Category: Gigs Abroad

Gigs from Abroad Part 12 – Majorca

My first ever holiday abroad was in 1986 at the age of 18 to the Palma Nova resort in Majorca. My old pal Rick Clegg had managed to craftily purloin us the holiday through some chicanery from his employers at the time, a short-lived travel agent company called Jet Wing. The firm was based in Winckley Square, just round the corner from the Winckleys public house in Preston.  

Site of the old Winckleys Public House. Image Credit mawconsulting.co.uk

We were booked on night flights, and I recall us watching the latest episode of Minder before the parental lift to the Aeroporto. On arrival at the apartment complex, we discovered there was no room allocated to us, but they finally found us some digs right next to reception, though it looked like we had taken the room off other previous residents, as there were several feral cats residing outside the patio doors giving us the evil eye!

Whilst there we had many games of pool and Galaxians via 25 peseta coins and lashings of dirty beer. On the Saturday we had to utilise the services of World Service in a bar to retrieve the PNE result. Somewhat predictably, we nearly ran out of money on the last day as the final traveller’s cheque drained away!   

Galaxians. Image Credit blogspot.com

The returning flight was unfortunately redirected to Luton resulting in a 3-hour coach ride back to Manchester. I crawled into bed about 8am before being rudely awakened by a phone call from Rick about 3pm, who had reawakened his Boddingtons Bitter dependency that very lunchtime!  

Majorca is the largest island of the Balearic Islands and is a huge tourist destination with around 28 million passengers passing through Palma De Mallorca airport every year. It has the odd fleshpot locations, but there are many beautiful spots on the island. One of my sporting heroes, the tennis player Rafa Nadal was born and raised and still lives there in Manacor. Other previous and current musical residents include Eakthay Ahn, composer of the Korean national anthem, John Lennon’s ex-wife Cynthia, dance producer DJ Sammy and Sheila Ferguson from the Three Degrees.    

Sheila Ferguson. Image Credit Broadway World.

In subsequent years we have stayed in the resorts of Santa Ponsa and Cala D’or. In 2013 we headed to the most northerly resort of Alcudia. This sits close to Puerto Pollensa and the very picturesque old town of Pollensa old town.

In the resort there was a comfy friendly bar with sofas called Alcudia Bar Du 1. The first time I ever visited the owner who I had never met gave me a bear hug, which was slightly disconcerting, but he was full of joie de vivre!  They had a large open-air stage and we saw a decent set there from a band called Soulsearchers.  Further down the promenade there was another stage at Alcudia Harbour where we saw an act called Tres Quatro.

Throughout the fortnight I was tracking Andy Murray’s progress at Wimbledon before we headed home a couple of days before he secured his maiden title. We had glorious weather whilst we were away, and I recall we brought it home with us as Britain had a sustained heatwave for the next few weeks. 

We were able to fly in and out of our small local airport at Blackpool which had the added benefit of instantly accessing the car park outside the building and a very short 30-minute commute home. Unfortunately, it was a last trip out of Blackpool as the airport shut permanently a couple of years later.

Gigs from Abroad Part 11 – Lisbon

Portugal has always been one of my favourite countries to visit and I have had two separate holidays to the Algarve resort over the years. I have never had opportunity yet to visit Porto but have been fortunate to have visited the vibrant city of Lisbon twice.

Lisbon is the capital city of Portugal with a population of around half a million, it has a spacious harbour area and serves as a gateway to both the Mediterranean Sea and Northern Europe. The city suffered a huge earthquake and subsequent fires and tsunami in 1755, which could most certainly be quantified as a ‘bad day’, before it was subsequently rebuilt.

Lisbon skyline. Image Credit wallsdesk.com

In 2005, Lisbon hosted the MTV Europe Music awards with an ‘understated’ opening sequence of a leotard clad Madonna bursting out a shiny disco ball! It is also the host city for the Portuguese version of Rock in Rio, which is allegedly the largest rock festival in the World.    

In 2010 Gill and I had four nights there and initially managed to navigate the local bus from the airport to find our hotel near to the metro station of Parque. There was a local El Corte Ingles, or ‘Debenhams’ as I used to call it, in the basement of said establishment there was a terrific little tapas bar which fortuitously was located adjacent to the metro entrance.

The metro itself was clean and highly effective to traverse on and contained the most extended escalator I can recall at one of the station stops in the Old Town, longer even than the one at Angel tube station in London. In my humble opinion I have also sampled some of the finest curries ever whilst in Portugal as the combination of hot weather and the clay oven cooking style enhances them immensely.

We had booked the trip a substantial time period before we actually travelled but we discovered that Benfica, one of the two football teams in the city were playing at home in the Europa League on our final night there and it soon become evident that the opponents were to be Liverpool. We inadvertently headed to a shopping arcade near the ground on match day and the crowds were beginning to gather.

We then had some tea near the main train station whilst the match was on with Benfica obtaining a controversial 2-1 win before Liverpool triumphed overall after the second leg the following week. Post-food we headed out of town and stayed local for the rest of the evening to avoid any after match activity. The following day our flight back was into Liverpool, which was delayed, there were a few casualties on the plane but overall, thankfully most wanted to sleep and just desired to arrive home as quickly as possible.

In February 2016 the annual lads trip made its longest commute thus far by paying a visit to the city. On the traditional train trip on the Saturday, we visited Sintra which was a 45-minute trip away. We had a sally around the town and visited a little battered bar next to the station.

Pena Castle Sintra. Image Credit travelawaits.com

We had unfortunately and inadvertently picked the coldest February weekend for many years to visit and as a result we didn’t over dwell in the harbour area. In one bar we saw Leicester obtain a last-minute winner which was celebrated by the neutrals in residence as they were in the process of progressing to their most unlikely title triumph that year.

In the evenings we were in residence in the old town around Barrio Alto with many pop-up establishments everywhere, numerous doorways just opening to reveal small bars later on in the evening or even early in the morning. In one such establishment Lisbon Arroz Doce we sampled some of the local nostalgic fado music by watching an act called Vanessa Bowl. The bar name itself translates as a local moniker for rice pudding and opens until 3am at the weekends.    

Lisbon Arroz Doce. Image Credit en.tripadvisor.com.hk

On a topical footnote, my blog provider contacted me last week regarding whether I desired to utilise their AI capability to craft my articles. After my initial reaction of being somewhat insulted, my next thought was that it was an oxymoron as they could never ever replicate my personal experiences. So, for the record this is the ‘Real Jimmy’ not the ‘AI Jimmy’ continuing to pen these missives!