Berlin and on to Prague: 28-29 April

Berlin was a quick stop overnight to break up the train journey.  It is a long way from Amersfoort to Prague, but the trains whistle along and are comfortable and pleasant.


Berlin overnight stop and day's local touring was OK but it wasn't enough to convince to come back.  While in Berlin we received an email saying that a planned accommodation in Poland had been cancelled and so this left a sizeable gap in the plans, presenting both a problem to solve and an opportunity.  Essentially there were now 8 days gap to plan, bookended by Prague and Warsaw.  A much-considered option was to come back to Germany after Prague to see some of the towns in Saxony, doing a bit of a Bach/Luther pilgrimage of sorts.  Nice idea but accommodation showed itself very expensive or unavailable, some travel practicalities difficult (e.g. luggage, sickness, fatigue) and so we deferred any decision until our planned five days in Prague showed its colours.

Train trip to Prague supplied one of those little human interaction highlights that are the best parts of all the travel.  We had booked two window seats of a 6-person train booth and as we get on we see my seat occupied by an old man, looking very comfortable and cosy.  I nobly resisted the temptation of turfing him bodily out of my chair (... cut to picture of the Father Bear and Goldilocks here ...)  and waited stealthily for an opportunity to arise where like in Musical Chairs he stands up and I grab it leaving him out and forlorn.  He was 90, and travelling alone back to Prague, but was bright and active and so I needed to watch carefully for my seat-changing attack as I'm sure he was on-guard.  Well, while I waited ... and waited ... there was a little conversation in the booth.  The fun thing was, unlike every other language encounter so far where everyone's knowledge of English exceeds my knowledge of French, Spanish, German, Dutch, Welsh, Cornish, Czech, Polish by a hundred-fold, the old man knew no English.  Which matched perfectly my comprehensive knowledge of no Czech!  The common language between us then was German, firstly interpreted by another man in the booth who disembarked at Dresden but then it was just he and I, so I prepared to lock horns in my high school German.  Telling him that the post office was closed and that I drank lemonade wasn't going to convince of my morally superior right to my window seat (mit Fenster und Tisch) and so we both dug deep and had an infantile exchange of information in German.  His, of course, was ten times my knowledge, but it was a lot of fun and I remembered a few words.  In the end of it he never stood up from my seat and so I was defeated through his clever defensive strategy and so the game was over, Czech-mate.   I marvel at such a man, 90 and travelling merrily.  I amused him showing the mobile phone and its ability to look up words and translate them (Google Translate).  90 years old means born in Czechoslovakia in 1927, and seeing 1938's Sudetanland Crisis and German/Polish/Hungarian invasion, Russian liberation and end of war, expulsion of German population, Communism and its repressions, revolution and Russian invasion, Velvet Revolution, EU and modern times.  That would have been a fascinating and terrible story to have been able to hear.

Netherlands

Amersfoort was our residence for three nights.  Nice little town, not all that far from Amsterdam, so clean and organised and bike-friendly. 

We had timed our visit for the King's Day (Koningsdag) on 27th April, and had a great day with Martha's cousin Anke and her family for the local fun in Nijkerk, and with cousin Mirjam joining us at Harderwijk for more in the old town, salt herrings and kibling etc.  For the evening we got as far as Martha's auntie's and Uncle's farm near Zwolle for evening meal and wander around to see the horses.  All in all a highlight day of our trip.



Amersfoort is a train stop for the long journey to Prague via Berlin ...

Wales, Cornwall and Somerset: Leaving England

On April 25th we flew from Exeter airport to Amsterdam, and so ended our trip to England.  It has been a very good and memorable one.  Somehow we did as the song suggested and took the weather with us, wherever we went.  So, not quite Australian weather but certainly comfortable and rainless skies followed us around.


The weeks leading up to our April 25 flight were filled with visits to friends, relaxing, touring and sight-seeing.  We were honoured to have caught up with Daphne and Tommy in Port Talbot near Swansea, where Daphne treated us appropriately like Lord and Lady Muck, feeding us and driving us around.  I enjoyed at Swansea Markets an old childhood memory taste treat in the form of cockles.  Lots of them available by the shovel full and straight from market to mouth was a joy (not so thinks my travelling companion).  An interesting variation on this is cockles and laverbread (a local Welsh delicacy) which I had for breakfast - is tasty and unusual but to be had in small quantities for my taste. 

Drives up in the hills were lovely, overlooking the famous coal-mining valleys of old.

