A thousand and one bites: Milestones, memories and tugs at heartstrings from almost two decades of blogging

Scheherazade cemented her place in legend by telling 1,001 stories. I’m a long way from legendary as I publish this, my 1,001st post. I am, however, enormously proud of my achievement. This feels like an appropriate milestone from which to take a look back.

The Persian princess famously told one story a night, completing her task in just under three years. It’s taken me a bit longer. I thought I’d start experimenting with the then-new social platform of blogging in May of 2007, meaning that I’ve hit the 1,001 milestone in just short of 18 years. 

My original intent was a story a week. The reality mixed dry spells when I didn’t have much to say with heavy flows of content around holidays. Bencard's Bites launched in the heady days of London before the 2009 financial crash, and therefore drew on a steady stream of corporate hospitality and work events for its source material. The fancy restaurant reviews became a lot less frequent once I was footing the bill, though fine dining continues to turn up several times a year.

Blogging has peaked and faded in the nearly two decades that I’ve been writing. "Influencers" have come to dominate the world of social content, and short form video has replaced blogging as the genre du jour. Some of the most precious young people in my life have wondered by I bother with these tedious words when I could just throw some fun videos out there.

I’ve been doing more video. (Please follow me on TikTok.) But I’m a writer. Video doesn’t give me the same satisfaction. It’s too ephemeral. Too quick. So I keep writing, more to please myself than any audience. Thanks to my years of marketing experience I know that I’ll never hit the influencer big time with my format. To do that, I’d need to focus on one niche rather than roaming across travel, food, wine and culture. I’d probably need to get more populist in my style and subjects: I write for a well-educated audience, probably older, interested in the finer things in life. My audience is me, and if you want to come along with my journeys, I’m delighted.

If not, I’m building up quite a backlog of memories with which to entertain myself in the nursing home.

Today, at this 1,001st milestone, I’m going to take a self-indulgent stroll down memory lane to call out my favourite pieces over the years.

FROM THE FIRST 100
I launched the blog on a rainy May bank holiday when I couldn’t be bothered to head out into the gloomy weather. It’s a scenario that’s both truly British, and consistent throughout the years. I didn’t realise it, but I was capturing a world that was soon to disappear; this article on London as a golden city built on expense accounts seems hard to believe, these days.

While I started with the idea that the blog would be a far-reaching column with commentary on current events and trends, I quickly drifted away from that idea. Given the vitriol and abuse often attracted by strong opinions on social media, I was probably a bit prescient there. Instead, I got serious about travel. The most exotic adventure in this first century of articles took place deep in the Tunisian countryside, in a ruined Roman city called Dougga. I was also pleased with the tone I managed to capture in this article from Burgundy, and the humour I wove into my sojourn at DisneyWorld with a 7-year-old.

My favourite from this bunch, however, has always been a restaurant review. I believe the greatest reviews go beyond just a description of food and experience to tap into bigger issues. I tried to do this here with musings on the nature of friendship as dear friends prepared to leave the UK. This was their farewell meal, at the Michelin-starred Waterside Inn. I’m delighted to say that the friendship remains as true as the article, and they are just as precious to me now as they were when I wrote this.

THE SECOND CENTURY
These articles span November of 2008 to July of 2010, when the world started shifting dramatically. The financial crisis damaged my professional landscape to an extent it’s never really recovered from, while my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. On the positive front, I met the man who would become my husband.

I think this description of how opera seems engineered to help you cope with such dramatic change captured the zeitgeist. Most of my travel in this period was to see my ailing mother. While I love St. Louis, there’s only so much I could mine for excitement, so I raided my pre-blog letters for a description of a trip to South Africa. Five months before I met the man who was to become my husband, I attended my first rugby match. Piers would make the game a significant part of my life, and of this blog. This introduction to rugby at Twickenham laid the foundations for me to be happy about that. 

Even in these early days of social media I recognised the danger of revealing too much personal information, so I tended not to write about anything very private. Thus there’s little here about the giddy joy of finding love at a point in life where I thought I was past the possibility. But I think I captured a bit of the magic in my favourite piece from this hundred. Here, I'm writing about the shift in my perception of Valentine’s Day as I moved from a lonely single to someone in a happy relationship.

THE THIRD CENTURY

Change continued to dominate here, with death, marriage and the return of my breast cancer taking centre stage. Given that I don’t like like to write about gloomy or negative topics, finding content was tough. The standout article of the time was unarguably my mother’s obituary, not just because of its subject but because I’ve rarely worked harder at crafting and honing one piece of copy. It was not just for the blog; I delivered it in person to more than 200 people at her memorial service. So it had to be good. 

Thankfully, this time period had more than enough joy to counter the difficulty. Here we find my introduction to Longborough Festival Opera, which was to become so important to my relationship with my husband and through our future. Despite the economic downturn my work was going well. So well, in fact, that I penned this ode to job satisfaction from a very glamorous gig in Cannes where I emceed an impressive client meeting and had dinner with rugby star Lawrence Dallaglio.

Romance definitely led the fun, however, first with a review of my own wedding (discovering and resolving differences between English and American wedding traditions, frankly, could have been a small book rather than just an article), then coverage of a dreamy honeymoon in Mauritius followed by time in South Africa. Safari, which had been the bit I was probably least excited about, became the highlight of the trip.

THE FOURTH CENTURY
Covering most of 2012 and 2013, this set of articles included far less in the way of monumental change. We moved into our new house and settled into everyday life as a married couple. It was so unexceptional, in fact, that I took the time to publish excerpts from some old travel diaries I found from my “Grand Tour” across Europe after graduating from university. This description of our sightseeing whirlwind through Germany is typical. It makes me grateful I've adopted a more leisurely European style of travel in my maturity; it sounds quite exhausting.

These reflections on the recently deceased Stan Musial, “baseball’s perfect knight”, still resonate. We need gracious heroes now even more than we did when I wrote this. Stan is a part of my St. Louis childhood, and this time period saw me giving my still-new husband a proper, in-depth introduction to my home town. We almost drowned him in Americana. I was proud of the way he survived. My introduction to the new, meanwhile, came in Iceland. In this article I desperately tried to evoke the majesty of the Icelandic landscape. 

