Category: Uncategorized

We parked the car in our usual beachfront car park in the village, but as we opened the car doors we noticed that there was a strong smell of the sea, it was particularly noticeable to us because this quite unique scent is not something that is normal here, the more normal noticeable thing for us is the actual differing sounds of the sea, in the form of the noise of the waves as they break onto the shoreline and, dependent on the direction and strength of the wind, it can be either a gentle, rhythmic, barely noticeable sound, much like it is on this particular day, or a loud crashing noise as they break onto the shoreline but it was certainly the scent of the seaside that was today the predominant factor. Now whether that was because there was barely a breeze blowing, the flags on the three tall flagpoles that stand in front of the children’s play area and basketball court are our usual visual guide as to what direction the wind is blowing in, but they were just hanging lifeless and limp, the sun was shining and so it would be another very pleasant morning for our walk, however, there was no obvious explanation as to why the scent of the sea was so strong on this particular day but it was enough for us to feel the need to both comment on it 🤷‍♂️

Although it was rapidly approaching the end of October and now Autumn, we also commented on how we were both still quite comfortable going out on our daily walks still wearing our Summer attire, shorts and tee-shirts, but knowing that that situation could change at any moment. It is this time of year when the tourists from the more Northern European countries stand out, as whilst they like us are also enjoying being in these temperate Spanish Winter temperatures, wearing of course their shorts and tee-shirts, they stand out due to their paler skin tones, it wasn’t that long ago when that would also have been us too, but now we are more of a ‘Cafe con Leche’ sort of shade, rather than bronzed.

The Spanish media are already starting to encourage the elderly, and the medically vulnerable, a category for which I obviously do not fit into just yet, irrespective of what the date imprinted on my birth certificate may indicate 🤭 to make appointments to get the annual flu vaccinations, which of course still includes the new and revised Anti-Covid vaccine, but Shazza and I will respectfully continue to decline those, opting instead to maintain our own Anti-Covid Vaccine and healthy ‘Plant Based’ dietary regimes which appear, in our case, to still be quite effective, Shazza still of the belief that she did not contract Covid during our recent road trip and that it was more a case of ‘Gastroenteritis’, but we will never know the medical truth about that will we my beloved 🤷‍♂️

On this particular day we would, as is usual, walk all the way into the town, although there are days when we are not really up for it, so we would just stop either in the Marina, or at a Chiringuito on the other side of it, have our usual coffee’s and then turn around and go back to the car, but not today, today we would go the distance. Since getting back from our road trip, we no longer partake of the late breakfast ‘Tostados’, Shazza has reverted, somewhat to my surprise, to getting up a little earlier and eating a much healthier breakfast at home, her usual bowl of Oats, Mixed Berries and Nuts, although it is far too early for my stomach to entertain food and anyway, we didn’t have any bacon in the fridge to enable me to make a lovely unhealthy, but extremely tasty, bacon roll 😋 So generally I just wait and when we return from our walk, we both sit on the balcony and have a light lunch. Shazza, earlier that particular morning, had made a home-made Minestrone soup for our lunch but just needed to finish it off, so we would make a stop at our usual ‘fruiteria’ on the high street to pick up some Spinach to add to it, ‘lovely’ I thought to myself 🙄 She obviously glimpsed my facial expression, “You know it’s good for you, with this particular soup you actually get ‘eleven’ of the ‘thirty’ healthy and nutritional ingredients you need each week, all in one go” she said, very enthusiastically, “Great, so that should mean that if I have a bowl for the next three day’s lunches then I can eat whatever I like for the next four days ?” I replied, with a big smile on my face, she just tutted at me and gave me one of her disapproving scowls 🤭

We had really clear views along the whole length of our walk that morning, with the different colours of the sea, from the turquoise green close to the shoreline, turning to a sparkling light blue and then much deeper blue as it got deeper further out and towards the horizon, on this particular day the sea was flat and very calm with barely a ripple, we could see for miles, in all directions. The mountains and their peaks were all clearly visible too, the whitewashed villages and towns that flowed down the sides of the mountains towards the coast, then the green forested areas between and above them, which eventually gave way to the sparse and empty grey limestone and granite rock faces towards the top. There were several mountain peaks and these would continue, albeit out of our sight, right up and beyond Malaga until they almost reached the Sierra Nevada mountain range. It is the combination of these mountain areas that protect us from the Atlantic storms that blow across from the Cadiz Province in the West, and also from the worst of the storms that blow down from the North through the Granada Province, we are also afforded some limited protection from the nearby mountains that stretch along the coast of Morocco, just across the other side of the Strait of Gibraltar, however, we are totally exposed and have no such protection from the occasional wild Winter storms that blow across the Mediterranean Sea from the East and once again the ‘Works of Fiction’ were forecasting yet another storm, which was due to hit us within the next day or so, but whether that one would materialise was of course another question, just how they can get these things so wrong with such regularity truly amazes me 🤷‍♂️ I think that because we really do need some long periods of persistent rain, conversations about the weather are one of the primary topics discussed by everyone here, the difference being that in the UK it was always about having too much too often, whereas, here it is about not having enough of it frequently enough 🤷‍♂️

I have to say that these ‘Works of Fiction’ forecasts are getting more and more like the fairy tale about the little shepherd boy who each night kept crying ‘Wolf’, when there actually wasn’t one, but on one particular night when he, and the flock he was keeping a watch over, were attacked by a pack of wolves, the people in the nearby village just ignored his cries for help 🤷‍♂️

Anyway, the weather, and the amazing views, gave us something to talk about whilst we enjoyed our coffee’s, and on this occasion, because the weather was so nice, and we were not in a hurry to actually be anywhere else, with no rush to return home for anything in particular, other than the large bowl of nutritious loveliness awaiting me 😂 we ordered a second coffee and talked about a whole host of different topics, just putting the world to right’s, as you do. I often say in these rambles that I always speak the truth and tell you both the good, and the not so good aspects, of living here in Spain, although I am not certain whether you actually are all that interested. But for those that are, I have decided that for this ramble, as to be honest there is little else for me to ramble on about as we are not actually doing very much, that I would highlight some topics that have been in our local news recently and which will I think show how some aspects of life here are not much different to anywhere else 🤷‍♂️

And yet another…………

We often hear the complaint about what Government’s says, and what they actually do, as being two quite different things so, having seen and read the above articles, it would appear that there is quite a lot of land available to build all of these new ‘luxury’ properties 🤷‍♂️ So what do the Spanish Government have to say about addressing the issue of building ‘Affordable’ properties ?

Now obviously I have not re-published the whole articles of each headline and, as a foreign resident, who purchased a property here a little under ten years ago, I have no particular axe to grind, but reading these news articles just out of a general interest, and with speaking to locals in my immediate area, it just seems to me to be a little confusing, as there is, it would appear, to be sufficient land available to issue licences to build ‘luxury’ properties for foreign investor’s, but there is no land available to build ‘Affordable’ housing for the local Spanish population, so apart from Profit for the corporate land developers and, the advantages to the Government and the Countries economy as a whole, what am I missing here 🤔

So are there any other similar issues here in Spain that exist within other Countries, either in Europe or elsewhere in the world 🤔 What about the state of the Spanish health system ? I have to say that in all honesty, both in the UK and here in Spain, whenever I have personally needed to access the healthcare systems, in either country, I have never had an issue and been very well looked after but now I am reading that it isn’t all rosey in that particular garden either 😲 I am unable to verify wether there is an issue, as neither myself or Shazza have had any reason since becoming residents here, since June 2023, to access any of the State Medical Facilities, either the local health clinic or attendance at a hospital for Emergency or Consultancy reasons.

Generally speaking, the health situation here is much the same as it is anywhere else in Europe, as far as the usual associated issues there are with Colds, Flu and Covid is concerned, however, there is one issue here that I have never heard of, let alone come across before, in any part of Western Europe and that is the ‘Western Nile Virus’ (WNV), but that of course may be purely down to my own ignorance. Whilst I am quite familiar with ‘Malaria’, contracted via Mosquito bites, it seems that currently here in Spain, these wee beasties are also responsible for the spread of this WNV 😲

For some reason we do seem to have been less troubled with Mosquitoes in our own local area this year than in previous years, during the Summer months we usually have the mosquito net over our bed for the full period, primarily just as a precautionary measure, but this Summer we have managed to survive without it, Shazza, who is the one who they tend to like the taste of, says she thinks she heard one, although she has not suffered with even one bite this year 🤷‍♂️ Perhaps that is because of the positive results of the spraying in these other mosquito infected areas, or perhaps just the fact that we have suffered with this severe drought in our particular locality this year 🤷‍♂️ Mosquito larvae grows in stagnant water and there hasn’t been much of that this Summer.

So as I continue to scan the local media for other similar issues with our neighbouring countries, I came across an article about the ‘Illegal Immigration’ issue they are having in the Canary Islands. We do occasionally see reports of Immigrants being apprehended in dinghies just off the Costa del Sol mainland too, but not as many as there are in the Spanish Islands just off the Western Coastline of Africa.

You will also be forgiven for thinking that the subject of ‘Brexshit’ has all but disappeared these days, consigned to the annals of historic records, well not here, this very serious subject still continues to rumble on and it still has some serious implications for both the residents of a small but strategic town in Southern Spain (La Línea) and for those residents on the small Island that is Gibraltar.

Wherever you may live in the world, reading this my latest ramble, you will probably each have your own unique issues that you have to contend with, either personally or just by being resident in that particular Country, but you may also be experiencing many of the similar issues that we too experience over here in Spain. So this ramble isn’t a ‘Woe is me’ self indulgent moan or groan, just my way of documenting that, whilst living here, for us, is very nice what with being in a good all-year round temperate climate, with nice local beaches, access to everything that we personally need to enjoy and be comfortable in our lives here and, generally speaking, not effected that much with what is going on around us, but Spain has, much like anywhere else in the modern world, its own every day issues, wether it be Political, Health and Social Care, Environmental, Migration, both Legal and Illegal, etc. and so, as I have said many times, you have to ask yourself the question as to wether you, as an individual, can influence, or change, anything that is going on and, if not, then don’t spend too much time worrying about any of it. We all need to be aware of what is happening around us which is obviously quite a sensible thing to do, but for each day you waste worrying about the things you cannot influence or change, is a day of your life wasted, preventing you from doing something in your life that you can enjoy 😉 Because I have more time on my hands these days, I can afford to use some it familiarising myself with what is going on around me, so I don’t see it as wasted time as I don’t get too involved in it, and sometimes, just sometimes, I can even manage to find some glimmers of positivity whilst reading some of this stuff.

Of course, over here our financial day to day dealings are all in Euro’s, so why, reaching its lowest level against the Pound, would that give me a reason to be happy 🤔 Quite simply because all of our income is generated from within the UK, which means that each month we need to convert Sterling into Euro’s, so at the moment we are getting a very nice conversion rate at around €1.20 to the £1, but we also know that that could change again just as quickly, so we are careful not to become too smug about it 😉 And the next bit of positivity, and this takes me nearly all the way back to the beginning of this particular ramble, the subject of the weather.

As I start to finalise this rather elongated ramble, I am sat on the balcony looking out of the large, but closed, glass French style windows, the heavy leaves on the Palm trees are thrashing away in the strong wind that has finally hit our shoreline, the sea is a charcoal colour with large areas of white tipped turbulent waves, thick grey clouds fill the sky and are now just beginning to unload their watery cargo, although I do have to say, not in the quantity that we are anticipating, but that deluge is forecasted to arrive a little later this evening. Their is a very noticeable drop in the temperature which means that we are now both wearing long cotton fleece lined jog pants, with a lightweight hoodie over our thin tee-shirts, but we are not miserable, this is what we have been praying for, for months, let’s hope that it lasts for the forecasted next six days 🤞 Alas, the track record of the ‘Works of Fiction’ is not the best so we are not allowing ourselves to get too jubilant just yet. Who would have thought that English people could actually be so happy about it raining 😂

This last weekend of October, when Summertime officially ended and, like many other Countries, we put our clocks back, daylight returned at 7:30am and I am now able to see much more in the mornings, quietly observing the awakening world in front of me, however, it is now also dark by 7pm, even sooner on days like today, which does tend to make for much longer night’s with little for me to sit and observe from my balcony lookout post. For now at least, I can still utilise the enclosed balcony but it will now be very much dependent on the daytime temperatures, perhaps the time is coming where I will need to bring the heater in although, in the evenings we are already starting to close the internal patio doors that lead from the living room to the balcony and we just hunker down in front of the TV. It is only a temporary situation, well as far as the dark days and rainy weather are concerned, for the sunshine will again return during the day, that is virtually guaranteed and then who knows when we will get some more of the watery stuff 🤷‍♂️ but as long as this period of weather fills the reservoir then that is really all that matters.

As ‘Another Winter Season Looms’ it will not be long before the more religious themed ‘Fiestas’ commence as we approach the Christmas festive period and, although, as I draft this latest ramble, it is still only the end of October, the local council are already out in force putting up all the street decorative Christmas lights, although they will not be officially turned on for several weeks yet, but seeing them makes us realise at just how quickly that another year is coming to an end.

So, until the next time…………………

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

It took quite a while to get back into some sort of a routine once we had returned from our road trip, normally, after being away, getting back into our normal routine would only take a day, or perhaps two at the most, but not this time. Once Shazza felt something like normal after her unidentified illness, within a couple of days we did venture out in the car, although that was only to do the weekly supermarket shop, however, neither did we go on our regular ‘daily’ walks, just a couple of times a week within that first fortnight of being back, although, to be honest, there was no real reason for us not doing so, other than our own complete lethargy, we felt that we had done quite a bit of walking whilst we were away, although one of us perhaps more than the other 🤭 so we convinced ourselves that we must surely have had some walking credits left in the fitness bank 😉 Neither did we have our usual ‘treat weekends’ within that fortnight, we ate dinner at home every evening, Shazza making up for all the ‘Plant Based’ goodies she had missed so much during our trip and of course, being the very supportive husband that I am, I joined her, for the reality was that I too had missed my regular intake of vegetables so, once we were home we only ate out the once and that was towards the latter end of that two-week period. Even then, Shazza stuck to her healthy dietary discipline, with a Moroccon spiced Med Veg Wrap, as for me, okay I have to confess that I finally succumbed, you can have too much of a good thing you know, so I had a Moroccan spiced Lamb Wrap, with patatas frites, and no, I cannot tell a lie, because by god it tasted so damn good 😋 but I wasn’t totally undisciplined as it did still come with a small side salad, which I ate, just to keep my conscience clear 😂

This rare bout of illness with Shazza, did result in us agreeing on making another decision though. Under our NLV we are entitled, and receive, free Spanish State Medical Health treatment and are registered with our local health clinic, not that we have had any cause to utilise those services since becoming resident here. However, I have used the Spanish state healthcare system twice, prior to becoming a resident, once for a kidney stone incident and the last time, in March 2022, when I had the detached retina issue, so we cannot personally give an opinion on how long we would now have to wait to actually get routine appointments with a Doctor at our local health clinic, or for how long it would take to get a doctor’s referral appointment at a hospital, should we ever need one 🤷‍♂️ However, down here on the Costa del Sol, I am not sure if they have similar services elsewhere in Spain, but there is another 24 hour a day, 365 days a year, medical service that you can subscribe to (Annual joint subscription for €495), which is a home doctor service.

We are fortunate enough to have such a facility within a couple of minutes drive from where we live, if you are walking wounded you can make appointments to go and see medical professionals but, the bonus of being subscribed to this particular service is that they will come out to you at your home, in a fully equipped ambulance, a para-medic and two qualified nursing staff who will check you over, provide any immediate medical care and, if necessary, issue prescriptions. However, if they are unable to provide any specialist care that you may need, they will transport you to the nearest hospital in their ambulance where, upon arrival, you will not have to wait in an A&E to be seen, but be taken straight into the treatment rooms. Unlike the UK, over here in Spain, and other than for some life threatening medical emergencies, you do have to pay for an ambulance to come and take you to hospital, but this is not the case if you are covered by the ‘Helicoptero Sanitarios’ subscription. Now I have to be honest with you, we have known about this service since we first bought our property here over nine year’s ago, and as we are both generally fit and well and suffer with no pre-existing medical conditions, we were always covered for emergency treatment under our E111 health cards so didn’t see the value of it. After Shazza’s recent illness whilst we were away, and her reluctance to go and see a doctor, we agreed that this would now be quite beneficial. I mean who feels like having to wait day’s, or even week’s, for an appointment at a health centre when you are feeling pretty bad, or to have to get out of bed, get dressed, travel to a health centre and then sit in a waiting room, with probably lots of other people suffering with god knows what, let’s face it, in the main you are not likely to find healthy people in such places are you 🤷‍♂️ We did also consider the fact that, as we do get older, and that may have had something to do with me recently celebrating yet another birthday, although still currently a ‘Sexagenarian‘, and no that doesn’t mean that I am on a ‘peadophile register’, but it does mean that I am now uncomfortably closer to becoming a ‘Septagenarian‘ 😲 Which is a number where, when people ask your age, they start to consider you to be more of a ‘geriatric’ rather than a fit and healthy individual who could quite possibly have another 30+ years before shuffling one’s mortal coil. However, being realistic, it is also quite a distinct possibility that we, although Shazza’ contests the use of the word ‘we’ and says quite adamantly not to include her in relation to this subject 😂 But yes, in the future, we may ‘both’ need to utilise medical services much more than we do now, being so fit and healthy as we currently are, although I did take the opportunity of reminding her of ‘her own’ recent rapid and unanticipated demise in respect of her health 🤭 But it isn’t just for health issues, what if she was to cut her head open on the rocks when she is out snorkelling, or burns herself badly when making her sour dough bread or stir fry’s, or I accidentally reverse over her in the car whilst she is putting shopping in the car boot, accidents do happen you know 😂 So, for the relatively small financial outlay, it seemed a sensible course of action to take, especially as there is no limit as to how many times you can call them out. We of course checked out the Terms and Conditions and read the small print, just to ensure we were not missing any if’s, but’s or maybe’s, then went to our local facility and signed up and now, like any sort of Insurance, even if we don’t use it over the next few month’s or year’s, we do have that peace of mind cover.

Shazza’s mum arrived at the very beginning of October, she likes to come out at either the end of the Summer, or in the Spring, when the temperatures are generally a lot cooler, but this last year has not seen normal seasonal weather, around the globe let alone here in Spain, so it was a little warmer than she would have liked it to be, but at nearly 82 year’s young she wasn’t likely to be wanting to race around anywhere anyway. She has been coming out here every year for the last nine year’s so she has done nearly all of the touristy sightseeing trips during that time, so this time she just wanted to stay local so we just stuck to taking her down to our own Marina, and the one at ‘Sotogrande’ just a ten minute drive away, into our own local town, one visit to Estepona and Shazza also took her to a shopping mall on the outskirts of Malaga as she wanted to buy a new ‘Tablet’ whilst she was here, only so that she could get Shazza to set it all up for her before she returned home. If the truth be known, we took her out I think on all but one day whilst she was here, at her own request, I am not sure who was more in need of the rest by the time she went home 🥵 She stayed for a full two weeks and thoroughly enjoyed herself, but we are not certain how long she will continue to make such trips out to us for, whilst she doesn’t look anything like her age, and is quite independently mobile, each year we see her physically slowing down and her walking, although unaided, is painfully slow.

