retiredmartin
retiredmartin
Martin
Retired NHS, doing long walks around UK and the world to record the great bits. Focused on Good Beer Guide pubs and live music.
Latest Posts
February 2026. Pavia. I was going to skip the architecture of Pavia and go straight back to Italian real ale, but Lana on her Retirement Chapter blog just got a great post out of Shirley, so how could I leave out the castle, the bridge,...
February 2026. Pavia. I’d booked Trenitalia tickets to Pavia, reckoning a 7pm return* would be ideal to allow us to have a quick pint before a mad 20 minute dash for the train to Genoa (though I would caution against ever making Mrs RM...
February 2026. Pavia. A day trip from Genoa to Pavia, an unsung but beautiful University town of 70,000, nearly 40% of them students. Not that you’d know it’s student-dominated; a bit like Cambridge they must all stay within the ancient...
February 2026. Pavia. For those bored of foreign muck, here’s a Bass mirror from Turin last night. Quite a bit of travel to go before we get there, though. A week in Italy was enough to confirm the greatness of Genoa, tick a new country,...
February 2026. Genoa. Well, this is the post you were waiting for, I guess. Hand pumps in Genoa, according to Untappd. You just need to find the Public House*, tucked behind Piazza Banchi, only 5 minutes, but hard to follow the map in...
February 2026. Genoa. It was actually that first morning in Genoa, leaving the grandeur of Via Balbi and those World Heritage palaces and descending to the noise and colour of Via di Prè, a half mile of mult-ethnic shops and barbers and...
February 2026. Camogli. Italy. 25 years ago we flew to Genoa, hired a car, and set off around the Ligurian coast towards the Cinque Terre looking for signs saying “Zimmer Frei” “Camera” to stay for the night. In a world before websites...
February 2025. Genoa. You’ll have to excuse this post, a little worse for wear after a night on the beer in Turin and now watching Mariah Carey introduce the Winter Olympics. Don’t the Italians have any singers ? It’s a dozen years since...
January 2026. Genoa. Mrs RM could stand the constraints of the weekly Sheffield-Waterbeach-Tunbridge Wells shuffle no longer and booked a cheap flights (cheap to us, the cost to the planet is a different issue) to Italy and hoped there...
January 2026. Waterbeach. One more night in Waterbeach before exciting forrin’ travel, and as always it’s Mrs RM who insists we nip in the Sun while waiting for the Chung Hwa to work its magic on squid. I wish Mrs RM would work her magic...
January 2026. Radcliffe on Trent. I’ve just realised when I visited the old Radcliffe GBG entries (one now a Tesco Metro). In 2002, during the South Korean World Cup, I dragged Mrs RM and two toddlers to a camp site in Stragglethorpe, a...
January 2026. Radcliffe on Trent. Pub 3 of 4 on our expertly curated survey of public houses in the ancient Notts village of Radcliffe, whose most attractive feature was some doggy knitwear on the way to the Chestnut. I’d struggle to...
January 2026. Radcliffe on Trent. When I came to Radcliffe to tick the micropub (temporarily closed so no return) in 2019 I’d asked a local; “What about the other pubs in Radcliffe ?” I asked. “Any good ?” “Nah. Too cliquey”. Well,...
January 2026. Radcliffe on Trent. It was Will’s idea, the daft best ones generally are. Someone on CAMRA Discourse admitted the much maligned Craft Union chain had a decent outlet near them, and Will forced the honourable member to name...
January 2026 wasn’t as dramatic as January 2025, thank goodness, but parental concerns still limited our travels. Not that you’d necessarily know that looking at the travel map; Rare trips into Lancashire, Norfolk, and Nottinghamshire’s...