The article that captures the most memorable thing in this time period, however, is this piece on the 2012 Olympics. After all the bitching, moaning and generally low expectations, the English rose to the occasion and delivered something extraordinary.

THE FIFTH CENTURY

The “real’ world and the news agenda made a brief appearance in this hundred articles, as I happened to be in St. Louis when race-based tensions brought the disapproving eyes of the world down on my home town. I felt the need to write an impassioned rebuttal to misconceptions about the Ferguson situation.

The most memorable articles in this century, however, were all centred around my 50th birthday, which sparked several bucket-list worthy trips. I wrote about a truly extraordinary day of wine tasting around Mount Etna, ending with words that I hope captured the emotion of the day. If I could be any happier, it came floating over the coral reefs of the Maldives, where I truly did find heaven on earth.

My most popular article of this hundred amongst my readers, however, was clearly my reflections on turning 50. My five lessons for a life well-lived seemed to resonate. Indeed, looking back on the article from my 60th birthday I didn’t bother to do another. I would have just written the same things.

THE SIXTH CENTURY

As a marketer I understand search engine optimisation and strategies for promoting content on the internet. But, fact is, sometimes things “go viral” with no explanation. This review of a family-run B&B wasn’t exceptional, nor was our stay there, but for some reason it’s one of the most-read articles I’ve ever published, still getting hits years after the B&B closed. Go figure. 

My husband’s 60th birthday dominated this time period, and the best stories accompany the event. My article on the Gascony Cooking School captured the excitement of a residential culinary programme at the heart of one of the world’s great food cultures. A trip to Germany later in the year brought us face-to-face with both horror and beauty in Nuremberg.

We turned our visit to nearby Munich into a quest to visit all its best beer gardens, which produced this fabulous guide. For its continuing usefulness, this is my favourite article of the century.

THE SEVENTH CENTURY
These articles cover two years between the Augusts of 2016 and 2018. The best story in the lot ... the one I'm still telling at dinner parties today ... was undoubtably the royal wedding of Prince Harry to Northwestern University graduate Meghan Markle. I organised our UK alumni club to cheer our fellow Wildcat on from a position along the Windsor Castle Long Walk. I was also the official press spokesperson for the University on the day, getting my 15 minutes of fame (or a bit less) live on CBS’ news coverage. I did my best in the article to capture the rare excitement of the day.

As fine dining became a bit less common in my life, I added variety to the blog with more music and theatre reviews. There were two memorable ones here, as I wrote about the emotional impact of hearing Mozart’s requiem performed within the context of a mass for the first time and my introduction to the musical Hamilton, which I thought was positively Shakespearean.

Holidays, naturally, got plenty of coverage, and as the blog marked its 10-year anniversary it became ever more dominated by travel writing. My most treasured memory in this set is a description of my first time sport fishing (off the coast of Puerto Rico). We'd also done a leisurely wander around Denmark for a summer holiday, with this piece on the charms of Skagen being the most evocative of the nine articles I wrote from that trip. Meanwhile in Switzerland, I contemplated immigration patterns and their effects on history as I travelled back to the tiny village some of my ancestors left to come to America.

THE EIGHTH CENTURY
I'm filled with bittersweet nostalgia as I re-read this piece on the parts of my American DNA that make me proudest. I wrote it on the 20th anniversary of moving permanently to England, and I'm not sure I could write with such confidence or optimism today. I was clearly feeling philosophical, and a bit irritated with the English, in this time period as I also wrote an impassioned response to everyone in my new home country who detests Halloween as a tacky American import. The English aren't all anti-American, however. This set of articles also saw American baseball come to London for the first time, which I chronicled with glee.

Japan dominated my travel writing with 19 articles from an epic trip in the autumn of 2019. This review of a luxurious inn in the hills above Kyoto is my favourite. There was more luxury a few months later as a cancelled flight and following my mother's rules of travel landed us in one of the grandest hotels of our lives for one night in Antigua. There were also simple joys to be savoured on an oyster boat off the coast of Croatia. And, proving that travel can have a serious side, I wrote what I thought was a moving piece on the emotional impact of the WWI sites in the Somme.

It was a good thing that the start of this period had been so busy, because COVID lockdown suffocated everything at the end of this century of articles. Though the pace of blogging slowed down with less source material, I did find things to write about. This piece on life in lockdown has to be my favourite of the century, as it captures a unique time in our lives that, hopefully, will never be repeated.

THE NINTH CENTURY
The COVID pandemic continued through this next hundred articles, and got lots more attention from me as it stretched on. I pondered how, if you could stay healthy, age made people more resilient to the side-effects of the modern plague, and learned travel lessons from a pandemic that just wouldn't go away. There was good with the bad: social distancing guidelines forced Longborough to come up with creative solutions that made for the most emotionally moving performance of a Wagner opera I'd ever seen.

Perhaps triggered by lockdown, there's a nostalgia to many of the articles from this period. Travelling to St. Louis for my high school reunion had me appreciating the quiet beauty of old friendships, while my university football team showing up to play in Dublin sparked this love letter to Northwestern Wildcats on and off the field.

The piece I love the most, however, is my passionate defence of the British monarchy on Elizabeth II's jubilee. Not only does it capture a magical event I'll never see again in my lifetime, but I use it regularly to educate young people who are quick to write off the value of this ancient institution.  

APPROACHING MY PERSONAL MILLENNIUM
By the time I wrote my 900th article in March of 2023 the end of full-time corporate employment was in sight. (Though it wouldn't happen for another eight months.) Corporate hospitality and executive perks would no longer offer fuel for my writing. I did have one last moment of glory, however, as an empty hotel room at a conference I was managing gave me the chance to experience being a guest at Pennyhill Park and Spa.   

