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
October 2025. Matlock. Matlock always feels a long way away from Sheffield, tucked away on the edge of the Peak, and it’s true you have to get there via an irritating 12 minute change at Derby (irritating in the sense that 12 minutes...
October 2025. Sheffield. I’m still working out how many pubs I’d need to visit to complete the new Good Beer Guide; Simon had worked out his “churn” a month ago. But it hardly matters. There’s no way I’m repeating the heroics of 2022,...
22nd October 2025. Sheffield. “What’s new in Sheffield ?” ask folk heading over for one of the UK’s top pub crawls. Well, lots of new buildings, mainly food courts and flats, but not a lot of new pubs, outside the odd sports bar and a...
October 2025. Waterbeach. A deluge of posts now I’m (briefly, possibly) back “home” in Sheffield with Wi-Fi. Back from a rainy Romania to a damp Luton, we headed straight to see how Dad was recovering from his “bounce”. We also listened...
October 2025. Peles Castle. Sinai. Romania. Mrs RM was so determined to squeeze a Transylvanian castle into her blog our trip that on our final morning in Romania we woke at 6am, took a Bolt to Brasov station, and an hour later were in...
October 2025. Sighisoara. You left us in our astonishing £36.27 Sighisoara guest house wondering where the catch was. A few reviews had mentioned that the breakfast didn’t include drinks, “you’ll pay extra for coffee at Paris prices“....
October 2025. Sighișoara. There are two main challenges writing these foreign blogs. One is finding the right button on the phone for the mysterious “comma below” in Romanian names, the other is limiting the number of photos so you don’t...
October 2025. Sighișoara. Romania. In the Uber on the way back from the bear cuddling Mrs RM devised a radical plan to boost her blog views. Leaving our room in Brasov for a night we caught a Flix bus from the main bus station, where the...
October 2025. Brasov. Five days into our Romanian trip, and it’s time for bears. Mrs RM had decided we could do better than Bran Castle (“a bit Disney), but a visit to Libearty Bear Sanctuary to cuddle grizzlies was a must. What do you...
October 2025. Brasov. Romania. Following lard and brownies at Szimpa Mrs RM needed something more substantial before we left Sfantu Gheorge alone to the tourist rush these last posts will no doubt create. So, for the record (i.e. to jog...
October 2025. Sfântu Gheorghe. Romania. “Not ANOTHER Top 100 pub, Retired Martin !“. Yes, I know I promised that I’d maintain a one in, one out system, so let’s boot out Derby’s Ye Olde Dolphin, which I read has lost its Bass pump. It...
October 2025. Sfântu Gheorghe. Romania. A week in Romania seemed a bit of a risk with Dad and Mrs RM’s folks on the decline; most of our trips have been a 5 day blur. But you need the extra time to tackle Transylvania’s problematic...
October 2025. Brasov. Romania. Four nights in Transylvania, longer than we’d normally spend in one place but Pension Casa Timar was to prove the perfect base to explore the land of impalement and Pale ale*. Brasov is an odd place to...
October 2025. Brasov. Seven days, five cities, 3,568 calories worth of apple strudel. Romania is a gem, easy to negotiate, bar the painfully slow rail network. 2:34 hours on the train to Brasov (pop. 237k) in the centre of the country,...
October 2025. Bucharest. The last of the Bucharest posts, you’ll be delighted to know. If nothing else, Mrs RM will find them useful when she comes to her own more forensic blog and wonders “Where was that fancy meringue ?”. This was...