Tuesday 29 May 2012

We campers are a funny old lot - and that includes us - May 26 and on

Our experience of camping sur la continent is reaching moderate proportions so we may feel entitled to discuss the behavioural patterns of the average camper with mild authority if not a litle humour. In fact I was totting it up and in all we have now spent a total of a shade under 40 weeks in about 30 camp sites in France, Spain and Italy. Not exhaustive if at times ezhausting. I have not counted rented accommodation which would total well over 60 weeks as the exchange with the host environment is very different.
To begin I shall attack the home front. Brits abroad do indeed speak ENG---LISH; that is very loud and slowly. There are some like us who essay a little French (Janet's is rather good actually) but for most of us it would not even have graced our French essays! Franglais and Spanglish is the usual fare; in Itay we tend to fall back on ENG-LISH. This is in contrast to our Dutch and Germand travellers who stick to Dutch and German for the residents and English when they see our registration.. They seem all to speak quite decent, even good English. They seem also to assume this will be true of the French and Spanish but are quickly disillusioned if not dissuaded. But if you greet them as I do on a French site with Bonjour or Buenos Dias in Spain you get a very odd reaction, as if you had somehow committed a great sin and needed to be re-trained immediately. Indeed, some German visitors will not forgive me if I suggest they are positively uncouth when addressed in anything other than English, or a tentative Guten Morgen or whetever.
Arrival on site is also revealing. In general the English are close to unique in accepting the pitch to which they are directed without comment. I admit we do not but with this van? No choice - I choose! The Dutch and Germans will allow themselves to be shown round but will then choose their own spot. The French in France of course will tend to do their own thing and why not. Ditto the Spanish in Spain although we did not see so many of them - they seem to prefer their self-constructed, semi-permanent, not-even-vaguely-mobile mobile units with huge awnings or solid sun shades, terraces, and various garden storage kit. All wired, all drained.
Spanish sites can be a bit tight for space compared to French and especially English sites. Italian are somewhere between but, like Spain are full of permanents. But Spanish sites have, as I said elsewhere, the best loos, indeed entire servicios, of all.
The continentals prefer their motor homes, especially the Dutch but they rarely stay long anywhere but on the Med so they arrive late p.m., set up, gather together, talk endlessly, eat sparingly, sleep early and disappear soon after the morning dew. The Germans are similar but less inclined to group up so the chat is quieter. Sadly neither language is very pretty to listen to and, like us, they laugh too loudly and not often. The French and Spanish do not group at all but they tend to be cheery, laughing a lot especially the Spanish in Spain - don't see enough of them out of their own country to comment. The English of course do tend to congregate but converse? That English reserve seems to forbid more than a hello and a wave. Dogs of course are great ice breakers but the usual limit of exchange is - where you been; where you going; when you going; where you live. That's about it really.
Life long campsite friendships are unlikely on the sort of tour we take as for most of the time our campsites are either other people transit camps (sun-seeking southboud/ sun-drenched northbound) or too far off the beaten track anyway out of season. Usually it is the Dutch who want to exchange email addresses, aklthough I have exchanged recently weith a Brit. And there was the charming couple from Warrington on their first tour who asked and got help and advice but then suddenly left without warning. They were so worried about tripping over their (huge UK like mine) satellite dish that they ringed it with the empty 5 litre water bottles that I assume they had gathered on their trip. By the time we met up at Haro in la Rioja they had seven of the ruddy things round this dish! They must have entirely filled the inside of their motor home when they travelled!
Many of our fellow campers don't seem to go anywhere much. Obj=viously those who only stop the night have no time. But whenever I talk to them it turns out that either they have often stopped one night on this site or it is their first time in this area. How can they just pass through? The whol point of a caravan or a camper is freedom to explore. So why don't they explore? We have begun to notice that the Germans seem always to shop in Lidll - that's about as barren as seeking out a Tesco when in France! We have been in a Lidly over here and it is EXACTKY the same as in the UK. same layout, same stock, same tedious set up and same total lack of chech out staff howvere busy it is. Mind you, we coukld save a bob or two and it would make a change - it is Greman and we hardkly ever use them at home!