Shazza herself reaches a benchmark birthday next Easter, and I know that her mum would like to be with her to celebrate it, she has mentioned about booking to come back out to us over that period, before any other family members do. However, after seeing her this year, I am not certain that she will be up to the travelling again, so although Shazza’s birthday is still some six months away, me and my OCD buddy have already made some tentative, but quite detailed, plans to possibly return to the UK for around twenty-five days, taking in visits to her mum, over Shazza’s birthday, but also encompassing visits to Chris, Sarah and the granddaughter’s down in Wiltshire, also to visit my own mum in her care-home in Lincolnshire if, god willing, she is still with us, but to also to allow some time for us to take our own short break, doing family visitations around the country can be quite tiring, so for maybe 2-3 days I would like to go and visit the Yorkshire Coast, to a town that I have never actually ever visited before. In my provisional plans I have also allowed for an overnight stop, en-route to the ferry, and an overnight stop just outside Portsmouth when we initially arrive in the UK, as it is an evening arrival and then, once we have returned to Spain and on our way home, to do a 2-3 day stopover in a city, South of Madrid, that we have also not visited before, although as I write this, I have not as yet confirmed exact dates, or made any confirmatory bookings as I will of course need approval from the boss first who, as you already know, prefers to not make advance plans and to just ‘Go With The Flow’, look at how that last trip turned out using her methodology 🤭

We have also finally got around to replacing all of the cushions on the balcony furniture that we originally bought some nine year’s ago, whilst the outer cushion covers are still in good condition, the inner filler cushions had lost their support, they were more like sitting on, or leaning back on, nothing thicker than digestive biscuits 😖 Fortunately, even after all this time, the large garden furniture store in Estepona, where we originally purchased them from, had our original order, so they knew the design, model, sizes etc and, although they didn’t have the original colour of the cushions, they did have a slightly darker shade, but what was even better, whilst we had anticipated having to wait potentially week’s to get the new one’s, we were told that if we wanted to collect them ourselves from the storage warehouse, which was also very conveniently located in Estepona, we could have them that same day, so we ended up ordering, and driving home, with our new cushions all on the same day.

We are still under drought conditions here, although our individual water consumption allowance restriction had been increased slightly, but now that the end of the tourist season has come around, the private and communal swimming pools have all been closed again, to preserve the water, and the powers that be are deliberating once more over wether to reduce our daily water allowance again 🤷‍♂️ Now it wasn’t very long ago that we ourselves were ‘Tourists’ here, just visiting for two ninety-day periods each year. We didn’t pay much attention to what was going on in the normal everyday Spanish world, locally or nationally, as it had little impact on us and I guess that is the same wherever you may spend your holidays. But things change when you become a permanent resident, because things that are happening both locally and nationally can possibly make a difference to your lives, lifestyles and sometimes your finances, although not necessarily always in a negative way. So we can now understand why, throughout Spain, there is perhaps a lot of animosity towards Tourists by some of the Spanish population. I guess most reading this, either from what I myself have written in previous rambles, or through other media resources you may have seen or read, will have heard of the widespread Spanish anti-tourist protests that have been going on, primarily focused on the lack of affordable housing available for local communities, but it actually goes much deeper than that and so now, as residents ourselves, we can understand a little better as to why these grievances are being aired more vocally and much more frequently. It does appear that everything, wether that be in individual municipalities, provinces or regions, are being provided primarily for the benefit and advantage of the temporary visitor’s, rather than the actual residents themselves and it isn’t just about the shortage of permanent affordable accommodations available to the Spanish citizens. It does appear that the majority of new build properties, and land purchases, are being being utilised for Air BnB type facilities, private villa and apartment rentals or more and more large complexes being built purely aimed at attracting foreign investors, and not priced to facilitate the local resident population. Within our own immediate area, a complex of private villas have just been completed, with starting prices of €280k, another area is about to erect nine luxury villas, with pools, starting price €850k and literally, within only the last few days, another hoarding board has gone up announcing that another area of land will have five new luxury villas with pools built on it. This is the same picture along the whole of the Costa del Sol coastline and whilst in some respects that is actually positive news, as property prices in the Malaga Province have all gone up by an average of 4% over the last year, adding to the previous year’s of property price increases, so if we do ever decide to sell up we should make a handsome profit on our original investment. However, these new build luxury properties are well out of reach of the pockets of the locals, wether renting or purchasing, but it also brings about other issues, everyday facilities like water usage which are not restricted from the start of the tourist season, but re-implemented at the end of it, is now becoming quite a fractious issue. There has been a serious drought here in Spain for nearly two years, although historically, over very many years, droughts are not an uncommon occurrence here in Spain, but with Climate change they are becoming more frequent with less and less rainfall each year. The water capacity in the existing Embalces is not sufficient, even when they are full, to cope with the current demand, yet they are still issuing licences to build more and more domestic properties, but providing no information on where the additional demand for essential services will come from, which includes the additional Water required to service these new properties, never mind the water required to fill all these new individual property swimming pools and what about the additional demand on Sewage disposal, Electricity, Road and Transport infrastructures 🤷‍♂️ So whilst the economy of the Country improves year on year, from taxes obtained from land purchases, the issue of building licences, income from property purchase taxes and annual property tax by individual owners who are not permanent residents, there have been no published plans on how they intend to improve all of the the supporting infrastructures that will be required. So without doubt there will be a price to pay, for everyone, if the Government do not invest in these essential infrastructures or indeed, build many more affordable properties for the local population.

Now of course there is a solution, and that is for the usual seasonal weather patterns to return, which involves rain during the usual Autumn and Winter months, even in this area of Southern Spain, the ‘Rainy Season’ is only generally two or three continuous days of heavy rainfall per month, October through to February, which is currently sufficient to keep the Embalces virtually full to capacity, so, at the next Annual Meeting I will suggest that all community residents invest in undertaking weekly rain dance rituals, but you watch, some miserable bugger will start to complain about the noise or that they have just washed their car and it is now rain marked again 😂 So okay, as I have mentioned many times in these rambles, it may not always be a complete paradise over here, but then, there are certainly worse places we could be living in right now and when I think about it, there are also certain advantages to having these enforced water restrictions 🤔 “Shazza, you ready for our shower together ?”, Save water, shower with a friend, that’s what I say, or even your neighbour, but of course only if you get on with them quite well and they have consented to you actually being in their bathroom with them whilst they are taking a shower 🤭

For the past couple of weeks the ‘Works of Fiction’ have been promising storms, lightning, thunder and heavy rainfall and, at times, the colour of the gathering clouds have looked to be quite favourable for this much awaited event, sadly, these threatening clouds just continued to pass over us without releasing one single drop of their precious cargo 😢 Our local supply of water in our particular Embalce at one point, before the tourist season commenced, showed that it was at 75% capacity, but now, after the tourist season, it has diminished to just 37% and with no rain the outlook could become quite bleak.

We awoke one morning and checked the ‘Works of Fiction’, more in hope than anything else and yes, the forecasters crystal ball reflected that once again the storms, which hadn’t materialised the first time, were again headed our way and, if we were very lucky, they would last over our particular area for at least four days, but this long awaited promised event was not due to start until lunchtime, so we decided to risk it and get out for our daily walk whilst we could, especially if we were to then be confined for several days thereafter.

As we walked along the seafront promenade towards the marina, the sky was its usual blue, their were only thin white wispy clouds above our heads and the sun was shining, it was a very pleasant 24 degrees(c) which is actually the normal temperature for this time of year, it will drop to anything between 15 degrees(c), on a bad day, to 22 degrees(c), on a good day, when we get to December and January. Several of the beach ‘Chiringuito’s’ had already put their beach sunbeds and umbrellas back into storage and had their doors and windows securely shuttered. The council workmen were starting to lift and collect the wooden beach decking boards and it wouldn’t be long before the boat would be out to collect the yellow marker buoys, the ones which mark the beach areas for launching pedalo’s and other such water toys and to keep boats out of the swimming areas. I actually prefer this time of the year, although of course it is the turn of the temporary ‘Silver Rinse’ brigade to return for their winter sun holidays, when the kids have all gone home, but they are not in the huge numbers of the Summer tourists, so the place has more of a calmer more peaceful aire about it, the seafront promenade, pavements and streets are no longer crowded, so you can always get a table at any of the Cafe/Bars or Restaurants that remain open during the Autumn and Winter months, without the need to pre-book. Un-noticed by many, other than tight fisted Yorkshiremen that is, there is the subtle drop in the prices on menu boards, now more than ever do these establishments need to keep their winter trade of locals and temporary residents. As our local town is a Spanish working town, and not primarily just a Summer holiday hotspot, all of the usual high street retailer’s remain open throughout the year, the regular Friday morning market continues, although the supermarkets, who were permitted to remain trading on Sunday’s during the height of the summer season, now have to close on the sabbath once again. It seems a bit strange that you can go and get as pissed as you like on a Sunday, in the numerous bars that are permitted to remain open, but you cannot go and purchase a bag of potatoes from a supermarket for your Sunday lunch 🤷‍♂️ However, for us, there is really very little change, apart from the drop in the volume of both people and traffic, and of course the reduction in our daily allowance of domestic water usage 😉

As we were walking and enjoying the sunshine, blue sky and glittering Mediterranean Sea, I turned to Shazza and said, “You wouldn’t guess that it was going to piss down later would you ?”, she laughed but then pointed ahead, towards the dark clouds that were looming over and across the mountains in the distance, “Do you think we will have time to stop and have lunch” she asked, “Only if we stop and eat in the Marina and we don’t walk all the way into town” I responded, I knew that that would seal the deal 😉 I also knew that if it did start to rain that we would then decide to just remain under cover wherever we were dining, until it eased off, sufficiently enough to get back to the car without getting too much of a drenching, but that would mean that to kill some time I would perhaps have to partake of one, or two, more Anti-Covid Vaccines, you see my friend’s, there is always ‘A Silver Lining In Every Cloud’, no matter how stormy they may look, but this was a thought that I of course kept very much to myself 🤭 It was doubtful that Shazza would partake of more than one Anti-Covid Vaccine, which always meant that she would drive us back home, but if on this rare occasion she did decide to partake of more than just the one, which very occasionally she does, then we could always get a taxi home and collect the car later, when the weather permitted, even if that happened to be a few days later, it would be safe enough, provided the floods didn’t carry it off that is 🤔

Sod’s Law, it didn’t rain and so I didn’t have any excuse to partake of anymore than the one Anti-Covid Vaccine, what the bloody hell happened to that silver lining 😡 Lunchtime came and went, Dinner time came and went, not one flash of light, rumble of thunder and not one drop of rain fell on the scorched earth below my balcony window, the only darkness being due to the fact that it was actually night-time 🤷‍♂️ It was 3am when we were awoken to the sound of heavy rain beating on the slightly raised security shutters, as it was still quite humid at night we still tended to leave the French windows open in the bedroom to let in the cooler morning air, but Shazza got up and closed them before any of the wet stuff could find it’s way in, as it was fair bouncing off the Juliet Balcony. I always find rain beating on windows, or in this case, security shutters, rather soothing and the rhythm helped me drift back to sleep, it doesn’t have the same effect for Shazza who told me that she had tossed and turned most of the night, apparently there had been loud cracks of thunder, suffice to say I hadn’t heard a thing, if we were ever to get burgled it would have to be left to Shazza to see them off, I would sleep right through it 🤭 The following morning she said, “I can’t believe you slept all the way through that, what if someone had broken in and demanded that I had mad passionate sex with them” she smirked, “Enjoy it, you may not get too many more opportunities” I responded, I guess I deserved the slap around the head that followed 😂

The rain that was supposed to be heavy and last for four consecutive days didn’t of course materialise, although the dark clouds continued to threaten but with no real substance. We got several intermittent periods of rainfall, some heavy, some just very light, over the following few days until normal service was again resumed, but at least the level of our particular Embalce had gone up, to 42.16%, still to nowhere near enough to save us from the drought committee decision, which we were still awaiting upon, but with no more anticipated visitor’s this side of Christmas, it would have no real impact on us as we did not use our daily individual allowance even when it was at it’s lowest allowance and to be honest, our unheated communal pool would be too chilly now, to go and take a swim, although we still had the nearby beach and sea, where the temperatures always remained a little higher at this time of year, but not for too much longer, although it would remain warm enough to take the sun chairs down and sit on the beach and do a spot of people and boat watching, there was always something to keep me occupied.

on one of our most recent daily walks we stopped for a light lunch at one of our smaller favourite establishments in the Marina, I asked wether they would be closing over the festive period. Mario, the owner, told me that they didn’t close until February, then only for a month, so that they could have a holiday prior to re-opening again for the full season. I asked if he would be open on Christmas Day and he said that he would, but not in the evening as he was doing a Christmas Dinner at the lunchtime, which prompted me to ask wether he was fully booked. Long story short, he wasn’t, we perused the list of proposed three-course menu items, four choices in each course, a glass of Cava upon arrival and a bottle of wine per couple. Shazza gave a nod of agreement as their was a vegetarian option in each course, we paid a deposit and hey presto that was this year’s Christmas Day dinner sorted 👍

So there you have it, nothing very exciting for you to read about this time around, just a case really of being back to our normal routine and getting on with everyday life here in Spain, of course Shazza is now fully fit and well again, thank goodness and, as for myself, well as long as the sun is shining, I can partake of the occasional Anti-Covid Vaccines now and again and do a spot of people and boat watching then everything is always perfect in my world. We both continue to keep abreast of UK and other world events, habit I suppose as it isn’t of any real interest to me and to be honest, the only consequence of reading, what is generally speaking, all doom and gloom in the world, is that it serves to re-enforce the feeling that we both do have a relatively comfortable and peaceful life here, although, as mentioned elsewhere in this, and previous rambles, nowhere is ever truly a completely perfect ‘Nirvana’, but it will do us, for now 😉 The only outstanding decision that we have to yet make is, when to initiate ‘Project 2’ on our home modernisation plan ? Which is, if you recall, the total renovation and modernisation of the Master En-suite bathroom, but that decision will keep for another day, there is no rush, mañana, mañana, as the they say here in Spain 🤷‍♂️

So, until my next ramble………………..

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

Shazza was still in her dreamland when I awoke, it was early but I had slept well and felt quite refreshed, I got out of bed and tip-toed around, trying to not wake her, I decided to get my shower first as that meant I would not have to put any lights on in the bedroom area, which I would need to do when I made the coffee. By the time I had finished in the bathroom and went back into the room Shazza was awake, “Did you sleep okay ?” I asked her, “Not really, I woke up a couple of times in the night, but at least I didn’t need to get up, but my whole body just ached and I was sweating quite a lot, did you find it hot last night ?” she said. I told her that I didn’t feel overly warm but that the temperatures are still pretty high at night, around 22 degrees(c) so I was surprised that she didn’t get up and put the Air-con on. She said that it is quite noisy and so she didn’t want to wake me. I asked her how she was feeling and she said a bit tired from the lack of sleep and still a bit achy but she would probably be able to walk that off, but at least the other symptoms appeared to have finally stopped 🤮💩 I asked her if she still felt up to visiting the Alcazar and she said that she was actually looking forward to it, and to just get out of the hotel room.

“I’m making a coffee, do you want me to make you one too, or would you prefer one of your herbal tea’s ?” I asked. She said that she hadn’t had a coffee for several days, and now that her stomach seemed to have settled she really fancied one. Whilst she drank her coffee she went on to her iPad and then informed me that we had to purchase our tickets to visit the Alcazar from the Tourist Information Office first, but that was in the Central Plaza, so whilst there we could ask for directions to the main official entrance. “At least you will get a chance to see something in this place rather than just furniture in a hotel room” I said, and gave a little chuckle, “I know, it has been a bit of a nightmare for both of us these last few days” she replied.

We both agreed that this whole trip had not really lived up to our expectations, although we did accept that the reason for some of that had to actually come down to some of our own choices. If we had made an actual plan of where we wanted to be, we could have, and should have, pre-booked Air BnB self-catering accommodations, instead of hotels, but there you go, hindsight is brilliant eh 🙄 Had we have done that we could have shopped for ourselves, at least most grocery stores had our sort of readily available ingredients so we would have been able to cook the type of meals that we normally both enjoy. The different places that we then chose to visit would not have been an issue, as far as finding suitable places to eat. But Shazza did finally concede that had we have done a bit of advance research we could have identified suitable locations and accommodations which we could have used as a base, for several days at a time, and then used that base on a daily basis to visit different locations for either our more preferred type of hikes, or sightseeing. Once we had covered a certain area we could have then moved on a bit further, to a slightly different area and then done the same again 🤷‍♂️ However, all good in theory, but even had we have done things differently, that would not have changed anything in respect of Shazza’s sudden unexplained illness, although I would have been in a much better position to have looked after her, certainly very much better than I had been able to do in a hotel room. So we both agreed that we had learnt from our mistakes but, at the end of the day, we cannot turn the clock back, but I think that Shazza may now be a little more accepting of my OCD tendencies, and convinced her that whilst it can sometimes be irritating for her, perhaps a bit of OCD may just sometimes have some distinct advantages 😉

Shazza has always been a good researcher and organiser, so usually, once we have agreed a plan, or a direction to head in, I generally take the responsibility for planning the routes whilst she looks at things to do in each area we intend to visit, boat trips, visitor attractions, hiking routes etc and then she would go ahead and, where necessary, pre-book any tickets that we may require. So, historically, especially during our nomadic adventures, jointly we have always been a good team, so why hadn’t it worked on this trip 🤷‍♂️ I think we finally agreed that ‘Going With The Flow’ works much better when you have the ability to travel with a lot more independence, a bit like having transport that is also a home that you take with you, something like a caravan, camper-van or even a Motorhome perhaps 🤔 which generally allows you to travel for as long as you want in a day, and also to stop when you need to, wether that be for a coffee, a bite to eat, to sleep or even to change direction to chase better weather condition’s, okay you already know where I am going with this 🤭

Shazza then went to get a shower, I was just generally scrolling through my iPad when I heard the sound that I didn’t expect, or want to hear, ‘wretching’ noises coming from the bathroom 🤮 When she came out she was ashen faced with watery eyes, “Oh no !” I said, “The bloody coffee, it can’t be anything else, I haven’t eaten anything” she said. “Let’s wait for half an hour to see if it persists, but time to pack up our stuff and head home, you are definitely still not right” I told her, “But you were looking forward to looking around the Alcazar, and I was too, maybe it will settle as there can’t be anything left in my stomach now” she said, “Look, let’s be honest, there is no way you are up for it and I just need to get you back home now, sooner rather than later, really we should have just gone straight back when we left Vigo” I said, but in a sympathetic way, it wasn’t her fault that she was not very well, just bad timing really. She lay on the bed whilst I started to get our stuff together, I packed her case for her, although she remonstrated with me for doing so, “I can do that for myself you know, you don’t have to do it for me” she said, “I know you can, but I’m not doing anything else” I said. I told her to stay where she was whilst I took the cases and rucksacks down to the car. Then I walked with her to the car before returning to reception to ‘check-out’, explaining to the receptionist that we were leaving a day early as Shazza was not well, I didn’t expect a refund and so I wasn’t disappointed when they said, very apologetically, that they couldn’t give me one, although they didn’t charge for that day’s parking

