Flightster

Finding the Smallest Pub in Europe… by mistake

• by Jools Stone
• on April 5th, 2011
• 4 Comments

The Circus Tavern, Europe's smallest pub

‘Can you help us please? We’ve come on holiday by mistake.’  This unforgettable line from the classic comedy film Withnail & I brings to mind that old travel chestnut – the joy of finding an absolute gem when and where you least expect it.

Like most travel cliches, this rarely happens to me to be honest. All too often I experience the opposite though. Places you’ve heard others rave about sometimes lose their lustre when you finally get around to checking them out for yourself. I was excited to hear of the DM Baar in Talinn, Estonia. A bar completely themed around electro goth marauders Depeche Mode. Yes, really.  Apparently they even hung out there themselves for a few hours of their last appearance in the city.

Travel Bloggers Unite in the Studio, Manchester

Now I don’t mind ‘fessing up to owning a few of their choice early -t0-mid 80s morsels, so I was keen to see the place.  But when I got there it was completely deserted. Even the barman, sorry baarman, had gone AWOL, meaning that after we had enjoyed the silence we had to give up the ghost after 5 minutes  so and find another bar. (I think that God has a sick sense of humour and when I die I expect to find him laughing…)This time I’m pleased to say that I finally experienced one of those precious travel moments last weekend in Manchester. My third visit to the city was occasioned by a great new travel blogging conference: Travel Bloggers Unite.  This new event looks set to give TBEX a run for its money, bringing together bloggers, travel companies and PRs for an intensive weekend of  networking, learning, debate and serious social media interfacing (in other words: drinking!) in an impressive range of venues.

There are many excellent round ups of the event in the travel bloggodrome already, so I won’t dwell on it too much here, so instead let’s get back to the subject of drinking and my little tale of sweet travel serendipity. So there we were out on the rubbish-strewn streets of Manchester on the Sunday evening, the final night of the conference. Among our party was Megan, a swell American Prague-based blogger fixated with Ireland (confusing eh?) who wanted to experience an authentic, traditional British boozer. No shortage of those in the rainy city of course, but one of our merry band, Sarah ‘five star or nothing’ Lee,  had spied one particular example earlier and so off we went with a clipety clop, our collective compasses set for stun.

Thirty thirsty minutes of fruitless wandering later and we were beginning to lose heart. We couldn’t find the place we originally spotted. It being late on a Sunday night (whatever happened to 24 hour licensing in the UK anyway?) many pubs were either empty of shut. We began contemplating cutting our losses and plumping for a bog standard chain outlet, you know the type – all fruit machines, widescreen sport TVs and surly barmen.

But then, like a mirage in the Kalahari, we stumbled upon something truly special that lit our ruddy little faces right up:

The Circus Tavern: the Smallest Pub in Europe read the plaque outside.

Not Manchester, not Britain, but Europe, what an amazing fluke!  And once inside it did not disappoint. The Circus Tavern basically comprises two rooms, both about the size of the average British front room divided by a ridiculously weeny bar around which its intimate group of regulars were snugly wrapped.  The walls were festooned from floor to ceiling with photographs of its famous clientele, including many of Manchester United footballer George Best (clearly doing little to detract from his reputation), the tables were old, wooden, rickety and suitably ale varnished.

And talking of things suitably ale varnished, we then had the pleasure of meeting a few of these regulars. Barry and Gary were a pair of tradesmen, relaxing after a busy day of plumbing and joining a new bar down the road. Barry, originally from Leeds in Yorkshire, was happy to sing the praises of Manchester, but he had one complaint.

Barry (right) and Gary show us the Manchester Heimlich Manoeuvre

Apparently people keep bumping into him in bars, even when there’s acres of space around him. Now I’m not sure if this picture above does ample justice to the fact, but Barry is built like a brick S***house on steroids, as the saying goes, so you’ll have suspend your incredulity at the thought of anyone daring to make this fatal error, but that’s what the man said, and frankly we weren’t about to argue with him!

His particular method of troubleshooting this problem was to pick them up by the ears and physically re-settle them in another, far corner of the bar. Except you’d be hard pushed to try that in the Circus Tavern…

In the smoking yard outside (the smallest in Europe, probably) the boys were joined by a Frenchman for a lively debate about exactly how dangerous and violent Manchester is and we attempted to explain the concept of how us travel bloggy types scratch a living from our sites before the landlord eventually called time on a surreal and entirely accidental evening of cosy British drinking.

How about you?

What’s your best accidental travel find or your biggest travel let down?

Jools Stone

Jools Stone's blog, He Thought of Trains, chronicles the highs - and occasional lows - of traveling by train in an age of budget flights.