January 19, 2023
Madeira, Portugal: Lovely Little Island Paradise (for Oldies and Old-Adjacents)by Randi / November 5, 2018
As discussed in the previous post, Madeira, the little Portuguese island off the coast of West Africa, is an amazing little paradise of mountains, gardens, and overall pleasantness. In this post, we are getting down to what matters: the vegan food, and the hotels. Although the remote location means the extreme vegan ballerness of mainland European cities hasn’t reached Funchal yet, there are still lots of good options and cute restaurants to check out. And as far as lodging goes, we stayed in THREE different hotels over this trip! Okay, one was in London and one was not planned, but you’ll see! We had an incredible time in Madeira and you can read about all the sights and stuff to do here.
yep this was taken during a break in barfing. (‘oh it’s pronounced bar-fay’)
My top restaurant recommendation is Coracao (pretend it’s a squiggly c!) Vegano, which has been around, and vegan, since 1973! Amazing job guys. The food took a minute but we had just flown in and we were super hungry so it probably seemed longer than it really was. Before we share the food, look how adorable the restaurant itself is!
Since like I said we were so hungry, we did our usual thing of ordering too much food. We ordered a wrap, a thing called Vegan Lust, and sushi. So yeah, the offerings are eclectic, like lots of vegan cafes, without one clear vision or cuisine. But who cares!
First up, the vegan plate of lust. It contained crispy chicken slabs (is slabs not a good word for food?), bacon slabs (again I ask but what is a better way to describe it?), and salad. It was fine! I love salad and the various vegan slabs were fun.
Next up, the wrap. There’s only one wrap option, the Crispy Wrap, and it has crispy vegan chicken with veggies and salad inside. I loved the filling and wish the wrap itself was sturdier; it fell victim to the disease that kills most wraps – sogginess. Ugh I love wraps so much but haaaate when the wrapping gets too soggy I might dry heave just thinking about it. There is nothing else in the world where suuuuuch a tiny change in status makes me go from loving it to literally barfaying from it. But anyway, it wasn’t as soggy as other wraps I’ve seen in my day, so it was pretty good.
Lastly, sushi! Or what they call Shingen Zushi! It’s a fried tempeh roll and it was DERN GOOD. Man I love tempeh sushi. I want this again! So the food overall at Coracao (squiggly!) is decent, but it’s a must go because it’s kind of a Funchal vegan institution. And it’s rare to find an all-vegan place! I think this is the only one in Funchal, actually. And I adore that they are not shying away from announcing themselves as such or wimping out with referring to some ‘plant-based’ bullshit. Look at the entrance!
Just in case ‘vegano’ in the name wasn’t enough! Love it.
The next restaurant we tried that is worth sharing was called Copaki, which is a little farther down the coast, closer to the Contemporary Art Museum. They aren’t vegetarian but they have a veggie/vegan menu that is really great. Unfortunately, I ordered the wrong thing, like I can’t even believe I ordered it. I had the choice between deep fried aubergine (eggplant), braised tofu (omg want), lasagna (what!!), or fajitas, and like a G-D MORON I chose fajitas, momentarily forgetting that the main component in veggie fajitas are bell peppers and I FORKING HATE bell peppers! What was I thinking? I think I was distracted by the prospect of guacamole. Ughhh I had to eat so many red peppers and they make me nauseous.
first of all that’s not fajitas
Best (not) of all was that the ‘side of vegetables’ was more bell peppers. I mean. So don’t be like me, because I think if you ordered something that there’s a chance of you actually enjoying (e.g. not your least favorite veggie??) then we are all good at Copaki. Still can’t believe it. Luckily, I had some other dishes and they were great. Hard to mess up, but great.
Including:
BRUSCHETTA! I love bruschetta hard. I love it even more when people pronounce it right. (Hot tip: You’re probably doing it wrong.)
Including:
BRUSCHETTA! I love bruschetta hard. I love it even more when people pronounce it right. (Hot tip: You’re probably doing it wrong.)