I love how my husband's interests have stretched me beyond my travel comfort zone. I doubt I would ever have discovered the awesome wonder of the Norwegian fjords or realised that battlefield tourism can be fun (in this case, full days touring the Napoleonic battlefields of Salamanca and Vitoria), without him. But as my 60th birthday approached I knew I wanted to return to my travel "safe space", thus these 100 articles are awash with Italian travel reportage.  There's falling in love with Naples, tips for surviving a heat wave in Tuscany, avoiding Venice crowds by heading to the outer islands, and an 11-article series on my adventures in Sicily. Once I wrapped my travels for 2024 I updated the indexes on the blog: if you view it through a desktop browser so you can see the three-column layout, you'll now see headlines of, and links to, 69 different Italian articles in indexes on the left. 

It's hard to pick a favourite from this 100 so studded with magical memories. Amusingly, the one that gets my vote is actually a bad experience. I normally stick to positive reviews when I can, but the Verona Opera Festival's dreadful reimagining of Aida in space needed to be ripped apart. Writing it gave me an appreciation for those reviewers who become famous for tearing things down; you can have much more fun with words being mean. But I doubt I'll become a regular in this style. 

And that's how I got to 1,000. Creating this blog has been a consistent source of joy ... and, I hope, kept my writing fresh and less corporate ... for almost 18 years. Yes, there are times when keeping up has felt a bit more like a chore than entertainment. As the years pass I realise there are things I probably should have written about but didn't, no doubt because I was too busy with other things.

If I keep going at this pace I'll publish my 2,000th article when I'm 78. But it's hard to imagine having that much to write about in retirement, especially after the early years of heavy travel when we settle down to a quiet life. Hopefully I won't end up a correspondent of medical treatments and old age complaints. But, frankly, if I'm still healthy and writing regularly as I approach 80 I'll be happy. If anyone reads me, great. But I'll continue to do this for myself.

Here's to the next 1,000.

These two castles in South Wales bring the past to glorious life

If you want proof that time really does heal, look to Welsh castles. Once a deeply-resented symbol of an invader’s power over a subjugated land, they are now the jewel in the crown of the nation’s tourist industry and a source of intense national pride.

The first thing you notice when you come through the gates of Cardiff Castle is probably not the tower on a hill, built by Norman thugs to consolidate their incursions, or the re-constructed Roman gate next to it, but a big, red dragon. It’s the same one that dominates today’s Welsh flag, here brought gloriously to three-dimensional life. Conquerors have come and gone, but the native Welsh came out on top.

You can easily satisfy all of your medieval castle fantasies with a couple of stops on a road trip to Cardiff. We explored Cardiff Castle and Chepstow Castle this trip. The eager castellophile could easily add in Castell Coch, which essentially functions as a small “summer house” for Cardiff. (Here’s an article on that site from an earlier visit.) But if you only have time for two … or if, like my husband, you have limits to how much Victorian Gothic you can stand … following our route for this trip makes sense.

Cardiff Castle sits right in the centre of the capital and has two primary draws. First, it’s a great demonstration of how castles evolved in use and appearance over time. Second, it’s one of the best examples of Victorian gothic in the country.

If you want to learn about the history of castle building, you can start with the reconstruction of the Roman Gate. Then clamber up the big hill, or “motte” to have a look at the Norman playbook. From up there you have a great viewpoint of the massive “bailey”, the area encircled by walls that would have been the functional space for everything from military exercises to craftspeople’s workshops. And you can see how, as castles became less defensive and more residential, their owners built against the outer walls.

It was the potential of those buildings that set John Patrick Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute, dreaming in the 1860s. The outrageously wealthy young man, whose family had grown rich on Welsh coal and built Cardiff into their exporting hub, couldn’t help but be impressed when he attended the House of Lords in the brand new Palace of Westminster. It had just risen from a fire in the latest trendy style: a fairy-tale gothic that architects believed to be truly British. The Marquess thought he’d bring the style home and hired architect William Burgess. The two men would work together to realise the medieval fever dream that is Cardiff. As well as the summer house at the Castell Coch.

The duo’s vision of the Middle Ages is lavish: jewel tones, lush fabrics, ornate wood carving, plenty of gilding. You can see this best in the banqueting hall. A wooden roof encrusted with ornamental beams is held aloft by colourful angels, hair flowing and clothes picked out in eye-watering colours. Nothing in this version of history comes in pastels or neutrals. On the walls below you can follow the story of Robert of Gloucester, an early owner of the place. He was the illegitimate son of King Henry I, therefore half brother to the Matilda who scrabbled with her cousin Stephen over the throne in a civil war so nasty contemporary chroniclers described it as a time when “Christ and his saints slept.”

Robert was perhaps the only historical figure to emerge from this time period with an honourable reputation intact, and his exploits provide suitably chivalric images. An exuberant fireplace adds to the story; it’s a besieged castle sticking out into the room, with Matilda up top awaiting rescue. It’s pure Disney. And this isn’t the only place the fantasy pokes beyond the walls: animals around the door frames stick fins, feathers and paws beyond the paint, enhancing the illusion.

An entry hall, dining room and substantial library are all in this exuberant style. The most eye-popping room along this tour route, however, takes us in a completely different direction … as if one of those medieval knights took a detour through Islamic Spain on the way home from the Crusades and decided he needed a place to remind him of his travels. The Arab Room features a carved ceiling that could have come right out of the Alhambra Palace, except this one is gilded in 24 carat gold. The walls are marble. The windows have coloured marbles embedded in them to send splinters of coloured light across the interiors. The fireplace looks more like a mosque’s alcove for holding the Koran than a practical utility. It’s spectacular. 

The other best bits of the interiors require a separate tour. (You could see it all under one ticket when I was last here, but that was a long time ago.) If you have time, it’s worth the extra expense to book an escorted tour into the tower, which gives you a look at the bedrooms and the unusual roof garden, which is a crazy decorative mash-up of Ancient Rome, the Middle Ages and Victorian ironwork. It’s essentially a tiny cloister garden, with covered walkways on four side and an opening to the sky in the centre. 