At least it would only be a four and a half hour drive, I had planned to make only one brief stop to re-fuel and a quick comfort break, but that would be dependent on how many stops Shazza may need. We didn’t actually need to re-fuel, we could have made it all the way back on what we had, but we would have been close to empty by then, I never like to get that low. I was happy to do all the driving again, I actually enjoy it and I was very familiar with the route, it was all ‘toll free’. Shazza was better than she had been on the previous journey, she remained awake and relatively chatty, but she persisted in apologising for spoiling the trip, no matter how many times I kept telling her that it wasn’t her fault and that it could so easily have been me with one of my kidney stone incident’s, or me being the one that had whatever it was that she had gone down with 🤷‍♂️

I took a more positive view on the trip, and relayed to her everything that we had actually managed to do, from our very first stop at ‘Jerez de Los Caballeros’ where I discovered a lot more history pertaining to the ‘Knights Templar’, then we had a visit to ‘Badajoz’, The stop at ‘Lake Sanabria’ on our way into Vigo, the walk to the ‘Fortelesa and Stately Home’ in Vigo, the two walks we had taken just outside Vigo, and the wonderful exploration that I had just taken around ‘Trujillo’. For Shazza she could only think about how many days she had not been well but then, when I had recounted everything, she realised that, actually we had done quite a bit and although the food aspects were probably not as envisaged, we had both enjoyed our two ‘Mexican Fusion’ experiences. I reminded her that it is all to easy to look on the negative side of things, then poked a bit of harmless fun at her saying that it was good that one of us was an ‘Optimist’ rather than there being two ‘Pessemists’ in our family 😂

For me, as the driver, the journey actually went quite quickly, we only stopped the once, for the refuel, but I could visibly see a deterioration in Shazza, she became much less chatty and she began to look very tired again, when I asked if she was still okay she occasionally complained of a slight, but not excrutiatingly painful, stomach cramp which I suggested may have been more to do with hunger. To be honest I didn’t really consider the Mexican dishes, the Pizza, Calamari or Salads that she had been eating, as proper ‘nourishing’ meals, so she hadn’t really had a proper meal since we had left home. You can last without food for much longer than you can live without water, but in my opinion she was now close to suffering from serious malnutrition, another reason to get her home and back on to our more regular ‘Plant Based’ dietary regime 😲 I suggested we call in to the A&E department at our local hospital on our way home, but she was again adamant that she just wanted to go straight home 🤷‍♂️ I think if she had been in the same condition she had been in when we had departed Vigo that I would not even have given her an option, but she had certainly not been as anywhere near as bad as that and had actually perked up a bit over the last couple of days. However, we had depleted the fridge/freezer before we came away, thinking at that time that we could be away for up to a month, so I suggested that we stop at one of our local supermarkets just to buy some immediate essentials to get us through the rest of that day. She said that she still didn’t feel hungry and would rather go straight home, there was enough in the cupboards for me to cobble myself a meal together, sometimes it’s good to be a ‘Flexitarian’ 😉

It is such a nice feeling when you get home from a trip, but even more so this time, for obvious reasons. I told Shazza that I would bring our cases and rucksacks up and that she just needed to get into the apartment, by the time I had done the second run from the car back up to the apartment, I came back to find her already in bed saying that she just needed to sleep. Although I was obviously concerned, I knew that although Shazza can be very obstinate at times, that she was not stupid, so if she had believed this to be anything more serious (the ‘C’ word) then she would have told me herself that she needed to get to the Hospital, or our Health Clinic, before going straight home.

I was more concerned by the duration of her not being well, in my personal experience, Gastroenteritis, doesn’t usually last longer than a few days until the worst symptoms start to subside. I sat down and googled the differences between it and the new strain of Covid, known as Covid FLiRT 2024, and became more convinced upon reading the differences that, actually I do genuinely suspect that she had contracted Covid, which can take 3-4 days for the external symptoms to materialise, and which generally then lasts for around 10 days, or was I just manipulating the information to fit in with my own theory 🤔

Based on this information, and the amount of time she had started to display the early symptoms, I decided, although I had not voiced this to Shazza, that I would give her a few more days before demanding that she let me take her to the hospital. If it was Covid, and she wasn’t displaying more serious life threatening symptoms, they certainly wouldn’t want her anywhere near other more vulnerable patients. But, if after 14 days she has not shown any sign of recovery, and has not eaten, then it would be time to seek medical intervention. I could not explain why, being in such close proximity of each other, that I, so far at least, had not been displaying any similar symptoms myself, so was it Covid ? Was it Gastroenteritus ? Was it something else 🤷‍♂️

The following morning I was back into my usual routine, up early, sat on the balcony with my mug of coffee watching the sun rise, the cars driving past with their occupants on their way to work, the kids with their rucksacks going to school, watching the boats passing to and fro, I have to admit, it felt really good to be back to some sort of normality and to be in familiar surroundings. I checked on Shazza, she was still asleep, so I got my shower, got dressed and started to formulate a shopping list, enough to see us over the next four days and the sort of meals that I was happy to put together for the both of us, a lot of the Plant Based stuff that Shazza regularly cooks is beyond my ability, due generally to the amount and variety of spices she uses, and the exacting measurements which just come as second nature to her, but I knew what she liked as far as Salads were concerned, on top of the normal salad suspects she also liked Avocado with Feta, or Mozarella, a jacket potato, and sometimes a bit of fish, Prawns, Tuna or Sardines and then, if need be, and by way of a change, a Vegan Burger with home cut oven cooked fries and some Baked Beans, they may not be worthy of a Michelin Star, but they would be nutritious and flavoursome 😋 I would also get some bread, eggs and cheese for myself, so for lunches I would have several options just by using those three products if need be. Not being certain as to how often Shazza would eat initially, I would get in a couple of tins of Heinz Chicken Soup, always the number one choice when you are feeling under the weather and have not got much of an appetite, but for those items I would need to visit a different store, one in the Marina that sold typical popular British products and which also stocked bottles of Lucozade, a glucose drink that we also associate to drinking generally only when we are ill 🤷‍♂️ So that, I think, would do very nicely to tide us over for a few days, with of course a variety of fresh fruit.

Shazza still didn’t eat anything at all that first day and remained in bed, but as the coming days progressed, she started to eat small amounts, starting with the bowls of soup, by the weekend she had gradually built up to eating both a light lunch and then dinner. She spent more and more time up and about and sat with me on the balcony, or watching some TV in the evenings, at first just for an hour or so but then longer and longer during each day. I started to see an improvement in her physically, she was still a little paler than usual, but not as gaunt and by the Sunday evening she was back to her usual pottering, burning my ear about not being able to find things in the normal places in the kitchen cupboards 🤭 and making long shopping lists of stuff she needed to make her sour dough bread, her spicy red lentil soup, cheesy broccoli soup, stir fries, med veg dinners, pasta dishes etc. it was good to have my Shazza back 😘

We never did discover what it was that Shazza actually suffered from, but I think in the end we both agreed, based on the symptoms and time frame, that she had more than likely contracted the Covid FLiRT strain of the virus. I firmly believe that the busy period we had, prior to going on the road trip, had already left her tired and exhausted, and that may have contributed to her becoming more susceptible to picking up bacterial infections, but the honest truth is that we will never know 🤷‍♂️ The important thing is that she has fully recovered 🙏 and this experience has provided us with an opportunity to now re-think how we manage and plan similar future adventures 😉 Unfortunately, although putting it forward rather strongly as a potential option, I have been otherwise informed, that this will in no way involve the purchase of another Motor Home 🥺😭

Until the next ramble, whenever that may now be…………………

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena 👍

Shazza had not had the best of night’s sleep, due to the small quantity of Prawns, that she had eaten the previous evening, making their bid for freedom during the early hours of the morning 😲 She had not woken whilst I made my early morning coffee so I just left her to sleep, when she did finally awake she said that although tired, from the lack of sleep, strangely enough she actually felt a little better than she had done over the previous couple of days. This made me strongly suspect that she was actually suffering from some kind of stomach bug, rather than anything much more serious, although of course this didn’t explain her earlier symptoms of loss of appetite or fatigue 🤔 We both came to the conclusion that perhaps she should have starved herself for a little longer, her last meal being the Pizza, consumed just 24 hours earlier. “Do you feel well enough to take another longish car journey ?” I asked, “Where to” she asked, “Home” I said.

I should just say at this point that Shazza and I have never argued, I think that we had both learned, from our former lives and relationships, before we got together, that it actually serves no beneficial purpose. Don’t get me wrong, we are not Saints, we do have differences of opinions on a multitude of topics but, generally speaking, they are more often about things that are going on elsewhere and which do not directly involve ourselves or our lives, so external issues rather than personal matters, and on those occasions we usually just agree to disagree and leave it at that. Shazza is the first to admit that she tends to often be a bit more ‘Radical’ in her views and opinions and can often respond to things she see’s, reads or hears with ‘knee jerk’ decisions and personal opinions on matters, I on the other hand tend to be a little more ‘Contemplative’ and tend to think a little more about both sides of an issue before voicing a judgement or opinion 🤷‍♂️ I am of the belief that Governments, and Individuals, can always manipulate facts, figures and other information to support their own Agenda’s so, in my mind, you need to have access to ‘all’ the information in order to be able to make an ‘informed’ decision on whatever the subject matter happens to be. However, on this occasion I have to confess that I found myself losing a bit of patience with her, it reminded me of a statement several of my former military senior Officers had said about me in several annual appraisals, ‘Eric doesn’t suffer fools gladly’ and the truth is, twenty-two years after retiring from the military, I still don’t. I could not understand Shazza’s rationale in relation to her blatant refusal to get the professional medical advice or treatment that could identify her ill health and get some immediate treatment for it 🤷‍♂️ So, after a sensible discussion we came to a compromise, I would give her the next twenty-four hours and, if she didn’t get any better, or indeed, if her condition deteriorated, she agreed that we should seek immediate medical intervention, if she did not improve, but did not get any worse, we would go home from here where we would re-assess her condition and take any necessary appropriate medical action.

The thing was, Shazza did not feel strong enough, or confident enough to be very far away from bathroom facilities, to go out exploring the town or visiting the Alcazar, or even just relaxing around the pool area out in the fresh air, which I could certainly understand, and to be honest I would probably feel the same if the boot were on the other foot. I on the other hand couldn’t stay confined in a hotel room all day, so we agreed that I would go out by myself to explore these historic streets and alleyways, it would have been a shame not to now that we were here, but I said that I would leave visiting the Alcazar, in the hope that she would be fit enough so that we could do it together the following day. However, whilst I didn’t anticipate being out the whole day, I didn’t want to leave Shazza without some fresh supplies of bottled water, so I went to the supermarket first, about a ten minute walk away, she had given me specific instructions not to get her anything else, she probably correctly anticipated that I would buy her one of those pre-prepared salads that I know she quite enjoys, but in addition to the sparkling water, which is her personal preference, and some still water, I also purchased a mixture of some soft fruits, just in case, and which I would always eat if she didn’t.

I didn’t have any plan, in fact I didn’t even take the street plan, I had a tongue in my head if I needed directions, but half of the fun of exploring these historic old towns was getting lost. I just made my way towards the Plaza Mayor and would follow my nose from there. Initially, it did feel odd not having Shazza alongside me, making those constant ‘tutting’ noises every time I stopped to take a photograph, I afforded myself a smile, as she would certainly have been a doing a lot of tutting on this particular day 🤭

From the central Plaza there were lots of directions that I could have headed off in, but as I scanned the area, I saw a narrow road leading uphill, past the large church and equestrian statue, I thought that whilst my legs were still fresh, I would do the steps and uphill bits first.

Once inside the main part of this old town’s narrow cobbled streets it was just a maze of streets, around every corner there was another street, another view, another hill to climb, but I appreciated the shade that some of them provided. I did not see a lot of people, either residents of the houses or other tourists, just the odd one here and there, but everyone that I did come across were friendly enough, either with a verbal greeting, nod of the head or a smile. Sometimes I wasn’t sure wether I had already walked up, or down, the same street, but I just kept wandering and, wherever possible, walked in an upward direction, my logic being that I would have to come to the top at some point 🤷‍♂️

I kept walking, and clicking away, there was just so many beautiful and characterful streets and old buildings, churches, towers, thick walls, it didn’t take much for my imagination to start running riot, I could see this medieval fortication and its crowded busy streets, people, carts, horses and other livestock making their way to and from the market stalls in the central Plaza, I could feel the history ouzing out from every nook and cranny, what a story this walled town could tell me from over the centuries that it has existed, that is if I had the patience and was not a history heathen and so took the time to research it 🤔 but I do so like visualising my own version of events.

I finally reached the top, well the top of at least one part of this old town, for It was only when I started to wander, what I thought was downwards, did I begin to truly appreciate the vastness of this place, and soon was taking in an upwards direction again but I realised that I still had not, as yet, found the entrance to the Alcazar itself, which would have been the interior area of the castle fortress. I didn’t feel tired at all, in fact I felt exhilarated, this had got to be one of the best old medieval walled towns that I have ever visited and explored and this place would certainly take some beating and, as I was to discover, I hadn’t seen anywhere near all of it yet. I felt a little sad, because I knew that Shazza, if she had have been fit and well, would have really enjoyed this experience too, she may not be overly enthusiastic about visiting crumbling castles, but a medieval town that was still being lived in today, well she would have certainly thoroughly enjoyed wandering through the narrow cobbled streets and archways, the memories we would have taken away together from this place would have been very different from the one’s that sadly we will now actually have 🥺

By this time I began to realise that I was totally disorientated, I didn’t know which way I had come, or which way to head next, I just kept wandering up and along different cobbled streets, so I decided that if I just started to follow roads that went downhill that, at some point, I would get back to the central Plaza, again it seemed a logical deduction. But, what I had omitted to remember was that to get to the Plaza in the first place from the hotel, I had to walk in an upward direction, a fact that became quite evident a little later on 😳 Where was a local when you needed one, in fact, where was another human being coming to that, I hadn’t seen, or heard, another person for quite some time when I began to think about it 🤷‍♂️

I had been walking downhill for at least twenty minutes and still not reached the central Plaza, I was going to just keep walking downwards, it seemed the natural thing to do, but ‘Fate’ thankfully intervened, in the form of a woman with a full shopping basket who had appeared from an alleyway behind me. I asked her for directions to the Plaza Mayor and she pointed back, in the direction I had just walked from 🥺 I obviously looked confused so she gestured some directions with her hands, take a right turn then another right and I would find it. I thanked her, more than once, turned around and followed her directions.

The Plaza Cafe/Bars and restaurants were fairly busy and as I passed one, that had been closed the previous evening but was now open for business, I stopped to look at the menu that had been placed on a table at the pavement entrance. I became quite excited as amongst the starters it listed a cold tomato soup, one of Shazza’s favourites, and then amongst the selection of mains, under ‘Vegetarian’ options, it listed a selection of grilled vegetables, ‘Yes !’ I heard myself shout under my breath, finally, a proper ‘Plant Based’ meal for Shazza to enjoy, if and when she was up for it. It was busy with people eating formal type lunches, rather than Tapas or Sandwiches, so I made my way across to the Cafe/Bar where we had eaten the previous evening, as I just wanted a nice cold beer after my long walk and explorations, I hadn’t really thought about food and, although I hadn’t eaten since the previous evening, I wasn’t actually feeling hungry, but that was quite normal for me, god knows what I would be eating for dinner this evening, I thought to myself, that would depend very much on how Shazza was feeling I suppose 🤔

Sometimes, unless you sit and take time to observe your surroundings, you can miss some nice intricacies of what is actually around you. So whilst I was partaking of what I truly considered to be my well earned refreshments, and unexpected but very tasty Tapas snacks, I was doing a spot of people watching, as you do, and my eyes also started to scan around at some of the buildings positioned around the Plaza.

Sat, alone with my thoughts, I realised that I still hadn’t found the ‘official’ entrance to the Alcazar on my explorations, I would need to check Google Maps once I returned to the hotel. Then, as if the word ‘Hotel’ had rang an alarm bell in my mind, I started to feel a little guilty about having left Shazza alone for so long, I had been gone for a good three hours, maybe even a little more, what if she had taken a turn for the worse whilst I had been out enjoying myself ? What if she was too ill to call for help ? She had asked me to put the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the room door as I had left so that the cleaner would not go in ……….😲 I finished my glass of wine, paid the bill and made my way back to the hotel with a bit of a pace in my step, all the while my mind playing worst case scenarios in my brain.

”Did you have a nice time ?” she said, as I entered the room. She was dressed and sat up on the bed with her iPad. “How have you been ?” I asked, “I have had a shower but I felt a bit dizzy” she replied. I told her that that was probably due to a combination of spending a lot of time laying down and also not eating. She told me the Diarrhoea and Sickness had quelled and she had been drinking a lot of water but hadn’t risked eating anything. She was certainly a lot more conversational although she obviously still looked pale and gaunt, I told her about finding the restaurant with the menu that offered something that she could eat, if and when she felt up to eating again, but she said she would probably not risk eating anything now until the following day. “Do you think you may be up just for a little walk a bit later on, just so you can have a bit of fresh air and stretch your legs ?” I asked, “Maybe’ we will see” she responded, although not very convincingly. “The England men’s football team are playing an International qualifying match tonight and it is on TV” she announced. Now that was a positive sign, we both like watching the football and if she was up for watching it she must be feeling a little brighter I thought to myself, I have to admit, I felt hugely relieved as she did seem to be showing the first proper signs of being on the mend. However, during my explorations I had also had plenty of time and space to think, and I had decided to scrap any of my plans about travelling anywhere else when we left here on the Thursday, other than just getting Shazza home that was. I made myself a nice hot cuppa, Shazza didn’t want one, and I spent the next half an hour or so burning her ear about what I had seen, she laughed when I told her about getting lost a couple of times and having to ask for directions and me still not finding the entrance to the Alcazar. “Don’t worry, we will work it out before ‘we’ go, there will be an official entrance where ‘we’ have to buy the tickets” she said, which was a really positive sign as I picked up on the double use of the word ‘we’ in her sentence 🤗 As the afternoon moved to early evening, I didn’t want to push her on the going out for a walk and she didn’t mention it, so I said that I would pop back out to the supermarket to get myself something to bring back and eat in the room, she just said “Okay”, so that had answered the question that I hadn’t asked 😉 I returned with a couple of small baguette sized rolls, a pack of ham, cheese slices, tomato and pack of crisps, and some extra bottles of water to replace the one’s she had consumed. I also purchased a bottle of Coke for Shazza, now wether it is just a myth I do not know, but many years ago someone had told me that if you let it go flat, then drink it, it replaces the ‘electrolytes’ that your body has lost when you have suffered with excess loss of bodily fluids, it was worth a go I thought to myself 🤷‍♂️

In our hotel room we had a small two-seat settee and a small round table, so I sat there, prepared my rolls and ate them, I did ask Shazza if she wanted some, although I already knew the answer, but I felt a bit guilty of eating in front of her. Later, we sat together on the bed and watched the football on my iPad, it was a good result for England, which always makes us feel good too, but by the time the game ended it was nearly 11pm so Shazza got back under the covers and went to sleep. I sat up and just scrolled through stuff on my iPad, it was far too early for me to go to sleep, but I felt a lot more settled and relieved now that Shazza appeared to be on the mend.