From Wales we drove to St Buryan, Cornwall via Broadwell, Gloucester, Trull, Okehampton.  A long day driving but one that took us for a precious couple of hours to see Alicia Waitt (Broomfield) in Broadwell and her three lovely little boys.  Poor little Oscar was a bit sick and sleepy :(

Gloucester was an efficient visit to ancient town centre, cathedral and a cute Beatrix Potter shop and museum at the site of the famous Tailor of Gloucester and all his helpful mice.

St Buryan, way out west in Cornwall beyond Penzance, was a lovely farm-stay for three nights.  Got to wander around some ancient stone circles, dodge our way down the craziest of narrow hedgerow-lined lanes, eat Cornish pasties and clotted cream (not together), and see charming fishing villages on our touring days.

Was wonderful to see Alan and Valerie again and enjoyed our cup of tea with them and talked and talked and saw old photographs of Cornwall days.  Port Isaac was fun to stop at on way back to our final days in Taunton.  Enjoyed hospitality of Julie and Paul, went to a classical choral concert at St James church, some last catching up with several friends.


Finally with relief returning the hire car without dent but arguably not without Cornish/Somerset hedgerow scratches and the plane leaves with us on it and we bid farewell once again to my homeland.

Trull: Home away from home (10th to 17th April)

Monday evening April 10 through to Monday morning April 17th our home was with our wonderful and hospitable host Alison.  This is like a holiday within a holiday, appropriately in the very centre of the trip.  Been a lovely stay here and enjoyed the friendship and food and getting to know her delightful children, not to mention our little hero Toffee the Border Terrier (also known locally as Wonder-Dog - see previous blog for his famous exploits).


The 7 days here have been a fair bit of taking it easy, eating too much, some local sight-seeing, re-finding bits of Taunton town and Trull village, drives through Churchinford area.  Martha gets herself a cold/flu and hence slows her down, likely due to an arduous trek from Beer to Seaton and back.  I did Longrun Meadow (Taunton) ParkRun and find that ParkRun is very popular here as shown by the 400+ attendance.  Easter-time now with Church services and Easter eggs, family dinners, children home from University, school holidays.  Catching up with several friends from our days here in 2004.


Couple of pictures of beautiful Trull and here-abouts, will add some more later:

Vivary Park, Taunton



Sherford Stream, near Trull

Traffic jam near Churchinford

Plymouth (9th April)

First sight of land in Devon

Took the Brittany Ferries' Pont Aven from Roscoff to Plymouth during the day Sunday 9th.  Six-hour trip, this being our boat cruise for the trip.  Very nice, big boat that travels between Roscoff and Plymouth at least daily.  Carries cars and foot passengers and has cafe's and bars, cinema and shops etc.  Made it into Plymouth with plenty of time for some exploring, found a good church service in St Andrew's, in the centre of the town.

Warm sunny day at the Hoe

Comfortable and friendly stay at The Caraneal B&B, took a trip for a couple of hours over to Cornwall on the Cremyll Ferry, which crosses the Tamar to Mount Edgcumbe.  Fun little boat ride that takes just a few minutes, then wander around the gardens there.  A friendly old volunteer man took us on a ride around the grounds and up to the old house on his little buggy.  Rushed lunch at pub in order to catch the boat back to meet time objectives but then possible disaster struck in that my backpack (complete with all the important things we didn't want to leave unlocked in the B&B, like passports, laptop, tickets etc.) had mysteriously disappeared.  Of great relief to us, I had left the bag an hour before in an ice-cream shop at the top of the hill, and our volunteer buggy driver came to the rescue and scooted us up the hill to find the bag intact and complete.  Losing bags with everything in it is not a recommended travel tip, so I have come to learn.

First sightings of the Promised Land across the Tamar -
See the sign in the middle?

The rest of the day was travel fun not without challenge but we took train to Exeter, taxi to airport from where we picked up a hire car and drove across the Blackdown Hills to what feels like our second home:  Trull, Taunton, Somerset.

Hire car came with a bonus, achieved through the combination of a Caramel Koala and my charm and wit, in that we had the car upgraded to a nice Seat Ibiza automatic for only a few extra pounds.  Martha happy to have an auto at last.

 

Toffee the Wonder-Dog

One moonlit night in Trull’s fair streets

There lurked a fearsome foe

All ready to torment the folk

Who evening stroll would go

This foe appeared upon the street

The play-thing of a cat

But after cat did run away

It showed itself: A rat!