Thursday 24 May 2012

Its the storm's they don't warn you about that are worst - May 21

We are sitting here this morning in the middle of a very nasty blow. Well rotten storm actually. And worse, like the Great Storm of 1989 (was it?) we were not warned about this one. It started off last evening, after a wet day but not one which caused me to consider installing the side and front sections on the awning. By midnight I was well aware this was a mistake. I had fitted the storm straps and reasonably well secured the canvas that was up. But 20 square metres of canvas exerts a pretty hefty tug. I did not get much sleep, what with actually checking every couple of hours that we were still attached and in between listening fretfully at the unhappy sounds of the canvas and frame flexing.
By 5 a.m. I gave up and in what turned out to be only a slight and temporary lull managed to fit three of the side sections and secuire them - well sort of; saturated and very poor ground we have here now. Pegs it will not hold. Two at a time and facing opposite angles is a little better.
Janet provided cheer and tea and a fine cooked brekky but I declined her offers of physical assistance on the grounds that one wet twit is worth two in the caravan.
By 10 a.m. I was off to reception to see what if anything the French Meteo could tell us. Fist item was that the storm had NOT been forecast anyway! Indeed the previous day suggested wind speeds of maybe 40-45 kph. Ho bloody merde as they might say! By this morning the up-dated forecast acknowledged overnight and morning speeds up to 65kph - a bit more like what we are getting. And I am no bad judge having spent an interesting night on Porthclais campsite, Pembs in 1981 with Janet and the girls literally holding our big old frame tent to the ground. Come the morning and we stepped out to find we were the ONLY sirvivors of about 20 the evening before. Readers may recall that this was the year of the Fastnet race tragedy when several yachts sank with significant loss of life. That was a 60-80 mph gale and I would judge this one here as actuially about 50-60 mph - NOT a mere 65 kph!
Many replacements of yanked pins meant much mud on knees and an increasing unlikelihood that the new pins would hold anyway. I have some 12 inches long and they didn't work either!. Finding some in the mud will be problematic too!
The forecast for this afternoon is 20-25kph so if that is proportionately correct things will calm down. Sunshine? Maybe Wedesday but then it could last through the weekend. The moment the canvas is dry of course it has to come down. Which is why we had, hopefully,left the four large zipped in window/door units off. Ho bloody etc.

Dodgy practices among the continental trailer crews?

Another spring spent caravan touring in France and Spain has given us cause to question whether the standards set for European trailing are strict enough. That will sound strange given that France and other European coutries have decided that trailers should be seperately registered, giving them their own number and their very own bureacracy. That might make sense if these European trailers and even motor homers followed simple safety rules. But they do not.
For a start the vast majority of caravans are being trailed by entiely unsuitable vehicles - way too light Citreons are especially noticeable but there are Vauxhalls, Renaults and Fiats as well. Worse still the majority of caravans are seriously low at the front, with the rear axles of the tow car also depressed. Watching them on the road their performance suggests the appearance is not deceptiive - they are over loaded and nose heavy for their tow vehicles.
Motor homes too are often seriously down on their rear springs and those with motor scooters and motor bikes on the rear are the worst. Interestingly those towing cars behind are less likely to be so depressed at the rear. And once on site when the 'garage' so-called is opened it is not uncommon to see it crammed with vast quantities of items, many very heavy. These vans usually have motor movers (40-50kg), carry their awnings on board (40-50kg) or have gutter fitted awnings (ditto). In fact usually the van seems crammed to capacity while the tow vehicle may contain little beyond the driver and passneger - madness, given the load cap[acity readily available in the main vehicle.
And then there are the on-site practices. The most offensive is the number of motor homers who empty their toilet cassettes into the drain provided specially for them for grey water. Do they not realise that this drain will rarely be connected to the sewerage system whatever type it is. They are dumping sewage into grey water drains that may well feed back into recovery plants. And then they use the hose, which is provided to re-fill their water tanks with clean water, to flush out their toiletcassettes! This is not so much a risk of cross contamination but a virtual certainty. I suppose we are used to the continental practice of allowing grey water to drain onto the pitch rather than use a containment but this all goes one entire step further.
And then there is the power cable. Firstly they will almost always connect to the mains before they connect to the van, thus running live cables across probably (this spirng definitely) wet grass. Bui t it gets worse since many of them do not use proper connectors - they have unearthed domestic two pin plugs (I am not talking here about continental two-plus-one plugs). And often the cable itself is just a normal domestioc one, probably rated at no more than 6 amps and definitely not properly earth bonded.
The time has surely come for the UK to take a lead in establishing some serious standard for camping behaviour before we are forced to accept a bunch of inadequate rules from Brussells - or worse, a totally unreasonable and daft demand that we register our trailers. What benefit that confers I am at a total loss to understand. The so registerd van is stioll required (rightly) to carry both its own and the towing vehicle registrations. If the purpose is to ensure safety compliance with some testing procedure I am in agreement but it takes nothing more than a current certificate to be displayed in the window of the trailer or in some suitable window if a transport trailer. Franklly it is typical of Europe that it should intsall a whole new bureacracy for such a process -and as a Europhile this is where I part company with the entire project.