Ours had mushrooms on top! Approved!
Next, we shared a bowl of soup. I honestly forget what kind of soup this was, but it was a pureed light colored vegetable (there aren’t that many so just you decide) and it was good.
Next, we shared a bowl of soup. I honestly forget what kind of soup this was, but it was a pureed light colored vegetable (there aren’t that many so just you decide) and it was good.
what brand of soup are you
But guess what else! They had a nice vegan dessert, can you believe it? I was expecting nothing more than fruit plates or fruit sorbets, but here they had a vegan puddingy flan type thing with candied puffed wheat bits on top. NICE!
Overall, it was a nice meal, and Copaki is a little more upscale than Corasquiggle if you are looking for a date night or something.
We also stopped by Gigi Sumos one day, a juice bar chain that is on HappyCow and says it has vegan bagels and salads too. Well, they don’t really. They can make a salad vegan by removing all the stuff in it, and they don’t have vegan salad dressings! I asked the staff, but you say you offer vegan salads; how can you do that if you don’t have vegan salad dressings? And you know what they did? They offered me MUSTARD or SWEET CHILI SAUCE. Like, both condiments straight from their bottles, undoctored to be palatable as salad dressings. I mean I chose the sweet chili but DAYUM.
even with avocado it’s sad! and look more bell peppers
Luckily, after that unfortunate stop, we went to the MOST BEAUTIFUL land of produce – Mercado dos Lavradores! This famous market is a must-do for tourists. It’s a giant building full of food vendors. The main hall is vegetables and fruit and nuts and spices and dried fruit and all kinds of good stuff, and there are restaurants and hot food vendors all along the sides. Because it’s so touristed, the produce is expensive, but you can get INSANE stuff. This is where I found my most favorite avocado of all time. You ready? She ready.
Look at those gorgeous things! Do you see the giant avocado? We bought that one that is standing upright – it was bigger than my face. Luckily our travel was intra-EU so we got to bring it home! It made a lot of guacamole. Okay so because it was so big it was kind of bland, but I don’t care, it’s so cool. If it were a rocking chair it would be a stop on a long-drive through the American West.
I don’t have a picture of the next coolest find we made in the Mercado, but I remember it vividly. A few vendors stopped us and made us try pieces of a special Madeiran hybrid fruit called – I shit you not – ‘ADAM’S RIB’. Making things even more interesting, it’s a hybrid of pineapple and banana. And against all odds it sort of reminded me of custard apple! It was more fun than delicious but it still was good enough for us to buy a few. SO FUN.
Okay, that’s it for food in this post. Sadly, we didn’t get to what many say is the best restaurant in Madeira for vegans, Restaurant Olives, but maybe next time. And there’s some happy news: the next Madeira post will be a fancy restaurant review, a part of the Vegan Michelin series!
LODGING
Funchal is the kind of place where you really will want a baller resort to stay in. Without sandy beaches, you’ll want to swim in a nice pool. Also, this isn’t the kind of city like Paris or London where you want to spend as many seconds as possible seeing all the sights because there’s never enough time to see it all (‘there’s no time! there’s NEVER ANY TIME!’). That’s not the vibe here. You’ll see some stuff like I shared in the previous post but you’re gonna want to relax in the hotel. Also, the hotels get the most beautiful beachfront so the views are amazing. We did a lot of research trying to find the nicest place that was still a value for money, and we decided on the Porto Bay resort. Porto Bay actually is three different resorts, and if you stay in one you have access to the amenities (restaurants, gyms, pools, tennis courts, kids clubs (so many families), mini golf, &c) in all three, so it was a great decision. They have the Cliff Bay (which I think is the most expensive), the Porto Santa Maria, and the Porto Mare. We chose the latter. And we liked it, and we loved it.
one of many sun bed areas
This was the view from inside our room.
What’s out there, you ask? Let’s go see!