A mighty rat, a foot in size,

(At least appeared to be)

No wonder cat did run away

And climb up high in tree*

How could the village life be good

And people walk at ease,

When such a fiendish villain roams

And scare whoe’er it sees?

But just when darkness seemed to loom

And hope be far away

There rose a hero, full of fur

To stand and save the day!

No knight on horse, no sirened car

Did rush with doubled speed

But hero Toffee “Wonder-Dog”

Was there to do the deed.

Now some malign our canine friend

And call him nasty names

And misinterpret all the fur

That covers his lean frame

And think that just because his run

Is leisurely at best

That Toffee isn’t quite the dog

For a triumphant quest.

But Toffee showed the scoffers what

A dog of his kind does

And showed the muscle and the grit

That lurked beneath that fuzz

He jumped upon the helpless rat

At supersonic pace

And very soon the rodent, bad,

Had given up the race

His owner proud let out a squeal

Unscathed but not unshook

And went back home to tell the tale

Or even write a book.

For surely this brave deed of dog

With neither fear nor fret

Is worthy of a story in

The Somerset Gazette.

So there be ended up our tale

Of Toffee and the Rat

So proving that our Toffee’s size

Is muscle, fur … not fat!

* (actually a wall but it didn’t rhyme)



Toffee the Wonder-Dog, graciously letting me
carry him after he conquered Mount Beer in Devon

Caen to Roscoff (7th and 8th April)

Friday morning exploring Caen before the long journey to the ferry port village of Roscoff, way out west in Brittany.  Caen was great - we found a market, first real market we've experienced in France and it had stalls and stalls of everything.  Pastel de Nata pastries (Portuguese custard tart) my favourite, every sort of seafood still wriggling, cheese, vegetables, cooked food, books, etc.

Long train to Roscoff via Rennes where we picked up our suitcases in exchange for a Caramel Koala.  We figured that a Caramel Koala would be good universal currency.


Roscoff is a nice place.  Ferry port is on one side of it and clearly contributes to the flow of people through the village and the many restaurants with English-speaking friendly menus.  But still the same sort of beautiful French village experienced all across Normandy and Brittany with its exceptional patisseries and beautiful houses and friendly people.  Walked our legs off once again, saw boats coming in laden with crabs and witnessed the fun of the unloading and filling crates full of the crawling things.  Nice big shiny brown crab for 6 Euro ($9) per kilo sold live on the jetty direct from the boat.  Wonder what similar crab costs in Aus?

Roscoff harbour at low tide, imagine the water up to a few metres from the top within 6 hours.
Note the really interesting bell tower of the church on the right, though probably too hard to see in this picture.

Rouen-Lisieux-Caen (6th April)

Ambitious travel day leaving Vernon and spending time in each of Rouen and Lisieux before overnighting at Caen.  Travel challenges all went well, and enjoyed each of the towns.


Rouen was a quick cathedral visit, morning tea, art gallery.  Plenty of Monet works here, including one of his famous Rouen Cathedral pictures.  Joan of Arc a popular figure, interesting life story that I had never taken time to read: much original primary material available due to the fact that she was tried and convicted, then a few years later retried and acquitted (a little late for poor Joan).  As notes and interviews from both the first trial and retrial were taken and not lost, a fair bit of the real story came to light after the documents were dug up centuries after.

Interesting detail in Rouen Cathedral 

Lisieux was of interest to me because I have a favourite cup from which I drink tea that has a picture of a church from Taunton on one side, and a picture from Lisieux on the other, the town and city being sister cities and all.  So, amused me to drop in on the place.  A nice visit, good lunch, patisseries everywhere etc. as has come to be expected in Normandy.  Lisieux happens to be the second most visited place, as a destination for pilgrimage, in France.  St Therese of Lisieux was from here and an enormous Basilica built, appears she has gathered quite a following.

Basilica at Lisieux 

Caen was the destination for the night and we stayed in a hotel near the centre of town.  What was amusing was that this evening, for whatever reason known only to the citizens of the town, the required dress-code appeared to be onesies and fancy dress.  Some "students let their hair down and behave badly" event.  Well, there were literally thousands of them and the small percentage that did behave badly created a lot of noise and mess.

Vernon/Giverny - Monet's garden (4th and 5th April)

After a stay in Bayeux we took the train to Vernon.


Vernon is adjacent to Giverny, which is a small village famous for being the home of Claude Monet for several years.  We took a bus to Giverny and spent a few hours at the garden and village, which was very pretty, it being in flower with spring flowers and the water-lily pond looking nice and all.  Lovely weather appears to follow us and days have been bright and cool - but warm in the sun.