Friday 18 May 2012

Neither France nor Spain - c'est Basque n'est pas? May 18

We have fallen rather in love with the Basque country and most definitely this part of it. We have been here before but did not wuite make the connection then. It was neary 20 years ago and, it seems now, in another life. Certainly in another caravan, one which would have fitted inside this and kleft room for another! We took it to Sallies de Bearn as the middle week of a three week run down through France. In those Devon days we sailed to Roscoff in Brittany so our route took us through Brittany, the Vendee, Charenhte, Bordeaux. Down we went through Gers and Gascony and up the Landes. But for one week we stopped not far from wehere we are now.
We visited Lourdes, St Jean Pied de Port, crrossed the Ronsevalles pilgirm pass toPamplona and loved Bayone and faded Biarritz. All without uite cottoning on the the fact that this is Basque country. Now we know it stretches from Bayon to San Sebastien and inland to Bearn and Pau and Pamplona. Effectively it is the hugely habitable bit of hilly land which fronts the west end of the Oyrenees onto the Atlantic. Driving around its lush green valleys and hillsides and seeing the richness of the marine harvest there can be no surprise that people have lioved here for thouwands of years. The Basques come from no one knows where and have a unique and apparently technically beautiful language which has its nearest cousin in Berber! The people are thick set, dark of hair and slightly of skin. They are immensely strong and proud - a favourite sporting activity will involve the movement by hand through the air of large lumps of rock, wood or other people - they are brilliant at rugby. They are friendly in the Spanish way.
Their towns are smart and clean and they are proud of and care for their very fine old bluildings. Architecture is simple but grand, with stone features and plastered walls. The red we see all around us on wood and shutters and doors is a rich, dark burgundy which is known as Basque Red. In St Jean I thought it might have been local policy that ensured such unity of style and colour but it seems it is just the Basque way of doing thing.
The Basque country is called Euskadi - pronouned I am told OO-SKA-DEE which just means Basque lands or land of the Basques; not quite the same politically of course. Theit language had been dying in much the way Welsh was going when a new generation decided it was time to exert their influence. Some chose the violent course that has hit the headlines but others chose the political dialogue route; whichever they have made a lot of progress. But it does seems a tough order to achieve their real aim which is a Basque homeland. After all persuading one nation would be tough but they have to oersuade two - France and Spain, not the easiest to agree to give up a valuable and attractive chunk of land. Euskadi has a flag - a red ground represents the people, the cross of St Andrew in green represents justice and the standard cross of Christ in white signifies faith. If this very attractive flag is to take its pklace in whatever survives of the European Union they will have a land about the size of Wales which somewhat eually ambivalent weather - they joke that tourists take a while to get used to the Basque seasons - its sunny in winter and rains all summer!
Our nearest town is St Jean de Luz where today (May 18) was market day. The halles is very fine and open every morning; the Fridsay street market qiite good. A better one we are told is on Sunday at nearby Ciboure. We shall see.
The weather has been fantastic until today, well last evening really. We have had high 20s for four days, clear blue skies, terrific sunsets . The heat made me leave the car doors open for rather too long and this morning the battery was flat - well too low to spin 2 litres of diesel! Help came from the site people with a tractior and my own jump leads. France is way dearer than Spain but their fish stalls are still amazing - last night it was crab and scallops, tonight it will be ray (no skate left here either). The Poissonerie hall at the market is fantastic - we shall return many times if the money holds out. But what happened to all the crevettes? They all seem to come from Ecuador now - nothing Scottish or even French!
Site is very good and fairly quiet - just the nightly procession of French and Dutch motor homes, on and off in 24 hours usually. The site is worth more than that frankly. It is on the Basque Corniche - that is to say it is 20 yards off the road. You cross and are confronted by a sensational view west over the Bay of Biscay but here called the Golfe du Basque. Sunsets are de riguer. There is a lay by nearby and every evening it fills with locals, many young couples, who walk hand in hand along the clifftop. Look south and there is Spain 25 kilometres away, look north and the bay of St Jean de Luz is followed by the cliffs of Biarritz. Turn round and the foothills of the Pyrenees run away south east, La Rhune at 940 metres is a fine pyramidial peak, further over a mesa at about 1200 can be seen with three smaller hillocks surmounting it. La Rhune is reached by a rack and pinion railway - we saw the price, 14 euros each and decided to drive if we can find the road. There has to be a good one since apparently it is topped with restaurants and gift shops. Discovering that made up for deciding NOT to fork out the price of a decent lunch to ride up.
Instad we drove up into the hills and mountains, saw some sensational towns, villages, farms, valleys some in France and some in Spain - this is border contry. We and came down much pleased. We shall return here.
But the forecast for now is a bit dreary - we may benefit from some maritime variety. We are already benefitting from a maritime repise anyway. The site may be lovely and way down the hill there may a new toilet block but the one up here is like a smartened up Porthclais! Oh

