Tuesday 27 May 2008

east of eden

Before we left we picked fresh lemons from the trees and gathered windfall avocados to take with us. That's how much of a paradise Patty Pan's place was and is. A more characterful campsite and friendlier host would be hard to find. It's not ideal if you don't like animals (Patty has three dogs, Lika, Charlie and Norman and two cats, including a certifiably insane black moggy with three legs called Tripod. Theo was very taken with her in particular - I think it was the vigour with which she attacked him that attracted him) and I can't imagine it being favoured by the efficient Netherlanders in their spotless motorhomes (although they might get the washing machine working) and the roaming retirees, who tirelessly cross the continent in their shiny Winnebagos. Nope, it's definitely one for the more alternative type of traveller, who's more interested in making new friends and a lifestyle which contains a few quirks. One other thing about our genial hostess which particularly pleased Kate: she whooped Theo's arse at Scrabble. Yes! Anyway, the time has come to move on, so this morning we got back on the road.

The Spanish are in the wrong time zone. In a line North to South with the UK and thus on the same longitude (or is that latitude?) with London, Spain should, geographically speaking, be on GMT like Morocco and Portugal. Instead the Spanish use CET - Central European Time - and so share their hours with Germany, France, Italy et al. This is a masterstroke as it means the Spanish get long summer evenings, with sunset around ten, and can catch the dawn, even in May, at a not inhuman hour.

So, after spending a warm evening bathing in fresh water rock pools in the hills behind Estepona, we hit the road early to be greeted with a spectacular sunrise over the Med at 6.30am as we rounded Marbella heading east from Patty's eden.

We are heading to Barcelona, to the Primavera Sound Festival to see, among others, our good friend SJ Esau. It's a long drive, over a thousand kilometres from Estepona, so we're doing in it two days - after nearly 12 hours in Sheena today we made it to the Costa Blanca near Valencia. There is such a huge variety in Spain's landscape - we're seen nothing like the Basque country or the plains of Castile since we left them - and today was no different. Almeria was just a maze of polythene, each hill rounded bringing yet another series of plains and terraces of long, low, industry greenhouses. Murcia was dry and dusty, with unattractive bungalows sprawling across arid plains. Valencia, so far, seems beautiful and picturesque, full of orange trees and striking hillsides, with even the high rises of Benidorm appearing (from the road at least) attractively built and well laid out - a huge contrast to the usual, unthought out apartment block monstrosities we've found on the fringes of most Spanish cities.

Tomorrow Barcelona - if we have half as much fun as we did last time we were there we'll be in for a treat.

Saturday 24 May 2008

Baptised in the brine

It takes a supreme effort of will, determination and mind over matter to submerge your warm, mammalian body in cold water, but I'm proud to report Theo and I have both done the deed. As it happens, I managed a short dip in the Atlantic in Biarritz last month - in fact, that's exactly what it was. I dipped my body in, almost got swallowed up by the crunching undertow, kicked in slightly panicked fashion to escape the brutal offshore current and just about managed to extricate myself intact. The whole experience was somewhere between exhilarating and terrifying - and the water felt only a few degrees above freezing.
The Mediterranean has supplied a much more mellow swimming experience, although the water temperature is most kindly described as "refreshing". Most of the Spanish wouldn't countenance going into the sea as early as May - but we are made of sterner stuff and have been in two days running. It must be the Celtic blood flowing in our veins. It also helps if there's a pleasant, wood-honed beach bar nearby with reviving hot drinks to help get the circulation going again. And in a real emergency, it also sells spirits. Added to that it's run by Jasmina's mum, Myriam, a very friendly English-speaker and has a stack of British glossy magazines on the counter to flick through while your husband is playing backgammon with a friend (Andy - we persuaded him into the sea with us, but I'm not sure he was all that grateful). We're going back there tonight for a barbeque. With drumming.

Friday 23 May 2008

The other Costa del Sol

For a basic beach holiday, where you just want sun, sea, an inexpensive hotel room and lots of cheap beer (and aren't too snobby about your fellow holidaymakers), then the Costa del Sol is fine. Personally, I find lying on beaches for hours intensely dull, although a refreshing swim on a hot day and the chance to read a good book without feeling guilty do have a certain appeal. In fact, where we're staying now gives us ample opportunity to do both, but we're also getting the chance to meet the local English/Spanish community - not the people who have moved from the UK to sit in smart villas and restrict their mixing to fellow ex-pats, but the people whose lives have become woven into the fabric of southern Spain.

Patty, our landlady, has been here for twenty five years or more. When we went into Estepona with her, it took ages to get from one side of the street to the other as numerous friends and acquaintances kept stopping to say "hola" and exchange news. Estepona itself is quite an attractive town with some charming cafe-lined plazas, smart shopping streets and a busy fishing port and marina. Mind you, the shops aren't so smart they don't include the odd front room-grocery seller. We stopped in one complete with sofas, sideboards and TV, where an elderly woman was selling fruit, veg and free-range eggs. We bought a big bagful of goods for less than five euros.

