Saturday 28 June 2008

in fair Verona...

Having laid back sufficiently by Lake Garda we decided to check the scene at Verona, just a half hour away (except we decided to drive around Lake Garda first, stopping for s swim and a picnic lunch en route, naturally). The quirky little campsite had great views, was run by hippies - in fact I was mistaken for a campsite worker the next morning - and was just a short walk from the very pretty walled old town, nestled as it is in the bend of the river.

The city is unsurprisingly a World Heritage site, preserving side by side Roman relics, a medieval castle, Gothic churches, Renaissance palaces and Venetian piazzas. It was in one of the latter that we sipped the local wine and watched the world go by as we made the most of the Italian tradition of aperitivi. Basically if you go into a bar in Italy between 7 and 9pm and order a drink you will either be brought a selection of free snacks by the waiter or else invited to help yourself from a free buffet. In the cheaper establishments it's a case of paper plates and mini slices of pizza, but here - seeing as we were paying what we like to call "view tax" on our glasses of the local Bordelino wine - it was china bowls, marinated zucchini, spiced croutons and fried chicory. Delicious. We rather exploited the bar's range of snacks to the extent that neither of us needed any supper.

Afterwards we wandered the lively streets taking in beautiful courtyards and ancient walls, clocking the Roman Arena - which is now used for concerts rather than mass slaughter - and grabbing an ice-cream.

We stumbled upon the Casa Guilietta - supposedly the home of Shakespeare's Juliet and now quite clearly a shrine to love. Every inch of the walls by the entrance was covered in amorous graffiti. A discreet "TB loves KS" was added in black biro.

A stroll along the river took us back up to the campsite past many a hand-holding couple and the Roman Theatre, currently playing host to Hamlet. On the way we paused among yet more couples to admire again the view from Castle San Pedro. We could understand why so many had gathered there - Verona is a truly romantic and passionate city.

Friday 27 June 2008

things I have learnt about my wife (part 2.)

She was a capable rollerskater and has a shady past in synchronised swimming.

Our honeymoon is a constant voyage of discovery!

Thursday 26 June 2008

On tourists

Tourists...we're a funny lot, aren't we? Like many a middle class Englisharian I am uncomfortable with the business of being a tourist - it so easily places you in a universe of tackiness and I take on board Jarvis Cocker's pronouncement that "everybody hates a tourist." Growing up in Cornwall has also given me a dread of being instantly identified with "the emmets" - the Cornish word for ants, so generously bestowed by the Duchy's natives on those who butter most of their turnips.

Yes, tourists are big business and places like Cornwall or Bath - both areas where I have lived and/or worked - would not prosper without them. At the same time, as Mr Cocker points out, tourists tend to be despised. Especially foreign tourists.

So here are a few observations on tourists I have made while sightseeing in France (main traps visited: Mont St Michel, Carcassonne, Pont du Gard); Spain (the Bilbao Guggenheim, Salamanca, Seville, Cordoba, the Costa del Sol); Portugal (Porto, Coimbra, Lisbon) and Italy (Rome, San Gimignano, Florence, San Marino...so far).
1. Most tourists are German, Dutch or North American. Apart from on the Costa del Sol, where they're almost one hundred per cent British.
2. A large proportion of tourists only see these incredible cultural hotspots through the lens of their digital cameras.
3. Tourists are seen as fair game to be ripped off by everyone, from third-class, overpriced restaurants, to retailers selling souvenirs of gob-smacking poor taste, the hawkers with their counterfeit handbags, the buskers with their dreadful backing tracks and the (usually Romany) beggars. And let's not forget the living statues, no self-respecting historical centre should be without one.
4. There is a tourist uniform consisting of knee-length shorts, short-sleeved shirts, bum-bags and sensible shoes (usually walking sandals). It is worn by both men and women, who are often hard to tell apart.
5. Even if the above symptoms haven't been noted, the regular unfolding and peering at free city plans should give any hitherto unnoticed tourists away.
6. Most tourists want to experience something "authentic". But ironically, their own presence invariably leads to them getting the exact opposite.
7. Locals are usually most welcoming to tourists in places which receive the least.
8. When it comes to "doing the culture", tourists tend to be incredibly keen to learn as much as possible about the place they're visiting. Consequently, they love multi-lingual, pedagogic guides (especially the sort with commanding voices that stride purposefully to the front of long queues waving an easy-to-spot umbrella); audio guides (so they can wander from exhibit to exhibit with something resembling a large phone clamped to their ear); open-top tour buses (with pre-recorded commentaries) and guide-books.

