My life in travel Alice Levine
The presenter on the best churros breakfast in Mexico and rock pooling in Cornwall
I GOT STUCK ON THE TARMAC FOR HOURS after an emergency landing in Beijing. The plane was hot and everyone was irritated. They didn’t have another meal to give us, but with a frenzy that was unnerving from cabin crew, they doled out Gü chocolate pots until we had three or four each. A lack of spoons meant people were using their fingers – it was gross. We didn’t have paperwork for Beijing because no one expected to go there. When they let us off the plane, they took our passports and gave us an armed escort to a hotel.
A TRIP TO CORNWALL WILL ALWAYS BE NOVEL AND SATISFYING in my view. I’ve been going since I was small and have such happy memories – it has this lovely home-from-home feeling to it. Catching the sleeper train from Paddington and arriving early always feels magical. I love that train journey in the morning when it comes around to this particularly beautiful stretch of coast. We always stay in St Ives, in an artists’ apartment on Porthmeor Beach.
WE DID SURF SCHOOL AND ROCK POOLING when we were kids but, as we got older, my mum would make us wade out to get clams. It was always: “But mum, it’s so rainy and blustery!” and she’d roll up our jeans and say it was fine. She’d make spaghetti vongole, claiming: “We need this, because we’ve been in the sea!” And I’d be like: “I’m not sure we can justify this huge bowl of pasta with huge amounts of olive oil – but maybe, yeah!”
I WAS ON HIGH ALERT IN THAILAND when I went travelling there at 18. I’d watched The Beach, and Brokedown Palace, a film about being thrown in a Bangkok jail for accidental drug smuggling. This gave me all the cultural education and scaremongering I needed
crime and I resolved to wear a skin-coloured bum bag to hold my money! I went with a friend, and this was meant to be our independent adventure, but some childhood mates of hers were Thai and had family there, so we kept getting passed around the relatives. It didn’t feel like we were blazing a trail, but in retrospect we saw some cool places.
WE LOVED SWIMMING AND SNORKELLING but we are both very much factor 50 crew. There’s a photo of me incredibly burnt, and it’s the last time I
went without sun cream. My “Brits abroad burn” was my wake-up call!
I FELL OFF MY BICYCLE on the journey back from La Banchina in Copenhagen. It’s a teeny restaurant on a wooden jetty, a 20-minute cycle ride from the city centre. There’s a sauna, and each day there is only one thing on the menu, which they’ll often cook out in the open. People have a drink, go in the sauna, then jump in the water. It was beautiful watching the sun go down, and the natural wine was so easy to drink. Then I remembered: “Oh, we have to cycle back, don’t we?” I usually know how to ride a bike, but I had a really bad fall. That’s the only risk, but it’s a special place.
I WISHED I’D LEFT MORE ROOM IN MY SUITCASE when I visited Puglia, Italy. I was collaborating on a ceramics collection, so I went to Grottaglie, a ceramics town, for inspiration, and to meet the Fasano family who were proabout
ducing the designs. They have workshops inside grottos, and have been making ceramics for generations. I bought the most beautiful presents I’ve ever bought for anybody, and I was like: “Why did I bring pants and socks? I should have left more room!”
I MADE SURE I DIDN’T MISS THE BREAKFASTS at the Red Tree House hotel in Mexico City. A friend’s advice was: “Get up early and go straight to breakfast, or the churros will be gone!” They were incredibly fresh fried dough, sprinkled with sugar and served with fruit – the best breakfast I’ve eaten.
TOURING IS QUITE ROCK’N’ROLL. I’m a square, so I’ve never had a throwing-a-TV-out-of-the-window moment, but it felt crazy to be playing Sydney Opera House. We were doing My Dad Wrote a Porno [a show based on the podcast] and it was like, “How have we gone from reading my friend’s dad’s erotic novel, to Sydney Opera House?” We
crossed paths with Lizzo [the US singer] in the hotel. She has fantastic stage outfits, so she was in something really glamorous. James, from the podcast, was furious that we didn’t realise she was playing the night before – as if she’d want to give us comps to her show so she could come to ours!
I GET A LOVELY FEELING OF FAMILIARITY WHEN I VISIT PORTPATRICK on the west coast of Scotland. It’s a pretty little harbour village, near where my mum grew up. When she was a teenager, she worked at the huge hotel on the cliff. When we visited my grandma, we’d ask: “Are we going to Portpatrick?” We’d pitch and putt, get chips and crab sandwiches from a pub on the front, and clamber on the rocks.
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