Back at Patty's Paradise our fellow campers include Heicke, a German traveller with her two old-style Mercedes cars (which she uses interchangeably, depending on which one happens to be working), her beautifully painted blue bus and her three energetic dogs, one of which is an improbable cross between a chihuaha and a husky.

Also, newly arrived in his long wheelbase Volkswagen truck is Andy, who we'd already encountered at the Rocket Festival. He's recently quit his job in the UK and sold most of his possessions to move out here. The seed was planted when his friend Kerine (who gave us Patty's flyer at the Rocket) moved to this area around five years ago. Last year Andy spent a few months doing a solo motorbike tour of Western Europe and that was that, going back to life and work in the UK didn't hold enough attractions anymore, so here he is. It gets you that way. I wonder if Theo and I will ever slot back into our former lives, but we shall see. Plenty of time yet.

Kerine herself has also visited a few times, sharing funny tales of her life in Spain and the people she meets in her upholstery job at Estepona Port. Patty's daughter Rosie is currently taking time out from her own travelling (Central America so far, the UK then other parts of Europe are next) to see her mum - Rosie's boyfriend Raffa is also here. He's from Madrid originally, but she met him while they were both in Belize. We've also met Patty's ex, Steve (christened the patron saint of vans since he fixed the busted fuel pump on Andy's vehicle), a lively Spanish family friend called Jasmina and another mate called Simon. We joined the ensemble up at Patty's house for late night wine, chat and bread and butter pudding. As you do in Spain. If we're not careful, we'll start feeling rather at home here ourselves.

Thursday 22 May 2008

Patty's Paradise

Some people just don't deserve their country. That's certainly true of the British, our ratio of ugly, insensitive developments to beautiful surroundings being sadly weighted in favour of the former. And it's definitely true of the Spanish, who seem intent on raping their stunning landscapes with acre upon acre of concrete monstrosities. The building boom has seen big, boxy appartment blocks going up wherever there's the slightest bit of space and beautiful towns like Salamanca or Cordoba are becoming increasingly swathed in wastelands of depressing urban sprawl. On the Costa del Sol, huge hotels to feed the (often British...we definitely shoulder some of the blame here...) swarms of tourists have been mushrooming for some decades now. So too, the rash of white, balconied villas over the lush hillsides, facing what was once a charming and picturesque coastline...all too many of our fellow countrymen and women are living in those too.

It was with a mixture of horror and gloom that we passed by Malaga, Torremelinos and Marbella on our way down the Costa to Patty's alternative living campsite, near Estepona in the far south of Spain.

Patty herself collected us from a rendezvous point nearby and led us to the orchard below her house, only ten minutes walk from the nearest beach (very unspoilt for the Costa del Sol, with a view to the rock of Gibraltar and the Atlas Mountains in Africa) and boasting electricity hook-ups, plentiful fresh water, loo, hot showers and laundry facilities. For that, we are paying ten euros a day plus ten euros on top for unlimited and excellent wifi internet access. In fact, pretty much the same facilities we payed 25 euros a night for in Torre del Mar, Lisbon and Salamanca, but on a far smaller scale and in a scruffier, more unruly but much more friendly site.

We are now comfortably ensconced beneath a lemon tree with a bucket full of windfalls ready to be squeezed into home-made lemonade.

Wednesday 21 May 2008

Rocket review

My review of the Rocket Festival is now up on efestivals plus loads more photos....

we're currently chilling out on an unofficial (and therefore very cheap) campsite in Estepona, doing some laundry and enjoying the sunshine....

Sunday 18 May 2008

Rocket Festival, Sunday

This time it was gone two pm by the time we made it out of the van. Heading to the healing fields for our favourite juice bar we caught up with Fran, Pete and Ayesha and then got chatting to Jacob, the very friendly head honcho of the healing space who soon had us all taking part in a Chi Gong workshop. Just what we needed to get the energy levels flowing.
General ambling for a while saw us take in some improv music in the healing field (Barry The Box again, this time with a sitar-player and violinist), checked out the stilt walkers (including Kate's former neighbour Lucy and Theo's former mentee Lewin) and an excellent bout of tag mud-wrestling.

We watched Miss Cecily, another Bristol band play at the Solar Stage, then wandered back to the van for some R'n'R, which involved a hefty dram of the port we'd acquired while visiting the Ferreira HQ in Portugal. Well, we might be in southern Spain, but it gets damn nippy at night in those mountains. This was purely medicinal.

Back on site again and as we settled into watch the much-touted Los Deliquentes (who were very good, it must be said), the all-too-familiar sound of rain pattering on canvas was heard overhead. We could scarcely believe it, this is what we came to escape!

In the end, the chill in the air and general dampness saw us heading to the dance arena, where we eventually pitched up in a tent full of green laser-light and techno. There we both became ever more ebullient, befriending a couple of Spanish guys, Diago and Manuel (and managed to fix up Manuel with Ayesha - score!) and a French girl called Bem. We also spent much time hugging numerous other festival chums who came to join in, including Fran and Pete, Extremely Tall Sham and Matt the fence-jumper-turned-wristbanded-performer.

