Milan, Italy

This is trip number 14. In fact Italy was meant to be trip number 15. But my original plan for trip 14 went down the khazi when I managed to lose both my passport and my phone - separately - in one weekend. It happens to us all, doesn't it? (Just smile & nod please.) In the end I got my phone back, and replacing my passport was due soon anyway, and I re-arranged my flights without too much expense. So in January you'll all find out what my original plan was; and in the meantime, Italy.

Whenever you look for accommodation in a rich-world city, especially at short notice, you're always faced with a 'trilemma': your digs can be nice, and they can be cheap, and they can be central, but they can only ever be two of those three things. Personally I always prefer to compromise on location. I've got a fairly posh studio flat, for not much money, in a decent suburb called Rho. The train to & from central Milan costs €2.60 and takes 20 minutes, both of which I can afford to spare.

First impressions of the Italians? Here at Edd's Travels there is no squeamishness about affirming stereotypes. They talk loudly, they drive aggressively, they smoke far too much, they're good-looking, and sometimes they make that pained cupped-hand gesture like you've asked them to putta da pineapple on da pizza. But I have to say that the friendliness has been above average by big-city standards. Also the main train station and the main shopping mall are both the most impressive of their kind that I've ever seen, anywhere in the world. I didn't manage to get a ticket for the opera at La Scala, so on this occasion I can't bore you by flaunting my pretentious side, but I did manage to get tickets for the San Siro and so I can bore you with football instead. AC Milan 0 Napoli 2. See pic below. 

And overall I like this city more than I was expecting to. I'm surprised by how manageable and civilised it all is. I've done my usual thing of fitting in inconspicuously by wandering round in shorts and a T-shirt while all the locals are togged up to the nines in hats & jackets - it's a steady 20°C or so right now. Italy is off to a good start.

Il Duomo cathedral (right)
and the Galleria Vittorio Emanuelle II shopping mall (left).

Milano Centrale train station

Canals in the university neighbourhood of Navigli

I don't care if it saves the planet. I'm not going to drive one of these. Ever.

The musical of 'Saturday Night Fever' is in town (left)
and the safety notices on the underground Metro are joining in (right)

AC Milan 0 Napoli 2 at the San Siro

Edd vs Food #137
My first ever Italian pizza in actual Italy. Life achievement unlocked.
This one was tomato, mozzarella, spicy salami, peppers, and Tropea onions.
From Il Regno della Pizza in Rho
('Regno' means 'Kingdom' - when Eurovision comes round we are 'il Regno Unito')

Madrid, Spain

Those of you who are paying attention will have noticed that my last blog from Havana was a wee bit grumpy. Those of you who are really paying attention will remember that in the first blog of this trip, I named Madrid as my 'happy place'. Here I have fresh food, I have craft beer, the queues and rolling black-outs of Cuba are now far behind me, and God is in his heaven and all is right with the world.

Very soon things will get better yet when I land back in the UK to spend the festive season with family and friends. (I spent Christmas 2020 in Spain, but only because Covid exile left me with no choice.) 

And so Edd's Travels are at an end for 2023. It's the first time I've done two trips in one year and it won't be happening again any time soon. There'll be just one trip in 2024. I haven't decided where yet, but I can say for certain that it won't be anywhere in the English-speaking world, or for that matter the Spanish-speaking world. Watch this space some time in autumn I think. In the meantime, as the song goes, I wanna wish you a merry Christmas...¡feliz Navidad!

I only stayed in Madrid one night and there wasn't time to take any interesting photos.
So here's a pointless view from the flight home afterwards.

Havana, Cuba

There were two different blogs that I had in mind for Havana, both of them mentally drafted up before I even got here. The first was a lyrical paean to Cuba: the vintage cars and the colonial architecture and the live music and the glorious year-round sunshine. The second was a bitter rant about this ridiculous government, their 60-year refusal to grant the Cuban people any real kind of voice or economic liberty, and the wretched poverty and squalor that inevitably results.

Both blogs would have been honest, and accurate I think. In the event, I find myself caught between the two, but sadly it's the latter that wins out overall. I'm not a fan of this place.

I arrived in Havana with a big pile of Mexican currency that I hadn't bothered to change into dollars. In doing so I was following some badly out-of-date online travel advice that said Mexican currency is generally accepted in Cuba. Well, it isn't. To avoid dying of starvation I had to change the Mexican moolah into US dollars via a brief and friendly conference in a side street with various Cuban representatives of, shall we say, the informal economy. My fluent colloquial Spanish and my nerdy maths skills would have saved me from getting conned, but in fairness the Cubans didn't try. And I wasn't troubled by the prospect of getting mugged - I was more concerned that the money changers might turn on each other. It's an industry where competiton is fierce and obviously disputes are not settled in the courts.

Another dabble with the Cuban underworld came when I was doing some food shopping. Eggs are rationed here, and obviously as a foreigner I don't have a ration card. So I had to resort to buying black-market eggs. The price was a fair eggs-change, ha ha. I just hope I don't get arrested and eggs-tradited, double ha ha.

It's partly my own fault that Havana has been a bit of a struggle, because I insisted on doing my usual thing of living, commuting, shopping, cooking, and hanging my washing out to dry like a local, in an unflashy apartment in a non-touristy neighbourhood. I hadn't realised just how hard it is to get hold of pretty much anything here. There are no real grocery stores: just tiny shops selling odds and sods, and open-air markets selling semi-fresh produce. The bananas are small and spongy and tasteless; the meat was unrefrigerated and covered in flies. At least the Cuban sweet potatoes came up to scratch, although they take longer to parboil pre-mashing than their European equivalents. I'm used to 12-14 minutes back home but this was more like 20.

Anyway, the belated lesson here is that I should have just done what everyone else does, ie, sleep in a comfy Old Town hotel and eat three restaurant meals a day, occasionally venturing out on the open-topped tourist bus to see all the state-sponsored graffiti. ¡Viva La Revolución! it proclaims. Yes, long live the revolution: the next one, that is, and the sooner the better.

View from my rooftop terrace.
I don't think I've used a filter in a blog picture before, but the 1950s look was irresistible.

Big breakers by the shore at sunset.

Parque John Lennon. This is the least lifelike statue of him that I've ever seen.
Even worse than the one in Almeria.

A typical Havana street scene.
It looks like Spain would look like, if somebody had bombed the hell out of Spain..

Plaza Vieja

The Capitol

My apartment. Basic, but everything more or less works.
Apart from the wifi...

"The Good Taste Of The Beer"  - slightly ungrammatical...
"100% Selected Ingredients" - as opposed to what? Spontaneous hazelnuts?
My favourite bit is the word "brewered", which appears twice.