Tuesday 15 May 2012

Adios Espagne; bonjour la France - er, vive la difference? May 12

We left Haro in fine weather for a fairly short run into France, stopping at a corniche campsite near St Jean De Luz, on the 'French' part of the Cote de Basque. Our departure was not perfect - it appears that I clipped a tree with the rear offside edge of the van, sustaining slight but annoying damage. I felt nothing and was entirely unaware, indeed congratulating myself on the exit when Janet appeared from the loos and spotted it with some alarm and so ending my smug content! It serves to remind me that what is happening some 12 metres behind me may be very different from what I expect - that long overhang does swing a very long way!
The new site in some ways is wonderful. We are 50 metres from the cliff edge and fabulous views west. To the east are the hills and mountains that begin the rise to the Pyrenees further east. The pitch is a generous one - in fact I skewed up the position slightly, partly becasue it is not quite square but it is no problem. Overall I am improving in the handling of this monster, honest. And the weather is superb, despite poor forecasts. of course this is coastal and therefore more variable.
But this site serves very well to point up the amazing difference to be found between UK, French and Spanish campsites (and Italian for that matter). And these differences also servie to illustrate some national characteristics. In Spain the sites are generally tightly packed but they are very well equipped and seem universally (well 11 out of 11) to have brilliantly clean and well arranged toilet facilities. They are in large, well ventilated buildings, one for each gender and there are copious spotless WCs and showers and wash basins with mirrors, shaver points etc. Open 'park' areas as in the UK are rare (Haro had one) but otherwise Spanish sites seem fairly similar to the UK. Except the UK sites almost always only have camping and caravan touring pitches - nothing permananet (although non club sites do). Caravan and C and C Club sites are as spotless as in Spain. Buit France is usually very different in details. Often, as here, the toilets and showers are uni-sex and as here are in old converted buildings. They are clean but rather tired. And there are rarely enough loos (for some are still Turques!).Shaver popints are rare too. Given they are effectively 'outdoor' facilities bad weather can be a major issue. Very odd it seems to me, that this shoulod continue to be so since there are legions of French campers using the Spanish sites - don't they ever complain? Prices are higher too in France. depite the bad comparison.
Last night we walked the dog along the clifftop and I also watchedf the sun go down. The cliffs are amazing - these are ancient bedding plates which have been tilted up to about 70 degree from horizontal. They are young plates, like soft slate but much thicker and they weather rapidly. The resuilt is an amazing 'beach of serrated plate edge like a giant cheese grater. The waves, even when small, crash into the plates, which run along the shore line, and in places large sections can be seen to have been snapped off like enormous tiles. But the cliff is even more bizarre since the cliffs are often sheer and continuous plates angled straight down about 30 metres and smooth as a levelled floor but at 70degrees! If you fell you would skid straight to the bottom without bouncing once. Get it right and you could live! You'd be sore of course - it isn't THAT smooth!
Today (14th) was explore day so se went down to the twin harbour towns of Ciboure and its bigger smarter brother, St Jean De Luz. We spent most time In St Jean,very smart in that chic French riviere style. All pavement cafes and posh shops and lunatic prices. But such fun you hardly notice that drain on the wallet. And France is indeed tres cher, oh yes. Comopared to Spain everything is 10-20 per cent dearer here. The food is probably comarable in quality and quantity but the menu prix fixe is around 15 euros (10-12 in oain) and that is for just two courses and bread - wine/beer/water is extra and so is a dessert!
The welcome here is different too, although St Jean is so close to Sopain and so many are basques that the difference is less apparent. Even so the suny, chirpy welcome of the average Spaniard is not so common - the French are more loike the English; a bit reserved, mildly suspicious. But as ever a bit French does warm them up and after six weeks struggling with our poor Soanish it a pleasure to be able to have partial conversations - even if we do still toss in the occasional Gracias and Por favor! (Interesting, too how Gracias sounds even more embarrassing when wrongly used to a French person! The correct usage is "grassy arse" as might be said of a careless cricketer!).
But the biggest difference is in the developments - nothing in St Jean goes above six storeys and even those are mansard roofed to keep the profile down. For the most part three storey is thelimit and it keeps everything very tidy and appealing. The French too continue to de,monstrate their touch for style - these smart towns tend to choose a colour scheme that is almost universally to be seen on the first and second floors in town centres. Here in St Jean it is a dark burgundy red teamed with a soft off-cream for all window frames, ballustrades and wooden fetures. The streets look very fine as a result. I suppose in the UK it would be seens as interference by the panners and others. Janet says we couldn't get away with it because unlike here miost commercialproperty is owned by big business interests. May be so.

Segovia - Hurrah! And the N110 - double hurrahs! - May 5 and 6

A week of rain and shopping and wet washing had driven us to the point of being very low on Thursday (I shall have to re-visit what I write!). But on Friday we thought - what the hell lets go to Segovia. Brilliant decision. But before the wonders of a super city the route there...
First we climbed up and over the pass through the Guadaramma, the range of mountains north of us. This is a cool 1444 metres with a tunnel to take the edge of the last climb - its called Puerto Somosierra which sounds great but just means the pass at the summit of the mountain range. The sad little eponymous town deserves better. So do the motorists. If you arrive from the north the road is brilliantly smooth right up to but not beyond the marker which tells you that you are now in Madrid. 55 k from the city and on the residue of a once good road smashed to pieces and ignored by authority. Shame on Madrid.
To reach Segovia we turned onto to N110 and it was a revelation - not just a brilliant piece of road building but superb countryside and towns and villages. A complete change from the tawdry, over developed Madrid province. Our spirits lifted as village after village revealed delightful Spanish buildings, smart, cared for and not swamped by over development. We stopped at a superb cafe/bar with attached hotel, restaurant and even a fine shop selling homewares, Indian and African artwork, pictures, carvings - just a lot of fun and not massively expensive even if rather out of our range.
And then Segovia - walled, gated, medievel and later. A fine cathedral (PHOTOGRAPHY BANNED!) a very good alcazar of a castle on the end of the promotory. Super shops. Good food. And I parked 100 metres from the cathedral for 2 euros for four hours! Although it drizzled intermittently mostly the sun shone and the quality of the place and its architecture just lifted us up anyway. The cathedral was less bling than usual so more enjoyable for us. The sculptures and artwork were very impressive.
The castle was very fine, if seriously over-restored. In fact it was virtually destroyed by fire in 1862 so what we see is a restoration but looks more like a recreation. We did not go in as time was short it was big and the Spanish idea is to start you in one place and force you to do the tour to the end! No short cuts - we are Spanish! Time was restricted as there was so much more of Segovia to see. We walked ourselves into the ground.
But in the cathedral I picked up an English language guide to the city - anything other than Spanish is like gold dust. This was free for a donation but it was so good that I crammed a five euro note into a tiny aperture. Mean too, these Spanish? Anyway at the back it had a few itineraries for tourists. Ansd one took us along the N110 which brought us here. And wow were there some goodies to visit. We chose Pedraza a small walled town with castle and many churches, mostly ruined. It was built in the same apricot sandstone that enhances so many buildings on this side of the Guardaramma (the other side is grey and off-white granite). That is to say all of it was in apricot stone. Houses, mansions,villas, shops, churches (ruined as well) the walls, the castle - it is an absolute joy. And it has a magnificent arcaded main square that is breath-taking. And a tavern that must once have been a coaching inn, with cobbled entry, mounting blocks and the most amazing bar - see the picture, do.
Re-invigorated by all this and with the weather at leat slightly better we decided to spend the next day, Saturday, exploring the eastern arm of the N110 towards Soria off the aforementiond hell-road, the A1. And did we find more joys. First and rather ironically we found the town of Riaza. This is where we could (should?) have been camping. But R sadly judged its extra 200 metres as a bit much to rick. in fact its position offsets that disadvantage and anyway, it next to Riaza. And this is a town almost as lovely as Pedraza - similar in many ways although short of the castle.
Impressed we motored on to Ayllon - and this is even better! Another arcaded main square but this time bigger with even more impressive mansions ariound it. And the arcades were here supported not by fancy pillars of stone but woinderful 18inch round tree trunks. Dark, grainy oak that had clearly been there up to hundreds of years. Bliss. And to set it of an amazing red sandstone cliff as a backdrop.
Happily sated with real Spain, authentic Spain and places that were proud and handsome, we headed home to fillet mignon avec sauce Robert washed down with good Rioja.
But even so we shall use Sunday to down the awning and will leave on Monday for Haro and the valley of the Ebro - actual Rioja land!
A PS to that was a run on Sunday to the east of the A1, a little frequented area that turned out to be outstandingly nice. Good country, good mountains, an amazing reservoir feeding Madrid (natch) and a long and peculiar canal which we assumed may have also served as Aqueduct. Returned to formerly empty bar us campsite to be greeted by no less than six Dutch caravanning couples - and we thought it was just the motor homers who travelled in oacks!