Oh it’s just one of the FIVE pools at the Porto Mare alone! While I of course swam in this one just to have done it, it wasn’t super hot to make it my regular pool. Luckily, some of those five are indoor. If you know me, you know I love an indoor pool, like to a weird degree. Look how beautiful these options were!
That one was so big it snaked its way to be part outdoor pool. SO FUN.
There were also jacuzzis and steam rooms all over the place. And while the gym was a little hard to get to (down to the basement and then up again sort of?) it was a pretty good gym! My only sadness about this stay is that there were tennis courts literally outside our wing but we didn’t play.
The food at Porto Mare was pretty good too. As with all hotel buffet breakfasts, there was tons of cereal and fruit but nothing great on the hot food side. But, they had Alpro yogurt! So it was overall a win.
Now I bet right now you are thinking, if you loved this place so much why did you say you stayed at a different place? Well, Madeira can get crazy winds, and so it wasn’t a huge surprise that our flight home to London was cancelled because of them. EasyJet transported our entire flight from the airport to a hotel that was much, much better than I expected of EasyJet (I expected a trash motel). It was called the Pestana Ocean Bay.
It’s that green bit. Not the nicest place, but still pretty good. Checking in the entire flight took hours, sadly, as the hotel was not ready for such a madhouse. We were originally given a basement room but it had ants (omg maybe it was a trash motel and I forgot) so I went back to reception and demanded we be moved, and we got a much nicer room on the top floor! Awesome.
We were all given tokens for the dinner buffet, which was fine. Nothing special but they had enough dishes out in the giant buffet that were veg. We talked to some fellow passengers (ack) and wondered when we’d be notified about our rescheduled flight. The email came late that night: they were putting us on a flight the next night/morning at 1 AM!!! ONE. AM. And since this is Madeira, most of the people were supes old! This sucked. We’d get in to London at what, 3-4 am? And back home no earlier than 5am and have to go to work? No no NO this will not stand! Luckily, they offered money back if you chose not to accept their shitastic rescheduling, so we refused and booked a NORMAL HUMAN TIMED flight with British Airways. We still had another whole morning to explore though, so we walked along the beach and the caves near this end of Funchal.
Okay so that’s two hotels; what’s this talk about a third? Well our flight out of London was at 7am, so we decided that rather than getting up at 3 or 4 am beforehand and hating the world on our first day in Madeira, we’d sleep at the airport and only dislike the world on our first day. We stayed at the YotelAir in Gatwick Airport and you know what? It was super fun and comfy. It’s a pod hotel, meaning the rooms are tiny little compartments and you feel like you’re on a submarine or something. (Or an overnight train!!) But it was clean and comfy and even though everything was a weird purple haze, it was great! Nice bed too.
ahhh so similar to our train journeys!
There are buttons to bring the bed down for sleeping!
The check-in process was so smooth, maybe the smoothest at any hotel ever. The staff was super nice. And it was weirdly fun to be able to change into pajamas and then go out and shop at the airport Boots and stuff!
So except for the aforementioned fancy dinner, that’s it for Madeira! I hope you consider it for a future vacay, especially if you are old or have kids. I hope to go back someday! Oh and here is a look at my favorite Funchal graffiti:
Send it to your friends named Sam and have a good day!
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Zagreb Vegan Scene: Green Point
On Saturday night, I was expecting to enjoy a meal at Zrno, but when I arrived around 7:15pm, the sole staffer there told me they were closed. Cue tears (almost). Luckily, I had Green Point marked on my map, and luckily, it’s open pretty late.
Green Point offers vegetarian fast food, which is always necessary to have in a city. It’s a small space, with only a counter behind which the one worker heats up the frozen patties, makes smoothies, and easily prepares whatever else they offer. Obviously, and sadly, there is no bathroom.
Green Point offers vegetarian fast food, which is always necessary to have in a city. It’s a small space, with only a counter behind which the one worker heats up the frozen patties, makes smoothies, and easily prepares whatever else they offer. Obviously, and sadly, there is no bathroom.