To be continued…………….

Hasta Luego mi Amigos

Shazza and I have been together as a couple for the best part of twenty years, married for eighteen of them and, as you will know by now if you have read my rambles from the beginning, we have been virtually joined at the hip for the vast majority of our lives together, especially living in a Motorhome, on a full time basis, for ten of those year’s. We have always done everything together, although we do have our own individual interests, but they don’t involve us spending any lengthy periods of time away from each other, other than perhaps separate rooms, which, for some reading this, may seem a little bit of a claustrophobic relationship, but it continues to work for us. So, as you may well imagine, we know pretty much everything there is to know about each other, our individual likes and dislikes, quirks, habits, irritations, the ability to read each other’s non-verbal communications like body language and facial expressions, and certainly when one or other of us is not quite firing on all cylinders 🤔

For several days now I have known that Shazza hadn’t been quite herself, some things were blatantly obvious, her lack of appetite was the most obvious and most concerning, Shazza would normally eat Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner and would certainly let me know in no uncertain terms, especially when we were living our mobile nomadic lifestyle, if we went past any of those key timelines in the day, although more recently, since living here in Spain, with her enjoying a more leisurely start to most days, Breakfast and Lunch have become combined into ‘Brunch’, although she would still normally have a light snack, usually a piece of fruit, in the afternoon, just to put her on until Dinner 🤭 Another thing that had concerned me was that she became ‘fatigued’ much quicker, Shazza is generally a bundle of energy, always doing something, never sitting still for a moment but, on this trip, she has run out of steam very quickly when we have been on our walks, although I had put some of that down to either some of the uphill walks we have undertaken, Shazza isn’t good with long steep ascents, but also the heat and sometimes the distance we had walked which were probably also contributory factors. Shazza has a tremendous amount of personal grit and determination, driven primarily by the fact that she thinks that because she is nine-years my junior that she should be able to match, or sometimes, even better, whatever I can manage to do physically, silly woman, she should know by now that she could never outmatch a Super-Hero like me 😂

Anyway, as you know, on this trip and for several days now, I have been consistently asking her if she is okay, knowing something was obviously not quite right with her, and that wasn’t down to just a gut feeling, but because I know her so well (cue for a song there somewhere 🤷‍♂️), but she kept insisting that she was fine, I could tell by her tone of reply that she was beginning to get irritated with me continually asking the same question every single morning, afternoon and evening, but of course, that didn’t deter me from keep asking the question on a daily basis 🤭

So, when she said to me, “Before we plan a route I need to talk to you”, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up on end 😳 The long and the short of it was that Shazza finally admitted that all was not well with her, in my mind I heard myself saying, “No shit Sherlock !”, however I refrained from saying it out aloud, and after she had told me the issue I certainly don’t think it would have helped matters if I had have done 🤔 Although she said that she did not actually feel unwell, as in she did not have cold or flu or any other immediately obvious condition. She explained that she had not only lost her usual regular appetite, but to make matters worse, when she did eat anything substantial she could not keep it in 🤮💩 So that explained why she had not been wanting to stop and eat when we were on our long drives, and more recently on our walks. Even when we did go out and eat in the evenings, she had been uncomfortable and glad to get back to the room, knowing that the contents of the meal would not remain in her stomach for very long. Additionally, she had not been sleeping well most nights and so had been waking up tired, so she had been quite happy when the rainy day we experienced kept us confined in our room for the majority of the day. She said that she thought that it was just a stomach bug she had picked up at the start of the trip and that it would resolve itself after a couple of days, but so far it hadn’t, and the combination of things had started to leave her quite fatigued.

I have to confess that I was a little annoyed, not angry, perhaps more a case of irritated rather than actually annoyed, that she had not said anything on all of the occasions that I had asked her 🤷‍♂️ Had I have known I would have just amended what sort of activities we did and ensured that we were never too far away from the ‘facilities’ she may have required at short notice, or to be honest, just cut the trip short and done it another time 🤷‍♂️ She said that she was hoping that by not eating for a couple of days that it may have passed, quite literally I assumed 🤭 and that all would have been well in her world again. However, she also didn’t want to spoil the trip as she knew that I had been looking forward to it for quite some time. I could sympathise with her, we have all been there at some point with a ‘Delli Belly’ and, when we have, the best place to be is close to bathroom facilities, and preferably our own. My immediate reaction once she had finished her ‘Confession’ was to place my hand on top of her head and say “Bless You My Child”, and then send her away to say seven Hail Mary’s, but I really didn’t want her anywhere near the ‘font’ in her current condition.

However, in all seriousness, my immediate reaction was to get her to a doctor, just so she could get checked out and to make sure that it wasn’t anything more serious or complicated, and to perhaps get her some medication to relieve the symptoms, but she was having none of that. Shazza has always been an obstinate so and so when it comes to going to Doctor’s, in fact the last time she went to see one was when we lived and worked in Ilfracombe in Devon, when she had a ‘Thyroid’ issue, we left there four year’s ago. So my next suggestion was to get her straight back home, we could be there within 8-10 hours, I would do the driving and we could stop whenever she needed to, but, she was also extremely reluctant to do that, saying she would probably be okay in a couple more days 🤷‍♂️ She also said that she would feel guilty about bringing our road trip to a rather abrupt end, especially if within the next day or so she got better. I told her that Galicia, Asturias and the Picos de Europas were not actually going to go anywhere in the near future, well to the best of my knowledge that was, unless we get a stray drone from Russia or missile from Iran 😂 But neither were they at the other side of the world, but within only a relatively short ten hour, or even less, drive away, so in all reality we could come back here anytime we wanted, there was no ‘Use By’ date on when we could, or could not, do this particular road trip. In the end I decided to let her make the decision for herself, to tell me what it was that ‘she’ wanted to do. She suggested that rather than head any further North, we could make a start East, the way we had come, back towards home, but depending on how she was feeling, maybe even stopping at the Picos, if the weather was good. “Are you saying that you would risk doing a hike in the mountains ?” I asked, already knowing what her answer would be, “Probably not” she sheepishly replied, “Well I don’t want to go on a hike in the mountains without you, we have always had our adventures together and I am not changing that now” I said, in a tone that told her that the subject was not up for debate. She must really have not been feeling that well as she offered no argument, I must remember to also put that verbal ‘victory’ in my diary 😂 I told her to go and drink her coffee and read her book and I would sit down and come up with a plan for her to consider and agree.

Although I may have sounded a little unsympathetic, even flippant, in my earlier comments in this ramble, in truth, I was really quite concerned because Shazza rarely takes ill, it is me that is generally the ‘Sick Note’ in this relationship, what with recurring Kidney Stones and the Detached Retina, although, in my defence, I have been trouble free, well medically speaking at least, for over two and a half year’s now, so let’s just hope that the ‘Dark Forces’ are not currently within listening distance 🙄 So when I planned the route, which was certainly going to be heading in a homewards direction, a mere ten and a half hour drive away, in the knowledge that we have covered these sort of distances many times in the past without any problems whatsoever, although that travel time was not taking into consideration any stops en-route, but I also wanted to take into consideration Shazza’s comfort, a long drive in a car is not ideal at the best of times, if only we still had the ‘Little Fokker’, I thought to myself, which as you know, was not for the first time on this trip 🙄 Not only could Shazza have spent the journey in the comfort of the rear double bed, if she so required, and yes !! I do know, that that would be illegal by the letter of the law, but what the eye doesn’t see and all that stuff and, the unwritten rule of ‘you do what you have to do’ in such circumstances 🤷‍♂️ Plus, we would have had the added convenience, if you will excuse the pun, of having readily available, our own on-board bathroom, although come on, I am not that sympathetic, as I would have made her be the one to empty the toilette cassette at the end of the journey 😂

However, and being the eternal optimist that I tend to be, and based on the fact that she was more ‘Uncomfortable’ with her situation, rather than being at death’s door, there was the possibility that in fact she could start to get better if it was just a tummy bug. I knew that if she did, she would have felt really guilty at cutting the trip short, so I looked at potential opportunities on the route where we could perhaps stop, either for a night, or perhaps a little more. The problem was of course, that sticking to the fastest main routes, all ‘Toll Free’ motorways, meant that the places we would pass where locations we had previously visited 🤷‍♂️ The more I researched the route, the further South I began to look, that meant the longer that leg of the drive would be 😤 How many times have I said in my rambles over the year’s that patience is a virtue, and well okay, although even the route I had planned may have involved driving a little longer than I would really have liked for Shazza’s sake, six and a half hours, and would involve a thirty or forty minute detour off the main route, but, thinking positively, if Shazza were to start feeling better then, the place that I had found, would be of interest to the both of us and actually would probably also be a great way to end this rather unexpected road trip 🤗

Day 8 – Vigo – Trujillo

Trujillo is a town in the Province of Caceres in Western Spain. The Castillo (Castle or Alcazar) a medieval stone fortress, sits atop a hill overlooking the town centre. The ‘Coria Museum’ has displays on the regional links between Spain and Latin America. The life of conquistador ‘Francisco Pizarro’, who conquered the Inca Empire, is traced at the ‘Casa Museo de Pizarro’ his former home. An equestrian statue dedicated to him stands in the Plaza Mayor.

Thank you for the above Mr Wikipedia 😴 Actually, looking at numerous on-line images of the town actually got me quite excited, this looked like a really old historical place, narrow cobbled streets and alleyways to get lost in, a large central Plaza Mayor with a wide assortment of Cafe/Bars and Restaurants, Lots of Churches, Museums and this time, an impressive ‘Alcazar’ that actually looked worthy of looking around, even though this one had an admission fee, that fact alone probably was a good indication of it being very worthwhile to visit, but you can be assured that I will let you know if it wasn’t 😁 And for those of you reading this who are Motorhomers, there is a serviced Aire located at the Bullring and within easy walking distance of the town which also has, two Supermarkets, ELequerc and a DIA.

Shazza was still awake by the time I had finished making my plan and so I briefly ran through it with her, she gave me her nod of approval and asked if I wanted her to seek out some nearby accommodation. “Aha” I said, in a smart ass sort of way, “I have already found somewhere, it is within ten minutes walking distance of the ‘Plaza Mayor’, it is a former Convent and it has a small splash pool with sunbeds. The only downside though is that each day at 6am you have to attend morning prayers and an evening mass at 7pm” 😂 She grinned, “I am sure you will enjoy being amongst all those dirty habits” she said, with a chuckle 😳 humour huh, she can’t be feeling all that ill, I thought to myself. She went on-line and pre-booked the hotel for a three night’s stay, without any why’s or wherefore’s, so another ‘victory’ entry for my diary me thinks, best I take full advantage of this situation whilst I can 🤭

I awoke early and having packed my bags the previous evening, apart from my wash bag, I was raring to get going after my morning coffee. Shazza didn’t look so good though, probably the worst she had been on the trip so far, she looked quite pale and gaunt in her face, I guessed that the lack of nutrition was beginning to take its toll, I was actually quite worried about her, so much so that I suggested perhaps going to reception to see if we could stay an extra night and to enquire as to the location of the nearest Doctor or Health Clinic, at least we were covered these days under the Spanish State Healthcare system, however, Miss Obstinate was still having none of it, “Give me half an hour to get myself sorted and then let’s get off” she said 🤷‍♂️

Our timing to depart Vigo turned out to be just right as the weather had turned, no sunshine, just a sheet of grey everywhere, so it would likely be a slow journey out of Galicia, fortunately at Trujillo it was forecast to be between 27-30 degrees( c) by the time we arrived later that afternoon, but I had already decided in my own mind on a Plan B, if she kept deteriorating, and that was to just head towards home in the knowledge that the Costa del Sol public hospital, our main local hospital, was on our route 🤔

In all the time we have been together, and all the road journey’s that we have been on together, short or long, in a car or the Motor Home, Shazza has never once fallen asleep whilst being the passenger, or whilst being the driver I should perhaps also hasten to add 🤭 So I knew she was not feeling at all well, for as soon as we had driven out of Vigo and had got on to the Motorway, she reclined her seat, curled up and fell fast asleep, I did mention she was actually not driving didn’t I 😂 The roads were, as usual, generally very quite and the miles just passed by, my head was full of thoughts, wondering what could be the cause of Shazza’s sudden turn of bad health, could she have contracted the new strain of COVID ? That was very possible and we know that it is still out there, throughout Europe, although nowhere near as bad as during the pandemic, we have been using elevators in hotels and we don’t know how well the hotel rooms are being cleaned these days 🤷‍♂️ However, it could also be a bad case of Gastroenteritis ? The general symptoms are pretty much the same. But then again, I was okay, so surely, as we had been together, eaten much of the same, I too would have suffered similar symptoms ? My mind then wandered into a thought where I didn’t really want it to go, the worst case scenario, there was a history of Cancer, Shazza’s mum, having suffered twice with Bowel Cancer, the latest as recently as 2021, she had fortunately recovered, but I knew that this would also be playing on Shazza’s mind, and it was the sudden and quite prolonged periods of fatigue that were of concern, although neither of us had mentioned it. I attempted to clear such negative thoughts from my mind and attempted to focus on the destination I was heading towards, but that dark thought remained irritatingly at the back of my mind 🥺 We are both very conscious of the fact that we are ageing, and that in itself brings about the bodies own natural progressive deterioration, and reduced levels of immunity to bacterial infections, but we know that we cannot prevent that. However, these days we do try to maintain a healthy diet, although Shazza is much more disciplined at that than myself, we both try to keep ourselves physically active and relatively fit and just generally try to maintain a good lifestyle, although we also realise that no matter what we do, there is no magic bullet to prevent the natural ageing process. We also know that there are things outside our own influence that we just have to accept as a risk to our own health, we cannot wrap ourselves up in cotton wool, so normal everyday activities bring you into contact with other’s, supermarket shopping, having coffee’s or meals in public establishments, visiting public venues or events, so in all reality we just have no way of knowing who we come into contact with may be suffering, knowingly or otherwise, with bacterial infections, cold’s, flu, covid etc. I am smiling inwardly to myself as I am writing these words, for it is now many days since I had those silent inner thought’s in the car whilst I was driving, it’s amazing the directions that your mind can take you in especially when you are confined and have no other means of distraction, like a passenger chitter chattering away 🙄

Periodically Shazza would awaken, as she shifted to get comfortable in her seat, “Are you okay” she would ask me, “I’m fine” I would respond, and give her what I hoped was a reassuring smile, “But how are you doing ? Do you want me to stop at the next services ?” I asked, but the response was always “No, but, if you need to” before she drifted back into, what I was guessing, was probably only a semi-conscious state. I had left the A52 motorway behind, and had already travelled along the A631, passing the village Cafe we had stopped at on the way through to Vigo nearly a week ago, and then finally, after around three hours, I got on to the very familiar A66 motorway which would take us all the way South. So deep in my thoughts had I been, that I do not remember when the sun had actually come out, we were heading South, a little more inland now and running parallel with the Eastern border of Portugal towards Central Spain. The views of the surrounding countryside opened up and I could once again see for miles in all directions, it helped to give me other things to focus my attention on which I was grateful for, I made one stop for fuel and took the opportunity to take a brief comfort stop, Shazza also took the opportunity to use the facilities and stretch her legs, but she didn’t want anything to eat or drink so I just continued to drive on. To be honest I don’t tend to eat very much, I will have a Tostado when we make a stop on our usual morning walks when we are at home, but then I generally do not eat again until my evening meal, or, if we do occasionally have a proper lunch, instead of dinner, then I don’t generally eat anything else in the evening, perhaps a biscuit or two with my evening cuppa. Some critics will say that is not healthy, but I have been like that for many years, I eat generally only when I feel hungry, or if something really tantalises my taste buds and, so far, I haven’t withered away yet 😁 I had a bottle of water in the car so that I could remain hydrated, but all in all, I was quite enjoying the actual drive and, at times, it did take me back to the days that we did this very route, going both South and North, in our Motor Home, and that unlocked memories of the many places we had visited and parked up, places where we had wild-camped or stayed on Motorhome Aires, it all seemed an eternity away from where we are now and the lifestyle we are currently enjoying.

It was nice to see the appearance of the name of the city of ‘Caceres’ on the road signs, although still a good hour’s drive away, but I knew we were getting closer to our destination. Even though we would deviate from our Southerly direction to travel further East and inland, it would be on another toll free motorway, the A58, which would take us to within 2Km of Trujillo.

I remember saying ‘WOW’ out loud when I got my first clear view of our destination, Shazza woke from her half slumber and all I could say to her was “Look at that !”, she sat up and looked at the view, “Very Nice” she said, in a less than convincing tone. “Do you want to pull over and let me drive in to the town” she asked. I knew she would be a little concerned about me driving through potential narrow streets, “Well you have done all the driving so you must be tired” she said, I knew it wasn’t the tiredness that concerned her but more the slightly depleted vision in my eye. “I think I will be okay I said, I will just take it slowly and anyway I don’t think you are well enough to drive anyway ?” I replied. She said she was feeling a little better and that she needed something else to concentrate on, so I pulled over and we changed positions. As it was, traffic in the small town was quiet and the hotel was easy to locate.

The old gentleman receptionist greeted us warmly and got us checked in quite promptly before advising us how to get around to the rear hotel garage parking area, where we had pre-booked a space.

Although much of the interior had been modified for its use now as a hotel, it was still quite evident that it had been a former Convent, it had that old religious look about it, the rooms were not as modern as the one we had left in Vigo, but it was perfectly clean, their were two wide beds, side by side and we had a nice en-suite bathroom, a large window that overlooked the pool area, air-conditioning, a mini-bar with soft drinks, an LCD TV and free Wi-Fi, everything that we needed.

Shazza actually looked much better than she had earlier that morning, so I made us both a nice hot cuppa and whilst she checked her iPad for any Emails, or messages on her Social media accounts, I relaxed on the bed from the long drive, it had taken us just a little over 7 hours with just the one re-fuel and comfort stop, but now my eyes began to feel really heavy, it was 4pm, and I could feel a ‘Siesta’ coming on 😴 I only dropped off for an hour and when I awoke Shazza was reading a book on her kindle, she still looked gaunt and pale, but certainly a lot better than she had done, “You must be starving by now” she said to me, “I am getting ready for some dinner, but it’s a bit early yet, will you be up for going out a little later to find somewhere to eat ?” I replied. “I am a bit hungry now, but I still feel a bit cautious about eating” she said, “But I will come out to get some fresh air and I also need to stretch my legs, but you need a proper meal today”, she said. We agreed that we would not spend too long out this evening, just a bite to eat then back, and then, hopefully, after Shazza had got what I hoped would be a restful night’s sleep we would do some exploring of the town the following day, but we did now have two full days, so we didn’t have to rush around, we could just take things easy to see how she got on, and hopefully she would be able to start to eat something more nutritious and substantial again, even if it was a Coffee and Tostado to start with in the morning and then perhaps just something light for her lunch.

