Walking. Gossip. Travel.

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Tirana – Sub-Optimal Situation with PayPal Card in Albania

A great start to my first visit to Albania is something that I hadn’t realised, it’s a country where PayPal has decided that it doesn’t want to operate. This means that my PayPal Business Debit card which gives free overseas transactions just doesn’t work, something I realised quickly when the card didn’t work on the airport bus (fortunately, I had euros) and at the hotel. It’s also my only physical card, but at least I have my phone to make contactless card payments from two back-up cards which was helpful to say the least at the hotel.

July 23, 2025
Wizz Air (London Luton to Tirana)

The train from St. Pancras to Luton Airport was just £4, which I consider a bargain. That damaged chair has been like that for months, not that it’s something I have spent a great deal of time contemplating and it has become something of a familiar friend now.

The usual Thameslink train, no tables or power outlets, but they just about always have lots of seats available and the services are usually reliable.

My usual order at Big Smoke at Luton Airport, this time they didn’t accidentally overcharge me. The beer is the Electric Eye from Big Smoke themselves, a punchy citrus beer.

A pint of Menabrea and a Limoncello at Nolito. The lager was generic, clean and dull, the Limoncello not the most decadent. But the environment was comfortable and thanks to Priority Pass for funding this visit.

And then ready to board and they had a helpful staff member checking the larger bags for size, but he was letting quite a lot off that were just a little too big in an attempt to be helpful. One lady had a suitcase that would fit a hippo in and he said it was ridiculously large, but the lady said that she was Albanian and wouldn’t be paying. After some discussions and translations from other passengers, it was agreed that she had a bag within her bag, so she just had to leave the larger bag at the gate.

We all then get the boarding passes scanned and go to a different part of the room, which is barriered off from the previous part, but it’s possible to pass things over. And, back to our lady with the bag, she started to get another passenger who still hadn’t checked-in to have a look through her now discarded bag to see if there was anything she had missed. The team member was now annoyed, it gave the impression that she thought she could get the bag back over the gated area when he wasn’t looking. He went to hide the bag.

It’s the aircraft on the right, which is G-WUKV, an Airbus A321 which took me back from Kaunas a couple of weeks ago.

The boarding starts.

The seating Gods had given me a middle seat which felt sub-optimal, but I’d had a good run of being given aisle or window seats. So, I was surprised and delighted to discover that the seat they had given me was actually an emergency exit row seat.

The crew member quickly discovered that the woman in the window seat couldn’t speak English, so I was swapped with her as I obviously look good in an emergency. And I speak English, so she could explain my responsibilities. The rest of the flight was bloody awful. I’ve never experienced such noise from kids on an aircraft, I was fortunate my headphones meant I could ignore most of that. I had a kid behind kicking the seat, but his father gave me some Pringles, so I tolerated that as I’m easy to bribe. The crew struggled to keep passengers from standing up the second we landed and there was no shortage of eye rolling from the crew about the situation. The crew were impeccable, they had a lot to deal with on this flight and I was thinking about writing to the Pope to see if a couple could be made saints.

I was only mildly traumatised by the time we landed in Tirana. Border control couldn’t have been any faster, it involved going through an e-gate without seeing any border agents and my passport didn’t need stamping.

It wasn’t the most quiet and relaxed airport terminal I’d been through. The flight cost £8.99 which is impressive, but this was not the most relaxing of experiences to say the least.

July 23, 2025
London – Tower Hamlets (Borough of) – Edith Cavell and the Royal London Hospital

Although I know a good deal of Edith Cavell’s story because of her links with Norfolk and her burial at Norwich Cathedral, I hadn’t realised that she had trained at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel. She had applied in 1896 to be a nurse practitioner at the hospital at the age of 30 and she trained under the leadership of the hospital’s matron Eva Luckes. This was Whitechapel in its gritty Victorian prime, all soot-stained streets, overcrowded housing, and the lingering reputation of Jack the Ripper’s handiwork still hanging in the air. It wasn’t exactly the sort of place you moved to for its charm and craft beer options. She was known for being conscientious, which in nursing terms usually means ‘worked twice as hard for half the recognition.’ Her superiors noticed, and so did her patients. She remained at the hospital until 1901 when Luckes nominated Cavell for the position of night superintendent at St. Pancras Infirmary.

The plaque on the building, which is now used by the London Borough Council of Tower Hamlets and I won’t go on about the integrity of its mayor, Lutfur Rahman, and I will instead let Wikipedia do that. It’s perhaps hard to find a greater contrast of the morals of public service than Edith Cavell and Lutfur Rahman, but this isn’t a political blog and so I will limit myself.

