Alexandrajourdren

Les Sables d’Olonne

Monsieur and I recently found ourselves in the searing hot Vendée region of France. On arrival it was forty degrees in the shade and the land was baking. The beach beckoned, so off we set for the coast for a swim. As it was still holiday season, we knew it would be busy, but the scene that…

Still Life of Seafood, Venice, Italy

Isn’t this a delicious display of seafood? Ready to lick the screen? I am.

A Taste of Tavolara

It’s hard to imagine an island of 5 square kilometers becoming a kingdom on the whim of a royal visitor, yet that’s exactly what happened to tiny Tavolara, off the east coast of Sardinia. When King Charles Albert of Sardinia visited Tavolara in 1836, he bestowed independent royal status upon it and decreed that resident…

Moving Stories

I’ve been quiet of late, but with good reason: Monsieur and I have been moving house and I am officially exhausted. Thanks to this draining yet worthwhile exercise my arms are about 5 inches longer, I sport myriad moving injuries (who knew that cardboard boxes could scratch and bite?), could snore through earthquakes plural and…

I’m in an Ape (ah-pay) State of Mind

Check out the cutest little car in the world: the limited edition Ape (pronounced ah-pay) Calessino, manufactured by the Vespa kings – Piaggio. I’m doing a good job of breaking the tenth commandment this week… It’s a far cry from the little Ape workhorses to be found chugging along Italy’s country roads or delivering a…

To Bellini or Not to Bellini – at Harry’s Bar, Venice

It’s hard to conceive of a Venice without Harry’s Bar. Opened in 1931 by former hotel barman, Giuseppe Cipriani, it’s found a stone’s throw away from St Mark’s Square, looking directly out at the beginnings of the Grand Canal. Calle Vallaresso, at the water’s end of which Harry’s Bar sits, is lined with designer stores, the likes of…

A Bellini with a View at the Centurion Palace, Venice

A long time ago, in happy-go-lucky, freewheeling times, I lived in Venice. It wasn’t a long-term thing; just a summer internship over the course of a few months, but it was long enough for me to fall head over my Supergas in love with the place. When I returned to London, there remained some Venetian experiences on my Bucket List that…

Sardinian Free Range Pork

Driving from Cagliari to Sardinia’s Costa Smeralda gives the option of two main routes: one zig-zags you up the island on an efficient, wide autostrada (the SS131); the other snakes precariously around the sheer cliff faces of the east (the SS125). Never again do I want to travel the second way. At various junctures along this serpentine route signs…

Bar Gelateria Del Molo, Porto Rotondo, Sardinia

Porto Rotondo is a place of fantasy: an artificial port and marina filled with luxe and super-boats. The one below is charming instead of the usual gin palace that’s the size of a house on water. The sad thing is that these super-vessels only get used for a few weeks each summer. The rest of the…

Newtons, Abbeville Road

Monsieur and I have been househunting in earnest of late. That means Very Busy Saturdays. We set off straight after breakfast and spend most of the day with real estate agents, checking out kitchen appliances, the direction of the sun versus garden aspect, whether windows are sash or double-glazed, finding out if there’s a chain to…

Falling for Flammekueche at Les 3 Brasseurs

It’s official: Epicurienne has discovered a new guilty pleasure: Flammekueche. Translated from Alsatian, it means ‘flame cake’. It doesn’t arrive in a flash of fire, as its name might suggest, but is in fact cooked in a wood-fired oven. In the eating, it’s not dissimilar to pizza. In the words of Blue Peter, here’s one I…

Breakfast in Venice

There’s nothing quite like a quality Continental breakfast, especially the way the Italians do it. The Maleti Bar on Venice’s Lido island knows exactly how to get the day off to a good start with just a few, simple ingredients: Excellent coffee with a proper Italian kick, just the way I like it. Freshly squeezed orange…