We both got showered and changed, the receptionist had given us a street map and given us directions towards the Plaza Mayor, although to be honest their were eateries all over the place, hidden amongst the maze of narrow streets, but the Plaza Mayor was where the majority were clumped together. Although when we first drove into the town it was along a modern street, our hotel was right on a corner that led directly into the old part of town and so, as we walked out that evening, we were soon dwarfed in the narrow streets by tall old stone built buildings, lots of the buildings in these streets were still residential houses, or apartments, but some of them had also been renovated and converted into modern day shops, but without losing that external ambience of that older period. Even with the aid of the street map we got confused, their were just too many alleyways and twists and turns which were not always reflected on the map by the person who drew it 🙄 I didn’t want to wander around aimlessly this particular evening for Shazza’s sake, as some of the narrow roads were on a bit of an incline and I could see her struggling, so I attempted to enlist the assistance of Google, but in these narrow streets the GPS was struggling to pinpoint our exact location, so I just stopped somebody and asked them which direction to the Plaza Mayor. It was literally a couple of minutes walk away from where we were, but had we have kept going in the direction we were headed we would have missed it as we needed to take a right turn 🤷‍♂️ the pavement Cafe/Bars and Restaurants were fairly busy, but not crowded, and after quickly looking at a couple of establishments menu’s we made our selection and were shown to a table. Once again though, there was little choice for Shazza’s palate, why do none of these places serve Vegetable dishes ? Of course she could have ordered another Salad, but where are the Jacket or boiled potatoes, the Broccoli, Cauliflower, Green Beans, Carrots etc. which are widely available from all the supermarkets and independent grocers, I mean Spain is a major exporter of all of this type of produce. Anyway she settled for a dish of Prawns cooked in Garlic and Olive Oil, I had a much wider choice and went for the ‘Beef Cheeks’ in a red wine sauce 😋😋 we also ordered a basket of bread. Whilst mine came with a side order of chips, although I would have preferred mashed or boiled potatoes, Shazza’s came with no side dish whatsoever, which, as it turned out, was a good thing on this occasion as she only managed to eat less than a quarter of her meal, about four smallish prawns 😲 I wasn’t complaining, I devoured my own course, and the whole basket of bread before finishing off her Prawns 🤭 Shazza had also settled for bottled water, but having seen her suffering over the last few days, I of course needed no excuse to maintain my strict regime of Anti-Covid Vacinnes 🤭🍷🍷 I of course knew that Shazza had only come out with me that evening so that I would get a proper meal, had she have decided not to, she knew that I would have just called in at a local shop and grabbed a sandwich, or something quick, to take back to eat in the hotel room, I could of course have gone out by myself for dinner, but who wants to eat out alone and be sat like a ‘Billy No Mates’ 🤷‍♂️

Shazza seemed fairly ‘chirpy’ as we wandered back through the streets to the hotel, compared to how she had been, so I was hoping that she was now coming through the other side of whatever it was that had made her feel so ill, so at least now she would be able to have a good couple of days rest here to build her strength up again before we decided what we were going to do next, we still had a couple of weeks in which to head elsewhere if we wanted to, that was if she was feeling much better. Now I have to confess that at this point, with Shazza looking and sounding a lot better, I couldn’t help myself, this ‘Going With The Flow’ business just does my head in, so that night whilst Shazza slept, I got my head back into the route maps and started formulating some alternative options 😂 There were lots of ways we could go with lots of places to explore, however, I decided on three options.

We could continue to head East, although that would also involve heading just a little North again, to the town of ‘Toledo’, somewhere that Shazza had previously said she would like to visit, from there we could stay on the Eastern side of Spain and just head South, through the Sierra Nevada National Park on our way home. Alternatively, we could head West, cross the border into Portugal and head for the town of ‘Elvas’, which is another place we have not as yet visited. After that we could travel South, following the course of the ‘Rio Guadiana’. The Guadiana is an international river defining a long stretch of the border between Portugal and Spain, effectively separating ‘Extremadura’ and ‘Andalusia’ on the Spanish side, from ‘Alentejo’ and the ‘Algarve’ on the Portuguese side. The river’s basin extends from La Mancha and the eastern portion of Extremadura to the southern provinces of the Algarve; the river and its tributaries flow from east to west, then south through Portugal to the border towns of ‘Vila Real de Santo Antonio’ (Portugal), which is a lovely town that we have stayed in several times during our motorhoming days and which looks across the river to ‘Ayamonte’ (Spain), another lovely town that we have visited on several occasions, you can take a small ferry between the two (15 minutes), then the river flows out into the Gulf of Cádiz. Following the route of this river would take us through some beautiful scenic landscapes, wine growing regions and a whole host of small Portuguese villages and, whilst we have done some parts of this route in the Motorhome, we had not followed it all the way South to the Eastern Algarve. From there we would cross the border back into Spain and head, from the Atlantic side of the coast, to our home on the Mediterranean side, only a couple of hours journey. The third and final option was the least appealing one, which was to just leave Trujillo and head straight home 🥺 I decided though, that for now it would probably be best to just keep all of these alternative plans to myself 😉

To be continued…………………………

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

We were not late back to the hotel from the Mexican Restaurant, around 10:30pm, but Shazza said she was tired and went straight to bed, I was still wide awake, as usual, so I decided to see what I could find out about the Island we were going to visit the following day. I have included some screenshots of the information that I discovered below, for a very good reason, which will become very obvious later in this ramble. But I was quite excited by what I had read, so I would certainly be packing the beach towel and swimwear in the rucksack the following morning, I still didn’t have any intentions of going for a swim, but a spot of sunbathing on a pristine white sand Island beach, well it would have to be done really and I certainly had to have some photo’s of that to include in the ramble 🤭 It also looked as if, finally, we may also just manage to get that nice spot for a lunch too 🤗

Whilst Shazza was drinking her coffee the following morning I let her read the information that I had found the previous evening. I suggested that if she wasn’t up for another walk we could always just drive there in the car, as their was free parking on the Island, however, she said that she still wanted to do the walk, I re-packed the rucksack, she suggested that we should still take some snacks, fruit and water as we could always bring them back, to have on another day, if we didn’t eat or drink them.

We looked at the map and agreed where we would park, which would entail starting on a part of the route that we had actually already walked the previous day, which would be at the start of the long promenade, although there were several car parks to choose from, but the one we selected looked easy enough to get to from the hotel, we would park directly at the beach in an official car park and not just on the side of the road and, the car parking was completely ‘free’, and you all know just how much I like that word 😂

The thing about Google, is that it does not account for gradients, or for what pace individuals may walk, so when I checked the actual route it showed that it would only be a little under an hour’s walk, from where we would park the car to our intended destination, but all in all it looked as though the actual route would be very easy, and quite effortless to the ‘Illa de Toralla’.

Shazza elected to do the driving, there are times when she does actually prefer me to be the passenger so that I can do the navigation through towns, although Google does the directions, I am pretty good at reading the on-screen mapping so that I am able to give her some advance notifications of which junction to take, or how far it is before a turn off, or which lane to be in, and it also helps being an extra pair of eyes watching other traffic and suicidal pedestrians 😳 However, it was quite easy as it was a Sunday morning and their was very little traffic on the roads, also, we didn’t have to go anywhere near the central part of the city which may have been a little busier. It was a beautiful sunny morning, already quite warm and we had our fingers crossed that yesterday’s weird band of mist would not be present again today.

We parked up, there were already quite a lot of other cars already there, but there was still plenty of space. As we commenced our walk we could already see quite a few people on the beach, the promenade itself was certainly a lot busier than it had been the previous day, but we also soon discovered the reason for that, and it had nothing to do with not having the previous day’s misty conditions. We just kept walking, although it was actually more of a leisurely stroll, and we were just enjoying the warmth and the views, then we came to the reason for the large number of people that early on a Sunday morning, the street market, which occupied the whole area of one of the seafront car parks, however we didn’t stop, one street market is much the same as any other. We had not walked down as far as this on the previous day and we were quite surprised at just how long this promenade actually was, we had seen one open air swimming pool and a basketball park, the previous day, but their were even more play areas, food and drink vendors and another, more impressive open air swimming pool, although nobody, as yet, at this time of the morning was taking advantage of it, we made the assumption that it wasn’t a heated one, although we didn’t know that for certain, but their was no way that we were going to prove, or disprove, our assumption 🥶

When we did finally reach the end of the long promenade we came to a bit of a dead end and the coastal path did not continue from that point 🤔 We did have a choice, Google maps was instructing us to cut across to the main road and continue to follow it, until it would eventually bring us back towards the seashore and another long stretch of beach, or, we could have chosen to divert off the route down on to the beach to see wether we could just walk along it, the mapping wasn’t very clear though, would we come to another river or estuary that we would be unable to cross and then have to walk all the way back 🤷‍♂️ We certainly didn’t want to risk having to do that, so we agreed to just keep following the Google directions.

Now you may recall me commenting about Google Maps, in fact several times over the course of these current travel rambles, particularly about it not showing gradients, and I continue to mention it for very good reason. In the main, there was a good flattish pavement that ran alongside the main road that we now found ourselves walking along, which took us through a couple of small villages, passed houses, shops that were closed, some because it was a Sunday but other’s that looked a bit more permanent, we walked past a large sporting arena, where lots of youngsters, aged we guessed between 6-7, who were spread across several tennis courts, were being coached by Adults, the next generation of Grand Slam Champions we mused, but it was good to see them doing something physically active over this lovely sunny weekend, and not just stuck with their heads looking down at screens on electronic devices, totally oblivious to everything else going on around them, an activity that has spread these days to all generations of folk, and yes that does include ourselves 😳 But we do sometimes laugh when we see quite elderly folk, seemingly tottering along the pavements talking to themselves, year’s ago that behaviour would have seen them taken away by men in white coats 😂, but when we get closer and pass them we see the tell tale signs of earphone cables, or wireless earbuds, in their ears, as they chatter away to someone on the other end, “Don’t laugh, that’ll be you in a couple of years time” Shazza says to me, “I doubt it, I don’t have any friends to talk to” I reply, anticipating a bit of sympathy, but I should have known better, “That’s true” she said, cruelly followed by a laugh 😲

We crossed a bridge across a wide river that ran down to the sea, wide enough at least to have prevented us from traversing it, had we have opted to have taken the beach route 😲 “We made the right choice there” Shazza commented, “We certainly did, especially when you think how far we have just walked since leaving the promenade, it would have been a pain to have had to backtrack” I said, in a thankful tone. Sometimes it pays to just follow directions, I thought to myself. However, once we had crossed that bridge, the road and pavement bent around to the right and proceeded to take us up a steep hill, “This has certainly got the heart pumping” I said to Shazza, unsurprisingly she gave no response but just kept trudging on. At, what we thought would be the top, the road bent around to the left and continued in an upward direction, but the pavement disappeared and we had to walk on an uneven and potholed hard shoulder, fortunately the road was not that busy. It felt a longer distance than it actually was and soon we started to descend back to beach and sea level, we cut across a small dirt car park that had a sign prominently stating that Caravans and Camper Vans were prohibited, I still tend to notice these sort of things as I can still imagine being in our own van and finding rare opportunities like this to park up for a night. However, although there were restrictions on this beach side of the road, we noted that directly across from it was another dirt car park which had several medium sized (7m) Motor Homes parked up, it looked a bit ‘lumpy’ but you could have made do for a night, or perhaps two 🤔 We re-joined the sandy coastal footpath through a lightly pine forested area which provided some welcome shade from the rapidly increasing heat and we could see our destination and the bridge that gave access to it. As we approached the bridge, to what we thought would be our final destination, on the beach, on the mainland side, there were proper small five-a-side goalposts set up with a game in progress, although this was no five-a-side match as there were at least twenty individuals having a kick-around. As we got closer we could see that these were not youths but mainly adult males, of an age group that the Spanish class as ‘Seniors’, but their game was being played at the normal speed and not at a walking pace, another reason perhaps that there is longevity in these parts which obviously isn’t just due to the healthy Mediterranean Diet, or maintaining a strict daily Anti-Covid Vaccine regime.

As we approached the other side of the bridge we could see a security barrier across the road and a man, in a uniform, in a security hut 🤷‍♂️ There was a sturdy metal barred security pedestrian gate but it was locked. I sauntered across to the security hut, the guard stood up and I could see he was wearing a gun 😲 “Buenas Dias” I said, in a cheerful manner with a smile on my face, “How can I help you ?” He said in perfect English, ‘Why do I even bother’ I thought to myself 🤷‍♂️ I explained that we had walked from Vigo to come and visit the Island for a couple of hours. He told us that it was not possible as the Island was Private and only for residents 🤔 I explained that on-line it said that it was open to visitor’s, but he just re-iterated, although not in an unfriendly manner, that it was a Privately owned Island. I was in no position to argue, after all he was the one with the gun 😲 We were both extremely disappointed, and a little irritated, I mean we had read up on the place before coming here, hence the reason I have included the screenshots at the beginning of this ramble, which you can see clearly indicated that it was open to visitor’s 🤷‍♂️

I said to Sharon that this looked suspicious, perhaps the Island had been taken over by a very wealthy individual, or a corporation, for unscrupulous reasons, like you see in the James Bond Movies 🤷‍♂️ In fact, as we were walking away a big expensive luxury looking car arrived, with blacked out windows, as the electric rear passenger window came partially down, so as the guard could identify the occupant, I am certain the old white-haired passenger looked a lot like ‘Blofeld’ and, he had a white fluffy Persian cat sat on his knee 😲 Or perhaps I was letting my imagination run away with me 🤭 As we returned across the bridge we looked down to see a person in a black wetsuit swimming under the bridge towards the beach, and no, I was certainly not imagining that. I told Shazza that we should hurry up and get back to the mainland side of the bridge before the explosions started and the gun battle commenced !!

As we disappointedly walked back across the bridge, we stopped to just admire the views, a little further away we could see what looked like a small village with a nice looking harbour so we decided we would continue a little further on our walk to see what was their, and wether we could still find a nice place for lunch.

As we got back onto the mainland from the bridge, the sandy coastal path and pine forest continued, from there, with us today having beautiful clear mist free views, we got a lovely view of the ‘Cies’ Islands and beyond them, and albeit in a bit of a heat haze, I could just about make out what looked like another, but not so tall, rocky outcrop. Just out of curiosity I used the zoom lens on my camera to take a look and, although not visible to the naked eye, well at least not in daylight, there was a small lighthouse.

We headed for the small harbour cove, their were quite a few people walking along the path so we were hopeful that there may have been things to see, and a few choices to select somewhere nice for a spot of lunch. It was not to be our day, albeit the weather was good, their was no mist so the views were spectacular and it was a very nice beach day, however, there was only one very small Cafe open, but their outside seating area was at the back of the property offering no views, so we gave that a miss. Shazza’s suggestion to pack our own snacks, fruit and drinks had been a good call and, unless we wanted the usual seaside food offerings, it looked like another opportunity for a nice lunch had been thwarted. We decided to just re-trace our steps and make our way back to the car, we would find somewhere to eat later that evening in Vigo.

When we came to the car park in the village, the one that didn’t permit Caravans or Camper Vans, in one corner there was a small refreshments hut with just a few plastic tables and chairs positioned nearby, we decided to stop for a cold beer, they offered one on tap that was mixed with Lemon, it tasted just like the ‘Lager & Lime’ that we used to drink in the pubs back in the UK in our much younger days, and very refreshing it was too.

Instead of walking across the car park to the main road and walking back through the village, as we had on our way up here, we continued to walk on a trail through a lightly forested area and by doing so ended up getting some nice views of some other coves. This was obviously not the shortest route , as Google wanted to send us back up the main village road. However, it wasn’t as if we were on a jungle trek in the wilderness now was it 🤷‍♂️ We wouldn’t actually end up getting lost, okay we may have had to double back on ourselves but we were willing to take that risk, this route was much more scenic.

We kept following the coastal trail until eventually we could go no further, except back up a road into the village where we re-joined the main road again. We recognised where we were, so it would be straightforward from here to get back to the car. As we descended the first part of the hill back to the bridge that crossed the river, there was an ambulance on the pavement, right on the bend of the road, blue lights flashing, rear doors open, blocking our footpath access, so we had to make our way around it on the narrow road, “Careful of the traffic” Shazza shouted out to me, I laughed to myself, sometimes she talks to me as if I am a little child, “It’s okay Mum, if I get run over there is an ambulance already here” I shouted back to her 😂

As we passed the sports-hall again, outside, the youngsters were still playing tennis, although wether it was a different group I don’t know, then we both sighed a bit of relief as we once again got back on to the promenade. We still had a fair way to walk to get back to the car but phsycologically we knew that we were on the home leg which always tends to put an extra spring in the step.

It hadn’t actually felt as though we were on an actual hike today, more of a nice gentle walk with just one short uphill ascent but nothing very strenuous, much the same as the previous days walk really but with some slightly different views. I don’t really mind where we walk, it’s more about being outdoors in the fresh air, but, if I were to be totally honest, I think that silently I was longing for a more rugged, and peaceful, coastal or mountain hike, with much less people and traffic.

Shazza I think could sense that I wasn’t totally enamoured with todays activity, but for completely the wrong reason, “I’m sorry we didn’t find anywhere nice again to stop and have lunch” she said, “Don’t be daft, I am not that bothered about not stopping for a lunch” I replied. “Well, I have got a suggestion” she continued. So she went on to tell me about a little Pizza restaurant she had seen one night as we were walking back from the Mexican place, although she hadn’t mentioned it at the time. “It looked really small inside, but very nice” she said, in quite an enthusiastic way. “Is that where you want to eat this evening ?” I asked her, but instead she suggested that we could get back to the hotel, drop off our stuff in the room and then walk to the Italian Pizza place and have what could be a very late lunch or early dinner.

I was very conscious that this was our last day in Vigo and we hadn’t even discussed where we would head off to next, my natural assumption had been I guess that we would just continue to travel a little further North up this Western coastline of Galicia, possibly with a stop at Santiago de Compostela, the official end of the Camino where all the Pilgrims assemble at the Cathedral, then we could turn East and head along the Northern coast, on into the ‘Asturias’ Region before dropping South and back through the Picos de Europas mountain range, where, subject of course to the weather, we may still get a chance for a day or two hiking. But of course, as we were just ‘Going with the flow’ on this particular road trip, I couldn’t let Shazza know that I may have had a cunning sort of plan 🤭 If we went out to eat early, then we could spend the evening looking at the ‘Works of Fiction’ forecasts, and our maps, and then plan a bit of a route.