July 22, 2025
Faro – Faro Ibis

This is the second time that I’ve stayed at this Accor operated hotel, located halfway between the airport and the Old Town of Faro. This was ideal for me as it put within walking distance of the airport, but I suppose it’s also handy if you’re the sort of person who can’t decide whether you want to be near planes or actual civilisation.

Check-in took nearly fifteen minutes because of two guests in front faffing about with their reservation, it felt like that they were negotiating some UN peace agreement.

My welcome drink of Sagres, a generic tasting beer which did meet the key requirement of being refreshing, although the brewery haven’t burdened themselves with what I consider a key requirement of it actually tasting of anything. The staff member, with commendable honesty, told me it was “only available in small” which somehow felt both welcoming and not. I wasn’t exactly planning a major session at the bar with my free drink, but it does feel like the sort of policy that saves the hotel about £10 a year while just very mildly irritating everyone.

The standard Ibis set-up with a desk, which is how I like it.

There was a welcome gift of pasteis de nata and bottled water and it’s hard not to feel welcomed when someone provides me with free custard tarts.

The view from the window over the sun scorched land.

The view from the side window of the corridor and the hotel’s main draw (although not to me) is the swimming pool.

All told, I rather liked this hotel and there were no noise issues, although I had my favourite room location of the top floor far away from the lift. The team members were friendly, the room was clean and I liked the custard tarts.

July 22, 2025
Wizz Air (Faro to London Gatwick South)

I had the choice of paying about £4 for a convenient bus service from the hotel to the airport or traipsing two miles along lanes. Anyway, here we are.

The view over to Faro on my walk. It was far too hot, but since it was about 08:00 in the morning, it wasn’t yet at its hottest.

Safely at the delights of Faro Airport.

The airport felt busy, with more non-Schengen flights than Schengen, which is unusual for a European airport. It seems though that there are more passengers to the UK and Ireland than every other destination added together, presenting a challenge when you have to have two segregated areas of the airport.

Ryanair has recently complained to the Portuguese Government about border control delays at Faro, Lisbon and Porto, with long delays now being commonplace. As mentioned, Faro has a lot of flights to the UK and this is clearly placing a burden on the airport authorities and the volume of passengers was high. It took me 38 minutes to get from the outside of the terminal to airside and through border control, which is longer than I’d normally expect but it doesn’t feel at all unreasonable although others have waited much longer recently. As I’m ever cautious, I had allowed an extra hour in case of delay, but this must be traumatic for anyone who is late for their flight. You can pay for premium security, but I’m not sure if that follows through to border control which is where the longer wait it.

I’ve been fortunate over the last year with my Priority Pass card, I’ve never been refused or had to wait more than a few minutes, but I did suspect I’d struggle today. However, I timed it well to ensure that I could charge devices and have a quick breakfast in the lounge. The pasteis de nata was delicious, the coffee was rich, there were endless crisps and they had a small bottle of awful Portuguese beer, so I was happy.

At the gate and there’s an odd glass wall here which I assume is a throwback to a previous airport set-up, but it has created something of a pinch-point now. There wasn’t much seating downstairs, but there was a fair amount tucked away upstairs.

I wasn’t surprised that we needed to get on buses to the aircraft, nearly every departure seemed to be a bus gate.

There are several airlines lined up in the background, with at least five of them being back to the UK.

The boarding process, and aircraft G-WUND is the same one that took me out to Faro a couple of days ago.

As the seating Gods had given me a window seat, I thought I’d take a photo of the views over southern Portugal.

Flying over northern Spain.

As I had taken photos of other bits of coastline, here’s the UK and it was much cloudier which pleased me. I’ve had enough of the heat to last me the rest of the year.

There’s London in the background with all of its grey glory and I accept that I’m not likely to win any photographic competitions with this effort. The flight was, yet again, comfortable and organised, with everything being clean and tidy. The crew were friendly, the pilots made clear announcements and the service was just efficient. And no-one applauded when the aircraft landed, so there’s another win.

Back at Gatwick Airport and the security process was faultless with no queue at all, although I’ve rarely had any problems at Gatwick in the past. All told, a very lovely flight and another bargain for £8.99.

July 21, 2025
Norwich – Anchor Brewery Stores [Closed] (Two Julians)

When walking down Coslany Street with my friend Adrian, he was taking photos of the former Bullards Brewery and I had never really given much attention to this, which was evidently once a pub within the brewery building. The Norfolk Public Houses web-site lists some of the former licencees, including Richard Bullard, Sir Harry Bullard and Edward Bullard. There are very few newspaper reports of misbehaviour at the pub, which is unlike most other venues at the city, but I imagine the brewery was particularly careful to avoid any trouble at their effective home.