We are not on holiday and that makes a big difference

Most people think we are on holiday right now. That these three month excursions are just elongatd vacations. We wish they were frankly. It all startdd with R wanting to escape the infections of English winters. In fact that never happend because it would have meant being away across Christmas. But plan A was to hire houses in warm southern Spain and effectively use our holiday savings to pay for the costs of travel while using the variation in living costs to finance the small residual cost of an empty house in the UK. But being stuck in one place was not quite as much fun so the caravan re-appeared in our lives.
Last year should have seen us in Spain for part of the trip but the car gave us pause and we stayed in France, having a fantastic time in new places and terrific weather. This year was to be a similar sort of jaunt in Spain but now it has been the weather that has played up.
But we are not on hioliday. We cannot afford to eat out very often, reserving that for the odd special visit. We have to keep the place clean and tidy, wash and iron clothes in very adverse circumstances and husband our cash since while this is not quite as expensive on a weekly basis as hiring a house, costs over here and esopecially of fuel and food have wiped out the differential that supported the house in the UK. Whether we can do this again next year is problematic. Sadly a return this far south is hugely unlikely - France may benefit providing its cost base does not intrude.
Of course wine is cheaper here although not better. The local Riojas are good but not outstanding unless you pay; the white are only good if you pay a lot. Food is no different in costs and rather variable these days in quality. What Spain is good at is cheaper and better of course - oranges (citrus in general), pork, tomatoes, cured hams, some veg, short-life bread,...
I am listening to the third downpour of the evening. We dined well on the first really decent cooked crab we have found (Galicia only sells them fresh; ditto lobbie and this is a caravan!) and also some excellent prawns which would have given France's best a run. Galicia offered nothing so good I fear. odd that - famous for it? Huh!
Have I mentioned that this is another crap camp site? Oh well try this - there is claimed to be washing and tumble dry machines. Tokens and key from the shop on site. It is closed uintil June. But it opened for the May Day celebration so J bought some tokens. Went to use them today and the shop was shut so NO KEY! Fortunately the miserable Madridian patron turned up so she persuaded him to open up. Washing machine worked but tumbler drier hardly did anything. And it is very wet. We now have two plus weeks of half wet washing and the rains are forecast to last until Satiurday. We planned to leave Sunday....
We made it to Escorial (see other blog) and hope tomorrow Friday to get to Segovia. We are too pissed off to bother with Toleda or Avile - both 150k each way - so will head north west towards France on Sunday. Forecsat for France? Not much better. We may even come home early at this rate. rain in your own home is less dreadful than rain in a foreign land that does not know how to handle it and does not want to bother anymore.
We shopped today. 200 euroes worth. i wondered what the Spanish thought - 24% unemployment and a crap economy and these silver hairded and barbarically tongued pensioners are buying up the place...