Water-Lily Pond at Monet's Garden

The bridge over the water-lily pond

A gallery of French impressionist painters was there in Giverny close to the famous house and gardens and took our attention.  We were bemused by the fact that the gallery didn't actually have any Monet paintings and I was interested in having a look at a few to see if his popularity was backed up by any actual substance.  I lie slightly in the fact that it did display a single Monet work, but likely only the one the gallery could afford because it was frankly not very good, and the paintings of other artists whose names I knew (Manet, Renoir, Pissarro) and those I didn't, were clearly superior.  Odd that tickets to a gallery was sold in conjunction with tickets to Monet's garden and house but actually contained only a work that appeared to be produced between afternoon tea and supper by dipping a croissant into a bottle of paint mixed with white wine and applying liberally to a board ... but what would a philistine like I know?  (Later evidence at the Rouen and Caen galleries show what the hype and fame of the man really is about ... but not this token hanging and sham tourist seduction).  It is, to me, somewhat comforting that not every work by a clear genius is actually good.  Perhaps by reverse extension, is it possible that we non-geniuses could actually produce something that is good?

Norman Conquest: Bayeux

We stayed two nights at Rennes.  Very nice city, beautiful cathedral which was a bright and cheerful neo-classical building from the 1700's, very helpful and friendly hotel staff, tasty creperie restaurants and patisseries.

Bayeux

The hotel was kind enough to allow us to dump our suitcases on them, and I think the elephant from the train had stowed away in one of the cases as they are getting increasingly heavy.  This dumping of cases and elephant meant that we were freed up to wander around Normandy with only back-packs.  Very liberating.

First trip from Rennes was to Bayeux, home of the tapestry and a lovely little city.



Window in the Cathedral at Bayeux

 

 

Bayeux Cathedral

For those who are unaware of the history that all English schoolboys learn, the Bayeux Tapestry was an embroidered pictorial record of the story of the conquest of England by the Normans in 1066.  The tapestry (or embroidery it actually is) is displayed in a museum in Bayeux and is a wonder.  A wonder in that it has survived these nearly 1000 years without being bombed or burnt or cut up into little pieces and sold.  It is a wonder in that it is some 68 metres long, and that it tells in beautiful pictures the history of the reason why William the Duke of Normandy came over the English Channel and battled the Anglo-Saxon armies of King Harold and took the throne.  It explains why and how it actually happened.  Let me explain and give you a hysterical lesson. ...

Our B&B in Bayeux

William the Conqueror was named such because the French for the word "conker" is "conquer".  So, William was actually a really good conker player.  He was promised the throne of England because he was the fourth cousin twice removed of the existing but dying king.  Now, his mate Harold who was fifth cousin once removed from the dying king was sent over to tell William that he should pop over and be crowned but later Harold decided it would be fun to be king himself and so did so.

Now, William thought this wasn't all cricket and so he came over to England hastily and met Harold and beat him at a game of conkers, took the throne and asked his uncle Norman to go around and do a stocktaking of the all the conkers in the country and write them up in a book called the Domesday Book.  Hence the name Norman Conker-quest.


Now you know.


Bayeux showed all this on the tapestry, all the horses and boats and battles and conker matches. 



Painting in the gallery showing the legend of Queen Mathilde and her friends sewing the tapestry. 
They all look sad because they really wanted to be outside playing conkers.  From what I read the tapestry is
actually technically an embroidery and was made in England by retired conker salesmen.

It also displayed a wonderful art museum that displayed essentially a history of art over the ages, also had a museum dedicated to the Normandy D-day invasion of 1944.  Lovely stay at Bayeux and well worth a visit if you get there one day.

Trains

Ever been on one of your children's school excursions where the travelling itself is the excursion and the fun?  Well, this last week or so has been just like that, a travel excursion where each day presented another interesting challenge about how to get from A to B, and what to see (both anticipated and unexpected) along the way.  It has indeed been fun.


We started in Madrid and I booked train tickets to get to France.  The original idea was to get into France and then hire a car and drive without much planning nor aim and then make sure we get to the Roscoff ferry port in Brittany to catch the boat to Plymouth on the 9th April.  However, three days of driving on the wrong side of the road in Spain gave me other ideas and I lost the enthusiasm to negotiate all the roundabouts and freeways and slip roads.  A phone app called trainline.eu came to the rescue and this made it easy to plot a path through France and end up in the right place for our ferry.