The pub here first opened in 1868, although there was a brewery tap at the previous building, and it remained open for just shy of 100 years as it closed in 1966. The brewery advertised in the press ahead of their opening and the thought of the selection of imperial, bitter, ales and stout sounds really quite decadent, like a Brewdog of their day. But probably cheaper.

It was brought back to life as Anchor Quay Wine Bar between 1986 and 2001, but then it closed again. I can’t help thinking that this would make a really lovely micro-pub and the historic surroundings would add substantially to the excitement of such an arrangement. George Plunkett took a photo of the pub in 1984, when it was being used as an estate agents.

The brewery itself was founded in 1837 as Bullards & Watts, although the Watts element left in 1847 and this substantial brewery was constructed between 1867 and 1868. The brewery was acquired by Watney Mann in 1963 and it ceased beer production in 1968. Numerous brewery buildings have survived and have since been turned into residential properties, but the distinctive chimney was demolished.

July 21, 2025
London Craft Beer Festival 2025

My friend Simon mentioned last year about going to the London Craft Beer Festival, but I wondered if it was a bit expensive and so I didn’t get a ticket to join him. By chance, he mentioned last week that he knew someone selling a ticket at a much lower cost of £30, so I was there without much hesitation. Here’s the walk to Magazine, where this year’s event was being held.

There’s Susie and Simon, with the former’s efforts somehow getting us to the front of the queue. I hadn’t let myself get too excited about the event in case the ticket didn’t come to pass, but all was well and it’s fair to say that the excitement soon started when I had the wristband safely around my wrist.

Well, that’s exciting straight away.

The first beer of the day. The concept here is that all beers are free of charge and I won’t list here what I tried, but I did ensure that my Untappd remain updated for anyone who is interested.

We grabbed a table outside, but it soon became apparent that there was large amounts of seating, so this wasn’t an issue. Inside there were also fans and air conditioning, they didn’t want their beer drinkers over-heating, and I was happy to drink to that forward-thinking philosophy.

One of the two internal halls.

This was all so much bigger than I expected. There were some issues with the delayed opening where we left in the sun and that was sub-optimal, but once the event got going, it all felt well organised. There were maps dotted around of where all of the breweries were, but I’d need more than one afternoon to really visit every one that interested me.

I was impressed that there were no real queues at any of the brewery stands, you could get served nearly immediately.

There was a separate American beer bar and the list of options here was much wider than I had expected. As I’m not planning to visit the US for a while, this was an opportunity to tick some beers off.

One of the bar staff modelling a bottle of beer for my Untappd photo.

There was free water available of the sparkling and still options.

That path was what Liam and I walked on the Capital Challenge a few weeks ago…..

There’s Simon chatting away about Brazilian beer. I was pleased that the glasses were made of plastic, rather than, er, glass. So we had branded plastics, which means I could keep it without fear of it getting broken on the aircraft. Susie picked up a heap of free merchandise, which I’m merrily carrying around Portugal now, including baseball hats, t-shirts, lanyards and stickers.

I like a bit of Vault City, I should be visiting their new tap room later in the year.

A free ice cream and a beer slushie from Vault City which made me love them even more.

Simon wanted to go to the Vault City tasting, which was a marvellous idea, and this beer was handed around at the end of the session before.

One of the beers from the Vault City tasting.

Overall, I really enjoyed this evening and the atmosphere was informal and friendly throughout. There were no issues of anyone over-indulging, despite the large amount of free beer that was available. The organisation was better than I had expected, the scale of the event was broader than I had realised and the speed of service was faster than I had anticipated. I was very much surprised and delighted, so I think that I might just be back for next year’s event….

July 20, 2025
Bar Billiards Table Treks – Venue 1 : Artichoke

I’m not normally one for video, as it reminds me that my hairline is receding faster than is entirely ideal, but a few months ago Zak and I had a really rather good idea that we’d play at every bar billiards table in Norwich. The twist is that we’re only filming the first game at each venue, because Zak famously takes a while to warm up. It’s like giving myself a tiny glimmer of hope before he inevitably demolishes me. Zak has been my official bar billiards trainer since 2023 and I will one day be able to see some of the shots that he can pull off, let alone actually play them.