Any past resident of Chepstow Castle, if somehow transported to one of Burgess and Bute’s interiors, would probably think they’d been whisked to another world rather than any spot in their own gothic reality. Yes, medieval castles had some nice interiors, but in a time before artificial lighting and chemically enhanced paints they never would have been this bright. Besides, the original buildings were less palaces and more easily-defended admin offices with sleeping quarters.

If Cardiff if the fantasy, Chepstow is the reality. 

The setting is one of the prettiest in the UK. The castle climbs up cliffs that rise above the River Wye, just before the water disappears into heavy forest. These days Chepstow is a romantic ruin, but there’s enough here to help you imagine past glories. Here there are two baileys, each with its own great hall and additional buildings. It’s almost all without roofs these days, but you can scramble up stairs, walk along wall tops and take in magnificent views.

The upper bailey is closely associated with William Marshall, one of the great heroes of the English Middle Ages, and his powerful heiress wife Isabel de Clare. The castle, in fact, came with her as part of her dowry. But unlike so many of the arranged marriages of this time period, this was a real love match. So enduring is their story it became the foundation of the film A Knight’s Tale.

Four generations later building attention moved to the lower bailey, where the couple’s great grandson Baron Bigod turned the complex into a bit of a party palace. Not only did he put in a new great hall … even though there was a perfectly good one just up the hill … but he built a substantial complex of kitchens, serving areas and wine cellars. The latter could be stocked through a hatch directly over the river. None of the explanatory material says so, but I have a hunch that building just this little bit further down the slope made for warmer, more comfortable accommodations.

Chepstow was in continuous use for another six centuries. Its decay is fairly modern; It wasn’t until very late in the 17th century that the owners of the time abandoned it. It didn’t stay forgotten for long, however. By the end of the next century, romantic ruins were all the rage. The ruins just upriver at Tintern Abbey got the superstar treatment by artist JMW Turner. So did Chepstow. Suddenly, the Wye River ruins were on every fashionable Regency traveller’s bucket list.

Chepstow probably isn’t as famous these days as it was in those giddy times, but it’s still a star in South Wales’ firmament. It’s a logical stop, as we did it, on a trip to and from Cardiff, but it’s also an easy day trip from London and environs thanks to its location just minutes off the motorway. The castle and its surrounding town feel small and isolated, but they’re right next to the old Severn Bridge. A pleasant day trip would start here, then drive up to the equally romantic Tintern Abbey, before winding along the Wye through the Forest of Dean.

Rejecting the received wisdom, we enjoy Cardiff for rugby but don’t need to do it again

We have a tradition in the Bencard household that whoever is celebrating a milestone birthday gets to make the call on all of the travel for that year. I’ve written about it before; this is our second time through the cycle and I finished up my year in December. My husband now controls 2025, and the first celebratory destination of the year was Cardiff.

The Welsh capital is a nice enough place but without context you might be surprised it turns up on a big birthday bucket list. That context is rugby.

Rugby is the national sport in this mighty little country. It’s significant in other parts of the UK, but only in Wales does it eclipse all others with a dominance only otherwise seen in New Zealand. Unsurprisingly, therefore, the national stadium in Cardiff is legendary, and the annual 6 Nations match-up between England and Wales … played here every other year in rotation with England’s home ground at Twickenham … is one of the hardest tickets in rugby to get.

Tickets are always available for those with the cash and the desire to find a way, of course. Which is why this year we took our second trip with England Rugby Travel. This time we weren’t flying half way around the world to Japan, but driving two hours up the M4.

Was it worth it?

Like any premium experience, value comes down to your passions. If you aren’t a keen fan then it’s a lot of money for two nights in a generic corporate hotel (the Radisson Blu), an evening event with a couple of drinks and a styrofoam box with a burger and chips, and match seats less that 20 rows from the roof, behind the try line. (That would be “end zone” for my American readers.)

The reality, however, is that there’s no practical way to get tickets to this match as an outsider other than hospitality packages. And the overall experience comes with a lot of intangibles. The pre-game event brought us face-to-face with rugby legends telling tales of the past, analysing team performance, and making predictions for the next day. As a relative newcomer to the sport I knew who the people were and was entertained. (They’re all amusing, but emcee Martin Bayfield could have been a stand up comic.) If you grew up a rugby fan in England, however, as my husband did, then the guys on stage were legends, taking the night from amusing to magical.

There was more magic on the streets the next day with the Cardiff pre-game experience. You can enjoy this without a premium package. In fact, I’m fairly sure that thousands amongst the crowd didn’t have tickets to the game at all, but came into town for the atmosphere and would be watching play in one of the local pubs instead.

Unusually, Cardiff’s Principality Stadium is tightly-wedged into the centre of town. There’s no fan zone behind the ticket barriers, rather an approximately 20 square-block area jammed with bars and restaurants on the outside. That entire town centre becomes a fan zone for hours before and after the game. While I’ve never seen anything like it in Europe, it’s remarkably similar to the American college football scene at the big state universities. Good-natured fans stroll the streets, bands set up in squares to entertain the crowds, vendors sell patriotic fashion and face painting.

We faced two challenges. Once you get within three hours of kick-off there’s no chance of sitting down anywhere, and the queues for beer make it incredibly unlikely you’re getting a drink. In the latter it reminded me a great deal of Oktoberfest in Munich, walking for hours around the world’s most famous beer festival, thirsty.

We’d been lucky enough to get seats at the Owain Glyndwr pub five hours before kick-off; probably the last two seats in the place, sharing a table with others. We admired the two-pint glasses around us and should have taken the hint. After nursing our first pints for an hour … we were going to be drinking all day, so were pacing ourselves … we attempted another round and had to give up. The crowd at the bar was 30-people long, five people deep, and I barely moved in the 20 minutes I stood in the queue. I gave up and returned to our table, where we sat drinkless until an hour before the stadium gates opened. Clearly we should have purchased enough first time round for the duration.