Yes, I don't like being seen as one of the faceless visiting hordes - but I don't regret joining the throngs to see The Colisseum, The Sistine Chapel, Michaelangelo's David, Seville Cathedral, The Mezquita, Carcassonne citadel or any of the other places we've been to. In fact, I feel privileged, they're all amazing things to have seen. But I really could have done without the crowds, the queues and the con-artists.

Wednesday 25 June 2008

If you can't stand the heat....

... change your plans and go swimming.

Theo and I have become the last word in flexibility and seamless last-minute plan-changing. Our initial itinerary involving a visit to the Reggio cheese market on the way to Lake Como was abandoned on the autostrada and instead we turned off just after Modena to go north to Verona and Lake Garda.

After skirting Verona in search of that necessary evil, a supermarket, we arrived at Lake Garda, which was initially hidden behind a line of hotels, campsites and beach shops. But once the view began to open up we realised both how huge the lake is (more than 55km long, 16km wide in places) and how beautiful, especially towards the northern shores, as pine-studded mountains rear up to cast their reflections in the water.

We found a campsite that was thankfully relatively cool in the punishing 33 degree heat where Sheena could be parked under the shade of olive and alder trees and where a gentle breeze could be felt coming from the lake. Basically, our main motivation for going to the lake (rather than heading for Venice as we'd originally intended) was simply to have some respite from the soaring temperatures.

So we've been making the most of it. Three dips in Lake Garda itself and another three in the excellent campsite swimming pool. Last night in Bologna, Theo and I were still feeling uncomfortably hot at midnight. Tonight at dusk, the air feels pleasant, the scent of barbeque is in the air and we may take another swim before we turn in. This is the life.

One final thought: here at the Lake Garda campsite, apart from us, almost everyone is either German (probably 70 per cent) or Dutch. At the campsite on the Adriatic, where we were two nights ago, it was almost entirely full of Italians. Is it related to the salinity of the water, I wonder?

don't believe the hype

If you believed the hype you'd think that San Gimignano, the so called Manhattan of Tuscany, had a monopoly on medieval towers, while Pisa had the only leaning one. Neither fact is true as we have been finding out. Apparrently building towers was de rigeur for rich families during the middle ages which wasn't such a bad plan given all the internicene warfare going on. Florence had a few, as did Siena, though none particularly prominent. Here in Bologna however the remaining towers do stand out, particular the Due Torre which symbolise this seat of the world's oldest University. Both lean quite dramatically, one an impressive 10 feet off the vertical, and are so close to each other that they form a kind of scissor shape in the sky.
It's still hot, so after chancing upon a campsite we didn't know existing just outside the Bologna ringroad, we spent the day lounging by their beautiful swimming pool. It felt a bit decadent writing blogs in trunks and bikini, but we coped. Early evening we caught the bus into town, hoping to sample some of the world famous local cusine. Naturally most specialities - tortellini, sausages and the ragu that the rest of the world calls Bolognese - involve meat, but we did find a very reasonable and friendly vegetarian restaurant. Not mind-blowing cusine but very tasty and filling. This was after gelatos and aperitivis, naturally! They don't call Bologna "the fat" for nothing!

Tuesday 24 June 2008

San Marino - seeing is believing

Some things, and some places, you just have to see for yourself - no description, photograph or anecdote can properly illustrate them for you.

We nearly didn't make it to San Marino. Even before we left the campsite we almost abandoned going there - it was out of our way, a complicated route and, with the temperature at 30 degrees already (it was only 8.30am) neither of us fancied a long drive. Then, as we stopped for the second on the steep, winding B road over the Appenines to let Sheena cool down, we again nearly abandoned our plan. But we persevered, crawling up the forested slopes to stop our van from over heating, before finally emerging the other side. Peak top fortresses after cliff-top castle hoved into view, each one making us think that we were near our goal, before we finally saw it. Approach from the mountains it wasn't so clear to us how high up San Marino was; later, looking back at it from the coast you could see its cliffs and castles towering over the Romagna plain. Up we crawled to the old quarter, high up on this isolated mountain, the views getting ever more spectacular. From the courtyard below the castle the views all around - over the flat plains and the sea to the east, back across undulating hillsides to the east - were amazing; I'd imagine they would be even better from the castle turrets, but we didn't venture in. (Somebody had forgotten to buy a parking ticket - doh!)

