Perhaps I didn't express this properly but I found Google's C++ dialect quite easy to work with, readable and intuitive because it banned things like exceptions, writing your own templates and no mutable reference function parameters.

Also I found the protocol buffers and RPC C++ bindings to be straightforward. YMMV.

Additionally the tooling reasonably pleasant (at least for "leaf" projects in the build system).

I know if I were starting a C++ project from scratch that after questioning my life choices that led me to this point, I'd just auto-start with Bazel, Abseil, Gflags, GLog and GTest. The whole thing would also have to work with CLion.