We spent an hour walking through town drinking in atmosphere instead. It was fun, but in many streets we were facing the kind of body-to-body crowding that makes you think of news reports of unfortunates falling over and being trampled to death. Queues at all the other pubs we passed were equally mad; we were clearly not getting another drink in hand until we got into the stadium. Thus we were amongst the first through the turnstiles.

Here’s the conundrum: Getting in this early gets you easy access to food, drinks, seats and toilets, but there’s no atmosphere for at least the first hour and, unlike Twickenham, there are no screens showing the earlier match. Maybe we’re just old farts, but we were happy to forgo the buzz for our own comfort. Perhaps locals know how to get seats and drinks: clearly most fans don’t bother getting to the stadium until about 40 minutes pre-match, when there’s a sudden surge to fill seats for the pre-game show.

It’s here that I thought the Welsh really triumphed. From the flag unfurling to the bands, the lights and jets of flame, the DJ and the traditional male choir: the pre-game show here is a triumph. The Welsh reputation for singing is well-deserved and the hymns thundered.

We expected the local voices to add to the atmosphere throughout the game. When the roof is closed, as it was for our match, the crowd is often called the 16th man, giving the home team an intimidating advantage. There was no such energy on display. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised, given that the home fans were sitting on a 16-game losing streak and then had to watch a 68-14 pounding.

Post-match crowds on the streets outside remained an uncomfortably tight sea of bodies. We retreated to our hotel, changed clothes and ventured out for a later dinner reservation at The Ivy Cardiff. We were incredibly thankful to the friend who had warned us that reservations were essential, or we wouldn’t get dinner following a match. After a day of crowds and queues we were grateful for table service and a quieter atmosphere.

So my verdict on Wales for away games will disappoint my Welsh friends. I am glad I ticked the box, but I wouldn’t want to do it again. At least not without a local who knows the tricks to negotiating the crowds better. I far prefer the away-game experience in Rome, even though the stadium is a tram line away from town.

Star-studded, dance-mix production of “Much Ado” is a marvel

Casting Hollywood stars on the stage and putting on radical interpretations of classics re-styled to appeal to youth are two time-honoured tactics for producers in London’s West End. These strategies fail as often as they work. But not Jamie Lloyd’s Much Ado About Nothing. He has combined both tactics, casting Tom Hiddleston and Haley Atwell while setting the play in a contemporary dance club complete with pulsating soundtrack. It is a very long way from the beloved film version where Denzel Washington, Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson and a gaggle of other luvvies donned renaissance clothing and capered about a dreamy Tuscan villa. And yet this production is just as joyous.

Indeed, it may actually work better thanks to Lloyd’s decision to cut out the entire secondary plot of Constable Dogberry and to severely trim down the cast of characters. Dogberry is, in theory, the comic relief. But his crew of bumbling cops has always been a lot less amusing than the sparkling battle of wits between Beatrice and Benedick. By cutting out the superfluous, Lloyd’s production gets us to the ultimate nugget of truth: Much Ado About Nothing gave birth to the modern RomCom.

As any Hiddleston fan already knows, he’s a perfect RomCom lead. Sexy but interesting-looking rather than vapidly handsome, able to slide effortlessly between drama and mirth, flawless comic timing. Atwell is equally captivating, though much of her performance was so similar to Emma Thompson’s in tone and cadence it didn’t feel like she really made the role her own. Hiddleston’s Benedick was fresh. Both actors are obviously comfortable with Shakespeare. Indeed, it was Hiddleston’s early bread and butter in London. Sorry to say I didn’t even notice him, much less mention him in my review, when I saw the legendary Donmar Othello with Ewan McGregor and Chiwetel Ejiofor … in which Hiddleston played a supporting role. Bottom line: both actors’ Marvel identities may be bringing the punters in, but it’s their complete ease with Shakespeare and their classical theatre experience that anchors this production.

The modern dance party idea is inspired. Few of us can relate to lounging about an aristocratic Tuscan villa singing “Hey Nonny Nonny”, though you might have fantasised about it. But I suspect just about everyone in the audience can remember the throbbing energy of a dance club or fraternity party where alcohol and noise combined to heighten their senses while confusing reality. It’s this atmosphere that most of the action takes place within. Confusion is the key to multiple plot twists in this story, the atmosphere here making it more credible than I’ve ever seen it. It also makes the whole thing a great deal of fun. Pre-show and at intermission glitter balls sparkle, coloured lights strobe over the audience and most people are tapping toes, if not having a little boogie in the aisles. The curtain call turns into a raucous dance party as Atwell and Hiddleston show off their best moves while Mason Alexander Park … wonderful as the serving woman Margret and a memorable voice giving us tunes throughout … serenades us all with a rousing “When Love Takes Over”.

The cynical will claim this is just a ploy to provoke a standing ovation, which has become more norm than exception in London theatre these days. I wasn’t bothered. This small but dynamic cast deserved the accolades. The show is only running until 5 April and is mostly sold out already, so if you want to see it get booking immediately.

And a quick post-script: I’m not sure how I’ve managed all these years in London without entering the Theatre Royal Drury lane but this was my first time and … wow. The public spaces are lavishly impressive. There’s a multi-story rotunda, two dramatic staircases that are stage sets in themselves, statues of theatrical greats, frescoes taken from famous plays, and a gorgeous double-height ballroom at the front that feels like something out of a Georgian palace. All the space means more bars than the average theatre, so less queuing, and there was a space in that ballroom clearly set up for evening dining. (I was at the matinee.) It is as grand, and memorable, as the Royal Opera House and in future I’ll be more likely to book something just knowing it’s playing here.

Why rugby has become an essential part of my English life

February brings two reliable reliefs from the unremitting gloom of a British winter: snowdrops and Six Nations rugby.

Carpets of the little white flowers remind me that winter is blessedly short here. From now on something will be blooming consistently in the garden. Skies may remain grey, drizzle may fall, but flower trails at heritage properties across the country give me a reason to get outside.

It’s not enough of a lure to get the husband out of the man cave on a winter weekend, however. People need to be chasing a rugby ball for that.