Eventually, the effects of the beer, the shots of neat rum and gawd-knows-what-else took their toll on our sense of balance and co-ordination, so I figured (Theo was too far gone to make the decision at that point) it was time to have a cup of tea and get vertical. It was almost six by the time we got back and settled down. It had also been the best night of all at The Rocket.

Saturday 17 May 2008

Rocket Festival, Saturday

We completed our Friday night with a 0200 Main Stage rendezvous with an Italian gypsy band called Circus Abusivo, easily the best thing on the MS since the festival began (from what I'm told - I spent most of Friday interviewing people, editing the interviews and sending them to my old work, BBC Radio Bristol) then completed our night's revelling with a bounce around to Village Disco in naff Ozzie form in Cantina Galactica. "Nellie The Elephant" and Rod Stewart were on the playlist, you couldn't fault it really. We got back to the van some time after three, after stopping at a stall for chocolate and churros. When in Spain...

Later that same day, we emerged after a reasonably decent amount of sleep and headed straight for the healing field where I had a shiatsu massage from a lovely chap called Alan, with whom
we'd got chatting the day before. He's lived in Spain since the eighties, when he joined the hippie exodus fleeing the horrors of Thatcher's Britain. He did a great job, I've had hardly a twinge from my dodgy right arm ever since.

Much of Saturday daytime was spent ambling around the site in that time-honoured festival way, but we did stop off in the Lux tent to watch an improv band comprising Clyde, the ukele-playing
frontman, a harmonising woman with a puppet, an Italian playing a drum and Barry The Box, busily bashing away, as he had during a gap in the music at Cantina Galactica on Thursday night. What they lacked in preparation they made up with enthusiasm and the gambit of giving the audience three bottles of home-made wine to share (providing someone had a corkscrew - Theo did) guaranteed them a rousing reception. They did their last number among their spectators, with the grand finale involving everyone spinning on the spot then collapsing into a group hug.
We greatly enjoyed Lazy Habits, a white UK hiphop crew in Cantina Galactica and willingly received one of the free CDs they gave out from the stage (this habit of bribing the audience is something I would tend to encourage...there was a lot of it going on at the Rocket). After that, a fabulously costumed drum'n'bass rendition of the Wife Of Bath's tale by the Eat Prunes Collective in the Lux tent caught our attention - quality stuff.

Possibly the most enjoyable Main Stage act came next - Rrradio Gee, a self-styled pikey band who got the early evening crowd madly a-jigging to their fast-paced Irish folk-rock. I was so hot after all that jumping around, I opted to take a free shower when the water-spraying fire engine came by to damp down the dust in the main arena. If I closed my eyes, I could almost imagine myself at Glastonbury.

A Bristol band, Zen Hussies were next and they were most enjoyable with their mixture of ska and swing (they finished their set with a Christmas song set in Melksham - suitably random).
After that, it was back to Sheena to get into fancy dress. The theme was space, so we fashioned some alien costumes out of tin foil, empty water bottles, starry glitter and UK forces issue light sticks, which were included when we bought our van. The effect was pretty decent, we thought and it certainly got some heads turning when we went back onto the site some time after 11pm.
It was noticeably busier as loads of Spaniards had arrived, as predicted by the festival regulars.
We enjoyed the Spanish band, Muchachito Bombero Infuerno, the first act I've seen to include an artist working on a painting as part of the gig (mind you, the set went on so long, Coldcut, who were on next, were an hour late starting) and we loved Beardyman, the champion beatboxer, who played to a packed Dance Tent.

Other highlights included attempting to reunite a guy called Rob with a Swedish girl called Lena - he'd met her in Malaga a couple of days earlier and had come to the Rocket with the express intention of tracking her down. We asked for an announcement to go out over the PA, but we still don't know if he found her.

We also met Kerine and Andy, attracted initially attracted by the excellence of their fancy dress as we all stopped at a stall for food. They gave us a flyer for an "alternative living" campsite on the Costa del Sol, which seemed like a good place for us to go and hide our damaged van for a while, so we resolved to give it a try.

The other great part about Saturday night was simply hanging out with Fran and Pete, our mates from the Grenada campsite and other buddies they'd collected, including Ayesha, who'd travelled to the festival from London alone after splitting up with her boyfriend a couple of weeks earlier. It was Fran's birthday, so much toasting involving Jack Daniels and coke went on - and what a place for a party! We caught a couple of songs from Coldcut before calling it a night sometime towards 5am.

Friday 16 May 2008

first impressions

We're at the Rocket Festival and it's fabulous! Not much is going on yet - it's still Friday morning - though we had a lovely boogie at the Space themed Cantina Galactica last night as well as meeting lots of very friendly people.

Anyway, while Kate is off conducting various interviews she has instructed me to write a piece for BBC online which goes into far more detail

They credited it to Kate but I wrote it and took them snaps. What's mine is hers now, apparently.

Thursday 15 May 2008

strange meetings

"Theo!" came the shout down Calle de Reyes Catholics in Grenada.

