825. Fri 11/10/19: La Barricada de Miguel, Cuenca

Beer: Mahou 5.0%

Early evening beer. Too early for Steph’s folks, who will meet us later. In the meantime we sit and make snide remarks about the programme on telly. Is it a news programme or Spanish celebrity current affairs? We don’t know… it features the ubiquitous panel of over excited experts, so no clue there…

Gratis tapas: some kind of texturous sausage. Odd. Delicious. Snaffled away before the obligatory beer on bar photo was snapped.

The exuberant panel on telly appear to be discussing events of the week in the Spanish Big Brother house. Events seem to have centred on a extravagantly camp and emotional middle-aged man, and his travails pursuing two apparent suitors: men considerably younger than he. Additional footage suggests middle aged man previously appeared on Spanish I’m a Celebrity. He was apparently regularly reduced to tears in the jungle too.

824. Fri 11/10/19: Mesón El Torreón, Cuenca

Beer: Alhambra 5.0%

Bar right at the top of the hill, we’ve walked all the way up to the medieval city and come out the other side. Sensational views, obviously, though naturally my camera isn’t pointed at the spectacular beauty of the place – but at this decent, unspectacular, bar. Have a look on Google earth for the pretty stuff, and consider a visit, it’s really nice.

We’re pretty high up now; the climb seems a long way but it’s pretty gentle and we’re not too knackered. Anyway, at the top there’s this little line of bars edging on to the road. They’re quiet now compared to our visit in January. We have Steph’s folks in tow this time round.

The beer here is cooled down so much it has a head which has Slush Puppy characteristics.

There’s loads of flies around, and one cat. He/she is mostly Siamese/manky. He/she hangs around, hoping we’ll be eating food and leaving scraps. But we don’t. Sorry puss. We finish our drinks and then head back into the town, taking some more scenic photos en route (which you won’t see here).

823. Thu 10/10/19: Mesón Darling, Cuenca

Beer: Mahou 5.0%

This is the great little pub at which, on our last visit (#615) I was more or less accused of personally taking Britain out of the EU. And of annexing Gibraltar. It was a good-natured but relentless tirade by an elderly old boy which somewhat stymied our enjoyment of the pub.

In his absence, this is just a great little pub. It has the fantastic ham leg fonts which I wasn’t able to photograph last time round. Apart from that, décor is basic. This seems a proper little locals’ bar and eatery. Like it a lot.

Steph and I make up for the lack of jovial antagonism by having a Brexit row of our own. This consists mainly of my using the very choicest swearwords to outline my appreciation of Boris Johnson. He is a pompous privileged entitled ****, in my humble (clichéd) opinion.

Why does the Great British Public continue to elect Bullingdon bully-boy toffs? Self-serving b*stards the lot of ‘em. Why do we do it to ourselves? I don’t know; the deluded nostalgic self-perpetuation of a hideous bloody class system? That’s my best guess.

Anyway, it’s gotten late and we’ve gotten reasonably soused. I still have 3000 steps to do to satisfy my Fitbit, so we stroll around a bit – quite a bit actually – and stumble across the festival of fish, or fish festival, that we saw featured on local TV news at the last pub up the hill, packing up. Five minutes from our apartment. Shame we missed it: that we missed it – shame.

821. Thu 10/10/19: Mesón Rodriguez, Cuenca

Beer: Mahou 5.0%

Steph’s folks have left us. It wasn’t anything I said… not this time anyway, at least I don’t think so. Anyway, we’re back here in Calle San Francisco’s earthiest little old man pub – which, by definition, makes it the best pub in the row. Oddly the little telly high up on the wall is showing exactly the same “diffuse the unexploded gunge bomb” quiz show that we saw here (and have seen nowhere else since) in January. See episode #610.

Apart from that, my notes suggest there wasn’t too much of note to note. First round tapas was ham, good for me not Steph. Second round fried potatoes in alioli; great for Steph, especially as by now I’m stuffed as a cannibalistic pig.

Our last stop of the evening in Calle San Francisco – we head toward our lodgings, and decide to see if we can find a bar in the foothills of the medieval old town.

616. Sat 26/1/19: Taberna Mesón Puerta Valencia, Cuenca, Spain

Beer: Mahou 5%

The Brexit infused drama of the evening was in Mesón Darling (episode #615); nothing to see here, which is nice in comparison. This place is half bar, half restaurant and halfway up a flight of stairs at the foothills of Cuenca old town. It seems like a place which, in higher season, would be popular with tourists.

As an advanced party of that horde, we find the place reasonably quiet and laid back (boring compared to the Darling down the road/steps). The bar is pretty well populated, but there’s room at tables – some are taken up with diners but, though we’d obviously move if the table were required, we’re find sitting at a table.