Rugby has turned up a fair amount over the years in this blog, mostly in conjunction with travel we’ve coordinated around England away games. It’s been an excellent excuse for Paris, Rome, and most notably Japan, where we were lucky enough to attend some of the 2019 World Cup. I haven’t written much about England’s home ground of Twickenham, however, despite the fact that we’re now regulars.

It’s time.

How did an American who’s mostly ambivalent about sport, with the exception of St. Louis Cardinals baseball, end up passionately supporting England rugby in the stadium five to 10 times a year, with more on TV? And why? Part of it is, quite simply, that I married in. Some men have a mid-life crisis and buy themselves a ridiculous car or a young wife. Mine, thank God, went for debentures at Twickenham. (This is a particularly English version of season tickets; your investment buys you right of first refusal on tickets for your seats, which you then buy at face value. Given the difficulty of getting seats for a sport where every match always sells out, this is the only way to guarantee attendance.)

But I’m not just tagging along to be a good wife. I honestly enjoy the game.

All the things I liked at my first outing … fast-paced action, fit male bodies worthy of admiration, a merry and highly social crowd … have only multiplied in my affections over the years. 

I can add patriotism. I love England as an enthusiastic immigrant. I had to work hard to gain my place here and I regularly appreciate things that native-born citizens take for granted. I think it would be great for the country if more people mustered more vocal enthusiasm for the place. But I grew up in a place where flag-waving is the norm, whereas patriotism here … with a few exceptions …. is far less visible. I love wrapping myself in the flag. Wearing a crown of red roses. Belting out Jerusalem and God Save the King. You get to do that at the rugby.

As I learned more, I fell in love with the structure of a game that has a role for any body type. The slight, little people. The tall lanky people. The chunky, broad types. Slow ones and fast ones. There’s a place for everyone in this remarkably inclusive game.

While I still only have a tenuous grasp on the laws of rugby … and know enough to call them laws rather than rules … I have a much better understanding of what’s happening on the field. Enough, certainly, to be able to roar frustration at gaping holes in the defence and appreciate the beauty of a particularly nimble tackle or agile run. Honestly, I don’t think it’s even possible to have a full grasp of the laws unless you’ve been involved with the game since childhood, and probably played it, because they are profuse, subtle and complicated. And ever-changing. Leading me to my belief that thick people can’t play rugby. It’s one of my favourite aspects of the sport.

Long before I paid attention to what was happening on the field I worked with the sport’s veterans off of it. If you want to lure British senior executives out of their offices, rugby regularly tops the list as the most enticing corporate hospitality offering. Thus I’ve hosted meetings where Clive Woodward offered leadership tips, got to interview Lawrence Dallaglio, and explored the importance of data in the game with Ben Kay. I even learned how to do the Hakka from New Zealand legend Sean Fitzpatrick. All of these events included drinks and socialising with the former athletes who were always incredibly bright, easy conversationalists and great fun.

These guys gave me my initial impression that people rugby people are special … a belief that’s only strengthened as I’ve come to know the game. So I’m not surprised that following Maro Itoje on Instagram can teach me about West African art and that Joe Marler’s podcast gives me fascinating insights into quirky professions.

These days, I extend that exceptionalism to the fans. I can’t think of anything else I do in my life where everyone involved is so uniformly pleasant and easy to get along with. In a country where you don’t talk to strangers on the train and cheerfully greeting an oncoming pedestrian is regarded with suspicion, fans inside the stadium strike up conversations like they’re all old friends. Or, if you’re part of the strange minority that is USA rugby fans, like family. This geniality extends to opposing fans. At the 2015 World Cub a group of South African fans consoled me after they trounced the Americans. Everyone loves the Italians, perennial 6 Nations underdogs. Even the long-standing Calcutta Cup, fought between the English and the Scots, is tremendously civil.

I admit, this may be because of the total lack of diversity in rugby fandom. I am not sure there is any other activity on the planet that is so relentlessly upper middle class. In the 10 minutes it took me to cut across the fan zone from the car park to our seats I once overheard conversations about how a new acquisition was going, how a retirement portfolio was weathering recent market fluctuations and the perils of moving the youngest child into student housing at Oxford. I suspect, if I worked at it, I could develop more new business at Twickenham than on LinkedIn. Though who wants to spoil such a fun day out?

Because fun, ultimately, is why I’m content with investing so much of our free time, and our discretionary spending, into following rugby. Every game at Twickenham is a celebration. Following the team away is even better. We’ve bought a package to see the lads in Cardiff for the last game of this season’s 6 Nations, and I’m ridiculously excited. I have no doubt it will be the highlight of our first quarter of 2025. When we were having serious conversations about economising at the turn of the year we took a hard look at the rugby and, rather surprisingly, I was even more vocal in its defence than he was. Whatever the result on the field, the whole experience is consistently joyous. 

Unadulterated joy is too rare a thing to sacrifice unless there’s no other choice.

How to avoid the six worst mistakes trending in online travel planning forums

January is long, dark, and gloomy. Yet it is also a month of hope. We delight in the potential of empty calendars, filling in highlights for the next 12 months. Gardeners snuggle in arm chairs with seed catalogues and notebooks, plotting the summer’s glories. Travellers browse magazines, websites, and airfares dreaming of the year’s escapes.

British travel agents dub the Saturday after the first full week in January “Sunshine Saturday” and report it’s the busiest day of the month as bookings soar. A recent survey found that 40% of the British population planned to book some element of a 2025 holiday in January. I won’t be travelling as much this year as I did last, but that doesn’t stop me from both researching my own excursions and finding joy helping others plan theirs. 

I have been a bit obsessed with travel planning groups on Facebook. While I’m offering lots of advice on England and Italy, I’m seeking it on Saxony.

These groups are great fun, and can deliver some fantastic insider knowledge. But they can also be incredibly frustrating as people ignore the search function to ask repeat questions. Conversations consistently throw up some disturbing trends. I’ve seen enough that I thought it worth pointing out the worst trouble spots and giving you some advice on how to avoid them.