With this app we booked and bought train tickets to, in turn, Hendaye to Rennes; Rennes to Bayeux; Bayeux to Vernon/Giverny; Vernon to Caen via Rouen and Lisieux; Caen to Roscoff.  We are now good at catching the French trains and can hum the SNCF train station announcement jingle in our sleep.  I must say, the French and Spanish train systems, the information available on the screens, the facilities at the stations, the ticketing systems, are outstanding.


I find there are lots of things to worry about with trains.  For example, in case you are about to catch trains and are calm and comfortable, I'll give you a list of worry options to change your disposition:

• You buy a ticket and don't print it
• You print your ticket but lose it
• You forget to validate your ticket
• You cannot find the right platform
• The train doesn't arrive
• The train arrives but you are at the bus station
• The train arrives but doesn't open its doors
• The train opens its doors but then closes them on you while you are half way through the door
• The train arrives, opens its doors, you are there at the right place to jump on the train but an elephant is on the train and is blocking the door so you can't get on
• The train takes a wrong turn at the roundabout and ends up in Santiago, Chile, not Santiago de Compostela
• You are late for the train and the lift doesn't work and you have to carry your suitcases up the stairs and there's an elephant stuck in the way
• You get on the wrong carriage and cannot find your allocated seat
• You eventually find your seat but is occupied by an elephant who had eventually managed to get up the stairs

See?  There are many different reasons to worry about catching trains.  Only a few of the above proved to be more than just imaginary worries but all in all, we caught every train and each train made its way successfully to its nominated destination.

What is especially fun about the train travel excursion is that the actual catching of each train was a little fun challenge in itself, each successful boarding a little win.  An unfamiliar journey to nowhere we have been to before which on the strength of the information on a ticket and following a series of numbers means that we get off the train and into another new unfamiliar world: First Rennes, then Bayeux, then Vernon etc. etc.


Enjoying the journeys here ... tell you more about the destinations next.

Leaving Spain, off to France; Hendaye and Rennes

View from Hendaye toward San Sebastian (?)

A few days behind blogging here, I have half an excuse but have worked out now how to clumsily write blog on the mobile phone. Story from a few days ago (currently we are in Vernon/Giverny, France)...

Returned to Madrid from Siguenza on train, checked in hotel and took bus into Madrid centre.

Found an excellent cheap restaurant called Puerto Rico where more than we could eat and plenty to drink cost $35 for the two of us.  Learning finally a few little things about ordering food in Spanish restaurants, like a half Sangria for seven Euros means a jug of it, enough for a few glasses each.

Madrid is home to some guitar making shops and the most famous, that of Jose Ramirez, was in the centre of Madrid... and closed as we got to the door.  Alas.

Interior of Rennes Cathedral

Lots of train travel - Madrid to Hendaye (with overnight stay); Hendaye to Rennes via Bordeaux.


From Hendaye we walked from France and Spain and back again!

Wednesday 29th March: Sigüenza

 

Gentlemen out there, a word of advice, if I may:

 

If your wife says to you: “I want to stay in a castle” then the only correct response is “Yes, dear” and then you are to go and proceed to arrange the entire trip around staying in said castle.

 

It is a correct response because Sigüenza is, as the locals of Paso de Ocker say, “Bonza”.

 

We are staying at the Parador in Sigüenza which is a castle converted into a hotel and the result is beautiful.  Finding being cast into the dungeon and locked in chains at night for saying “Muy bien” when I should have said “Muy Bueno” a little harsh but it is a castle so am getting the authentic experience.  Breakfast of tomatoes delivered via missile to head while in the stocks was a little inconvenient but who am I to complain?

 

The patisseries here are so tasty and cheap, the pastries they sell even tastier.  Think it is time for 5 o’clock afternoon tea and wander the narrow cobbled streets again, this is such a great place.

Castle at Siguenza



Martha getting to stay in a castle

Martha with Siguenza Cathedral in background

Old guitar in a little guitar museum in Siguenza

28th March: Madrid to Sigüenza

Despite having spent two nights in Madrid, there has been little time and opportunity to see much of this vast city.  Been staying near the Madrid Chamartin train station which simplifies the travelling, but Chamartin is not near anything too much, essentially a business district.  Staying at the Hotel Weare Chamartin, which is convenient and fine, literally across a covered walkway from the train station.  The station is impressive, has a ground floor lobby level with many shops and then three levels below each with train lines going in all sorts of directions.