The old town had a quaint charm to it, with orange-shirted policemen and green-uniformed guards, but the tacky tourist shops and gunsmiths prevented it being picturesque. Instead they made me wonder about San Marino's past - if, to survive in today's world, this tiny and ancient Republic of 26,000 people most prostitute its views and uniqueness to over 3 million tourists, what kind of Devil's bargains must this Christian refuge have made in the past to ensure 1600 years of independence as the world's smallest republic?

Sunday 22 June 2008

Florence: Golf, Football and Skeletons

We'd like to consider ourselves relatively well informed about the places we have been visiting - their historical importance and so on. Florence took us a bit by surprise though; despite both of us having studied history I don't think either of us quite realised just how great a role Florence played, not just in Italian affairs, but in shaping the world, for it truly was the birthplace of the Renaissance. The amount of art gathered here is truly staggering - we didn't even attempt to see it all, though we did go and marvel at the original David which even after clocking both the replicas was still astounding. (The 10 euro entry price made us appreciate the free entry to London museums like never before.) The Duomo's facade and dome are remarkably beautiful, though after the marvels of the interior of Siena's Duomo, the interior here struck us as slightly austere and understated, though there were beautiful frescos and paintings to be found there and in other neighbourhood churches we ventured into.

The sheer wealth that must have once resided here must have been exceptional at one time and beyond even the conception of most Florentine contemporaries. This home of Dante, Giotto, Petrarch and Michelangelo is filled with beautiful townhouses, their eaves overhanging the narrow streets to give some respite from the baking sun, which was cooking at 9am and 6pm, and pretty well unbearable at midday. The Ponte Vecchio, still lined with jewelers had a charm that survived the hordes of hawkers and crowds of tourists that rivaled Rome.There were surprises and treats everywhere; a museum of musical instruments, including one of the earliest pianos; a missed bus stop which resulted in us watching the sun set over the city from the heights of Piazzale Michelangelo; discovering quite by chance that on the second evening we were there a large street party, Bianco Notti, would be taking place in the old town around Palazzo Pitti to celebrate (we presumed) the summer solstice; once there stumbling upon a University Museum still open at 11pm on a Saturday and filled with animal skeletons of all shapes and sizes. Florence is a truly magical and surprising city.

If only the campsite had had a swimming pool!! It was baking - by 8am the sun was already high in the sky with the tarmac radiating heat, and at night we were sleeping on top of the covers. The campsite did however have amazing views over the city, which led to the rather incongruous juxtaposition of the illuminated dome of the Cathedral with the bar's big screen showing a rather dull football match between Turkey and Croatia. Loosing interest (in the match not the view) we made friends with Damon and Hannah, two Mancunians spending a month riding the rails around Europe. They taught us a new card game - Golf - which I managed to loose quite spectacularly just in time for the equally spectacular end to an otherwise dull match - two goals in the final two minutes of injury time followed by a penalty shoot out, which Turkey won. Another surprising turn of events.

king of the road?

Whatever might be claimed about Portuguese driving (none of it complementary), the Italians are definitely leading the field in the psychotic driving stakes.
Inventing third lanes, tailgating, overtaking on blind bends, jumping lights, driving on the hard shoulder - child's play to an Italian. The bikers and moped riders are easily the worst - you see them watching the pedestrian crossing lights and speeding off when the red man shines, not when the lights go green. I'm amazed anyone can get insurance in Italy.

For the record the Spanish are the kings of double parking, while the French excel at stopping at junctions and roundabouts - to let out a passenger, make a delivery or just chat to a friend.

This is what happens when you let people drive on the wrong side of the road.

Friday 20 June 2008

putting your foot in it....


This is me picking Sea Urchin spines out of my foot after putting my foot in one while swimming at Cecina. Sadly our idea for a mass game of Operation on my foot (who can remove a spine without making Theo scream in agony) were scotched by a nasty knee-jerk (literally) reaction we discovered when Kate had a go at digging one out with a needle.

I had 15, though I'm pretty sure some of them are still there. Well, I managed to drive to Siena and Florence as well as walk around them with no trouble, so they can just come out when they are good and ready.

Thursday 19 June 2008

Tales of Tuscany

It's not surprising everyone falls in love with Tuscany. With its rolling landscapes and bewitching mediaeval hilltop towns and villages (not to mention the Chianti...) it's hard not to fall under its picturesque spell.
We were lucky enough to be invited to join my godparents, Ray and Jan, plus their daughter Emma, a very old friend of mine, her husband Jon and their three children, four year-old Daniel, almost three year-old Katie and one year-old Ben at a villa they'd taken for a week. It had lots of bedrooms and bathrooms, wonderful views and a swimming pool.