Expecting it to be some other Bristolian heading, like us, to the Rocket Festival, we were both surprised to meet instead Andy and Tracy, the Kiwi couple we had met on the campsite outside Burgos. Their itinerary had brought them to Granada and later the same campsite as us.

Our neightbours at the campsite turned out to be from Bristol, Pete and Fran, over here to celebrate her birthday. A very convivial evening was spent in their company and we were later joined by Andy and Tracy, which cheered us up greatly after the depressing morning at the garage.

Tomorrow we're going to drive - very carefully - to Rocket.

Wednesday 14 May 2008

Bugger

Tomorrow (or possibly today depending on when I post this) I am probably going to have to have the following conversation:

"hola! Hablar ingles?"
"no."
"Vale. Se puede reponer el parabrisas trasero de nos cochecama, por favor?"
"tal vez. Que le pasa?"
"choca con un arbol ayer."

Laughter will undoubtedly ensue at this point, followed by sucking of teeth, scratching of head, rapid burst of incomprehensible Spanish, hand gestures which we will probably interpret as indicating that our Madza is not a common make so a replacement rear windscreen wont be easy to find.
I hit an olive tree parking in the campsite. We now have a hole (temporarily plugged with mosquito net) and crazy paving effect in the rear view.

Bugger.

Later update:

Laughter did not ensue. As feared the Mazda E2200 was not sold in Spain, and indeed isn´t that common. The insurance company is on the case but finding a new rear windscreen may take a while. Car Glass (the Spanish version of Autoglass) did a decent job of taping up the window, so we´ll probably just find a nice campsite by the beach and hole up until we get furtehr instructions.

After the Rocket Festival, of course!

Tuesday 13 May 2008

the distractions of being connected to the wider world

we spent so much time online at Cordoba that we never actually got around to writing a proper blog entry about our visit.

In summary then:

- got lost
- found old Jewish quarter
- got lost
- found Mezquita, the Mosque with a Cathedral in the middle. Both of us totally bowled over.
- got lost
- had coffee
- got lost
- had Montilla
- failed to find decent tapas; an utter travesty
- found youth hostel and had slap up meal
- got lost
- found campsite

Monday 12 May 2008

photos from Seville

In the campsite at Cordoba we managed to find some free wifi, so we've taken the opportunity to upload some photos from Seville (see below) and add some to past postings, so do scroll through to check them out even if you've already read the blogs....





Sunday 11 May 2008

Beer and loathing in Seville

We were starting to hate Seville way before we actually got there.

The drive was epic - we left the Lisbon campsite at 8am and hit the outskirts of Seville - hideous modern appartment blocks - at 6pm which, even given the fact we lost an hour when we crossed the border, made it the longest drive of the trip thus far and an epic by anyone's standards.

An hour and a half later and we were still trying to find a campsite, which plainly has been buried under an airport extension or one of those modern buildings. Half hints and a single sign on a roundabout were the only clues to back up the road atlas and guidebook's assertion that it existed. We were already getting testy with Seville by this point, but it was about 20 minutes later after being stuck on ringroad hell and discovering, thanks to the complete absence of signs, that we'd been driving away from Seville for the past 15kms that the loathing set in. This was, you note, before we'd even got there.

The absence of a campsite, the pending sunset and the wind and rain drove us into the centre of the city past honking taxis and psychopathic scooters. We hit the old town and parking Sheena semi-legally in a plaza (safety in numbers we figured), dashed for the nearest hostel. Closed.

The second had one room left, a twin, with roaches in the bathroom and a smell of fish in the corridor. We took it. We were that tired. We decided to make the most of being in the lively Santa Cruz district on a Saturday night; get some food, take a nap, shower and hit the town again, perhaps trying to move Sheena to a more obviously legit parking space. However, as previously blogged, we can stick to plans for about as long as I can hold a tune. A chance meeting with the lovely Nora (a German living in Seville) and the ebullient David (Irish friend visiting) led to free flamenco, free flowing beer and a fine evening out. Amazing luck as without Nora's local knowledge we would never have found it - thanks for the fun times you two!

We like Seville a lot more now we've actually seen a bit of it. Hopefully by the end of tomorrow we'll be thoroughly smitten.

Saturday 10 May 2008

Lisbon: planning to plan

Kate and I suck at planning things.

Ok, so our wedding went pretty well - we're not saying that things go badly when we plan them, it's just that we seem to be rubbish at sticking to plans. We're too impetuous, too easily distracted and too prone to improvise. For example, originally our European travel plans hadn't included Spain and Portugal AT ALL - now we're spending a month here (all largely because of a thread we saw on the CHOKE forum). As a result we had hardly any plans, and hadn't even got around to purchasing a proper road atlas for the Iberian peninsular until we got to Bilbao.

Today was another great example of us making plans, not sticking to them, making more plans, not sticking to those either, but of generally having a lovely, if footsore, day anyway.