 

Our train to Sigüenza was booked for later afternoon so we had the morning free to go into Madrid centre.  Took the metro underground to Sol station and managed to not get lost.  I spent a couple of hours in the Prado museum (hundreds of pre-1900 paintings from many old masters), saw Raphael, Velasquez, Van Dyk, Rembrandt, Goya, El Bosco (Bosch) etc.  So many famous pictures, any one of which would have commanded a special exhibition at the Western Australian gallery.  Martha enjoyed a couple of hours wandering around and expertly navigating the tourist map, dodging street protest marches, gazing at the old buildings and occasionally looking for a bargain.

 

Train trip to Sigüenza was pleasant.  The train was a regional train and less formal than the train to Santiago as the seats were not allocated, and had no dining car etc.  I think the train left Chamartin with 10 people on it, though picked up some more later.  We had the whole carriage to ourselves.

 

Travelling by train, and bus, is relaxing and gives chance to see the scenery.  Realising that at least two of our trips (Madrid to Santiago, Madrid to Sigüenza) were return trips covering the same ground, I have formulated a very clever idea to avoid seeing the same scenery both ways.  All I need to do is to sit on the left side of the train going out to Sigüenza and then on the right hand side on the return.  That should do it ;-)

26th and 27th March: Santiago de Compostela, back to Madrid

 

More time here in Santiago, some sleeping in till late, going for drives and walks. 

 

Figured out what I was doing wrong with driving.  They all drive on the right hand side of the road here, not just a few of them, so realised that if you can’t beat them, join them.  By the time I gladly returned the hire car, only slightly broken (me, not the car), I think I had gained some sense of confidence with the driving.  Is not so much the mechanics (right hand on gear stick, sticking to the right hand side, rear view mirror to the right not the left) but that my sense of awareness of the road and traffic is completely absent, very much like learning to drive again.

 

We drove to Paso de Oca (pronounced “Ocker”), which was set up in the 1700s as a palace of refuge for half-broken Australian drivers.  The gardens were magnificent, with formal layouts, mazes made of camellia trees, hedges in the shapes of characters and animals, water features and ponds and streams.  Vegetable gardens and orchards all laid out in symmetrical patterns with hedge borders etc.

 

Paso de Oca - a corn store

 

Paso de Oca - Labyrinth

 

Paso de Oca - nice idea for my garden

 

Paso de Oca - one of many
creative hedge works

Eating here is good.  A common feature across all of Spain so far is a Menu de Dia which is a three course set menu with a choice of about 6 first plates, second plates and then dessert and or coffee, often with a bebida (drinkie).  The standard Spanish and Galician beer (cerveza) is a light and refreshing lager (e.g. Estrella Galicia).  The menus have some common meals and some local themes, which is helpful for me to interpret.  Tapas is also very common in most cafes and taperia but we haven’t quite figured out the best way of ordering these tasty little treats.  Found a good one in Sigüenza that seemed to understand our pointing and grunting and half a dozen Spanish words … but that gets ahead of the story, Sigüenza is later …

 

A drive and then a long walk to a waterfall near Santiago de Compostela was a nice time.  A very beautiful part of the world, wetter and greener than inland or southern Spain.  Galician is a different language, closer to Portuguese than Spanish, but being such a polyglot I find I can point and grunt in Galician also.

Waterfall - Fervenza do Toxa

-----------------

Monday was about saying goodbye to our hosts and making the train trip back to Madrid.  Our stay with Maria and Aaron and their lovely girls Gabriela and Elouisa, Maria’s parents Manolo and Ramona was such a treat.

Saturday 25th March 2017: Santiago de Compostela

Another good day here in a lovely part of the world.




Took a drive up a winding road high in the hills overlooking the estuary, met some wild cattle on the way.  Also to the Castro de Baroña site, remains of an Iron Age village on the edge of the land touching the Atlantic Ocean.

Castro de Barona

 




Preparing Churrasco ... tasty!

Lunch at home was a treat with Maria's Mum and Dad putting on a traditional Churrasco meal of ribs and chorizo cooked over an open fire.  Home-made wine from own grapes, potatoes and salad from the garden.  Delicious.

Walked all the indulgence off with a long walk from home through the back of the village to another historic site on the coast, Castro de Neixón. 

Friday 24th March 2017: Santiago de Compostela - Maria and Aaron's!

Left Madrid Chamartin train station at 09:15 for Santiago de Compostela

 

Grey, cold day so far, a few snowflakes falling.  Chamartin is, from what I read, a business district of Madrid and not all that inviting. 