Theo's willingness to spend time with the children quickly granted him acceptance to the fold (I figured it was nice for him to have people nearer his own age to play with) and our days were spent either on trips to various nearby places, or lounging around the pool. The evenings (after the children had gone to bed) involved food, wine and heated debates on topics including corporate greed, the developing world, education and health.

The excursions had mixed success. Our first attempt to get to San Gimignano to see its famed towers was prematurely abandoned after a reasonably spectacular backseat vomiting incident, courtesy of young Daniel. Theo was sitting beside him and for a non-parent, did a pretty decent job of releasing the child from his car seat and doing the preliminary moppage (blueberries make bright pink coloured puke, we discovered) when I took over and washed both Daniel and his clothes in the Ladies loo of a nearby hotel restaurant.

When we made it to SG on the second attempt, we had a pleasant enough time wandering though the streets, but it felt rather too manicured to really have any soul and as tends to be the case in such places, the cafes and restaurants seemed to sell largely overpriced, often cooked from frozen dishes to most efficiently feed the tourists rather than satisfy the desire for any kind of culinary authenticity.
Siena was much more popular, having the feeling of a living, breathing city as well as being an excellent place for sightseers. We loved sitting around in the Piazza del Campo (where they hold the famous Palio horserace) and its Duomo is a real show-stopper, with its inlaid scenes in the marbles floors, its terrific frescoes and gorgeous array of illuminated texts in the Biblioteca.

That and an evening visit to a small bar in the local village, Montecatini Val de Cecina gave us more of a taste of real Tuscany, somehow.

As for our visit to the seaside at Cecina - I'll let Theo take up the story there.

Monday 16 June 2008

Rome!!!

We spent 3 days and 3 nights in Rome. It was incredible. How lovely it is to go to a city where eating pizza and ice-cream (not usually together) counts as a cultural activity. Mmmm, delicious.

I'm talking about the food first as there seems to be no way to accurately express the wonderment of Rome the city. Ruins, columns, churches and piazzas that elsewhere would be at the centre piece of the town's tourist trail are here just tucked away, almost unremarked upon. It's not just the huge sense of living history that the Forum and Colosseum represent, but the way it's sucked the world to it; the Vactican Museum had a collection of ancient writings dating back to the 3rd millenia BC - 5,000 years have passed since those legal documents were written in cuniform on clay tablets. Then, wandering through the jaw-dropping private rooms of Pope's past, decorated with stunning frescos painted by Raphael, it hits you that after the Roman Empire came nearly 1700 years of direct rule by the Catholic Church, that the glory of modern Rome with its palaces, cathedrals, fountains, monuments, wide avenues, twisting alleys, shuttered town houses, parks and bridges is a religious construction, not one belonging to antiquity but instead to the Dark Ages, the Holy Roman Empire, the Renaissance, the Counter-Reformation and the Napoleonic era. Florence was a Capital of Italy before Rome ever was, and as we explored the streets there was the sense that Rome will always exist, perhaps long after the Church and State have faded. It is as if the city were alive, feeding on beliefs and ideologies, humans moving through it like blood in arteries, building monuments like muscles and either repelling or absorbing invaders.

We were both truly blown away. After the wonder of the Vatican Museum, we dared not face the majesty of St Peters so soon less its glory be lost or our brains half melted by the Sistine Chapel, the Borgia apartments, the Hall of Maps and countless other treasures. We went the next day instead and were almost blinded by its brilliance; unlike other Churches, often made of dark stone, that are filled with shadows, St Peters is a construction in marble and gold and glows in the sunlight streaming through the windows. That many of the popes behaved like the Roman emperors by commissioning huge artworks to mark their era as pontiff and also installed lavish commemorations to their predecessors was all to the good for the modern visitor. The place is stuffed full of beautifully executed statues, frescoes, carvings, busts and almost everywhere you look, there is something more to see. Plus, it is free to go in and thankfully, we got there early enough to avoid the queues at the entrance.

Next, we took a milk-float style city bus over to the Colisseum, which we'd marvelled at from the outside on our first evening in Rome, but now wanted to see inside. Well, it's pretty impressive, but actually it seemed to lose some of its magic when elbowing through the crowds to see where they used to pen the wild animals and where Caesar and his family would sit to watch the games.

A stroll through the Jewish Ghetto (largely closed as it was Saturday) and the charming Testevere district completed our tour of Rome. Our various walks over the previous couple of days had also taken in (to summarise) the Forum (left us both speechless, no mean feat) the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon, plus a host of other monuments in varying states of splendidness.