Pete has heroically taken on the role of cameraman for the series, and he’s done a marvellous job filming the first instalment. The next one will be along soon, assuming I can handle more video evidence of my sub-optimal playing technique. And just to be clear, it’s not meant to be a competitive series unless, of course, I happen to win. In which case, it very much is.

July 20, 2025
Faro – Old Tavern

Unsure of where to head for an evening meal, I decided to go earlier rather than later before the crowd descended, it was a Saturday evening and I had already over-heated in the three minutes since I’d left the hotel. I’m actually not entirely sure I should have seated myself at the external tables, but some others did and it wasn’t overly busy when I arrived so all was well.

There’s no printed menu, instead the menu board is on the wall or, for the larger parties, it was brought to the table as if it was some sacred text. I’m not overly picky in general, but this menu was a delight as I would have merrily had anything on here.

The beer was Sagres, which is never going to be a drink of choice, but it was cold and refreshing, so just what I needed in the extreme heat. It looked an authentic menu with fresh options, with the on-line reviews being positive. There was no price list for the drinks, but they didn’t take advantage of that opportunity to overcharge or anything similar. I would just add that I was sitting outside as I needed to be cooled down, I won’t be changing my general habits and I was pleased to note that there were no circling seagulls, herons or storks ready to pounce on my food.

Mackerel is one of my favourite fishes and I can’t say that I get to see a mackerel salad on the menu very often. This was delicious, with the tomatoes being fresh and rich in taste, along with some salad stuff to make it look pretty. The bread came with the dish for free and it was filling, seemed authentic and had a depth of flavour.

It took something of an age to pay, which seemed slightly odd to me as there had a real pressure on tables, but the beer and mackerel salad came to around £11, which I thought was really rather reasonable. There’s something of a theatrical performance from one of the staff members, but I think that’s part of the character of the venue and although I rather got the impression he was getting annoyed at a couple of tables, the service I received was always friendly. Either way, it was all really rather lovely with good food, a decent price and only a minor wait for the bill. And in the relentless Algarve heat, I’ll take any excuse to sit in the shade with a cold, if entirely uninspiring, beer.

July 20, 2025
Wizz Air (London Gatwick South to Faro)

Arriving at Gatwick Airport on the early morning bus…. Instead of the cinematic sweep up the driveway to an impressive departures hall, you’re unceremoniously dumped at the back of the building, which looks more like the loading dock of an industrial estate than the gateway to international travel, but as it was 05:00 it was too early to care much about this. There was no queue at security, so I was left pondering slightly why I had left my hotel so early, but better to be early than late.

I haven’t flown from Gatwick Airport for some time and I wasn’t sure if there would be space in one of the lounges using my Priority Card, but it’s fair to say that My Lounge was not packed.

Lounge food and drink which was typical fare for British airport lounges, some dry and uninteresting food alongside a dreadful lager. The sausage, bacon and hash brown were OK, I poured myself just a small amount of Cruzcampo since it was still early morning, took one mouthful and realised just how dreadful it is. The orange juice was out of cheap cartons, but in fairness to the whole arrangement, the coffee, food and orange juice was all filling enough.

Mine was the 08:00 Wizz Air flight to Faro and as usual for the airline, everything was efficient, clearly signed and without delay. There were more bag checks than usual which always adds to the drama, but once again, this didn’t impact me.

It was raining when I walked to the aircraft, it always feels a shame leaving the UK when there’s weather that I like. The aircraft registration was G-WUND, the same one that took me to an icy Tallinn a few months ago. The seating Gods had allocated me a window seat, so that was a rather handy arrangement.

Nearly at Faro and the aircraft toured up and down the coast a bit before landing. We had experienced a delay on departure, the reason for which was never mentioned, but as Wizz Air pad their schedules so much, we still seemed to manage to arrive on time. The pilots were generally decent on the number of announcements, the crew members were all personable and I fell asleep for most of the flight so don’t really know much of what happened.

It was very quickly evident that it was too hot.

The border control process felt a little chaotic, but these new machines for UK passports seemed interesting, but I wasn’t called to try them. The whole queueing arrangement was a little chaotic in places and it felt like a long wait, but it was 31 minutes in the end, which isn’t entirely unreasonable given this is a busy time of year for the airport. It does feel though that the airport in general is creaking in places with passenger numbers, so yet another extension to the building seems likely for future years.

Anyway, this was another very satisfactory experience given that the flight cost £8.99, the flight was comfortable, the boarding process was efficient and the crew were friendly. I am though getting the creeping sense that most airports in Europe are about five million passengers beyond what they were built for.

July 20, 2025