the beach. Though it might sound ironic having chosen to learn the language, I’d never spent much time in Spain before this trip. At least not enough to really appreciate the culture, the architecture and sheer beauty of the quaint side-streets, tree-lined promenades and chalky apartments blocks with their iron balconies.
But what made the week all the more magical was the complete absence of tourists.
With much of the world still unable to travel, I got the unique experience of enjoying Barcelona at face value. We saw La Sagrada Familia without being forced off the pavements, wandered Park Guell for hours bumping into only a handful of people, and enjoyed leisurely evenings chatting with the locals outside tapas spots we didn’t need to pre-book.
I’m sure the next trip I have to Barcelona will feel quite different, though I can’t help but hope she can retain at least some of the tranquility I got to enjoy. Will people rush to refill our capital cities after the pandemic? Will the pace go back from nought to three-hundred as abruptly as it was brought to a halt? I have to say, I quietly hope it doesn’t. If only this trip had been an accurate representation of how the city usually feels, I believe I could quite happily have stayed forever.
For now though, back in my London box-room, I can’t help but stare longingly at the globe on my bookshelf, and dream about how many more sleeping cities I would love to discover in such a raw and humble way as I first met Barcelona.
This weekend I travelled north to Aberdeen, Scotland’s aptly named silver city, for the annual Granite Noir Crime Writing Festival. The city certainly lived up to its name, with granite facades and a monochrome sky that would later decorate the pavements in a sheath of slush and snow – the perfect austere backdrop to a weekend of talks from crime and thrillers’ most exciting writers.
Returning for its fourth consecutive year, the Granite Noir festival was inspired by the Granite city – its history, its atmosphere and its strong sense of place. Across the weekend, talks, readings and Q&A discussions were held in some of the most interesting, quirky and unusual spaces across the city from the gothic Carmelite Hotel to Aberdeen Sheriff Court and The Lemon Tree offering an arresting line-up for all crime fans.
Headlining Granite Noir 2020 was the legendary American author Sara Paretsky, bringing the latest in her V.I. Warshawski series. Norway’s best-selling female crime writer Anne Holt, also made a thrilling appearance, while Ben Aaronovitch, talked magic and mayhem while introducing his newest urban fantasy adventure, False Value. And of course, the festival wouldn’t have been complete without Scotland’s own Ian Rankin, joined by friend and comedian Phill Jupitus to talk all things Rebus.
My favourite event though, was Locals in the Limelight, which gave Aberdeenshire’s young, homegrown talent the chance to read extracts from their own noir fiction. It’s always exciting to listen to new, unpublished voices, particularly when the extracts are so fiercely accomplished – and I came away wondering if I might just have heard the next big name in this gritty world of crime.
