A Mediterranean Beer Tour

From Barcelona to Pisa, our goal was to have lunch at open-air cafes, preferably a seaside cafe, to sample the local cuisine and the local beverages. The coasts of Spain, France, and Italy are not known for beer, but I figured we'd have plenty of wine at dinner, so lunches were usually accompanied by beer. Some of it was pretty good. Herewith is a travelogue of sorts. There was some spectacular scenery and some quaint old cities and fortresses and castles and palaces and cathedrals. These will be featured another day, perhaps.

For now....the beer!

Portoferraio is the main city on the Italian island of Elba. We visited lots of historic places, including the theater that Napoleon built during his brief stay on Elba. Next to the theater is a nice little bistro called, naturally, Teatro. They bill it as a wine bar, but I had the local ale. It was unexceptional, but the setting is lovely and the food was very good. We enjoyed Portoferraio.

The main city on the Spanish island of Majorca is Palma de Majorca. It is much bigger and busier than we anticipated. We didn't stay long in Palma, instead hopping an old narrow-guage train to the village of Soller. In Soller we were surprised to find an exhibit of Picasso's pottery and some very nice Joan Miro prints. Our lunch of tapas was accompanied by Rosa Blanca beer, described on the label as "hoppy lager." It was very good!

Here's a photo of the square with the restaurant and the big old church.

 Menorca, a very small Spanish island, was a lot of fun. We learned that it is famous for its gin and for sandals made from old car tires and cork. We did not buy any gin or sandals, but we did enjoy tapas al fresco, along with a beer call Alhambra. I do not know why it is so named, but I liked it.

The restaurant was on the plaza at the top of these steps. Somebody said there are are 150 steps, but I only counted 115.

And in Nice, France, we had the best dinner of the trip at a place called Zorzetto, where the chef sat down at our table and described the appetizers he had prepared. There were a dozen and we had them all! The first course I had wine, but the second course I asked for beer and the waiter was excited because people in Nice prefer wine but this guy was a beer afficionado. The beer was "Biere du Compte" or The Count's Beer. The waiter's enthusiasm was justified.

In the bathroom at Zorzetto, patrons are greeted by the mascot of the house:

Barcelona is a great place for tapas (in case you hadn't guessed). At a bar across the street from our hotel, we had tapas and the local IPA, which was probably the best beer on the trip.