After all that history and culture, it seemed fitting to end our Roman Holiday by hooking up with three other Brits, (three Sunderland lads on a two-week holiday - Chris, Paul & Lee), to watch the football (Greece v Russia - not a particularly inspiring game), have a chat and drink lager in time-honoured English fashion. Next stop, a villa in Tuscany.

Wednesday 11 June 2008

Pisa


On our way south to Rome, it made sense to call into Pisa as it was on the way and gawp at the Piazza Del Miracoli, which truly is a beautiful place. We both envied the students chilling out on the lush lawns (though they were probably just tourists, the students no doubt being way too cool and/or hard working to be seen doing such a thing). The leaning tower itself is surprisingly quite amazing and didn't disappoint. Not that we weren't expecting it to lean or anything, but just that it didn't seem in anyway lessened by the expectation.

What was also fun was watching all the tourists taking photos of themselves "propping" up the tower.



Naturally, I had to have a go - when in Rome (or on the way) and so on. Here's my effort.

Kate thought the whole thing was rather infantile and reacted in a very mature way as you can see.


Not quite in the spirit of things.

That night we camped by the sea near Cecina and swam in swarms of whitebait. Weird.

Tuesday 10 June 2008

3 countries in one day

It had to be done; three countries in one day. We started in France, just outside Nice and after a quick swim in the gorgeous campsite swimming pool headed for Monaco.

It's a total curiosity the Principality of the Grimaldi family and I'd love to know more about how exactly they managed to preserve Monaco's independence for over 700 years. The other micro-states I can understand - Liechtenstein is geographically remote and a relic of both the Holy Roman Empire and the German Confederation; Andorra balances Spanish and French claims to sovereignty to preserve her own; San Marino is a fortified cliff and the Vatican City a religious oddity. But coastal Monaco, surrounded entirely by France has neither inaccessibility nor competing neighbours or religious primacy to protect itself. I'd love to know how they did it.

Back into France for 20 minutes, after a hair-raising climb back up to the motorway, and then, Italy.

The motorway from Nice to Genua (and beyond) plunges through tunnels and soars over viaducts as it takes a direct line through the foothills of the alps as they plunge into the sea, with tiny towns and villages hugging the terraced slopes or nestled into river valleys as they open out to the Mediterranean. Tunnels of nearly 2 kilometers in length weren't uncommon as Kate and I developed a tunnel classification system - BFT (Big Fucking Tunnel), FBFT (Fuck-off Big Fucking Tunnel), MFBFT, etc. The towering, forested slopes that loomed over the viaducts between tunnels meant the whole drive had a distinct claustrophobic feel to it.

We've found that when we first enter a country we're a bit on edge for the first day or so; we found as much in Spain and Portugal. (Equally when going back into Spain from Portugal, and back into France from Spain, was like welcoming an old friend.) Just getting used to the roadsigns, rules, opening hours, food, campsites, language and so on - it throws you off your stride for a bit. This new-country-edginess has been exacerbated by that lack of good news on the rear windscreen front and the heat. It's hot.

So, what with feeling a bit out of sorts (I was definitely at Defcon Snarky, pushing Defcon Tetchy) and it being very hot, we did the only sensible thing on our first day in Italy. We went to the beach.

We found a lovely little campsite right by the shore in Chiaveri, in Liguria. Well it didn't have much choice, as right behind the campsite ran the railway line and right behind that, mountains. We had the most spectacular view as we looked back towards the beach from the warm waters of the still lagoon. We both felt much better after that.

Monday 9 June 2008

Rear Window

The saga continues.

We had been encouraged by our insurers to switch from attempting to find a replacement rear windscreen in Spain and move to France instead. It wouldn't take as long, we were assured. Indeed one lady from the french agency I spoke to thought it would only be 5 days or so to get the glass. She wanted to know where we were were - I said Nice, reasoning that it didn't matter if the glass got there ahead of us. We gave them all the details and hoped they'd get on with it.

A phone call this morning asked us to go to a garage in Cannes, as they had no branch in Nice, to pay the excess. "Then we will order the glass - only a few days." Grrrr. Our frustration mounted when, on arriving at the garage, the mechanic had none of our details and didn't know where he would get the glass from.

The saga is fast becoming a farce. Our rather slowly becoming one - it's been nearly a month since I broke the rear windscreen reversing into an olive tree in a Granada campsite.