Back at the hotel, suitably fed and watered, and yes there may have been a couple of Anti-Covid Vaccines included, I got Google maps up on my iPad, opened up the outdated, but still useful, road map of Portugal & Spain. Shazza handed me a cup of coffee that she had just made and then said, in a tone that immediately gave me cause for concern, “Before we plan a route I need to talk to you” 😳

To be continued………………………

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

Day 6 – Vigo

We do not set alarm clocks these days, unless we have to be up at a specific time to go somewhere, but for some reason I am awake most mornings at 07:30am, albeit that I do not usually go to bed much before 1:00am, so, is this not needing much sleep, an older person sort of thing I ask myself 🤷‍♂️ I wouldn’t normally make Shazza a coffee until nearer 08:30am and, only then if I heard her in the throws of waking up, but this particular morning she too had awoken early. I looked out of the window, the sky and sea were a nice shade of blue, although I couldn’t actually see the sun shining, I could tell from the view that it too had already started to wipe the sleep from its eyes and was starting to rise. So, kettle on, then coffees made and I awaited my instructions from the ‘gaffer’ as to what we would be doing today. she was quite bright and cheerful this particular morning so I guess she was excited about putting her day’s activity plan into action, “Rucksack, Beach Towel, Swimwear, Bottles of water and some snacks” she commanded, “Yes Ma’am” I responded and gave a swift salute, before assembling and packing said items. What I want to know is, who gave her permission to take my former military rank insignia and sew them on to her knickers 🤷‍♂️ Today, she informed me that we were going on a hike along a coastal path, but to where was a bit of a mystery, “As far as our legs will carry us, bearing in mind that we will of course have to walk back again” she said. “Will we need our walking boots and walking Poles” I enquired of my trip leader, if we had have done, that would have meant a quick trip down to the car to retrieve them from the boot. “No, just our trainers” she said. Now this I was really looking forward to, nice plan Shazza I thought to myself, finally, a proper walk out in the countryside and along a coastal path, perfect, although, whilst I didn’t actually vocalise my thought on the subject, ‘Swimwear ? , this my dear was the bloody cold Atlantic Ocean and not the lovely warm Mediterranean Sea, your having a laugh if you think I will be dipping anything other than my toes in it’ I thought to myself 😲

To get to the start of the coastal walk proper meant having to walk first along the road past the expansive Commercial Port areas, that was a bit boring as it was just one boatyard building after another, huge cranes and behind the tall, row on row, of warehouse sized shipyard buildings, with the occasional sighting of part of a deep sea trawler in dry dock which, in the water, looks very large, but with their huge hulls totally exposed it gave a true picture of their under bellies and massive girth. However, even these large and heavy steel vessels get thrown around like paper aeroplanes, by the sheer power of the oceans, so it amazes me at times how much smaller, and primarily lightweight plastic constructed vessels, manage to sail around the world in these same oceans. We just kept walking, at least there were no hills to climb today, well not yet anyway. To be honest, I don’t actually mind hills, apart from being good cardio-vascular work outs, the biggest advantage for me is that you tend to get great views over the surrounding landscapes, Shazza however, prefers much flatter walks, so it will be interesting to see what we get on this particular walk, possibly a mix of both, but that is the good thing about unfamiliar environments, you just never know what you are going to encounter.

Eventually, after about twenty-minutes of road walking, which felt as though it had been much longer, we crossed a busy road, the views finally opened up and we came to the head of a small estuary on to a very nice, level and wide pedestrianised foot and cycle path. We were just casually chitter chattering away, as we do, and not really taking too much notice of the direction in which we were actually walking, just really following other people who were out for a stroll along the estuary path, with and without their four-legged friends, some on a morning jog. The sun was high in the sky, although their was still a bit of a cool chill in the air, but it certainly wasn’t cold and it was sure to get warmer as the morning wore on, or so we believed looking at the sunshine sparkling off the lovely calm blue sea and the blue sky above us. We passed a small set of moorings with a few boats, the boats themselves were quite small too, nothing for me to get too excited about but I took a photo anyway. As we gazed across the flat calm water we could see, in the distance, across the other side of the estuary, an old looking lighthouse, we continued walking, still miles away in our own little world, feeling quite relaxed and just enjoying the views, then, as the pedestrian walkway started to bend around to the right we had a lightbulb moment 💡 for it suddenly dawned on us that we were actually walking on the wrong side of the bloody estuary !!

If we had continued walking we would have come to a dead end or, fallen into the sea at the entrance to the river 😳 We were both initially a little irritated with ourselves, we just hadn’t been concentrating, fortunately we hadn’t gone too far off the route we should have been on, but it meant walking back to the head of this small estuary. Between us, and that point, was a road bridge, we thought that we may have been able to get up to it, and across to where we wanted to be, a bit of a shortcut, but there was no way to get up to it as it was fenced off by a very large storage area for new cars, Citroen’s I later discovered. Anyway, we walked back and fortunately there was a nice promenade and a handful of Cafe’s in the throws of opening, “May as well stop and have breakfast” I said to Shazza, “I am not hungry yet, but we can stop for a coffee if you like” she replied, then added, “But you can have something to eat if you want to”, however, I wasn’t actually hungry either but I thought that Shazza would have been by now 🤔 “Are you on some sort of weight loss diet ?” I asked her, “No, but for a few days now I just don’t really have my usual apetite” she replied, “I had noticed, and I am getting a bit concerned, this isn’t normal for you” I told her. She told me not to worry and that she was fine and that she would eat if she felt hungry. So we stopped for a coffee, but wished we hadn’t, it was one of those milky dishwater affairs and only luke warm 🤮

We re-started our walk and suddenly, without any sort or pre-warning, a sea mist descended across the mouth of this small estuary, it was really strange, the sun was shining, the sky above this band of mist was really clear and blue, but the mist was rolling in across the top of the water quite rapidly, shrouding the view of some small sailing yachts that were on their way out to sea and, that lighthouse, that we could clearly see just a few minutes earlier, had virtually all but disappeared from view, it was really, really strange to watch.

We continued walking around the estuary, the visibility, in front of this band of mist was still so clear and I stopped to take some photo’s of some resident wildlife seeking out their own breakfast’s. The smell of the algae and seaweed, drying out on the exposed rocks, brought back childhood memories of British seaside holidays

We couldn’t walk the whole way around the estuary wall, Google maps indicated that we would have to walk up a path between some houses, along a road and then swing back in to re-join what then became the coastal path. It was only a minor deviation, perhaps only five minutes, and then we entered what looked like a wooded park which led down towards the sea. As we entered this park there was a large old looking stone blocked wall, a bit like a castle outer wall and there was a large open archway with a wide row of steps inside leading upwards. There were no barriers, or gates or signage, at this entrance so we entered through the arch, this was an added bonus and a bit of unanticipated early exploration I thought to myself. Well it would have been, but just inside the grounds was a large sign indicating that it was a 5* Spa Hotel so we did an about turn and made a hasty retreat 😲 I would have expected there to have been some sort of signage at the archway entrance 🤷‍♂️

We were walking amongst a forested sort of parkland with a number of footpaths leading off in different directions, but the main much wider path followed the contours of the coastline and, every so often, we would get wonderful views of little sun drenched sandy coves, albeit the band of mist hovered just above the sea a couple of hundred metres offshore.

Occasionally we would find ourselves at some wider stretches of beach, some of which had small hut like cafe’s with plastic tables and chairs set up outside, people sat around them chatting and drinking, we didn’t need another coffee, or anything else, at that stage and we had our own snacks and bottles of water with us, but we had not ruled out the idea of stopping for lunch a bit later in the day, if we came across a nice place. If it hadn’t have been for the lingering mist, some of these white sandy beaches could have had you believing that you were somewhere more exotic 🏝️

If we had have just come out for a beach day then we would have been spoilt for choice, there were lots, but we continued walking and then suddenly, what appeared literally out of nowhere, we found ourselves on a rather nice, wide and well paved promenade with another, but much longer, white sand beach. However, at this point the sea mist had moved inland and with it the temperature plummeted, quite sharply, requiring us to put our hoody tops back on. We decided to keep walking along this very long promenade, which eventually led to what I can only describe as a resort sort of location, we had the wide sandy beach on one side, the promenade and parkland on the other and then, beyond that there was a road with hotels and cafe’s and restaurants running the length of it. Further along the promenade there was a children’s play park, an open air swimming pool and a basketball court along with a number of large car parks and then promenade eateries. It hadn’t been quite the coastal walk that we had imagined, but it wasn’t unpleasant, we stopped and sat on a bench and Shazza checked where we were on the map. We we were quite surprised for we had walked just a little under 6 miles 😲 It certainly hadn’t felt that far ! We drunk some water and ate a piece of fruit whilst we decided wether to just keep walking or turn around and head back 🤷‍♂️ We both ‘Uhmd’ and ‘Ahrred’ for a bit, each of us not really wanting to be the one to call it a day and not really knowing wether to just keep going, however, we did agree that the sea mist seemed to not be shifting, so we both thought that we were unlikely to get any decent views and it may just get even thicker 🤷‍♂️ However, the map did reflect that a couple of miles further along there was an Island that jutted out into the sea which was accessible by a bridge 🤔 That sounded quite interesting, but we came to the conclusion that we probably wouldn’t get to see very much anyway, once we reached it, as it would probably be sat out in the sea mist. We had however, a few miles back, passed a ‘nautical’ themed museum earlier on the walk, which advertised that it had a sea life aquarium, so that would give us something else to see and do rather than just go straight back. “What about lunch ?” I said to Shazza, “I thought we were going to try and find somewhere ?” But she once again said that she was not really all that hungry, “There is no ambience, there will be no nice views with this mist and, to be honest, it will probably be a bit chilly as it all looks like all open air seating” she said. She was right, most of the Cafe’s only offered the usual menu’s of Burger’s, Hotdogs, Calamari or ‘Jamon y Queso Bocadillos’ (Ham and cheese sandwiches) and of course the mandatory ‘Patatas frites’ (Chips), which, on another day, would have actually been right up my street 😋 Shazza then reminded me, for I had actually forgotten, that we also had a reservation at the ‘Mexican Fusion Style’ Restaurant again at 9pm that evening, when I would be having my pre-ordered Oysters, amongst other things 🤗 Shazza cannot eat Oysters, or Scallops or Mussels etc. since she got a really bad case of food poisoning very many years ago from shellfish that she had eaten at a Restaurant in Paris, but she was looking forward to trying some different sort of ‘Mexican Fish Fusions’. “We do still have snacks and fruit that we brought with us, I am happy to stop a bit later to have them for a late lunch, but if you want something now that is a bit more substantial ?” She said. However, like her, I wasn’t really all that hungry at that stage, “Let’s walk back and go to that museum, then after that we will find a nice spot to stop and eat our snacks” I said. At least there was one positive aspect to this damp sea mist, she hadn’t appeared too interested in getting our kit off and going for a dip 🤭

As we left the promenade and got back on to the sandy track we both commented again on not believing how far we had walked without realising it, or without feeling leg weary 🤷‍♂️ Perhaps, we both agreed, that we were either a lot physically fitter than we had given ourselves credit for, or perhaps, it was just because this had been a primarily flat walk, unlike the other day which was a lot of steep uphill walking, we agreed that it was probably a combination of the two 😉 But here is another strange thing, as we returned from the direction we had initially started from, the mist suddenly retreated from inland and once again settled as just a band of mist a few metres out to sea, seemingly sitting just above the water line 🤷‍♂️ the coves and beaches once again became sun drenched, the water was so clear, like tap water and, the sky above the band of mist was a beautiful shade of blue, the air temperature immediately rose again.

From the outside entry gate, the museum was housed in what looked like an old warehouse building, so we were not sure what this was going to be like, but, once inside we discovered that it was very modern, the actual museum exhibits were contained in two separate buildings, both with ground and upper floors and they were joined via an enclosed glazed footbridge, the actual aquarium was housed in a third, quite separate building. Their was an admission fee, €5 for Shazza and for me, as a ‘Senior’, as they refer to us pensioners, £3.50 👍 There were a lot of exhibits, both to keep children, and us Adults interested, and to my surprise we spent quite a bit of time wandering around the exhibits than I had anticipated that we would, and reading information boards, albeit they were all in Spanish, I must have been so engrossed that I actually forgot to take any photo’s 😲 Now, personally, I had been keen to get to the Aquarium, anticipating seeing big fish, perhaps a small shark, or Rays and Octopus, so I was actually quite disappointed to discover that the actual aquarium was quite small, and that it only contained smaller species of quite uninteresting ‘live’ exhibits of the smaller species of fish, however, overall the whole visit was well worth every Euro, we ended up spending at least an hour or so there.

The inner areas of the museum were nice and cool but as soon as we stepped out into the sunshine, wow, it was roasting hot 🥵 Back on the coast path we found ourselves a bench, overlooking the sea, and sat and ate our snacks and fruit. Other walkers passed by, offering us the usual pleasantries, some were wearing stiff hiking boots and using walking poles, carrying huge rucksacks on their backs so we responded to them with “Buen Camino” (Enjoy your walk) as these were ‘Pilgrims’ on the ‘Portuguese Way’ of the Camino de Santiago. We both used to think that there was only one route on the ‘Camino de Santiago’, probably as it is the most popular and well known, covered by most ‘You Tube’ documentaries, that being the one from ‘San Sebastian’, near the French border, across the Northern Coast of Spain, to ‘Santagio de Compostela’, but in fact we have since learnt that there are several routes, some up through Portugal and other’s up via southern areas of Spain. We had ourselves once considered doing the Camino, a few year’s ago, but to be honest, after watching many of the videos, and reading some personal blog’s, we had to admit that we are just not built of the right stuff and do not have the right sort of motivation, I feel a little embarrassed even mentioning it, but the honest truth is that Shazza and I like our personal comforts too much and real adventures like these are only really in our heads and one’s that seem like a good idea at the time 🤔

Although we were walking back along the same route, you sometimes get a different view or perspective when walking in the opposite direction and at a different time of the day. The tide had now started to ebb in, so small boats that had been secured to buoys, but had been laying on the mud or sand when we passed by earlier, were now floating and to be honest it gave these coves quite a very different look. Although we hadn’t seen them earlier, as they were behind us, now we could see quaint beachfront cottages and houses with small boats parked in front of them, rope lines running down the length of the beach attached to other small boats that were now bobbing around on top of the rising water. We both commented that these cottages may not have been quite so idyllic if you were inside them when the large Atlantic breakers came rolling in and up the beach, we wondered if they had ever been flooded 😳

As we walked back along the promenade that surrounded the small estuary, the one where we had started our walk, their were hoards of people enjoying the sunshine, all the bars and eateries were now open, every outside table was occupied and so those without were sat on the estuary walls drinking whatever Anti-Covid Vaccine it was that took their fancy, from Glasses of beer, or wine, jugs of Sangria and even Cocktails and yes, I could have been easily tempted but, at the pace Shazza was walking in front of me, I could tell that she wasn’t 😕

We got back to the hotel, it was early afternoon and it was good to take our trainers off, Shazza informed me that we had walked just short of 18Km, I think in reality that if it hadn’t have been for the misty conditions that we may have been tempted to have walked just a little bit further, but I consoled myself in the knowledge that there would be opportunities for more walking along other coastal paths in the coming days.

As we had lost a day, due to the previous day’s rainy conditions, we agreed to agree on what we would do on our last full day which, according to the ‘Works of Fiction’, at that particular time, indicated a very similar sort of day to the one we had just had. We looked at Google Maps and identified some villages and towns that we could drive to, but we are not ‘town’ sort of people so we ruled that out, then Shazza suggested that as I had wanted to go and see the Island, with the bridge across to it, that we had decided not to walk to today, that tomorrow, we should drive to the point where we had finished today’s walk, park up in one of the many car parks and then just continue walking, it seemed like a good plan to me 👍

Later that evening we walked to the Mexican restaurant, the waiter who had served us a few nights ago was not there, but the young female waitress who greeted us told us that he had told her that we were coming and sat us at the table that we had requested, which was outside where we could of course enjoy a spot of people watching, it was a Saturday night and so there were a lot more people about. The waitress informed me that the half dozen Oysters that I had pre-ordered could be served in three different ways, usually two served ‘Naturally’, two with a melted cheese topping and two in a fusion of spiced Mexican oil. I said that I wasn’t bothered about the ‘Natural’ one’s so went for a mix of three and three. We both started with the ‘Cerveche’, as we had the first evening, that was again delicious, when she brought out my Oysters, there were seven 🤔 She told me that the Chef wanted me to try one of the natural ones, but this was ‘gratis’, so I wasn’t complaining 🤷‍♂️ I have to say that they were all delicious, the spiced one did have a bit of a ‘kick’ to it, but not in a bad way. Shazza had half a dozen large Prawns on skewers with a Salsa dip and plain tortilla chips and then we both shared a plate of four, different style, fish Taco’s. Whilst I enjoyed my usual red wine, Shazza tried one of their house special Margarita’s. We both agreed that this second visit had been equally as good as the first and I was also pleased to have seen Shazza eat a proper meal. It was the perfect end to a very nice day.

To be continued………………….

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

Day 5 – Vigo

”What time is it ?” came a muffled voice from under the covers, “It is exactly 7:30am” I replied, “Oh ! can I have a bit more sleep this morning, I feel really tired, I don’t want coffee yet” she said in a sleepy voice. “You can sleep for as long as you like this morning, we won’t be going anywhere” I told her, “What do you mean ?” she asked, a little more awake now, “Can’t you hear that sound on the window ?” I asked her. She raised her head off the pillow, “Is that rain ?” she exclaimed, “Yup, started at around 3.00am” I told her. She put her head back on the pillow and pulled the cover back over her head, I put the kettle on, made myself a cup of coffee and read the News headlines on my iPad.

To be fair, the ‘Works of Fiction’ had forecast the possibility of light drizzle throughout periods of the day, anything from a 10-40% chance, which told me that they didn’t really know and were hedging their bets, but what was currently falling out of the sky was a lot more than just ‘light drizzle’, this was heavy rain 🤷‍♂️ In truth, it hadn’t come as a complete surprise to me, the sky had been threatening it since yesterday afternoon when we were returning from our walk, it was just a little late in arriving and, since we had to change our plans from heading into the ‘Picos de Europa’ mountains, due to the arrival of the wet stuff, I also knew that we were going to get some sketchy weather over this side of the coast throughout the coming days, and it looked much of the same as we progressed North, so for now, we would just keep taking one day at a time.

Shazza slept for a further two hours and the rain, although looking as if it was easing a little, continued to fall. I suggested to Shazza that perhaps we should bite the bullet and go down to the hotel restaurant and have breakfast, we were out of snacks and would need to eat something. However, Shazza declined, not about eating breakfast but about going to the hotel restaurant to eat it. It wasn’t about the cost as such, more the principle, we may both be thrifty by nature, but we were not on any sort of budget constraint or having to account for every cent. We could afford to eat all our meals in the hotel, breakfast’s and dinners, if we chose to. It was more about the charge for these hotel breakfast’s, against what we knew we would actually eat, we could purchase a decent filling breakfast, for the both of us, for just €6-8 in a local Cafe, here they would charge us €26, even if we only ate toast and jam, and had a coffee 🤷‍♂️ We could understand it if we each enjoyed a full cooked breakfast, followed by the fruit, or sticky buns, and drank orange juice and gallons of coffee, then €13 each was probably quite reasonable, but we don’t. However, and in all honesty, I would have paid it and wouldn’t have let principle get in the way of my hunger.

