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
May 2026. Targu Mures. Transylvania. Targu Mures was the surprise of our Romanian week, as classy as anywhere we’ve been in Europe, and in the Palace of Culture (£5) you’ve one of Europe’s undiscovered gems. A startling collection of...
A month after the relief of selling Sunnyside, the joy of seeing Matt and Emma move to Stockport. I am so jealous. Forty-four pubs (plus whatever in Romania) in May, not a dud among them, though that heatwave was affecting cask quality...
May 2026. Târgu Mureș. Central Romania. An early night in Medias, before a 6am start on Wednesday morning . Only (great) coffee and ice cream on sale at the kiosk at the Autogare before the early bus to Târgu Mureș, where we arrive with...
May 2026. Medias. Transylvania. Our 7 night, 5 city trip round the heart of Romania had taken in a few of the less obvious stops, a bit like adding nights in Mansfield and Rotherham to your big Yorkshire tour. “Most people who visit...
May 2026. Biertan. Transylvania. Due to Mrs RM’s immaculate travel planning (she could be a pub ticker) we’ve managed to avoid any transport disasters in eastern Europe so far, bar that two hours stuck on a gravel track in small-town...
May 2026. Transylvania. Mrs RM had refreshed her knowledge on dealing with bear attacks (“Play dead. Oh, too late“) as we planned the next stage of our Transylvanian tour over an “autentic” Romanian buzz bar. No crumbs left for the...
May 2026. Sibiu. Central Romania. A couple of nights in one of Transylvania’s top tourist towns, which normally means you ensure you can visit all the best pubs. But in this case it meant we left the highly recommended St Andrews...
May 2026. Sibiu. Central Romania. Sadly for my readers keen to read about Wetherspoons breakfasts and suburban Bass houses, the law of the diary-based blog requires I get to the end of this Romanian week, so come back, ooh, next Monday...
May 2026. Sibiu. Central Romania. Right in the heart of Transylvania, in fact, close to Vlad Dracul’s home in Sighisoara and a string of UNESCO fortified villages. Sibiu isn’t quite as eerily characterful as Sighisoara, it’s busier and a...
May 2026. Sibiu. Romania. The Untappd check-in map tells a tale of a well-pubbed town. Some doubts I’d been having about the strength of the Romanian economy (Sighisoara and Alba Iulia were very quiet by dusk) were removed that first...
May 2026. Alba Iulia to Sibiu. Romania. Day 2, City 3 in Romania, catching the 15.29 with what might be “Corofana”, one of the many totally reliable minibuses listed on Autogari.RO Mrs RM’s blog will contain much, much more detail on...
May 2026. Alba Iulia. Romania. See ! This blog isn’t all closed micros and Singapore rice. Staying overnight within the Alba Iulia fortress gave us a best spot at the changing of the Austrian guard the next morning (Press PLAY). I’ve no...
May 2026. Alba Iulia. A night in the fortress city of Alba Iulia, and in the citadel trenches the only craft beer in town. The fortress had received an expensive makeover (some Romanians we met were scathing about the cost) to make it...
May 2026. Alba Iulia. Romania. Seven days in Romania, five (5) different cities overnight, with the alarm going off at 6am far too frequently for one of us. An hour in Cluj before heading to the station, reminiscent of one of those...
May 2026. Cluj. Romania. Unexpectedly, we seemed to have a week free between “hosting” (ugh) Americans and Pep Guardiola’s farewell (of which less later). As usual, Mrs RM was on the same wavelength as me. “Week in Cluj ?“. The flights...