We're in Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, a south-facing port on the Tajo river. Our plan had been to get up early, have breakfast, head into town before 9, wander around and see some of the sights, then come back for a late lunch and siesta before heading back into Lisbon for a night out in the big city. We started well, but by 12.30 we didn't really feel we'd seen much by way of the sights, just some lovely narrow, cobbled streets with tall town houses on the sides and cafe tables in the middle, opening out to big pracas named after various kings and explorers. We did find an ornate street elevator, originally steam powered and a cute funicular tramway, but we decided it was too early to eat out and anyway we weren't that bothered about a night on the tiles. So we bought a day rider (might have been a good plan to get one earlier, but never mind) and headed to the riverside Belem district, where several of Lisbon's best monuments and palaces were to be found.



After changing our plans regarding lunch a couple of times, we found a charming little pavement cafe where we managed to assemble a reasonably decent vegetarian meal from various entree and soup options. Monuments checked out, street art spotted, ice cream eaten, feet beginning to ache, we resolved to do the rest of our sightseeing by tram and bus to make the best use of our four-euro tickets. Inevitably we ended up on a different tram to the one we planned to take, but Kate's instinct was right as we were rewarded by gorgeous views on the castle circular in a splendid old fashioned vehicle with sash windows and leather sunscreens, polished wood and ample chances to exchange greetings with pedestrians and people in passing trams.

Naturally our plans to return to the campsite via a variety of Metro trains and buses were altered, changed and rearranged several times and two missed stops later, we made it back. I had planned to get our washing in from earlier then cook, but Kate had other plans, hence she's cooking and I am blogging. About plans.

Thursday 8 May 2008

Plus que change...

After a late start in Coimbra, Kate successfully navigated us to the Lisbon campsite, a drive of some 4 hours on the back-roads while my arms fried in the afternoon sun and we munched on juicy nectarines from a small shop in Porto.

Arriving early in the evening, I cooked while Kate played guitar, eating out under the shade of a eucalyptus. Later we sat in Sheena, read and played rummikub while listening to Bonnie Prince Billy, Feist and Joe Volk. Almost exactly like being back in our flat in Clifton.

Except we're in Lisbon's municipal campsite inside a 2 x 6 metre squared Madza E2200 van surrounded by a purr of feral cats.

It's a funny old world sometimes.

Wednesday 7 May 2008

Town, Gown & Fado

We loved Porto, but mindful of our limited time in Portugal before going to the Rocket Festival (and that there are a lot of places in Spain we still want to visit before the end of May), we decided to push on towards Lisbon. Our guidebook recommended Coimbra as an interesting city to see and as our new South American friends had also given the place their thumbs up, we decided to call in on route.

The city only has one campsite, but it was easy to find, very reasonably priced, has good, clean facilities and a regular bus into town - perfect. It also had the biggest European mix of clientale we'd encountered so far, with fellow campers including Dutch, French, Spanish, Portugese, German and another English couple. AND the young woman on reception spoke some English, so that made everything much more straightforward.

It was very hot in the afternoon - Theo chose to spend it snoozing in Sheena while I mooched around doing domestic things like the washing up and wrestling unsuccessfully with the campsite clothes washing machine. Eventually, I gave up, went and got my three Euros back from reception, only to return and witness one of the Dutch women sticking a load on in nary a blink of the eyes. I've noticed Dutch people seem to be very efficient campers (well, motorhome enthusiasts) - next time I want to do some laundry I think I will lassoo a Netherlander first. It could save me a lot of frustration.

We took the bus into Coimbra for the evening after the inevitable confusion buying tickets - not only does every country have its own system, but as we've discovered in Portugal, every city and individual bus firm does the business of ticket buying and stamping (or not) and return issuing (or not) in a different manner as well. Rather baffling to the unwary foreign traveller, but don't let that put you off. Without taking the bus, how would you get to see the scruffiest suburbs and lowliest housing estates of all these proud cities? It's also cheap and you can get all the thrills of a fairground ride with some of the more gung-ho drivers.

Coimbra is a city with a university at its heart. King Dinis gifted his Coimbra palace to the institution and it's been established in the city since the early thirteenth century. The buildings are crumbling but still impressive, with the university precincts dotted with statues and steeped in a long, proud history.

The town itself has a multitude of steep, narrow streets, lined with tall appartments, many of them tiled in patterns of blue and green and festooned with their residents' drying clothes. We spent a happy hour or so wandering round (after the obligatory cafe pingo and cup of hot chocolate taken outside a cafe beside the Santa Cruz monastery, itself a rather beautiful converted chapel) before going to the Restaurante Jardim da Manga for some food. We were greeted by a very friendly, English-speaking waiter, Diago, who guided us through the vegetarian options at the cafeteria-style sevice counter. We ate our huge platefuls outside beside the water garden, formally laid out with heavily-laden citrus trees dropping their fruit into the quartet of fountains. We got complimentary glasses of port (yay!) and the whole thing cost less than fourteen Euros.

While at the top of the town during our walk, we'd noticed what looked like a festival laid out in the city's riverside park. It turned out Coimbra was midway through it annual student extravaganza, Queima das Fitas. Essentially, ten days of each faculty celebrating that year's graduation with an eclectic mix of live music, beginning after midnight and ending with traditional Portugese Fado.