We agreed to wait a little longer and thankfully it did pay off, as there was a break in the weather at around 11:00am, although the clouds looked as if they could still discharge even more of their watery cargo at any time, but we took the gamble. It was also good to get out of the confines of the room for a while and get some fresh air. On Google maps I had identified a couple of Cafe’s in one of the back streets just a couple of levels above us, about a twenty minute walk away, although it took us slightly longer, as we didn’t exactly race up the steep steps 😮‍💨 unfortunately, in this particular direction, we didn’t have the luxury of mechanical devices to aid our ascent 😢 As we sat outside the Cafe, under the shelter of the large awning style canopy, we had quite a nice view over the Port area below us, and a view of the sea as it flowed into the river channel, we enjoyed our usual coffee’s and Tostado’s, which were generous large baguette sized portions. Their were several other’s sat at tables around us, from their conversations we knew that they were all Spanish, but wether they were locals, or visitor’s, we of course had no idea 🤷‍♂️ We observed Council workmen with one of those trucks with a telescopic lift on the back, they were doing something to overhead cables that stretched between the lamp posts, other people were just going about their normal daily business, all wearing raincoats of some description, and many were carrying umbrella’s, some had bags, so presumably out doing their daily shopping, many walking, totally oblivious to anything else going on around them whilst they were talking on their mobile phones, cars and buses passed up and down, their tyres spraying water up onto the pavement from the puddles in the road, fortunately we were sat far enough back from the road so as not to be splashed, soggy looking pigeons looking sorry for themselves argued with each other for the best position under the tables, waiting eagerly for any scraps to be dropped. For a time, Shazza and I sat silent, just taking in what was going on around us, we love this people watching stuff, normal daily life going on around us, similar I presumed to what was going on in many other towns and cities all around the world, but, who may have been watching us I wondered 🤔

“So, had it not have been raining, what would we have been doing today my love ?” I asked Shazza, “You will now have to wait until tomorrow to find out” she replied, I seized my opportunity, I baited the hook and cast my line, “What do you mean wait until tomorrow, today is your activity day, tomorrow is mine again” I said, with a straight face. “No way !!, that isn’t fair” she announced, “It’s raining today so we cannot go anywhere” she exclaimed, “Well that isn’t my fault” I responded, “No, I’m not having that, no way” she said quite adamantly. I burst out laughing, “Got you, hook, line and sinker” I said. “Right, just for that, tomorrow I am going to find at least four of the most boring Stately Homes and Gardens, and spend the whole day dragging you around each and everyone one of them” she said, and then smirked knowing that she had been caught off guard. Of course, neither of us knew at that point what the ‘Works of Fiction’ actually had in store for us for the following day, a drive to a Stately House may actually be the only option 🤷‍♂️

As we sat, with nothing better to do, other than just let time pass us by whilst enjoying some open space, we heard the faint rumblings of thunder and decided that we had better make our way back to the hotel, at least it would be all downhill on the way back. We paid the bill, a mere €8, we agreed that it was probably best to make a contingency for dinner too, as we may not want to go out if the rain continued, so, on the way back we called in at the Supermarket and purchased some pre-packed food, Salad bowls with Pasta, Shazza chose Salmon whilst I went for a combo Prawn and Octopus, we also threw a few extra snacks and fruit into our basket, well it could be a very long afternoon. We were not in a hurry to get back to our prison cell, albeit a luxury one, so we wandered up and down the aisles, with no intention of buying anything else, but it killed a little bit more time 🙄 Then we sensed eyes watching us, possibly store security, dressed to look like a shopper and thinking we were perhaps shop lifters 😲 We made our way to the checkout a bit sharpish and by doing so, probably looked even more suspicious.

The remainder of the day continued to be mixed between periods of heavy rain and drizzle, so we both ended up taking a lot of ‘mini siestas’, combined with doing stuff on our iPads, drinking tea, or coffee etc. Shazza started to finalise her plan for the following day’s activity, or that’s what I assumed as she kept shielding her iPad from my view whenever I looked across, although for all I know, perhaps she was watching a Porn channel 😲 I did offer a suggestion, no, not for what Porn channels to watch, I wouldn’t divulge that kind of personal information 😂 My input, not that she asked for it, was to perhaps go on a culinary experience, which I thought may appeal to her, a tour of Vigo’s Tapas Bars perhaps 🤷‍♂️ she just gave me one of her school teacher looks over the top of her glasses and then said, with a hint of sarcasm in her tone I must say, “Well, we could go the whole nine yards and combine it with a tour of some vineyards perhaps ?”, I laughed and then responded, “Great idea, but actually, the Tapas tour and Wine Tasting are one and the same thing my love” then I gave her a wink 😉

I think that in truth, we both actually needed this rainy day, it provided us with the perfect opportunity to take our foot off the gas and actually relax, to take a much needed rest day, we have been pushing ourselves to do something every single day, either with the long drives with a bit of sightseeing thrown in, or like yesterday, because the weather was good, we felt that we had to be out and about, doing something. The reality is, we are not on a time schedule, in fact, we are not on any sort of schedule, other than having to be back by the beginning of October when Shazza’s mum is coming out to stay with us, so perhaps, upon reflection, we are on a sort of time schedule 😂 But we don’t actually have to go, or be, anywhere specific, and we certainly do not have an ultimate final destination, we will end up wherever we end up 🤷‍♂️ Our only real consideration actually being the weather as we do, at this time of year, expect at least a few days of rain, but we can certainly handle that, but, if it does look at any point as if the periods of bad weather will be protracted, then we could just head South again, there are lots of Regions we still have to explore all over Spain, or we could just go straight back home, the choice is actually our’s to make. However, at the end of the day, and putting it into some sort of perspective, this has actually been the only really bad weather day that we have encountered, so far, on this road trip.

The rain continued to switch between heavy downfalls, with a few rumbles of thunder, to just horrible drizzle, and at one point, during the early evening, we put our coats on and went out to the front of the hotel, thinking that we may make it to the eateries just a fifteen minute stroll away without getting too wet, but we agreed that we would probably end up looking like drowned rats and would feel uncomfortable sat in wet clothes in a restaurant, we returned to our room and ate our Salads, which were actually extremely flavoursome and filling, we both said that we would have them again without hesitation, if needed. We each put our earphones in and whilst I caught up with some Motorhome, Cycling and Sailing ‘Vlogs’ on ‘You Tube’ on my iPad, Shazza watched whatever it was that she was following on her’s. It had been a long day, but a restful one, fortunately, the ‘Works of Fiction, were forecasting a much better weather day for tomorrow.

To be continued………………..

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

We hadn’t done any advance research on the Port City of ‘Vigo’, primarily because we didn’t know that we were going to come here 🤷‍♂️ The only research we had done, once we knew that we were, was to look for accommodations and then, once here, to look for somewhere to eat dinner that first night. But, now that we are here, and me being a bit of a night owl, after returning to our hotel after our ‘Mexican Style’ fusion dinner 🤭 I started to gather bit’s and pieces of information about the things that we could possibly see and do, in and around the city. It was only when I started doing this research that I came to the realisation that, if we had arrived just a couple of weeks earlier, when the weather had been a lot better, and the main tourist season activities would not have been starting to close down, as they now appeared to be doing, that even two weeks here probably would not have been enough to do it justice. Of course their would be nothing actually stopping us from extending our stay here, but the changing cooler, and high possibility of wetter weather, would prevent us from doing a lot of what would normally have been possible in warmer conditions and when there were more gentler sea states. One example of what we were to miss out on was as a boat trip to the ‘Cies Islands’, or visit some of the 119 beaches along this coastline, many of them being of fine white sand, other’s were smaller sandy coves, whilst some were rugged rocky trajectories that, at low tides, revealed hundreds of rock pools. Additionally, their were lots of coastal footpaths and hill walking trails, visits to several other Coastal villages and towns and a couple of sightseeing opportunities right here in Vigo itself. I remember thinking to myself, no wonder many Motor Homers from the UK, who travel to Spain for their 90 day ‘Schengen Shuffle’ period, never actually get beyond Galicia before their limited time runs out. So, and for the second time already on this road trip, I found myself thinking about the possibilities we were missing, ‘If only we had chosen to import the ‘Little Fokker’, now we would, as residents of Spain, not have been under such time restrictions and limitations to visit such places 🤔 Sometimes, this damn ‘Hindsight’ stuff can get to be a right pain in the proverbial, I thought to myself 🙄 So, albeit we would not get an opportunity to do the ‘Cies Islands’, at least not on this visit, they themselves would be worthy of a return trip at some point in the future. I also thought that if anyone reading this was planning on coming to Vigo during the Summer months, that I would take the liberty of perhaps pointing you in the direction of one of the ‘must do’ things to put on your itinerary:

Cies Islands

The Cies Islands are an archipelago off the coast of both Vigo and Pontevedra, in the mouth of the ‘Ria de Vigo’ and were declared a Nature Reserve in 1980. They consist of three separate Islands, ‘Monteagudo, ‘‘do Faro’’ and ‘San Martin’. The underwater area surrounding the ‘Cies’ forms one of the richest ecosystems on the Galician Coast, the perimeter of the islands have different types of environments, the cliffs which are exposed to the waves are populated by barnacles and mussels, in its very rocky underwater areas there are crabs, spider crabs, lobsters and octopus, numerous molluscs, turbot, plaice, sole and sea urchins, all of which play a role in Galicia’s gastronomy, but fishing in the waters that surround these Islands is not permitted. On the Islands themselves are forests, so the area is a haven for birds, Seagulls, Iberian Guillemots, Birds of Prey, Pigeons, Petrels, Doves, Woodpeckers amongst other much smaller species. These abundant waters are rich in biodiversity and attract Whales, Dolphins, Blue Sharks, Basking Sharks and Turtles. In the Summer months, boats from nearby Ports, including Vigo, take visitor’s from the mainland to the ‘Monteagudo’ Island where there are nine separate beaches and lots of walking opportunities, although you do need a licence to visit which some day boat trip booking agencies will organise for you, or you can obtain one yourself from the Port at Vigo. Tent camping is also permitted in a camping area, a licence is required for that too and has to be reserved ‘in advance’, again from Vigo Port. There is a Supermarket, Visitor Centre and Restaurant on the island for visitor’s but there are no litter bins, so this has to be taken back by visitors and disposed of on the mainland.

As it was, we had currently only allowed ourselves four full sightseeing days in Vigo, this ‘all day’ Island trip would have been high on both of our ‘To Do’ lists, however, this is where a bit of advance planning, and not ‘Going With The Flow’ would certainly have proven to have been a distinct advantage, as now, on checking the boat trip websites, all the dates were fully booked for the coming week 😢 After that, the Islands would be closed to tourists, as it was the official end of their Summer Season 🤷‍♂️ But in our defence, we didn’t know that we were coming here, so there was no point in me being disappointed, after all, there was still plenty of other stuff to do, although selecting what, could be our biggest headache, as their were still so many possibilities available to us, as long as we took some precautionary rainwear in our rucksacks, as the ‘Works of Fiction’ were beginning to be as reliable as a chocolate fireguard, messing around with the forecasts that they were issuing, on a daily basis 🤷‍♂️ Ideally, we wanted to use our legs, rather than a motorised means of transportation to get ourselves around, although we wouldn’t rule out using the car if necessary. Anyway, I came up with a sort of a plan, which I would of course share with Shazza, when she awoke the following morning, but she would already have been anticipating that I would 🤭

Day 4 – Vigo

As is usual I was awake first, or at least I was the one that got up first and made the coffee’s. I think Shazza just pretends to be asleep, until I get up and make the coffee and then put her cup on her bedside locker when, conveniently, her eyes suddenly open 😉 We then held our morning conference, although it did seem a little bit unusual not conducting this on our own balcony, but as we currently didn’t have one 🤷‍♂️ I have to admit, it was rather a pleasant change laying in bed with my coffee having our discussions, “Don’t get too used to it though” Shazza had said, with a mischievous smile on her face. I ran through my burning the midnight oil research results from the previous night with her. I had been correct with thinking that she would be just as disappointed as I was about the boat trip, but we maintained our philosophy of ‘not worrying about things that we can neither control or influence’. She actually liked my idea about our next four days here, I suggested that perhaps we both select things that we each want to do, and then conduct our personally selected choices on alternate days, as quick as a flash she says, “Okay, you go first, we will do what you want to do today”, but I of course realised that that was because she hadn’t yet had a chance to look at things that she may want to do, which I guess was fair enough, but, as she would have already guessed anyway, I had already made ‘a plan’ for my first activity choice. I wouldn’t make my second choice until I had seen what it was that she had in store for me the following day, I was already hoping that it may have been an Anti-Covid Vaccine Pub Crawl, although I knew that in reality that that was just wishful thinking on my part 😂

Now, just in case, like us, you have never visited Vigo before. When you look at any road map, electronic or otherwise, everywhere just looks flat, and so sometimes it can come as a bit of a surprise when you think, because you are going to a coastal location with a large Port, and your brain naturally tells you that it is of course going to be at sea level, but then, when you actually see it with your own eyes, and realise that actually it isn’t quite as level as you believed it was going to be, well………. Bienvenidos a Vigo ! (Welcome to Vigo)

Now I am not stupid, irrespective of what other people may tell you about me, so of course I realised that going to visit my first choice activity, which was to the ‘Fortaleza O Castro’ (Castle), or at least the remnants of one (two actually, Eric !) was going to be a bit of an uphill walk, but what I hadn’t realised was the amount of uphill effort that would be required 😲

But first, now that I am getting into the inclusion of some of this ‘History’ M’larky in these current rambles, although please don’t expect this to become a habit after this trip, so, without further ado, take it away Mr Google, …………….or was it Mr Wickapedia this time 🤔

The O Castro mountain is the point of origin of the city of Vigo, the place where the first settlers settled. Here we can find remains of military buildings dating from the 2nd and 3rd centuries BC. Today, some 45 stone constructions are still preserved on the right side of the mountain. In the Middle Ages, the O Castro Castle was built, which was erected at the same time as the San Sebastián Castle and the fortress that linked the two. The O Castro fortress was made up of three walled enclosures. Today, only the first enclosure and part of the second remain; the third, which was the city wall, has completely disappeared. The first enclosure is the fortress that crowns the summit of O Castro, now converted into a viewing point. The second enclosure is the fortress of San Sebastián, currently occupied by the Plaza del Rey and the town hall. Passages and tunnels have been found that connected the castles to each other and to the city. On the O Castro mountain we can also find the monument dedicated to Curros Enríquez, the greatest representative of Galician literature of the 19th century; a monument dedicated to Martín Códax (medieval troubadour); the Galleons of Rande – a monument dedicated to the Battle of Rande in 1702; the Cross of the Fallen (a monument in honour of those who fell during the Spanish Civil War). O Castro is also a magnificent botanical park, with a great variety of native and foreign species.

So, as you may just have gathered by now, Vigo is actually built on a hill, a really big hill as it happens, although I am not sure that I would call it a mountain as ‘they’ describe it. Now, from the Port, which is of course at sea level, and where our accommodation is located, each upper level is formed by differen streets, running parallel with each other and many of these streets are their own quite unique smaller suburbs of Vigo city, with their own rows of retail outlets, Cafe’s and Restaurants and, if like us, you happen to have chosen to be on foot and walking, to coin the title of an 80’s UK pop hit, ‘The Only Way Is Up’ and to do so means traversing long and steep steps to get up to each level, their are ‘at least’ ten different street levels 😲 to be honest we lost count when we quickly started to re-prioritise our focus on breathing, rather than counting streets 😮‍💨😮‍💨 However, their is not a straight line of steps up each level to get to the top, so you have to zig zag your way up, sometimes walking fifty or so metres along a street to locate the next set of steep steps up to the next level 😲 But there are opportunities, if you are so inclined (excuse the pun), to stop at some levels and look back and admire the views over the rooftops to the rest of the city and down towards the sea. You may not be surprised to hear that we stopped to admire the views, quite frequently as it happens 😂

After completing our third lot of steps we crossed the road and you know, when people talk about nearly dying of thirst in the desert, then they see an Oasis which saved their lives, well we unexpectedly came across our own version of such an oasis, it came in the form of a glass elevator, one, that on closer investigation revealed that it would, free of any charge, raise us effortlessly up a further ‘two’ street levels. As we exited the elevator, almost directly across the street, on a corner, we saw a Cafe and agreed that it would be a good time to stop for a spot of breakfast, we stuck with our usual traditional Spanish Fayre, but if I am completely honest, if they had have served a ‘Full English’ I would have most certainly have gone for it at that stage, and very much the ‘Muchas Grande’ version without any doubt 😂 Unfortunately though, they didn’t, so Tostado it was 😕 But such stops provide the opportunity to relax, people watch and take a look around at the immediate environment, sometimes you just happen to see things to your advantage ?

They say, and exactly who ‘they’ are, I have absolutely no idea, but anyway, ‘they’ say that timing is everything, and there is some truth in that, for had we have not stopped on this particular level, at that particular time, and at that particular cafe, and outside on a pavement table as opposed to inside, then we would have failed to observe, whilst we were eating our breakfast’s, that set back from the road, very discreetly, was a ‘Funicular Rail’ type mechanism, one that once again, completely free of charge, would take us effortlessly up another street level, although only one this time, but it meant one less set of steep steps to climb, so perhaps ‘fate’ was also lending us a hand too, for had we not have seen the ‘Elevator’, or the ‘Funicular’ mechanism we would have had to continue climbing up long steep steps to the top, or decide to give it up as a bad idea and go and spend the day on an Anti-Covid Vaccine pub crawl, you know that ‘hindsight’ thing I often keep mentioning………. 🤔 Even with mechanical assistance, we were still not at the top, once we had alighted the funicular mechanism, we still had to ascend another four street levels and then, unfortunately, once at the top street level, thinking we had reached the summit, we discovered that we still needed to walk ‘up’ a long winding pedestrian pathway in a park to get to the actual ‘Fortaleza’, but, eventually we made it 🥳🥳 It was only once we got up to the top that we discovered a large ‘free’ car park, or that we could have purchased tickets for a city bus tour that stopped here for thirty-minutes to allow people to get off and have a look around, I think from the look on her face, if Shazza had been presented with an opportunity to push me over one of the castle walls she may just have been tempted 😲 “But think of the calories we have just burnt off and the exercise we have just had” I said, albeit I ensured that I spoke those words from a very safe distance, and with several witnesses close by 😂 God help what she may now decide to have in store for me tomorrow 😳😲

I found the Forteleza quite interesting and, thankfully, after Shazza had got her breath back from the walk, and climb, she did too, so I live to visit more castles another day, although our method of transport up to them may require a little more consultation with my beloved in the future 🤭 We actually spent quite a bit of time wandering around, Shazza and I going off in different directions to each other, she just lookin at the views from different vantage points, whilst I explored every nook and cranny. After a short break for a refreshment stop, just bottles of water to re-hydrate, although we could have purchased a Sandwich for lunch, Shazza said that she wasn’t feeling hungry at that point, which was a bit unusual I have to admit, but I didn’t think anymore about it as she would be sure to let me know when she was. “So, is that it, is that all you wanted to do today ?” She asked inquisitively, “Well, actually yes and no” I responded, she looked confused, “I do have another part to my day’s plan, but actually part two is actually more for you than me” I told her. I then went on to explain that there was a Museum, located inside an old ‘Stately House’, one that you could walk around, this house was located in a massive public park, which I imagine would have originally been the grounds belonging to the Estate once upon a time, but there were also large private gardens at the back of the house that you could walk around too and, the entrance to the house and gardens was actually ‘free’ of charge. “I know that you like looking around old houses and all that sort of stuff, so I just thought we could kill two birds with one stone, Castle in the morning, Stately Home in the afternoon, what do you think ?” She thought it was a great idea, “Where is it ?” had been her obvious next question, and the one I was now a bit concerned about 😳 I got out the street map, with having just walked to the Fontaleza, I was now better able to judge the distances a bit more accurately, it was only then that I realised that it didn’t look as close as I had initially thought 🫣 On Google it indicates a forty-minute walk to the other side of the city”, I said hesitantly, but I don’t know if that is uphill or downhill 🤷‍♂️ “That’s okay, it isn’t really that far, and I don’t think that it is likely to be any higher than this is” she responded fairly cheerfully, “We could always grab a taxi if you want” I suggested, “No, lets walk, we have been sat in a car for the last three days, so the exercise will do us good” she said. Remember a comment I made earlier about ‘Hindsight’, and in an earlier ramble about ‘Google’ maps, in relation to its ineptitude when it comes to walking directions ? Well, on this occasion, perhaps we should have gone with the taxi suggestion 😳

But Shazza was right, and to be fair, occasionally, she is 🤭 But other than for exercise purposes, sometimes it is also good to walk because then you get to see a lot more that’s around you, just keep telling yourself that Eric 🙄 But thankfully, the walking route took us in a downward direction, although not back down as far as sea level, but down through part of what we discovered was the central area of the city, along, and across, wide and busy traffic filled roads and of course we passed lots of typical globally recognisable branded high street stores, this area was modern Vigo, but it could have been a high street in any number of other Spanish, or European, cities as far as we were concerned, for they all tend to look, and sound, much the same, noisy and crowded. The suburb that we are staying in is considered as the waterfront area, the more touristy area, and where the cruise ships moor up and ditch unload their passengers, so not the ‘real’ Vigo.