On one of the main drags, a tiny cutout of a place houses the vegetarian fast food joint Green Point. It’s easy, quick, and decent. And, thankfully, it’s open past 7pm – a rarity in Zagreb. A lot of the items looked and sounded really interesting, but unfortunately the majority were not vegan. I ordered a hemp burger without cheese (only regular cheese here).
The burger was pretty good. It tasted like slightly more interesting Boca burger, and had bit of spicy salsa, along with tomato and lettuce on a big bun. It needed more sauce to counter all the breading, but there were few vegan options.
The burger was pretty good. It tasted like slightly more interesting Boca burger, and had bit of spicy salsa, along with tomato and lettuce on a big bun. It needed more sauce to counter all the breading, but there were few vegan options.
I also ordered a banana hemp soy milk shake. It was decent, but not as thick or cold as I wanted it to be.
I wouldn’t go out of the way to come here if you are vegan. Vegetarians would have tons more options that looked more interesting. But hey if you are hungry and it’s past 7pm, it’s a great option to have.
I wouldn’t go out of the way to come here if you are vegan. Vegetarians would have tons more options that looked more interesting. But hey if you are hungry and it’s past 7pm, it’s a great option to have.
Green Point, Zagreb
Varšavska ulica 10
Samarkand, Uzbekistan: Gorgeous Preserved History on the Silk Road
In case you couldn’t tell, we weren’t totally loving Uzbekistan. The history was objectively impressive, but the country in general felt a little bit like Tobias and we were his hair plugs: a little like we were not supposed to be there, a little unwelcoming, a little like our presence risked grave medical danger. Okay so maybe not that last part and maybe it’s not the most effective analogy but anyway, that feeling changed with the much more accessible and welcoming Samarkand. Maybe it’s because we had just left Bukhara, which challenged us to love it while doing whatever it could to stop us from loving it, but Samarkand stood out as the one place in Uzbekistan that felt enjoyable, comfortable, and welcoming, at least by Uzbek standards.
A city that may date back to the 8th century BC (I mean we all may date back to the 8th century BC but a lot of historians believe that’s how old it is), Samarkand was once the capital of the Sogdian empire, during some time between 6th century BC to 11th century AD. The Sogdians, you’d learn if you went to Uzbekistan or the recent exhibit at the British Museum, were an ancient Iranian civilization around Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Some Sogdians also lived in China during the Tang dynasty, while others ventured throughout the Byzantine Empire, fulfilling important trade roles on the Silk Route. The Muslim conquering of Transoxiana in the 8th century catalysed the gradual conversion of all Sogdians to Islam. This also led to the decline of the Sogdian language, as many adopted Persian or other Turkic languages instead. We also got by with Russian in Uzbekistan. For some reason, whenever I hear ‘the Sogdians’ my brain thinks of Cher talking about ‘the Haiti-ans’. So if we just went back into the kitchen, rearranged a few things, we could certainly party with the Sogdians.
and may I remind you it does NOT say RVSP on whatever this is!
Anyway, I don’t know why but I was much more amenable to partying with the Sogdians in Samarkand than in the rest of the country. Samarkand, I think, is more tourist-friendly. Or just me-friendly. There were modern buildings and restaurants and stuff, which I was ready for at this point. And the big f-ing things to see were easy to find and see and enjoy. The biggest f-ing thing, the Registan, was as impressive and beautiful as I could have wished, really living up to expectations.
The Registan was once the public square, the main piazza, of the ancient city. All the big news was announced here, all the big executions happened here, things like that. The square is composed of three madrassahs forming a square (the last side is formed by YOU! or whatever): the Ulugh Beg Madrassah, the Tilya-Kori Madrassah, and the Sher-Dor Madrassah. That’s them from left to right, but we went right to left, so that’s how I’ll talk about them. The Sher-Dor Madrassah was built in the 1600s and depicts tigers in mosaics (I think they are supposed to be lions because Sher-Dor means lion-bearing, so I hear so I hear, but come on they look like tigers if they’re a day) which I noticed were cool but I didn’t even realize till later how crazy that really is given that Muslims aren’t supposed to have pictures of living things in religious buildings and stuff. That Yalangtush, the ruler who ordered Sher-Dor to be built, must have been some kind of bad ass, which is easy to believe considering his name has the word tush in it.