Having encountered Fado already through seeing Mariza at WOMAD (the stylish young Fado singer, who has almost single-handedly opened it up to the rest of the world) and then Dona Rosa (who I preferred), I was interested to catch some live. Coimbra's most succesful bar is aCapella, where they put on shows every night in a fourteenth century monument. For ten Euros a head you got three shows, explanation and background to the music in Portugese and English and a drink. We got a jug of sangria, which lasted us the night and watched two young guys, one on Portugese guitar, the other on English classical guitar, deliver a beautiful and intricate set of ballads, serenades and dances. They had a singer with them, who was less impressive - not bad on the more uptempo numbers, but tended to confuse emotion for volume on the slower more melancholy songs and had all the over-bearing vibrato of the lead tenor in a small town, church choir.

Nonetheless, it was an enjoyable couple of hours and I was interested to learn that every year each faculty at Coimbra university composes a new fado song so the students can say their farewells. Some of these have become incredibly well-known throughout Portugal and the finale was the 1958 Medical Faculty fado, which had the Portugese members of the audience all singing along...a lovely moment.

When we got outside, this year's graduates had filled Coimbra's streets, many of them still wearing their black graduation gowns with badges sewn on, scout-style. We contemplated joining the celebrations and going along to the party in the park, but all that sangria and dolorous Fado had made us feel sleepy, so we got a taxi back to the campsite. Tomorrow if it's hot, we decided, we would get our laundry done and go canoeing while it was drying and maybe head to the beach later on.

We woke this morning to the familiar sound of raindrops pattering onto Sheena's roof. Nah, we'll get on the road to Lisbon and the laundy will have to wait.

Tuesday 6 May 2008

observations of Portugal (and Spain)

The Spanish label their railways, so when you drive over a railway line is says which line it is, much in the same way that rivers in the UK (and elsewhere) are labeled. Whether this for the benefit of lost travelers or train spotters isn't clear.

The Portuguese have lots of rocks. They are everywhere. You wouldn't think they'd need to bother quarrying for stone seeing as it seems to be pretty much the only thing in some of the fields, but there are loads of quarries anyway.

Whoever decides where to put road signs in Portugal seems to take great delight in misleading would be picnic-ers, as there were a plethora of "picnic-table-under-shady-tree" signs on the way to Porto that lead instead to baking hot service station car parks.

After a schlepp of a drive yesterday, powering (ahem) Sheena up the highest mountain range in Portugal, we are now in the lovely city of Porto. Portugal's second city reminds me equally of Newcastle and Zanzibar, in the way that high, beautiful bridges span the Duoro river between castles and cathedrals, while the old town is full of cramped, tiled, slightly decrepit, but nonetheless attractive buildings. there's a heat haze over the city, but with the breeze from the Atlantic it's cool and pleasant. The lower bank - a separate city called Gaia (more parallels with Tyneside) - is full of Port distillers and wholesalers, their signs dominating the bank. We'll probably head there after we've finished rinsing the various wireless networks we've managed to find while Kate samples the best coffee in Europe.

observations of Portugal (and Spain)

The Spanish label their railways, so when you drive over a railway line it says which line it is, much in the same way that rivers in the UK (and elsewhere) are labeled. Whether this is for the benefit of lost travelers or train spotters isn't clear. But it´s probably comforting to know that the train passing beneath you is the 10.45 to Madrid. If you're a train spotter, well that knowledge is clearly invaluable.

The Portuguese have lots of rocks. They are everywhere. You wouldn't think they'd need to bother quarrying for stone seeing as it seems to be pretty much the only crop in some of the fields, but there are loads of quarries anyway.

Whoever decides where to put road signs in Portugal seems to take great delight in misleading would be picnickers, as there were a plethora of "picnic-table-under-shady-tree" signs on the way to Porto that lead instead to baking hot service station car parks.

After a schlepp of a drive yesterday, powering (ahem) Sheena up the highest mountain range in Portugal, we are now in the lovely city of Porto. Portugal's second city reminds me equally of Newcastle and Zanzibar, in the way that high, beautiful bridges span the Douro river between castles and cathedrals, while the old town is full of cramped, tiled, slightly decrepid, but nonetheless attractive buildings. There's a heat haze over the city, but with the breeze from the Atlantic it's cool and pleasant. The lower bank - a separate city called Gaia (more parallels with Tyneside) - is full of Port distillers and wholesalers, their signs dominating the bank. We'll probably head there after we've finished rinsing the various wireless networks we've managed to find while Kate samples the best coffee in Europe.

Later note from Kate:



We certainly did sample the the local tipple shortly afterwards. We deliberately chose the Ferreira tour and degustation because of its strong Portugese connections and spent an enjoyable hour in the company of a couple (Argentinian and Brazilian respectively, but currently resident in the UK so with very good English) being taught all about Port wine by the guide, then an even more enjoyable time sampling the different types and vintages, with the conversation becoming more convivial and extravagent with every sip. By the end of it all, we were firm friends with Cecile and Guillermo, so went and enjoyed some "pingos" together (glorious shots of wonderfully smooth-roasted espresso coffee with a drop of milk...Theo had hot chocolate) at a cafe back in Porto itself before parting company with fond regards all round. We then came upon an uproarous student graduation parade, which put the English graduation tradition of hats in the air to shame. Ah, this is indeed a fine city. And that's not just the Port talking.