One: Don’t start with someone else’s “Top 10” list; outline your own priorities and go from there
Everything in travel planning comes back to this foundation. From guidebooks to individuals, everyone will offer an authoritative view of the best things to see in a place. But are they best for you? I’m rather horrified by the number of people on these groups who simply ask: “what should we do in such-and-such a place?” There’s no good answer before considering personal style, interests and preferences.

Twenty different people could have twenty entirely different experiences in London. Some might want history, art and architecture. Others might be bored silly by that, but desperate to see filming locations of their favourite productions. Visits can skew towards nightlife and music, food, fashion and shopping, or even adventure sport. (You can put on a hard hat, clip on a safety line and climb to the top of the O2 Arena.) Following someone else’s recommendation is likely to waste your time unless they share your priorities.

And don’t … as so many of my American compatriots do … say “I want to see Everything! As much as I can pack in, because I may never be back!” While I understand the impulse, down that road lies madness. You’ll end up stewing in the disappointment of all the things you didn’t get to, while exhausting yourself with your hungry pace. A few months later, you’ll be unable to identify what’s in your own photos. Slow down and focus on those priorities.

If your priority is truly to get a broad sample? See point six.

Two: Appreciate the influencers, but look beyond them
Believe me, I get the appeal. Interesting people telling great stories in front of gorgeous backgrounds makes me want to go there, too. I’m trying to influence with my own travel posts, after all. I’m seeing significant shifts, however, in the kinds of destinations rising to the top of everyone’s list due to influencers. Everyone seems to be in search of the same picture-postcard backgrounds to their selfies.

I see this most starkly in my Italy planning group, where a startling number of people are prioritising Lake Como, the Cinque Terre and the Amalfi Coast. These are all astonishingly beautiful places, but if you’re interested in art, architecture and history they’re cultural backwaters. They’re all variations on scenic R&R. Back in olden times when my mother was a travel agent she’d plan one into a client’s itinerary … but never the trio. It’s like having three courses of ice cream rather than a balanced meal.

Whether it’s these destinations or activities in the big cities, influencers have tourists heading disproportionately towards an ever-smaller group of photogenic activities. The result, of course, is that the hot spots have become ridiculously crowded. You couldn’t pay me to go to the Cinque Terre any more; I’m just relieved I went there before things got out of control. 

Getting tickets into the Colosseum or the Last Supper is like booking the hottest Michelin-star restaurants. Grab your tickets the morning they go on sale for the next three-month window, or you’re out of luck.

The good news, I suppose, is that as more people concentrate on the Influencers’ favourite spots, fewer will be everywhere else. These days I’ll substitute the Medici’s country villas for central Florence, the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj for the Vatican Museums and Herculaneum for Pompeii. All have just as much artistic and historic value with a fraction of the tourists. Or influencers.

Three: Be suspicious of AI-generated content; always check with trusted sources 
In the past few months I’ve seen an explosion of AI-generated images turning up in travel and history feeds across social media. If you’ve visited a place, these are obvious fictions. 

If you haven’t been there, however, you might believe that Tower Bridge, the Houses of Parliament and the office building known as “the gherkin” are clustered together, blanketed under an idyllic two feet of snow in January. The reality isn’t even close. And the baths of Caracalla are not, and never have been, three stories of towering Edwardian neo-classicism looming over pools that look surprisingly like spas in Budapest.

These posts don’t seem to be attempting to entrap anyone in a fraud, and you could argue that they do no real harm. Gullible people, however, do risk scheduling trips to see things that don’t exist. I suspect this is a trend that’s going to spiral as more people start playing with AI image generators. Be careful. If you’re interested enough in something to pay to travel to see it, check official websites, travel magazines and local tourism boards to confirm the reality.

Four: Don’t ignore the stress of internal travel; no fewer than three nights in a place is ideal
The most frequent adjustment offered by people on these travel planning forums is itinerary editing. Go fewer places! A minimum of two nights in a place makes sure you have at least one full sightseeing day in each location. A three-night minimum is better if you don’t want to end your holiday exhausted. A different place every night will give you more insight into a country’s transportation systems than its tourism delights.

The most ambitious itineraries come from Americans and Australians who are so used to the vast spaces of their own countries that distances in Europe seem insignificant.  It’s true that Edinburgh is as close to London as St. Louis is to Chicago, but that still doesn’t mean you should attempt to drive around the whole island. Road works, traffic, train strikes, slow and narrow roads can all make 30 miles of travel feel like 100.

Again, priorities matter. It may be that Pompeii is indeed so important to you that it’s worth a day trip from Rome, spending three hours in transit each way. But if it’s that much of a priority, why aren’t you basing yourself out of Naples so you can enjoy it properly? If you just want the romance of wandering through a ruined Roman town, would the half-hour commuter train out to the ruins at Ostia Antica, in Rome’s suburbs, scratch your itch without losing so much of the day? 

Five: You don’t have to plan everything! Determine what’s essential, and leave the rest
Being a member of a travel planning forum suggests that you like to plan. So do I. But it’s easy to overdo things and leave yourself with no room for the serendipitous discoveries that often make a trip. The pointless meandering down country lanes over spilling with early summer blooms in the Cotswolds. The pop into the tiny family winery for a case of delicious bargain rose. The Tuscan towns that aren’t in the guidebooks, but offer gorgeous streetscapes without tourists.

After 15 years of travelling together my husband and I have settled into a formula that works for us. For each destination we’ll each select two or three things that are a priority for each of us to get to an agreed short list. For each day we will only schedule one thing. The rest just flows. 

Obviously, if you have specific priorities you need to do a bit of research into availability. British Museum? It’s still free, but you now need a reserved slot and those are often booked out a few days in advance. Sir John Soane’s museum? You can just turn up.

Six: Don’t immediately dismiss organised travel; group tours and travel agents have their merits
Facebook planning groups seem to be dominated by people who believe independent travel is the only acceptable option; group travel … other than moving between destinations on a cruise ship … is guaranteed to give you an “inauthentic” experience. Authenticity, of course, is now the goal of all travel.