* * *

Yesterday we went to Pont Du Garde outside Avignon. This impressive aqueduct was built to take spring water to Nimes, some 50km away, and has stood straddling the Gardon river for nearly 2,000 years. Amazing architects them Roman's.

Speaking of Roman's, that's where we're headed next - ROME.

We're currently on a quite little campsite somewhere between Nice and Antibes having spent the afternoon hanging out by the Turquoise waters of the Med; tomorrow we aim to make it to Pisa and then Rome the following day.

Ciao for now.

Sunday 8 June 2008

the potted version (just for joe)

The Ladybird Abridged Version (just for Joe).

Theo and Kate get married and then leave in their campervan Sheena. They arrive in France but it's too cold to go the beach so go to Kate's mother's instead, where they eat well and have fun.

Next they go to Spain where they drink beer and have fun. They see lots of storks but don't go to the beach. Then they go to Portugal and drink Port, ride trams and hear fado, but it's still too cold to go to the beach.

So they go back to Spain and see some Flamenco and more lovely buildings. Theo breaks Sheena's rear windscreen and then Sheena sulks and wont start; a sulky electrician fixes her. Kate and Theo go to an ace festival, meet some ace people, then an ace campsite and meet some more ace people. They finally go to the beach. They go on a big drive to another festival, which isn't quite as good but they do meet some friends so it's all ok.

They go back to France and meet more friends. They try to get Sheena's rear windscreen fixed but they can't so they go to the beach instead.

Saturday 7 June 2008

France: La Retour

We made it back to Mum and Jean's place near Montcuq just in time for aperos and to hear the news that Mum had that very day been given an unexpected job as the main English teacher in the local secondary school and was due to start the following morning. We were also greeted by their new dog, an exuberant young Breton spaniel called Cocky, whose enthusiasm at our arrival meant we were both quickly covered in muddy paw-prints, thanks also to the recent rain.

In fact, the weather was all too reminiscent of an average week in early June in the UK, ie cloudy, grey and threatening rain. We had one decent day of sunshine while we were at Mum's, made more exciting by a swarm of bees homing in on one of the trees by their house during the afternoon. Jean, already a keen beekeeper, had the swarm settled into one of his hives by the following evening.

Other than that, the three full days we spent at Mum's were mainly punctuated by eating, playing games of Belote and occasional excursions into Montcuq or Cahors (including a typically fruitless expedition to get Theo some footwear to replace his crumbling boots, but pleasingly we did find a cobbler, who mended his ailing sandals). We also got to hear many tales about inattentive and undisciplined French teenagers and their reluctance to learn and unlock the wonders of the English language. I'm sure the class I was in at fourteen wasn't that badly behaved for Miss Nettle. Thanks to her, most of us got decent exam results and picked up the ability to parle Francais with a Cornish accent.

On Friday we set off on a picturesque journey to the Languedoc-Roussilion area, where we were due to meet up with Joe and S, who were spending a few days there with friends. On the way we picked up a charming hitchhiker, a district nurse who was hoping to get to Montpellier for her weekend off. She had spent a year in London as an au pair and consequently had pretty decent English and with our passable French, between us we definitely bucked up the entente cordiale during the journey. She didn't mention whether my spoken French had a Cornish accent or not.

We had arranged to meet Joe and S at a village called Octon on the shores of Lac Saligou - Joe had said they were going to a fete there because S's sister-in-law's father (yes, a bit convoluted, I know) was supplying the beer. We arrived expecting to find the typical French three-course meal on long tables accompanied by a bit of accordion music and found instead something approaching a hippy-style knees-up, complete with a campsite full of converted trucks, barking dogs, campfires, techno and sawdust toilets. I hastily changed out of my summer dress and into jeans and sequins. Theo persuaded me not to wear my hat.

It was wonderful to catch up with Joe and S, to see her brother, Mark and sister-in-law, Jessica again (we'd met them at Joe and S's wedding last year) and to get acquainted with Jessica's dad, Eric and her grandmother, Carol. Eric had lived in France for many years and was currently setting up a brewery in Marseillan. Carol had been coming to France for four months of the year for well over a decade as she gradually did up the house she owns in Roujan. Jess and Mark, like S, are San Fransiscans.

The day after the festival we met Joe, S, Mark and Jessica at a big flea market in Marsaillan-Plage then, after a happy hour browsing the stalls (where we bought some second hand car speakers to replace the one we blew by being over-generous with the volume one day at Patty's Paradise), ate a slap up lunch at one of the town's many seafood restaurants. Luckily, they also did goat's cheese and mozarella salads, so Theo and I weren't left totally bereft by the menu.