Monday 5 May 2008

Soundtracks of our sojourn

As we drive we mostly listen to music on our laptop, the records of which get published on our Last FM profile. However we´ve a few CDs to keep us entertained when the laptop battery dies:

An ace compilation CD, a wedding present from Kate's old gigging & hitch-hiking friend Wigs, featuring Bob Dylan, Midlake, Bright Eyes, Beiruit, Herman Dune and loads more. It's great and many of the tracks (and artists) were new to us.

The Flying Club Cup by Beiruit which I left in the Sheena's stereo - cheers for introducing us to them Anna, as it's become a firm favourite.

Tied to the Mast By The Hinkley Veltones - an awesome wedding present from Steven Marr, one of the band who have been firm favourites of ours. I gave them their very first gig, they asked Kate to manage them, they came on both our radio shows, and they were brilliant supporting Frank Sidebottom the week before they left. It's a really great album and we suggest you get it.

(Rose Kemp also gave us a copy of her brand new album, straight from the studio, which we managed to feed into the Mac before we left. It too is excellent and we suggest you get it when it comes out on One Little Indian Records later this year.)

Sunday 4 May 2008

Kate and Theo´s Big Night Out

Our time as a married couple had been threatening to settle down into a routine comprising a modest beer or glass of wine and in bed before midnight, with French socialising confined mostly to people older than us and revolving around eating (mostly lunch - but it´s hardly an easy deal, you need the rest of the day to recover from some of those dejeuner do´s, I can tell you). So we resolved to put that right in Spain and do some partying. Our first night on the tiles en Español was last night, here in Salamanca - and if that´s an average night out with the Spaniards, then I´m sold.

We arrived in Salamanca at lunchtime and pitched up at easily the best campsite we´ve stayed in so far, at the Hotel Regio in St Marta, a few kilometres outside Salamanca itself. After an easygoing afternoon, we took the bus into town, which conveniently left the campsite every hour and cost a little over one euro each.

When we got to Salamanca, we followed the general drift of humanity until a joyous hubbub reached us and the narrow street we were walking down opened out into the wonderful Plaza Mayor. It´s a very large, very beautiful and very popular square with the city´s residents, tourists and large student population. All sides are lined with tables and chairs put out by the cafes and the centre of the plaza was filled with teenagers and twenty-somethings sitting in groups, just hanging out on the flagstones.

We chose a table and opted, like most of the other clientale, to enjoy a caña and coffee and drink everything in for a while. As we sat there, three storks flew gracefully overhead to their nests on one side of the Plaza. Soon after, as the light fell, the Plaza was suddenly lit up, a moment greeted with appreciative applause from all its assembled visitors.

Our time after that was spent trying out the Spanish habit of taking small drinks accompanied with tapas - basically small portions of barsnacks. We tried out El Bardo, which had a few vegetarian options among its tapas. More memorable was the bar specialising in Asturian sidra, which confusingly gave out very small measures of the drink served in glasses about the size of a pint, plus two tapas and even more confusingly, two corks. These last were taken away when we opted for a second helping, although we never quite worked out what their significance was. Meanwhile, we watched intrigued as portable sidra dispensers were wheeled around to groups of customers. A tall, metal, snake-like contraption, which held a bottle of sidra at the back and had a cradle for the glasses at the front, was operated by a large handle - which at first glance looked like the non-business end of a big kitchen knife. The sidra itself was dry with a clean, appley taste. Good stuff.

Eventually - gone midnight, when the night was still young as far as most of Salamanca´s younger generation was concerned - we decided to sample some of the clubs. This was easy to do because none of them charged for entry. The first one we went into, Camelot, was a haven for under-agers, with most of the clients looking like they were still waiting for their sixteenth birthday. Even Theo felt old there, so you can imagine how I felt. We didn´t stay long.

The next stop was at the Country Club, which was actually nothing of the sort. Steps led down to a cramped, mosaiced room and glowing with UV. It played vaguely left of centre rock music, which was actually pretty good, so we stayed and danced for a while. Before we moved on, we were accosted by a friendly and somewhat merry young Spaniard, who initially took Theo to be an Italian. As I had invested in some trousseau for him in Biarritz (Theo´s default mode of dressing being best described as scruffy), I felt reasonably pleased, given the Italian reputation for being stylish. Mind you, the guy was pretty drunk.

Finally, we opted for a rather more tacky dive in the "street" area of Salamanca - a litros bar, where you could get beer, spirits and other concoctions in one-litre buckets costing from three and a half euros. I ordered "agua de Valencia", which turned out to be a mixture of Cava and a shot of rum, topped up with orangeade, in a half-litre plastic glass. A terrible thing to do to Cava, really. The whole thing tasted like an alcoholic Fanta.


By now it was almost three and although we´d been told many of the clubs didn´t really warm up until four am, we were beaten and took a taxi back to the campsite (more like UK prices - cost us just over nine euros).