The free tapas are good – porky bits and chips, something for both of us. Cadiz are on the telly. They’re losing… they’re in the second tier… aren’t they? We have a discussion over whether the Segunda Liga is the second flight – or whether they have a daft system like ours, where League 1 is actually the third tier. We don’t fall out… but I think I’m right.

We stay for a bit. It’s nice here. It’s sanctuary from Mesón Darling. We’ve liked them both – if we were staying another night we’d return to them both again too. But we’re not. We’re Toledo bound in the morning.

827. Fri 11/10/19: Monet vinos y tapas, Cuenca

Beer: San Miguel 5.0%

Decision by committee (Steph’s folks and I) about where we go to next. It’s a vague rudderless traipse through a town we’re not too familiar with; an irritating ramble not helped by my increasingly childish belligerence and “let them get on with it then” attitude. Idiot.

We end up here. It’s not the kind of place I’d choose myself… but it’s balmy, we sit outside and the beer is decent. Gratis tapas is, once again, porcine and plentiful. And THAT’S another thing. I’m the only one eating this stuff… I’m getting STUFFED. There’s the fish festival in the square near us, and I’ve gotten far too full to consider eating there. Don’t think the others had thought of going there – but it’s all about me. Me me me.

The tables are set well back from the bar, where a few locals stand chatting at a serving hatch.

Carole and Roy drink up and leave us two to it… sick of me, probably. I’m sorry, retrospectively.

819. Thu 10/10/19: Mesón Jose, Cuenca

Beer: Amstel 5.0%

Six-thirty in the early evening on the Calle San Francisco in Cuenca. This place was pretty good on our last visit, eight months ago. It still is. We have Steph’s folks in tow this time.

There’s salacious news on the tellies, as there tends to be in Spain. They’re exhuming Franco, and there’s at least one murder to vigorously and enthusiastically discuss with the panel back at the studio.

In the pub it’s too early for the locals, so it’s quite quiet. Our first round gratis tapas is big chunks of tuna with big chunks of beef tomato. Tomato is always trying to be something it isn’t, isn’t it? I’ve an ancient aversion to the salad fruit. We don’t finish the tapas.

A second round tapas is not forthcoming.

610. Fri 25/1/19: Mesón Rodriguez, Cuenca

Beer: Mahou 5%

Our pub crawl down Calle San Francisco moves another bar down. We left the last two places when they started to get packed. This bar is a nice old traditional locals’ place, liberally populated by old boys.

These are the best places – full of character, characters and posters of (aged and contemporary) bullfighting events on the walls. Posters featuring Jesus too – though La Mancha isn’t as Semana Santa obsessed as Andalusia. Bars like this seem geared towards the morning coffee crowd, and boozers later on. I’m presuming the same people make up both groups.

We’ve been out a while and are getting nicely soused.

On the telly high up on the wall a game show plays out in which teams of contestants cut wires to “disarm a bomb”. Cut the wrong wire – the bomb “explodes”, contestants get covered in brightly coloured gunge, and lose the chance to play for the jackpot. It’s quite a spectacle… something Noel Edmonds might’ve hosted back home a decade or so ago. The presenter of this show, Steph suggests, looks like Louis Theroux.

Back in the bar, one old boy seems much annoyed when the finale of the show goes badly for the contestants. He’s had enough and leaves. We’re not too far behind him – and retire back to our digs.

617. Sat 26/1/19: El Fuero, Cuenca

Beer: Mahou 5%

On our final evening in Cuenca, and possibly against our better judgment, we go for a nightcap at the nearest pub to our apartment. It’s an interesting place… more community centre than bar. No frills to it at all. Stark lighting. Functional furniture. A dozen or so, comparatively young, locals sitting around – paying more attention to their devices than eating or drinking… the music is a bit loud.

We’re looking forward, albeit rather bleary eyed. What time do we need to set alarms? What time’s the bus? The train? How long are we in Madrid before the train to Toledo? That kind of thing.

614. Sat 26/1/19: Cerveceria 100 Montaditos, Cuenca

Beer: Cruzcampo 5%

There is, I suggest to Stephanie, a brewpub at the end of Calle San Francisco… it wasn’t open earlier but it is now. It’s called “Cerveceria 100 Montaditos”. Steph is sceptical. Steph doesn’t think it’s a brewpub. Steph thinks it’s a national downmarket sandwich shop chain – which sells little glasses of beer, rather as an afterthought.

Steph, it turns out, is right.

We order our beers, then discuss what the hell I was thinking…

We don’t stop for a second beer, or a sandwich. The confusion provides ample scope for Steph to take the rise every time we pass a Cerveceria 100 Montaditos later during the trip – “look, there’s your favourite brewpub”.

This Cerveceria 100 Montaditos in Cuenca doesn’t look to have captured the imagination of the local townsfolk. Only Steph and I – although a fella does come in while we’re there, for a sandwich. The Cerveceria 100 Montaditos in Madrid, on the other hand, was doing a roaring trade (I get the sarcastic comment, but we didn’t venture in).