I am puzzled as to how following scores of Gen Z influencers to some photo spot on Como is more authentic than letting expert locals who’ve been officially accredited introduce you to their home … but such is the trend. While I usually travel independently, there are three circumstances in which I believe an organised group tour or a specialised agency can do it better than doing it yourself:

1. Introducing you to a place you’ve never been, especially if you don’t speak the language, 

2. Coping with complicated travel logistics (ie a cruise is the only practical way to do the Baltic and the Scandinavian coast in one trip), 

3. Dealing with specific needs (limited mobility, tricky diets, solo travel*, etc.)

If you’re short on time, the arguments for getting help grow stronger. My husband and I could afford to waste more than two hours wandering through the German countryside in search of the poorly-signposted Burg Elz, only to find that we deeply disagreed with Rick Steve’s description of it as the best castle in Europe. That’s because were were on a quick weekend break with no firm plans. Had I travelled from the USA spending some of my only 10 or 15 days of vacation per year I would have been frustrated by the waste. A travel professional would, no doubt, have avoided our debacle. 

Whether you’re considering a group tour or travelling independently, go back to those priorities. Sharpen them up. Then ask experts for help. Your next trip will be much better for it, wherever you’re going. 

*Solo female travellers should check out No Stopping Her, a new agency started by some talented friends of mine and dedicated to their sophisticated needs.

The Feast of Seven Fishes for Two? Here’s how.

Like spaghetti with giant meatballs and snowy excesses of cheese topping, the Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve is not an Italian tradition. It’s Italian-American, which is quite a different thing. Yes, Italians do traditionally eat fish on Christmas Eve, and they like to set a festive table. But pushing yourself to seven dishes is considered a bit over-the-top in the Mother Country.

Like so many Italian-American traditions, I suspect the Seven Fishes swam out of the giddy immigrant delight of cheap, easily available food. Families who, in their native land, could only afford animal proteins a few times a year could now have them every day. They celebrated and showed off their wealth. Food writers have traced the generous excesses of Italian-American cuisine back to this fact. (Given that most 19th century immigrants shared that reality, whatever their country of origin, I’ve always suspected it’s at the root of America’s gargantuan portion sizes in comparison to the rest of the world. But, admittedly, the Italian-American table does groan a little more heavily than most.

To be honest, our family didn’t really do the Seven Fishes. In the Missouri of the 1960s and ‘70s, a 12-hour drive from the nearest ocean, fresh fish was unknown at all but the priciest of restaurants and frozen food … while becoming more common … tended to offer only breaded fish fingers. I suppose someone could have come up with a muddy catfish, but seven fish dishes would have been ludicrous. My Sicilian grandfather honoured his piscine traditions with a bit of pickled herring out of a jar while the family sat down to something meaty; usually an enormous lasagne.

As an adult living on an island on which the most inland point is only 70 miles from the sea, however, I liked the sound of the Feste. More accurately, I liked the challenge. We never entertain at Christmas Eve. We’re either out, or it’s just the two of us. Would it be possible to prepare seven distinct fish dishes in one meal, in portion sizes that didn’t overwhelm?

I’ve played around with the challenge in years past, but 2024 is the year I got closest to acing this conundrum. My pasta serving should have been a bit smaller … we were too full to properly enjoy the course after … and I spent so much time getting portion sizes right that I fell down a bit on seasoning and small touches. Much of this tasted good, but a bit of attention to detail would have made it great.

Still, I have a template for future years. If you want to try the Feast of Seven Fishes for a small group, here’s a workable menu. I split the seven into four courses.

First Course: Amuse Bouche. These were three single bites, presented on special serving spoons. My bites were an anchovy wrapped around green olives, tuna (high-quality Sicilian, in a jar) stuffed into a peppadew pepper, and bit of avocado covered with crab meat. I could have added one more here and taken one off the next course to make life easier on myself, as the squid could have been served hot or cold.

Second Course: Warm Appetisers. I put two on a plate. A griddled stuffed squid was easy, coming already prepared from the deli at Italian Continental Stores. Left cold, this could have joined the amuse bouche. That sat next to a single scallop on pea puree and a bit of grilled ham. It’s normally done on black pudding but I’d already roasted a ham for other holiday meals and wanted to re-use ingredients.

Third Course: Pasta. I made three tactical errors with my Linguini Vongole, which I haven’t made in a very, very long time. First, lacking a linguini option on my pasta maker I opted for spaghetti rather than fettuccini. The thicker noodle would have worked better. Second, I dumped the liquid from the jar of clams when I should have used it to flavour the pasta. Third, I forgot how important really good olive oil is to this dish. Essentially, it’s really delicate and easy to create something extremely bland. I rescued it with a last-minute addition of the Sicilian olive oil our landlords from Ispica sent us home with earlier this year, but it could have been better out of the pan.

Fourth Course: From the Grill. Whole sea bass done “en papillote” with fennel, lemon and dill. Another tactical error … I didn’t open the packet from the fishmonger to see that my husband had bought a whole bass instead of fillets until an hour before serving. The papillote was a last-minute rescue because I didn’t have the time or confidence to fillet the fish myself. Had I realised I had a whole fish to work with I would have gotten supplies in to bake it in sea salt, but the only sea salt in the house was fancy stuff I’d purchased in Sicily and i wasn’t going to use that as a cooking medium.

Dessert: I made a simple lime posset, which is the kind of light, citric option perfect for ending this menu. We were so stuffed that we split one and only managed half of it, but it did wrap things up nicely.

And thus ended my culinary efforts on Christmas Eve. My lovely husband took over the kitchen the next day and switched the influences from Italian to Danish. (Crab salad, roast duck with red cabbage, Christmas pudding). Followed by the traditional Danish lunch of open-faced sandwiches, beer and snaps with friends on the 27th. Those feasts gave us enough leftovers to weather the rest of a quiet holiday season. Outside, it was grey, windy and wet. Indoors, we snuggled up with good books, good video, and good food. After a busy year, it was exactly the holiday season we needed.