We both thoroughly enjoyed our experience of partying with the Spaniards and I truly wish going out could be such fun occasion in the UK. No aggro or edgyness, just loads of people out to have a great time. It´s certainly whetted our appetite for our forthcoming visit to Madrid and the Rocket and Primavera Sound festivals. Bring it on!

Today we both awoke mainly unscathed from our agua de Valencia experience and after a lazy time at the campsite, are now back in Salamanca appreciating some more of its considerable culture. The buildings are absolutely stunning. It´s a friendly place and I can highly recommend the ice-creams (helados) and hot chocolate with churros. Although you need a strong constitution for the latter - Theo and I felt quite dazed after a cup each of the really thick, dark chocolate served with four deep-fried strips of doughnut mixture. I´m amazed the Spaniards aren´t a great deal fatter in general, but it explains where they get the stamina for their marathon nights out.

Tomorrow, Portugal.

Friday 2 May 2008

the road to Salamanca

We took our time leaving Miguel's place in Galkao this morning. Partly because of my usual habit of spending ages having a shower and coating my skin in unguents supposedly guaranteed to keep it young and beautiful. Partly because of a clutch of emails needing pressing and thoughtful replies. And partly because our genial host was keen to chat. About Sheena (he's very keen on getting a camper van himself); about where we should go next on our Spanish tour (he recommended spending the day in Segovia before heading for Salamanca - a rather optimistic suggestion given Sheena's stately pace on the road and our habit of taking long-drawn out lunch breaks and siestas); and his own desire to move to England and what his chances were of getting employment (pretty high given his abilities in renovation and driving - he's already been a building manager and train driver and after seeing his reversing and manouvering skills, I'd say he's the kind of potential bus-driver Bath is crying out for).

But after a stop in Bilbao old town to buy a Spanish dictionary and road atlas and a visit to the Eroski mega supermarket to stock up on supplies, we were on the road towards Burgos. Okay, it was gone one by then and Segovia looked like it was off the menu for the time being. But we had a beautiful drive through the sierra dividing Basque province of Bizkaia and Castilla and eventually made it to a brilliantly quirky campsite at the Paster monument, not far from Miranda.

There we chummed up with two friendly New Zealanders, also on a tour of Europe and currently hot-footing it to Madrid to meet relatives before driving on down to a villa the south of Spain. We spent a most convivial few hours chatting with Andy and Tracy, sharing wine, beer, cake and prunes in eau de vie (which had already caused something of a sensation with Miguel and Beatriz) - thanks in part to chairs and table loaned by a very friendly Spanish guy from the neighbouring chalet.



We've now resolved to get on the road by 0730 tomorrow so we can make it to Salamanca in time to sample some of its famed Saturday nightlife. The fact that the campsite showers can be best described as bracing will probably cut down on the ablutions and help hurry us on our way.

to Bilbao

Suddenly we were in Spain.

It was as abrupt as that. Not that our arrival in Spain was unintended, but it was certainly unheralded. No passport control, no "Welcome to Spain" signs, just a sudden change in the style of the traffic lights and the languages on the signs becoming Spanish and the unintelligible Euskara. It was an abruptness that we found elsewhere in the Euskal Herria, or Basque Country, most obviously in the landscape, with there seeming no middle ground between mountain and sea, or countryside and town, the coast road to Bilbao perching on the narrowest of passages between towering, forested hills and the heaving Atlantic which even on this calm, sunny day breached the sea defenses at one point to give Sheena a good drenching. Goodness knows what the road is like on a stormy day.

Bilbao caught us by surprise. Suddenly we were there, an urban sprawl surrounded by peaks and hills, offering us no sense of location. We were so surprised that we hadn't had time to properly look over the directions given to us by Miguel and Beatriz, our hosts for the evening, and so promptly got lost and it took us a stressful hour to find our way back out of Bilbao and take another run at things. In the gloomy rain that had now descended, matched by our moods, Bilbao was looking far from attractive. However Miguel's directions turned out to be perfect, and he and Beatriz were superb hosts, as we sat around their kitchen sharing food and wine, attempting to communicate - Miguel spoke pretty decent English but as Beatriz didn't, and our Spanish is infantile as best, it was Miguel who did most of the talking!

After a good night's sleep Bilbao was looking more attractive in the bright sunshine of the next morning. Armed with Miguel's advice, we ventured into the city and found the stunning Guggenheim Museum, which definitely lives up to its hype; a row of beautiful bridges linked by a pleasant riverside promenade; a lovely old town full of gorgeous, balconied buildings and a score of May Day demos and marches.
In the afternoon we headed out to the coast, to be treated to more spectacular views of forested slopes crashing into the ocean as we puffed our way up winding mountain roads. We finished up at Gernika, the heart of the Euskla Herria, the site of the Basque Parliament and of the atrocities which heralded the advent of carpet bombing civilian targets when Hilter's Condor squadron practically destroyed the town during the Spanish Civil War. Then, after a siesta, a gentle drive back to another very warm welcome from Miguel and Beatriz, and an evening spent sharing beer and photos.

So definitely worth the stress of getting here.