Saturday 12 May 2012

A few random thoughts on brollies and stuff - May 1

This will be known as the brolly holiday of course. It is a piece of equipment that gets little exercise in dry Norfolk and during our trip last year was even less evident - we had after all a scant four days of rain during three months. It is the opposite here. So far it feels as if we may have had only four days of real sunshine in our near five weeks so far. Happily we brought plenty - two folding for Janet and one for me plus one of my trusty golfing brollies.
Everywhere we go the locals walk with brollies at the ready. Even those with walking sticks carry a brolly in the other hand. I have to assume that anyone needing two sticks or a Zimmer frame is forced to stay indoors.
Continental camping is not like British camping. Even when you find a site that look brilliant on its web site it turns out a bit less enticing on arrival. This is because of some major differences between us and them, if you will forgive the differentiation.
First, the Brits will caravan and even camp in all weathers. Over here the season is short, very short in some cases. So most sites are forced to accept the idea of permanent campers. These are not usually of the mobile home that never moves variety nor even in many cases 'cabins'. They are most often ordinary caravans, with ordinary awnings very firmly attached. They have virtually fixed and permanent ground sheets and a newish departure - a second tent of about 1.5 by 1 metre which it appears contains extra storage and or cooking equipment. Often these have their own power and water supply. The whole is enclosed in a three-sided privacy screen usually of something like leylandii which, given the climate remains reasonably short in stature. They are all different and of varying degrees of tidiness.
Second, although land is plentiful and actually cheap over here camp sites tend to pack us all in. So you rarely see the British 'park camping' environment. Usually pitches are small, back to back and fronting fairly narrow service roads.
Third, the combination of poor soil, too much sun, not enough rain and over-use of ground sheets means that most sites are grit and mud rather than grass. Where shrubbery and trees are found they are often scrubby and anyway get rough treatment from the campers.
If you combine these features you get a fairly unattractive environment. Add in the continental desire for a bar/club/restaurant with copious outdoor seating, a small supermercado (sometime open) and of course a pool, paddling pool and children's play area and you get the idea. These do not present as leafy glades of tranquility and peace where the aged traveller can settle in for a quiet time.
Aha and my ever loving reminds me that they also seem to spend most of their time on site, inside their vans and awnings. They do sometimes venture out to cook whole chickens on small barbecues but are currently forced back pretty smartly by the rain.
Today (May 1) is a Tuesday but everywhere has been packed with Spanish people 'en fete' and every bar, shop and car park packed with them having fun. It is a bank holiday - Labour Day, honouring the working man. We are of course less than an hour from Madrid and the escape to the country must be a beguiling proposition - have you seen Madrid? We thought Naples was harum scarum but Madrid eats it for desayuno as they would say if they knew the phrase.

Wednesday 2 May 2012

One man and his Jamon and its goodbye to Sanobria - April 29

The nearest town to our camp is at El Puenhte and it was there bwe had one of those seminakl moments that make trips like this special. We needed milk (not the fresh kind; that is like gold dust) and were drawn to a shop at the end of the town's plain tree lined street markets. Eloy el cuna de Jamon it said. And insidee there was indeed Jamon - it hung from every available space and was in every stage of aging. The vast majority was Iberico of course. Aha - el cuna! The cradle! But more than the Jamon there was chorizo - short, fat, long, curled, red, purple. And from each Jamon he had ever siolod the coloured tie which is passed through the hock to hang the joint from the rafter he had cut and kept, laced together in a made and proud bundle behind his counter. Eloy, we assumed, was Jamon fat, cheerful, keen to talk (it meant selling) and unable to speak threew wordd witho9ut smiling or laughing or both. of course our weak Spanish meant we knew not what had amused him so. But we laughed or smiled out of neighbourliness. It worked took - he sold us Jamon, a huge and delicious piece of Monchego made with raw milk and finally the milk. I took his picture and that of the Jamons. Just like a ruddy tourist!
We had settled on leaving this site on Sunday and so we did but unexpectedly we were sorry to go. It might have been too cold and too high but it was beautiful, quiet, authentic. Maybe we shall return.
We left to head east almost to Madrid, to a place called Cabrere off the dreadful A1 but close enough to Segovia, Escorial, Avila and maybe even Toledo. The drive was anything but ordinary. Once again I was mildly shocked at my weak undertstanding of Iberian geography. This plateau that I thought was pretty much 500 metres and occupied about 70 per cent of Spain is almost entirely double that in height. We did drop to 800 now and again but only to rise higher soon after. By the time we reached the Sierra Guadarama or the Monte de Madrid we were ready for it but 1400 metres is a long way up even from 800. The drive up to the pass - Puerto del Somosierra - was steep by autoroute standards. Given my nervousness after last year's events and that I had a 300 kg heavier van behind me I admit to being a bit tense. But we crested at 50 m.p.h which was at that point technically illegal.
The site we arrived at is everything we hate in continental camp sites. It has about 300 permanent units, most of which are no longer caravans but cabins and about 50 scrubby plots for us itinherants. But it will have to do for a week or so while we do our targets and maybe even essay the park and ride into Madrid - not my favourite idea. There is some amazing contryside nearby - including a range of hills called the Cabrere (goatlands) which are a craggty double for the hills of the same name that are the backdrop to Mojacar, where we wintered twice. But the pitch we have was a drive in, drive out job so my recalcitrant motor mover will not trouible me here.
Our route back through France is under discussion; we both have favourite places so there will be some horse trading!

