three countries, three times
+ to reserve or to just be + Kiln awakening + am I a wine snob?
France, Spain, Portugal
I just can’t seem to get enough of them. Since the summer of 2021, I’ve craved a Euro trip to one of these Western travel hubs. Basic? Perhaps. Maybe I should be attempting the hidden gems of Albania or Montenegro. But once summer rolls around, a friend inevitably extends an invite to one of these three places, and I can’t help but book the flight.
Why?
I think this trend shows an underlying theme of the way I love to travel. I want the local experience. I want to go to a country with a friend who knows it well and can show me the way. I want their reservations, their stories, their steps down the roads they’ve traveled before.
I want at least a week where there can be mornings with no plans and an evening where maybe we skip a reservation and opt for a spontaneous walk-in. I want to plant myself in a country and not pack specific outfits, and instead let the trip happen to us, rather than our itineraries happen to it.
I want to be in a rental car with a friend who turns around and pulls over when she sees a fig stand in France. To be sandy and seaside, drinking vermouth with a friend, knowing we will dive into the waves for an evening swim afterward in Spain. To be giddy about the inevitable dinner reservation at our favorite dinner spot and the oysters that we will still devour with full bellies afterwards at 1 AM in Portugal.
There’s something special about going back to a country you’ve traveled to before, with new insights into who you’ve become. You smile at the version of yourself in 2021 who would’ve never guessed that they’d live on the same continent as this country a few short years later. Maybe I return to these places for the hit of nostalgia, the realization of change, instead of gaining something purely new. It reminds me of a remark from Keith McNally in his new memoir, I Regret Almost Everything:
“I might not have discovered universal meaning on my travels, but I did discover what was meaningful to me.”
My Reservations on Reservations
Maybe you thought Italy would make the list of countries above, but tbh I find it hard to have a local experience in Italy. The range of this country pulls me back frequently, but I don’t have any local friends native to its rolling vineyards, volcanic islands, or dreamy lakes to make it fit the thoughts above. I sometimes find that Italy is built for tourists, therefore also negating the local travel experience I long for. Not a strike against it, for my recent moments in Ischia and Sardinia were still absolutely stunning, and showed me just how vast and remarkable this one country can be.
As I prepared for my trip to Italy, I scanned Instagram and travel guides to see where we should be snagging reservations in advance. You know the spots - the places where you have to grab the phone-vertical pic of a view that will perfectly fit your Instagram story to show you made it to this coveted location. (No shots taken because this is literally me, and I’m the one who made the reservations for such places.) Yet, as my friends and I ranked our best experiences from the trip, these pre-made reservations didn’t come near our top moments.
Maybe it’s the expectations you set for them, maybe it’s the egregious prices for the views you consume, or maybe it’s by copying someone else’s reservation scheme, that you lose the special touch of the spontaneous. Some of our top moments that did make the list? Spots recommended to us by a local (duh) or a quick search on Google maps to fill a need with fate, rather than determining our plans for the day. So for me, next time I’m in Italy, I think I’ll skip the weeks-in-advance reservations.
Tastebud Reset
After spending 12 days in Spain & Italy, I was desperate for anything other than bread and cheese (never thought I’d utter those words!). While writing this post, I tried to stop by a secret concert pop-up in Soho (London, to be clear. NYC friends don’t worry, I’ll be there soon hehe). After waiting outside for 15 minutes in the summer heat and my tummy starting to rumble, I said “nah” and made my way towards Kiln to see if I could snag 1 kitchen seat at 3 pm on a Friday. Bingo and down the menu I went, and I realized how much I needed the spice and flavor. Smoked chili and juicy chicken, a strawberry and cucumber salad with so much sweet and umami I thought my tastebuds may burst, and sticky savory noodles packed with a generous portion of crab and pork belly. A cold glass of a Sylvan Bock blend to wash it all down. No need for a grippy skin contact, my kind server, I instead needed all mineral and acid. Thank you, Kiln, for shaking my palette after a long, starchy Euro slumber.
Am I A Wine Snob?
We were seated right by the sea, lounging in the sun as the waves crashed beneath us. A literal hole in the side of the Mallorcan cliff, it was a Spanish beach shack humming with Saturday travelers. The waiter handed us the drink menus, and I immediately decided on a vermouth, without even scanning the wine menu.
A few hours later, floating in the sea, I confessed this behavior to my two friends.
“But aren’t you curious to see the types of wines they offered?”
“I just assumed they wouldn’t have what I liked”
“Why did you think they wouldn’t have something you liked?”
This question kind of sent me spiraling. I realized I had judged the beach shack’s cover rather than giving the pages a chance. Perhaps they had a hidden gem of a bottle or a glass of a new grape that I could’ve at least put to the test! But instead, I predicted a cheap glass of sticky, green Cava and moved along.
Am I becoming a wine snob? Or am I developing taste?
For me, wine has always been the means, not the end. Or at least that’s what I’ve always said. But in that moment, I started to realize, wine did mean something more to me. If it were truly just the means to enjoying a stunning beachside moment in Mallorca, I would’ve ordered the house white and returned to the conversation. But when you drink so much wine, as I’ve been doing recently, you don’t just want another glass sometimes. Or perhaps, just another glass isn’t going to bring you the enjoyment you need to match the moment you’re living in.
So maybe it’s not the means, but it’s also not completely the end for me either. I believe it’s the pairing of both - the moment and the wine, the laughs and the sips, when the sparkle in your eye matches the sparkle in the glass, the ectasy of a delightful wine paired perfectly with a delicious moment.
So next time, I will check the wine menu, and stop being a snob. But I’ll also trust my taste when I know what kind of glass is to be enjoyed with such a a magic moment as that seaside lunch in Mallorca.