The Sher-Dor was the one place where we saw cops guarding the door, I think just because it is closest to the ticketed entrance. But true to what our guide book warned us about, one of the cops offered to take us into the closed minarets at the Ulugh Beg Madrassah across the square so we could climb up it, for a fee of course. We read about how the cops will offer to do this but ask for money, usually more than they first say, so we were not about to go with a stranger danger into a tower and then either pay him whatever he wants or risk having him lock us in. nah thanks. Corrupt cops are everywhere!
lions and tigers and bears! oh my! minus the lions and bears. or minus the tigers and bears, depends on what you see
these are definitely tigers though. On the beautiful grounds of the Registan
Sher-Dor Madrassah
mosaichi gorges
As for the big guy in the center, the Tilya Kori Madrassah was born only a little after the Sher-Dor and operated as a mosque as well, which is why it’s so big I guess. The facade features two stories of the dormitory cells of the madrassah students. But inside is really where it’s at. There’s a hidden courtyard after you enter the Tilya and that and the interior halls are supes gorge. The name ‘Tilya Kori’ means ‘decorated with gold’ I would have guessed ‘see you later’ from the sound of it but that makes more sense I guess. Till ya kori alligator!
not for a while crocodile!
what’s she thinking ‘hmm what was it like to go to college here’ or ‘what is my f-ing hat doing right now’
blue and gold BLUE AND GOLD we will allll uphooooold love will pervade us till death separate us &c &c
Some people, I don’t know who but they sound like very little fun, are upset about how the restoration inside the Tilya Kori has actually, ya know, restored it to such an extent. But look how gorgeous it is now! Who would rather have crumbling cement holes and colors so faded you can’t even see them than this gloriousness? Who on earth really thinks the original artists and architects would prefer to see their work falling apart and disintegrating to preserve ‘authenticity’ rather than having amazing modern people restore it so it remains beautiful? Y’all tripping.
The Registan grounds were almost as gorgeous as the inside bits. I love loved this sea of flowers tipping out from the vase.
so cool flowers
The secret courtyard of the Tilya was also really lovely. I bet by now you are getting the hint that the Registan is completely awesome. Well except for one thing which I’ll mention in a minute.
As for the Ulugh Beg Madrassah, it was named after – you guessed it – the famed Ulugh Beg, the 14th century Timurid ruler. That’s not his real name – the real one has some Muhammeds and some bins in there – but a moniker he garnered because it basically means ‘great ruler’. So, fun fact, Beg is the part that means ruler or chief, from the old Turkic ‘bey’ which means chief in that way. So we see, Beyonce is Queen Bey for a reason. Names are powerful. Not just a ruler, Ulugh Beg was also an astronomer and mathematician, specializing in spherical geometry (I mean), which is why the inside of his namesake madrassah was decorated with constellations galore. It was really cool to follow all the stars and see which ones I recognized (zero) or knew the names of before (six).
The Ulugh Beg is the oldest of the three buildings, and according to our book is ‘considered the best of the three’ which just seems like unnecessary favoritism that threatens to spark infighting among the buildings.
Okay I know I said there was just one thing to complain about here at the Registan but come on it’s me. There are three. The biggest annoyance was that, despite how sacred and important this place is, there are touts everywhere, covering every inch of space selling their crappy knickknacks which okay fine you’re trying to make a living but no they hound you and it takes most of your energy to get them to stop and that’s energy you should be using to gaze upon the sights and not harrumph irritably. Harrumph I said HARRUMPH.