S and Jessica were keen to do more brocante-scouring in Pezenas, so we bundled Joe and Mark in our van and took them back to Roujan. Carol let us use the shower in her house, which is absolutely beautiful, full of faux stone, trompe-loeil, genteely distressed paint finishes and tasteful furnishings.

S cooked and we were invited to stay for dinner, which was a big treat as S really knows her way round a kitchen, even when it doesn't belong to her. Theo acted as one of her sous-chefs, while Joe, Mark and I went on a mission to find some wild thyme for S's omelette recipe. It was a close-run thing, but after some false alarms involving fennel and wild-growing mint, Mark, the human thyme-hound found a goodly clump and we were able to return to the house with our foraging dignity intact.

The meal was by candlelight, owing to the power shorting out earlier in the day and nobody being able to persuade the fusebox in the next door house to untrip. It was all wonderfully atmospheric though and we even had music, thanks to S's battery-powered i-pod speaker set up. It was almost a disappointment when Carol suddenly remembered the fusebox was actually under her own stairs and one flick of the switch there had the lights all back on again.

We left close on midnight and decided not to take up an earlier invitation from some random Roujan jeunes to go to a free party 5km away, but instead park-up in a tennis club carpark in nearby Caux and get some kip. That we did more-or-less, despite some 0330 visitations from some unknown cars and an 0830 wake-up call from a family using the neighbouring playpark for some early Sunday frolics. We decided to check into an official site tonight, where you don't have to worry about random nocturnal visitations. And it is rather pleasant to have decent loos and washing facilities.

Tomorrow, we're off to Cannes. Nothing to do with the movies, it's where the epic saga of our smashed rear windscreen may finally reach a conclusion. Here's hoping.

Friday 6 June 2008

goddq, french keyboqrds

Apologies for not blogging much recently. After the fun and frolics in Barcelona we have popped back to Cathy (Kate's mum) and Jean's house in the Lot region of France for a few days to clean up and chill out.

The excellent food, convivial atmosphere, swarming bees (quite a spectacle) and even-tempered games of cards are some of the reason's we haven't been blogging much. The other reason is the blooy french keyboard on Cathy's computer!!! Oh for qwerty! It's particularly hard for Kate who is a touch typist (I'm a two finger stabber) though the sticky 'd' and the mouse's random habit of jumping the cursor halfway back up the page affects us all!

We've had a lovely time, as usual, and are now heading towards Italy. Our rear windscreen is still unfixed - we're hoping a replacement will meet us at Nice, but I wouldn't be surprised if we turn up at Cherbourg in 5 weeks time with the hole still taped up with gaffa.

Ciao!

Sunday 1 June 2008

Having a bash in Barcelona

Barcelona is a handsome city and remembering the 24 exciting hours we spent there just over a year ago, Theo and I both felt a thrill as we arrived on Wednesday evening. But we didn't have the luxury of indulging our nostalgia, we needed to find somewhere to safely park Sheena and find the Apolo 2 venue in time to catch our friend Sam "SJ Esau" Wisternoff in action for his Primavera Sound warm-up gig. It was great to see his familiar face and hear the songs we've come to love. It was also good to see some other people from home in the crowd - Steve "Rabid Pounder", Chris-formerly-from-the-Thekla and Ian, Sam-and-Joe's-flatmate.

After Sam's set, Theo and I had a meal at a nearby Indian restaurant (intriguing to compare the Spanish menu it offered with the standard fare at home. Lots more paneer dishes especially, which pleased me - and the waiter spoke an impressive six languages, it put us to shame) then joined the others at the irresistibly named Bar Cuntis. The Apolo 2 venue was pretty decent in many ways, but beer cost an eye-watering four euros for a quarter litre and none of us approved of that.

Around midnight, Theo and I left and parked Sheena in a backstreet near the Barcelona dockyard. It was about the least glamorous place we've camped in yet, but at least it was free.

Next day, we decided to find the Primavera Festival site then suss out a place to sleep that wasn't too far away. Bearing in mind that Barcelona doesn't have any campsites as such, we'd booked ourselves into a hostel on the other side of town for the Friday and Saturday nights, reasoning that we should be able to find somewhere to park Sheena if it wasn't too central. We'd gone for one of the cheapest, no-frills options we could find, but it was still going to set us back by almost double the tariffs we were getting used to - a maximum of about 25 euros a night.