It is seriously snowing outside the train as I write this.  We are half way from Madrid to Santiago (Spain not Chile (I hope) … but there was that roundabout back there …) and the more it snows the more it goes on snowing.  Starting to wonder if we are heading for the North Pole instead.  Just passed Thule train station, have to look that up later where it is.  Is that Stumpy the mountain goat in the distance or a reindeer ….

-----

 

Lovely reception by Aaron, Maria and family.  Met their two sweet girls, Gabriela and Elouisa, Maria's Mum and Dad.  They live in Cesbon, a drive out of Santiago.

Walked around Santiago and saw the cathedral, the resting place (it is told) of St James the apostle - hence the name of the city.  More food, lots of it and very nice.

Picked up a hire car to drive home to Maria and Aaron's.  There was a small fault with the car but I didn't complain too much, with the steering wheel and pedals being on the wrong side.  Thought maybe because it was a Renault and they just wanted to be a bit different.  Hard to reach the pedals and steering wheel while sitting on the right-hand side but managed to make it work with a bit of a stretch.  Had to swerve to avoid a few cars as they have no idea about keeping to the left of the road.

Thursday 23rd March 2017: Granada to Madrid

A travelling day.

 

Left Granada by ALSA bus, this time in plenty of time and in the best seats at the front with a clear view of the drivers’ window.  Tips for future Spain tourists:  ALSA buses are good, comfortable and cheap.  Book seats 3 and 4 if you can.  You can book online.

 

Five hour bus trip to Madrid which was very enjoyable.  Started to snow getting close to Madrid after getting sunburnt in Granada two days before.  Through Don Quixote country, windmills and such – must read that book, how is it possible to have got to such an age and having never read a paragraph of it?

Olive trees ... everywhere and so many.  Whole mountains covered with them, an amazing site.

 

Bus terminated at Madrid Estacion Sur meaning a short local train to Madrid Estacion Chamartin.  We negotiated the ticket machine like a pro, then failed what would seem the relatively simple act of getting on the train.  Appears that if you are polite enough to let people off the train first and then jump up the steps to hurl your luggage on and don’t do this within 8.9 seconds (sure there must have been a man with a stop-watch) that they close the door on you, whether or not you are through the door.  Doesn’t matter if you are on the two steps leading to the open door.  Maybe the driver was late or hated people with suitcases or worn-off legs.  Who knows.  Fortunately we were not separated from either the luggage or each other.  Another 30 minute wait and this time the train doors opened for a sensible time.  Note to self:  If at all possible, do not take any luggage that cannot be carried on one’s back anywhere.

 

Arrived at Madrid Chamartin and found the hotel which was literally in an adjoining building.  Nothing fancy but super convenient.  Local area didn’t seem attractive for evening walks so had dinner in hotel and restful evening.  Some unknown logistical challenges satisfactorily negotiated today – taxi/bus/train/hotel.

Wednesday 22nd March 2017: Granada

Gleefully submitted our prized L’Alhambra tickets and walked both of our legs off, each for four hours.  Know how Stumpy feels.  L’Alhambra is a wonder, the tour in Spanish (English ones were all full) was not as enlightening as one could have been if I actually understood more than a dozen words but learned much using the eyes if not the ears.  There is a deliberate attempt to limit the impact of tourism on the old buildings by restricting the numbers.  A good balance I think, but we were fortunate to get a ticket.

 

Twice-gullible tourists persuaded by leaflet-handing girl to go to lunch at Tapas café, then walked in wrong door to have our leaflet gladly received by an opposing café and sat down to a similar but different menu.  Realised error after a little while and having ordered.  Food not very nice, left there feeling both guilty and cheated.

 

Visited the San Juan de Dios Basilica (very shiny).  Site of tomb of St John of God and relics etc.  Shiny, very shiny.  All that glittered was indeed gold.  Baroque/rococo masterpiece with all that is great and overdone about baroque, to my limited understanding.  Enormous detail and quality, hundreds of precious things.  Did I say that it was shiny?

 

Found a nice place at last for dinner and ate too much.  Best part of the meal was a free tapas plate (best because it was free, perhaps?) which had a very tasty goulash or similar.