The only sellers I enjoyed were whoever was in charge of getting tourists to dress in traditional costume. Looked so fun and would have for silly pictures but lice.
Numbers two and three have to do with money, not that anything here was expensive but it’s just the principle of the thing. Our not-so-old book says that the ticket into the Registan costs 4000 Uzbeki som, but they charged us 30,000 each! That’s some crazy markup! And they only charged the Uzbek people who went in before us 1000. I get charging foreigners more, it happens, but damn that’s a lot more. It’s still stupid cheap for being the most important site in the area but stilllll. Even more annoying, though, was that after paying all that som, the bathrooms inside the Registan grounds were still another 1000 som. Like after you pay 30,000 to enter the place you still have to pay for the toilet? Bitch please.
musicians on the rounds of the Registan
Other than those grievances, the Registan was spectacular.
On to the next!
The next mosque on our list was the Bibi Khanum Mosque, which was built to house 10,000 people. That’s a lot of praying going on. Luckily there were not that many people inside when we visited, although I did see Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Uzbek doppelganger. When the Bibi (HABIBI!) was first built, it didn’t last long before it started falling apart at the seams (not seams) (not a robot). Maybe it was too big, maybe it was built too fast, maybe it was seismic activity, maybe Tamerlane (remember we have learned about him in past posts but don’t worry we will talk about him again in a few minutes) was just too pissed at the architect for kissing his wife and so he cursed the place — all of these reasons have been put forward to explain the collapse. Yes even that last one. Apparently the architect fell in love with Tamerlane’s wife, whose name was Bibi Khanum so yeah not hard to believe since the mosque just happens to be named after her. So legend goes, Archie kissed Bibi and it permanently scarred her lips, so Tamerlane was suitably pissed and called for the executioner, but Archie climbed to the top of a minaret, sprouted wings, and flew to Persia. I don’t believe it, but I am not surprised that yet another ancient tale has only the woman, the one who didn’t do anything but get victimized, be the only one who actually suffers punishment. Cool story bros.
Luckily, after falling apart for hundos of years and then collapsing even more in an earthquake, they restored the Bibi Khanum in the ’70s so now we can visit and be safe.
this is my ‘is that Lin-Manuel no of course it isn’t you idiot why on earth would he be in Uzbekistan but that guy does look poetic and he’s writing in a little journal should i tell him he looks like Lin no he doesn’t know who that is and probably doesn’t speak English stop being weird’ face
Our next and final stop on the historical sites tour is the Gur Emir Mausoleum, which we could see from our hotel. The mausoleum is home(?) to several important members of the Timur family, including Amir Timur himself, better known as Tamerlane. In case you forget from past blog posts, Tamerlane was a big f-ing deal, a Turco-Mongol conqueror in the 1300s. He founded the Timurid Empire in Persia and Central Asia, leading military campaigns across most of Asia, the Caucasus (‘Dolokhov was in the Caucasus and he killed the shah’s brother. Now all the Moscow ladies are MAD about him!’ anyone??) and southern Russia. He was the most powerful ruler of his time in the Muslim world after he defeated some super biggies like Egypt and the Ottoman Empire. He was responsible for apparently 17 million deaths! That’s a lot! Why do humans revere people like this!
Gur Emir Mausoleum
This mausoleum wasn’t actually supposed to contain Tamerlane’s remains – it was originally built for his favorite grandson, Mohammed Sultan (an ungoogleable name now) (also what a creepy gift for anyone! here i built you a big coffin for when you die! jesus christ I wanted a bicycle), but then Tamerlane died unexpectedly in 1405 (do they really not think he was murdered I can name a million possible suspects and I wasn’t even there) and his mausoleum wasn’t done yet, so he was like ‘well I’m dead and my place is unfinished so just put me in here I guess’. His other grandson, Ulugh Beg, is in there too. Yep that was his grandson! Such nepotism, so wow.