We picked up signs for motorhome parking and followed them out of interest. The 24-hour secure parking area we discovered was not only right next door to the Primavera site (we could hear Portishead soundchecking soon after our arrival), but had water, loos, showers, electricity hook-ups and free wifi - and it cost 18 euros a day before tax. We couldn't believe our luck and promptly cancelled our hostel booking - even if we lost our deposit, we would still save money and have all our stuff within a five minute walk of the music.

The festival itself began to disappoint us almost the moment we arrived. Despite the programme saying it was okay to bring your own water onto the site we had to first decant our litre or so of water into small bottles minus lids at the first checkpoint then discard it altogether at the second, despite arguments in pidgeon Spanish with the security and police. Other people were having to bin food they'd brought with them - we smuggled our bocadillos through the press entrance, where they didn't check your bags.

The next jaw-dropping example of control (to us, anyway) was the insistence that you first had to buy one-euro tickets before you could purchase anything from the site bars. The sponsors were the beer company, Estrella Damm, Jagermeister and Coca-cola. Funny, that.

Our moods improved a bit when we realised the VIP area - which our press wristbands allowed us to enter - had a free bar. But only a bit. We felt the ordinary punters were getting a raw deal. And besides, we could only take advantage of our free drinks inside the VIP area - the organisers weren't going to risk us taking any booze for our mates on the outside.

The site itself overlooked the sea and one of the city's marinas - very impressive. And there was no denying how well the six stages were laid out and the generally high quality of the sound. Most of the catering outlets were also offering decent, freshly made food. And overall, the festival felt very well organised and our muso friends told us they were royally looked after.

But we couldn't quite get away from the slightly forbidding concrete nature of the site, the lack of colour and the overwhelmingly corporate feel of the whole thing. There was some superb artists in the line-up, though and proper music fans had their expectations well and truly fulfilled by what was on offer. In fact, it was the very antithesis of the Rocket Festival and everything it stood for - but it soon became clear where Theo's and my preference lay.

Having said that, Primavera had a lively and cheerful atmosphere with a genuine mixture of nationalities among the attendees (although very white). We heard loads of British, Irish and North American accents, as well as the numerous Spaniards and there was also a decent turn-out from across the French border. We didn't make any new friends like we did at Rocket, but we did bump into various acquaintances including Eleanor from the Cedar, Katie who used to book for the Thekla and David Thomas Broughton, who was playing one of the fringe gigs.

Over the three main days we saw:
Edan (looked like good stuff, what we saw of the gig); Public Enemy (very enjoyable, big nostalgia trip for Kate); Portishead (competent, solid show, Theo in particular enjoyed it); Caribou (excellent, we both thought they were great); De La Soul (fun for a few songs, quickly got too samey); Prinzhorn Dance School (pretty awful); Vampire Weekend (couldn't really see what all the fuss is about); Holly Golightly (entertaining in a warm, low-key sort of way); the Bob Mould Band (awesome! more nostalgia for Kate, Theo was also reasonably knocked out); Sebadoh (not bad, but didn't massively engage us); Why? (excellent, very compelling band); Devo (great fun, top stuff); Cat Power (bewitching voice, was on good form, but we only stayed for the first few songs); Fuck Buttons (A Big Noise...we got thoroughly caught up by it); Scout Niblett (both unimpressed, Kate deeply so); The Silver Jews (okay rootsy rock, but failed to hold our attention for long); Buffalo Tom (dullsville); Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks (some quirky alt-pop, quite enjoyable); Dinosaur Jnr (great band, our experience slightly marred by an overreaction by security staff to a crowd-surfer and our unfortunate proximity to the mosh pit) and Les Savvy Fav (the front man had more costume changes than Kylie and kept launching himself into the crowd. Who cares what the music was like, it was a hugely entertaining show).

All in all, an excellent pop/rock festival. For us, not a patch on Rocket, Shambala, WOMAD and Glastonbury...we've come to look for the whole festival package with all its mad characters and random weirdness. Primavera Sound was too straight - but you couldn't really argue with the music.

We took a stroll around Parc Guell this afternoon, before picking up Sam so we could deposit him at Girona airport on our way north towards the French border. In the end, we stopped short and are now staying at a campsite on the Golf de Roses. It's extremely well-ordered and has some of the best toilet and shower facilities we've yet seen. The grass is neatly cut, there isn't a scrap of litter, recycling bins are scrupulously provided and there's a list of politely laid out rules and conditions as long as your arm.

Not surprisingly, it is run by Netherlanders. They are very courteous and speak excellent English. I haven't tried out the laundry room, but I bet all the washing machines work perfectly.