 

Does it ever happen to you that something very good comes out of something bad?  Will try not to bore the reader here, but this story doesn’t bore me so I will tell in briefly.  Skip to the next paragraph if you start to snore.  There’s been some fun with buying things here, especially online.  What I realised now after I advised my bank that I was going overseas was that I needed to advise them that not only was I going overseas and I’d like my cards to work (which they do – sort of) but that I’d like to also do online purchases.  This means disabling a security feature of the banking where they will text you to confirm the validity of the transaction – a good feature but one that fails if overseas and unable to receive texts because I didn’t want to run the gauntlet of enabling overseas roaming.  Anyway, the boring story … I found I couldn’t make some payments for online purchases of train tickets, and also the Granada card which is what one should buy if wanting to go to L’Alhambra (ask me later).  In using a different card to buy a train ticket from Madrid to Hendaye, I did this successfully only to receive an urgent email from the booking company Petrabax that the bank had declined my previously successful transaction.  This was the bad thing … here’s the big fat silver lining in the cloud disguised as a blacker cloud:  once finalised, the purchase emailed me an e-ticket for the journey, but I then realised that I never received e-tickets for the four journeys I’d previously booked a month back.  Either they never came or went to junk, now unrecoverable after a month.  Bored yet?  I wasn’t, realising that I now had what was likely only a useless booking confirmation and no tickets.  Easy … we contact Petrabax … hard, they give a US number that looks like a 1800 number or something.  So … do I find a pay phone and sit on it for an hour waiting for someone in the US to tell me that they sent the tickets and I shouldn’t have lost them (when I never got them)?  There’s no published email address, no online chat help, the login portal shows the bookings but no way to print tickets, no way of contacting them in any way other than the US phone number … and we travel in 2 days.

 

But … here’s the shiniest part of the silver lining in the black cloud … the denied transaction that was at first successful caused Petrabax to write to me, and so I had a human on the end of an email piece of string.  A few polite words later via middle of the night emails and Voila! (that’s French for Voila so I’m told) I have e-tickets in my inbox.  Glad that didn’t bore you.

Tuesday 21st March 2017: Granada

Tour of Musea de San Juan de Dios.  Very, very good.  Had an English-speaking Art History student taking the two of us around the whole place and explaining much.  She was probably amused by my more than average interest in it.  The building was a house of a benefactor of the man John and took him in after he caught pneumonia helping rescue someone from drowning.  The room and bed where he stayed and then died are preserved in the museum.  Many other pieces of art and items to be seen, including the original portrait made a few years after his death.  Interesting to learn, me having been an employee of St John of God Health Care these last almost 20 years.  A good guy and understandable that a following grew around his example after his death.

 

Spent much time trying unsuccessfully to buy a Granada Card, eventually booked a ticket to L’Alhambra palace on the 09:00 Spanish tour!  Lucky I’d learned those five or six phrases.

 

More eating out … not too successful yet finding a really good place.  Local lager is refreshing and cheap.  Café con leche is good – think they make it with a double shot of good coffee and then a little milk added.

Monday 20th March 2017: Malaga to Granada

Breakfast at hotel, morning tourism in Malaga.  Visited Malaga Cathedral, Picasso museum which had about 100 Picasso works of painting, drawing and sculpture.  Liked the earlier Cubist paintings and a couple of the wacky sculptures.  The guy certainly can paint, so not sure why he stopped.

 

Made it to the bus station only just on time having miscalculated the walk, and caught what may have been the wrong bus!  Caused a little commotion in that our seats (nos. 1 & 2 of course, booked months ago) were occupied already by humans.  Thought that maybe the seat bookings were actually informal and my ten words of Spanish didn’t cover a conversation about bus seating protocol in Southern Andalusia, and so took two other seats.  When the occupants of those seats arrived there was a hurried shuffle of several humans (mostly us) and we were dealt after a thorough shuffling into two separate seats.  No idea if we were on the wrong bus (leaving coincidentally to the same place at correct time) or if two others took our seats or double-booked.  Nonetheless, a comfortable ride and took us to Granada (Spain not Peru).

 

Taxi to our accommodation at Smartsuites Albacin.  Very nice spacious, modern, self-catering apartment in the ancient town not far from the L’Alhambra, full of winding, narrow, cobbled streets.

 

Dinner out at one of the many Tapas cafes.  Very tasty marinated olives that even Martha liked.

Sunday 19th March 2017: European adventure begins

Flew (in an aeroplane – less tiring) from Norwich International Airport.  I like the title of the airport, makes it sound big and grand, which it happily isn’t.  Of all the airports I’ve been to, this would definitely be one of them.  So happy to be in queues of three or four not three or four hundred like those awful dark ends of the universe like Heathrow and Stansted, and to have a casual chat with the security guy while disassembling the hand luggage yet another time.  Arrived in Malaga (Spain not Western Australia) immediately after landing, took taxi from airport and then gave it back.  Stayed at the Eurostars Astoria hotel.