The giant slab of jade on Amir Timur’s coffin was stolen by Persian invaders, but they returned it because it had brought them bad luck, which I find HILARIOUS. There’s a giant bowl in this morbid room too, which I don’t think the picture shows, but anyway Tamerlane would always fill the bowl with pomegranate juice and make his troops drink from it pre-battle to symbolize drinking the blood of the enemy, which is enough to put me off pomegranate juice for good.
But it wasn’t all fun and games. I mean death and mosques. We also had fun food experiences! As I now expect in these Silk Road cities, there was a kickin bazaar overflowing with produce and bread and people, and Samarkand’s was pretty great. As usual, we stuffed ourselves with amazing bread and stocked up on fruit for our travels. But Samarkand’s bazaar stood out for me because it also had fantastic halvah, which is a favorite of mine and all people with good taste.
WANT
I hate red pepper but I love this picture
As you can see, there was plenty of food, as was the case for most of the cities we visited on this trip, but finding restaurants with vegan menu items was harder. We had a rough time in Samarkand due pretty much just to bad luck in choosing crappy places, but one restaurant was great. Platan, which I found via HappyCow (the only entry for Samarkand, and for dern good reason), was a nice quiet restaurant inside a hotel on the fancier end of things. The food on offer was like classic Russian stuff I had on the Trans-Siberian – cabbage salads and beans and stuff. It was decent and I liked it and I loved it. The only annoying thing about Platan was that to pay with credit card, you have to go into the bar in the hotel, which is not very civilized at all and was a great mess and super uncomfortable and time consuming. But hey, they took credit card. Not common.
Of course, I ordered the vitaminka salad, because I always do. This one had actual lettuce (and a lottt of cilantro), which I enjoyed because I love lettuce and that’s usually all I ever put in my salads. I was thrilled to see lobio on the menu despite this not being a Georgian restaurant! Yay beans! I love you beans!
I also got a dish of hot cabbage and root vegetables because I love me some hot cabbage and root vegetables. Yum!
Honestly the best meal in Samarkand was our hotel breakfast. And our hotel was the best place in town. I’m so obsessed. L’Argamak was brand spanking new, so everything was super clean and fresh and lovely. And the staff was the nicest, most accommodating I’ve ever encountered. They bent over backward to make sure we had everything to our liking, which can get really uncomfortable but they were just so goddamn kind that it was great. And the breakfast was gorgeous. They have all these fruits and jams made from fruit growing in their garden. Loves it.
WATERMELON
Oh and I did indeed eat all of that watermelon and honeydew because this was the spread just for the two of us. Okay I shared with Husband but my point is, they did all this just for the two of us. Ahhhhh they were the best! And breakfast was served on the gorgeous patio amid the gorgeous fruit trees and omg it was like you weren’t even in Uzbekistan.
The view from breakfast
So Samarkand was pretty great, and not just because of L’Argamak. The sites were impressive and imposing and interesting. (And I found halvah and I had a good bed!) So much greatness. Of course, this was still Uzbekistan, so it was still full of some weird. Like how all the streets were lined with deep gutters that were f-ing dangerous as hell if you didn’t stare at the ground every time you were walking outside.
You had to hop across every road to get out of the road! Least accessible city ever!
And public transit leaves something to be desired. We didn’t even try using the buses after we saw this:
What is this, China??
But aside from my minor quibbles, Samarkand was by far my favorite place in Uzbekistan. (We still have several stops to talk about, but you’ll see.) The historic sights really were awesome and worth seeing. And if you for some reason are going to Uzbekistan, you’ll have to go to Samarkand and stay at L’Argamak. My favorite thing, okay one of many favorites as is expected with me, was our view of the Gur Emir Mausoleum from our balcony, especially at night. It captures that kind of ancient magic you feel in this place, all in the comfort of a clean hotel with a working new toilet so you know that makes me happy.
NIGHT MAN! AHHHHH!
That’s all, Samarkand! You’re a nice town thanks for letting us enjoy ourselves.
FIGHTER OF THE DAY MAN!