Zamora - a town on the edge when el Catolica re-emerged - April 28

Our stay here in Salabrina area has been interesting in many ways. The chill reported earlier is still uncomfortable but the van is well heated and while we had not equipped for this sort of weather modern gear is easily layered. And it is very lovely here.
But we had promised ourselves one particular run - to Zamora; much less romantically here it is "Thamora" but it is an amazing place. Still entirely walled to 10 metres in the most wonderful soft honey stone it lookes sensational. It has a splendid castillo guarding one end with a fine moat and brilliantly fitted out with walkways to reach all major area without damaging the stone.
But it is the cathedral that entirely takes the breath away. It is not large and it is not at all traditional but it is amazing and it is filled with sensational Spanish Renaisance sculptures, painting and carvings. Zamora is a bit special since it was at the front line when the Castillians decided that Spain was really theirs, the Moors had to go and war was the only way. By 1200 they had secured the northern part of the peninsular and so Zamorsa was at the front edge. It had been a great power in its own right but now the Castillians held sway and today Zamora reflects the fact that it was most certainly a contender.
The cathedral says it all. The honeyed stone is used to huge effect in the main sections and they are fortified. We enter through a side aisle that houses an interesting museum of artworks of astonishing quality and value, even if religious in tone. And then starts a journey of wonder. This cathedral is the sum of its part, not a whole work. There are I think 16 chapels around its chancel, short choir and knave. Each is a work of the highest art. No significant bling here - this is carving, and sculpting and graving and painting of the highets order that needs no gildfing to magnify its worth. And it is in the finest condition. Each is protected by an ornate and masterly grille - arched over and gated to huge effect. An entire artisan skill that seems to be especially Zamora's.
There are wall paintings that other cathedrals would kill to own and tapestrires of great stories, brilliant imaginings of Helen and Troy and Paris and much more. They fill walls forty feet long and twenty high. They are not faded and have lost nothing in the years. For Zamora was in a sense passed by. The high Castillians went their own way; Zamora retained its own way. The brilliantly executed high altar here is a thing that even we atheists could appreciate as art - no significant blig anywhere to be seen. This was quality workmanship, unadorned. And yet elsewhere were more astonishing altar workings that had come and gone to other churches, returning as museum pieces. One was about 20 feet wide and 20 high and entirely in silver gilt, brilliantly worked in the Platereseque style for which Spain is most famous. We could onl;y wonder at what it would have looked like with its scores of candles lit and little other light to kill the sparkle.
And then we saw the choir - 40 feet long, 20 high and forty wide. Three decks of misericords. And all exquisitely carved. We missed the fact that some of the under seat carving of the misericords depict nuns and monks doing what every schoolboy has always assumed they did but which, at least in my school, the masters strenuosuly denied! But we were too busy admiring the quality of the carving in the orther hundreds of location!
And there is one further interesting feature of this wonderful building. It has Romanesque origins and they are mostly hidden by all this later brilliance. Except for its domes on what would have been the Romanesque apses. The honeyed stone gives way here.These domes are built of the whitest limestone you will ever see. They are not large, they are not high - they are ornate and crystalline abd wonderful.
Zamora sjits on the Duero river which wanders off into Portugal which is startlingly close by. Our drive here and back was across miles of this amazing high plateau that is Iberia. Vast fields of wheat with trees retained to aggravate the harvester but presumably aid the pollination or pest control. It seem strange to see such fertifility at 1000 metres. But there are vines too.
We spot the presence of an ancient abbey which our guide book says remains in outline only. We arrive. It is closed. But it has walls and arches and towers 30 feet high? Did her ever come here? We think not. The storks occupy the high points regardless of the scribe's incantations.
Returning we decide to spend the next day exploring the local area and so find ourselves on the far side of our lake. Equally beautiful, equally well supplied with parking, picnic and access. But we visit Ribadelago Vieja and ditto Nuevo. The former swept away with 144 people in 1959 when a hydro electric dam up the river Tera gave way. Ribadellagio the old is entrely new. Ribadelagi the new is entirely horrid. There is a memorial to the lives lost with all 144 names inscribed upon it. It was erected in 2009. Can you believe that?
The usual array of story boards tell of the lakes and flor and fauna and ice age that made it all. And they mention the bursting of the damand the deaths. And they show a pictuire of the dam. They have had the grax=ce to leave it as it was when it had slaughtered all those people down below - smashed ans breached and vacant. In Zamor, a temple to the ambition and the art of man; in Ribadelago a temple to the crassness of the same people.
We have decided Salamanca is a tad too far - maybe next year.

Into Castille y Leon and up a mountain or two - April 26

My close reader will observe from the title that something is not quite as planned. The itinerary had us heading south into Portugal but we are going east into central northern Spain. The reason is pretty simple - cost. One way and another this trip is working out a bit meaty so some sensible re-consideration was needed. Easy saving was to scrap the Santander to Portsmouth ferry - the return was set to cost £750. By turning across Spain early we can still do much of what we wanted and reach France at end May for a leisurely trip up the west coast. We shall save a cool £500 in the process which will fund another trip somewhere in the UK in September.
So here we are at Lago de Sanabria. Slightly surprised to find ourselves at 1100 metres too. I thought most of Spain was a 5-700 metre plain with sierras up to 3 and even 4,000. Not in this part it seems. We left Vigo and climbed steadily to 1200 metres and give or take 2 or 300 metres there we have stayed. Our temperatuires have followed in the opposite direction so we are now into single figures again. But the countryside is superb and the villages and towns have at last stopped looking like Prince Charles's worst nightmare.
The brilliant new campsite in is an oak wood alognside a glacial lake formed 100,000 years ago. The site is on the morain to the south west of the lake - actually on the morain; the scree of boulders and grit scraped out by the glaciers and forming a not very natural but inevitable dam behind which the lake formed when the melt started 90,000 years ago. Geography lesson over. It is the first site where we have been able to easily manouvre the van into position and have absolute confidence of an easy exit. Hurrah! We shall stay four nights and move on Sunday. Today we did a bit of shopping in a really nice little town and then followed the mountain road up, steeply, to another little lake at 1,800 metres! It was snowing and there was very old and thick snow in the gulleys. Unlike Andalucia there was no almond blossom to provide counterpoint. It was 1C and pretty damn cold. We looked around a bit but were quickly chilled and returned to 1100 metres and 5.5C.
We shall visit a couple of famous towns - Zamora, fortified and very fine, and possibly Salamanca although it is 150k each way. If not then maybe Braganza which is in Portugal.
Janet today managed to discuss with a young lady from Bulgiaria, in mixed Spanish and English, the brilliant little tarts we were served with our morning Cortados. The young migrant of just 8 months tried three locals before finding one with enough English to convey that more tarts would arrive at 5 p.m. if we wished to return. It was a 1 gallon round trip - they were not that good!
Olly still does not like waves - our lake is sufficently ruffled to have some - but finds them more to his liking since he can drink these...

No wonder we Brits called it The Groyne.... A Coruna - April 22

I have been to Coruna. About 55 years ago as a young lad I dreamed of visiting many places but one of them was La Coruna. It featured in school history. It featured in some of the books I read. And it even showed up in or or two comics. It seemed somehow to be at the other end of a lot of British - or at least English - history. To me it also seemed to be the objective that had made some English heroes, not least Sir Francis Drake - El Draco to the Spanish. His exploit at Cadiz is best know perhaps but he nearly took Coruna. And this was also the scene of one of the greatest rearguard actions of all military history - Sir John Moore and a detachment of British Redcoats fighting Napolean's army to give 15,000 bedraggled English troops time to board their ships and escape. He died of course. All real heroes did it seems.
The death of heroes fits nicely with how I have felt about visiting Coruna - anticipation killed off by the sheer mediocrity of what the Spanish have done to the city. This is high rise hell. Must have been quite a place in about 1955 when it all got started. But now? It is a criminal wasteland of architecural and planning brutality.
It is an incredibly impressive harbour in much the way Plymouth is. But where Plymouth Sound is beautiful, Coruna's is besmirched on all sides. The docks are extensive but mostly idle and untidy. It shared with Plymouth an historic and ancient city centre. Where Plymouth's was blown to bits by bombs this has been muddled and meddled with by developers and planners. And where Plymouth carries its historic past proudly Coruna appears to have forgotten hers. In fact they share so much history they should be twinned.
Coruna honours two heroes. One was John Moore who of course was fighting for the allies of Spain and England against Napoleon. The other was Maria Pita, a woman of Coruna who got embroiled in the battle with Drake's brigands, grabbed his colours and so rallied the men of Coruna that Drake was beaten off. So her story goes and inded there is a huge and magnificent square named in her honour, and properly adorned with her effigy, with an English marine under her heel and surrounded by brilliant bronzes of her legendary exploits. The huge plaza is about 300 metres on a side, three of them four storey colonnaded and galleryed late 18th century symmetry and facing a huge, ornate and quite breath-taking triple domed City Hall. And too there is a square we did not find to honour Sir John Moore. Yet there is no signage, no finger boards to point the visitor's way. We stumble upon one, fail to find the other.
But Coruna has even more - this is also where Phillip's much-vaunted Armada was assembled - 130 ships of the line, 30,000 troops and who knows how many support vessels, all committed to giving England a big smack. And of course it was at the other end of this connection, from Plymouth, that Drake and Howard and Effingham sailed to take the Armada on, hopelesslyoutgunned but happily benefitting from the Atlantic's capricious ways as the Spanish were swept almost uncontrollably past their planned rendezvous, forced to shelter while Drake's fireships plunged among them and then foprced out into the wastes of the North Sea, gale-driven north to straggle home - some anyway - via the Irish Sea. But as we walk about do we get directed, encouraged, enlightened? No. Not a mention. Not a line on any board. Nothing to tell us that this is where that great catholoic adventure started. Boards there are but of such parochial content as to almost deliberately insult the names of the illustrious heroes of Coruna.
In fact they gave more direction to the much re-engineered magnificence of the Torre de Hercules, a Roman Pharos that still does service as a lighthouse to this day. It stands on an eminence facing directly at America (if only the Romans had known!). It is in superb if over restored condition, seven storeys high and in mellow marmalade stone. Seen from the land in does all that it should to stir the heart. Seen from any other angle it struggles to overcome to aweful banality of miles and miles of high rise, most of it barely 30 years old. Horrors. I'll keep my childhood dreams thanks. You can have Coruna - no wonder the English called it The Groyne even if thei intent was more geographic than descriptive!
But maybe I shall return one day and find it was all just out of eyeline all the time. I rather hope so.