Google directions then took us down several side streets and back roads, it was like going back in time, from the very modern noisy traffic congested roads to very narrow roads with some beautiful old stone rows of terraced houses, with small, but very pretty, flower adorned postage stamp sized front gardens with low stone-walled entrances and wrought iron gates, then there were the very much larger residences, partially hidden behind their tall thick stone walls and thick tall and solid, wooden entry gates. So we had gone from the sounds of the modern world with its noisy traffic, and all the hustle and bustle of city life, to now being transported into a world of peace and tranquility, one that was filled with colour, tree’s and birdsong, we soon began to forget the burning sensation on the soles of our feet, and the slight tightness that we were beginning to feel in our calf muscles, for we had already walked a fair distance already since leaving the hotel earlier that morning.

It was only when we came to a junction in the road, and crossed a hump backed bridge that crossed a small river, that we could see the forested park on one side of us, but it was bordered with a waist high dry-stone wall and we needed to find an entrance. It was by pure chance that for some reason I had looked behind me as we crossed over the bridge and I saw a path, on the opposite side of the road, that switched back and down, under the bridge, and which gave pedestrian access into a corner of this massive public park. Once into the park itself there were wide dirt paths leading off in all directions, their were joggers, walkers and dog walkers and cyclists, fortunately we came across a large board with a park layout map, I say fortunately because Google maps was having a bit of a nervous breakdown at this point, the blue direction arrow just going around in circles and jumping from side to side 🤷‍♂️ so, from the park map we were able to get our bearings and head towards our ultimate destination, the ‘Pazo Quinones de Leon’

We didn’t know what to expect, I mean in the UK, ‘Stately Homes’ these days are usually managed by the ‘National Trust’ or ‘English Heritage’ Organisations and, generally speaking, they have long tree lined avenues leading up to them, and the houses themselves were generally pretty big and very impressive from the outside. There would be a car park somewhere along the entrance road, where you would ‘Pay At The Meter’ the parking fee, before proceeding to the main entrance, where you would then pay the appropriate entry fee, to visit the house, unless of course you had joined and paid the annual subscription fee to whichever Organisation that managed it, although to just visit the gardens and grounds were usually free. So, before I add my own personal photographs, and for those that are interested in this sort of stuff, I hand you back over to Mr. Google to provide you with some history of the place……………

I was quite impressed that entry to something like this was provided to the general public ‘free of charge’, and not even a cheeky little ‘Donations’ box at the exit. As this is something that interests Shazza, I would have been more than happy to have paid an entrance fee or given a donation, although of course, I wasn’t complaining that I didn’t have to 🤭

I hadn’t expected very much before we entered, but even I was very pleasantly surprised, the house was on four levels, although the basement, where presumably the kitchen areas on the lower ground floor were located, and the fourth floor, were not accessible to the Public 🤷‍♂️ But the Ground and first floors were accessible, and you could wander at your own leisure, there was artwork and furnishings from the period on display in most rooms which made it feel still lived in, although areas were roped off to prevent people from sitting on the furniture or touching ornaments and such like. I left Shazza to just wander around at her own pace, like she had done with me at the Forteleza. She was probably imagining living in such a place during the period, as I do with Castles and old Lighthouses, although she did say that she was a little disappointed at not being able to view ‘below stairs’, mainly the Kitchen and Scullery areas. Once she had seen everything in the main house we wandered into a separate ‘museum area’ that contained archaeological pieces that were discovered probably during the renovations of the house and grounds, again, not really of interest to either of us ‘History Heathens’ 🙄 But we were now both looking forward to getting into the gardens, we like parks and gardens, although I couldn’t tell you the names of most of the plants and shrubs, but private gardens like this, from earlier times, can usually be very interesting. Unfortunately, much like we had already come across on this road trip elsewhere, and probably due to both the drought conditions and the time of year, this garden wasn’t quite as impressive as we had hoped or expected that it would be, it could all have done with a lot more TLC 🤷‍♂️ Nevertheless, we wandered around anyway and, at one point, Shazza froze in fear on believing she had seen a snake right at her feet 😲

We had enjoyed our bit of a more leisurely walk, but time was now knocking on, it was already mid-afternoon and we hadn’t eaten since breakfast 😲 Now that is not unusual for me, I can usually go all day without food if I have eaten a late breakfast, but for Shazza !! well that is totally unheard of, but not once during our time out had she mentioned food. “Are you hungry ?” I asked her, “Not really, but if we find a Cafe on the way back I would probably stop and have a sandwich” she replied. Now for anyone who has been following these rambles from the beginning, since our motor-homing days, you will recall how, if we hadn’t stopped to make, or purchase, lunch by 1pm, at the very latest, Shazza would go exceptionally quiet and get very grumpy, she was a three meals a day sort of girl, but for several days now she has kept saying that she has not been hungry, I have to admit that quietly, I was beginning to get somewhat concerned although, whenever I asked her if she was alright, she would say that she was fine 🤷‍♂️

We re-traced part of our route back the same way we had approached the park, through the nice quiet streets, but when we got to a certain point, Google directions instructed us to head in a different direction, which made sense as we were now across the opposite side of the town to where the ‘Forteleza’ was located and we were heading back down to our hotel from a different point. We had expected to continue in a downhill direction, back to sea level, so we got a bit confused when we started to climb up hills again, our calf muscles didn’t like it very much either. We were relieved though when we returned to civilisation, another very busy suburb of the city, which part though we didn’t have a clue and didn’t really care 🤷‍♂️ but we saw road signs pointing towards the Port. We saw several ‘fast food’ establishments, Pizza’s, Burgers, Kebabs etc. but not one Cafe/Bar that sold either sandwiches, or Tapa’s, and wether it was just the thought of food, or the smell of fat, but I was beginning to feel quite hungry myself, but I didn’t want ‘Junk Food’. We continued walking when it suddenly became quite noticeable that the sky had become much darker, cloudier and grey, and we had come out without rain jackets 😲

We could see the Port, and the sea, so our legs, although feeling pretty weary now, picked up the pace. When we got close to the hotel, having not found a suitable place to eat, we decided that we would go into the supermarket just a couple of minutes walk from the hotel and buy some food to take back to our room. Shazza grabbed one of those ‘Poke Salad Bowl’ things, a bag of crisps and a banana, I grabbed a couple of packs of sandwiches, crisps and also a banana. It was around 4:30pm when we got back to our room, feeling totally knackered, we had been out for the best part of seven hours, walking for the majority of that time, a lot of it uphill, so we both sat on the bed devouring our food, with a nice hot cuppa. I was glad to actually see Shazza eating something at last. Although tired, we had both enjoyed our day and we had both seen things that were of interest to us both, I would call that a successful day out 🤗

We didn’t leave our room again that evening, neither of us wanted to go out to eat dinner, we were still full after eating what was supposed to be lunch, but so late, and our legs were still feeling a little heavy. So we both took steaming hot showers, flicked through all the channels on the TV although we couldn’t find anything that we could easily understand, well not sufficient to watch a complete programme, so we sat in bed watching something or other on Netflix, on our iPads. Wether Shazza had got a plan for the following day I didn’t know and I didn’t ask, as I would of course be doing whatever it was that she chose to do 🤷‍♂️

I awoke in the early hours to the sound of pitter pattering of rain on the windows, this obviously the rain that had not appeared anywhere in the day’s ‘Works of Fiction’ forecast 🤷‍♂️ But as we know by now, Meteorology is not an exact science now, is it 😉

To be continued……………………..

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

Day 3 – Mozarbez to Vigo

I had slept really well and awoke fully refreshed, I looked out of the window, fortunately to no fog today, instead it looked as if it was going to be a beautiful morning, the sun was just starting to rise and the sky was clear. Shazza grumbled as I filled the kettle and got the cups ready for what, on current experience, could be one of our only decent cups of coffee of the day, I try to do things as quietly as possible first thing in the morning if Shazza is still in dreamland, but it is difficult when you are in a hotel room where you don’t have a separate kitchen in which to conduct these morning routines 🤷‍♂️ She was still only half awake when I put the hot steaming coffee on her bedside locker, “Are you okay ?” I asked, a muffled response from under the cover said “What time is it ?”, “It has just turned 7:30am, did you sleep okay ?” I asked. She said that she hadn’t and that she had been awake on and off all through the night but didn’t know why, she complained of aching a little bit as if she was going down with a cold. Oh dear, not a good start to the day for one of us then, I thought to myself 🤔 I suggested that it was probably because of the much colder weather the previous day whilst we were in Badajoz, we hadn’t really experienced that sort of a chill in the air for a very long time, not since we had left the UK nearly eighteen months ago, and neither of us had been dressed appropriately for it, so perhaps it had come as a bit of a shock to her system, although I have to say that I was feeling okay, must be something to do with these youngster’s eh ! 🤭 Jokingly, I suggested that at our next stop we should perhaps book two separate rooms, as I didn’t want her passing her germs on to me, “Very funny” she said, but not in a humorous way, “So what is the weather like this morning ?” she asked, “You will probably need your thermal nickers on today, and your warm scarf and gloves” I said, “Really !!” She said with a bit of alarm in her voice, I chuckled, “No, you won’t have to wear ‘any’ knickers today as it’s actually a beautiful morning” I said, then proceeded to get my shower and get my stuff re-packed.

Now, the previous evening, when we had done our route planning, perhaps, on hindsight, we should have checked the ‘Works of Fiction’ forecasts first, as it would have saved us a lot of time 🙄 Initially I had got the road atlas out and had that next to ‘Google Maps’ on my iPad looking at routes up to Northern Spain. I suggested heading to a small hamlet in the Picos de Europas National Park which, but not taking any stops into consideration, would be around a six hour drive to a place called ‘Fuente De’, their were only two hotels there, but it was the location of a cable car that could take us up into the mountains, that would have to be pre-booked on-line, twenty-four hours in advance, and of course provided that it was actually in operation, as the weather dictates the schedule. At the top there was a cafe/restaurant and, according to our hiking ‘App’, there was a pretty ‘easy’ marked walking trail back down the mountain, which could only take 3-4 hours dependent on how wobbly your knee’s are or, alternatively, we could just have a short walk once at the top, as their were other smaller trails, take some photo’s, it would of course be rude not to, and then head back down in the cable car 🤷‍♂️ There were also lots of other scenic gorges to ‘drive’ through in the same area, with numerous stops at viewing points, as well as some other walking trails, of varying degrees of difficulty, but which included some easy one’s which enable us to test our fitness and stamina levels before progressing on to perhaps some intermediate level hikes. I suggested that we could base ourselves at one of the two hotels for perhaps 3-4 days, so Shazza did a check on her accommodation ‘Apps’ and confirmed that both currently had vacancies. From there we could drive on a little further, eventually reaching the Northern coast (Bay of Biscay), which would only be a couple of hours further drive away, at most, and then work our way around the headland in an anti-clockwise direction, stopping at various small coastal villages or towns where there were plenty of coastal footpath walks that we could undertake. I started to feel quite excited, because this was one of the actual goals of this trip for me, being out in nature, not walking around towns or cities. We both agreed that this was a good plan.

Well it would have been, until that was, we checked the ‘Works of Fiction’ forecasts for the next five days and discovered that the weather perhaps had a different plan for us, one which would mean that we would certainly have to skip making our next stop in the Pico’s, for now at least 🥺 Further up the Northern coast, the forecast was also reflecting a mixed bag of weather over the coming week, so we somewhat reluctantly agreed that we would now have to come up with a different option for the next few days, it would be pointless shelling out good money only to find ourselves holed up in a hotel 🤷‍♂️

Another option, as the weather was looking much better, was to head across to the Western side of the Galician Coast, from there we could work our way up to the Northern coast in a clockwise direction, just really doing a similar thing to what Plan A had been, but in reverse, and then, hopefully 🤞 we could finish in the Pico’s before we headed South again towards home. I know, I was supposed to be just going with the flow on this trip, and I had been, well for the first two days at least 🤭 but now, and from here on in, the weather was going to be the dominating factor, and something we would be stupid not to take into consideration so Shazza agreed, we really did need to start to do some sort of planning 🤷‍♂️ So I made us another coffee and we once again studied the maps and route options. We decided to head to ‘Vigo’, a large coastal city that had a variety of things for us to do, both within the city, nearby beaches and coastal walks, and one’s that we could do straight from the hotel so, with the weather looking reasonable for the next five days and, with temperatures during the day forecast to be between 22-25 degrees(c), albeit a bit sketchy after that, we at least now had a Plan B sorted. We agreed on booking a five day stay in a hotel and to use that as our ‘base camp’, we had considered one of those Air B&B type accommodations, it would give us a little more independence and flexibility, but when we looked, the costs were excessive, compared to the cost of a very nice four star hotel that Shazza had seen, which had a vacancy and was pretty much close to the centre, so that was booked and pre-paid and it would now give us the opportunity to spend, after our travelling day, four full days to explore the area, we would of course keep reviewing the weather forecast for further up the coast, as it looked very much as if the weather up this part of Spain was now beginning to change.

Google Maps had given us a choice of three routes, but one of them wasn’t worth considering, as it would take us out to the East before bringing us back in to head West, which is the direction we now wanted to be travelling, but the other two alternative routes had both given warnings of ‘wildfires’ in the area 😲 It seemed strange that not far away it would be suffering with rain, but on this particular side of the country it was still hot enough to spark wildfires 🤷‍♂️ So we could head into Northern Portugal, then cross back into Spain on its Northern border ? That would have been our personal preference and, although the longer route, it would be on scenic country roads, with lots more nice villages to drive through, but, that would also entail driving through lots of densely forested areas 🤔 The shorter Spanish route would be, potentially at least, on safer and faster motorway routes, although probably much less picturesque, although it would also involve, at one point, leaving the motorway to cut across the corner and using a normal National Road (N631) for around one hour (52 miles), before then joining the A52 motorway all the way to Vigo 🤔 We decided to leave the choice until the following morning when we would check our routes again to see if their were any updates on the locations of the Wildfires.

So on our morning of departure, whilst Shazza got herself ready, I checked both the routes, their was no change, just the same warnings of ‘Possible Wildfires’ along both routes 🤔 I made the executive decision to do the faster Spanish motorways route, better to be safe than sorry as, if there were to be an issue, the overhead electronic motorway signs would give plenty of advance notice. With Shazza not feeling a hundred per cent, I elected to do the first leg of the driving and I told her that I was more than happy to do it all, if she didn’t feel any better later on. I had underestimated just how bad she was actually feeling this morning, for she offered no form of protest, either over me taking the decision on which route we would take, or me doing the driving 😳

We departed the hotel a little before 08:30am and joined the very quiet N630 road, that road took us very quickly onto the A66 motorway just south of Salamanca, we then headed directly North, towards and past Zamora. This I have to say was a very familiar route to us, one that we had driven very many times over the last eleven years, travelling to, and from, the Ferry terminals at either Santander or Bilbao. We had decided to not stop for breakfast until we got past Zamora and had got onto the N631, where we would then be back in unfamiliar and much more scenic territory, hopefully without the smell or sights of any smoke or flames🤞

It was a good travelling day, the sun was now already high in the sky with just a few clouds, nothing of any significance, the external temperature was 20 degrees(c) so we didn’t need the air-con on at this stage, the normal cool-air fan was sufficient, for now. The motorway was, as usual, very quiet, with very little traffic, and with very long straight sections that went on for miles into the distance, so on went the cruise control and we then both just sat back, relaxed and enjoyed looking out at the scenery, at times we would chitter chatter about nothing of any relevance or importance, but it passed the time. Now, as you may have already gathered, as I was doing the driving, there are obviously no photographs of the surrounding countryside in this part of the ramble, but considering that photo’s of those landscapes appeared very many times in my previous rambles over those last 11 years, let me assure you that you are not missing anything, they hadn’t changed 😉

Once we had turned off the Motorway, and on to the N631 road, the views didn’t actually change that much from what we had already been seeing, flat landscapes that stretched for miles, the mountains far off in the distance, acres upon acres of Olive groves, farm buildings stuck in the middle of large open fields, various livestock, cows, sheep, goats and horses and occasionally a small grouping of non-Olive trees, which did add a bit of variety for our eyes. We passed through the occasional small hamlets, but saw no evidence of any human life, we drove across bridges and aqueducts that spanned small ‘Embalces’ and, for a time, we even drove alongside a long straight train track, but we never saw any trains 🤷‍♂️ I had to take off the cruise control as the roads became very much more winding and bumpy due to the camber of the road which was very changeable, but this stretch of road was a nice change from the long straight motorway road. Eventually we entered a larger village and as we approached we saw a sign for a ‘Cafateria’, so we stopped for a break, inside it was quite nice, nothing special, probably more homely would be a better description, a few tables and chairs in the centre of the floor, on one wall a cigarette machine dispenser and on another, a colourful gaming machine, of the fruit machine variety. We were greeted with the usual ‘Buenas Dias’, not only by the man behind the bar, but also by the two men who were sat at it, both reading their papers, their glasses of beer within arms reach, we of course responded, ‘Hola’ we said, in cheerful voices, then ordered two Cafe con Leche’s, Shazza ordered her usual ‘Tostado con Tomate’ but I saw a nice looking ‘Tortilla’ on the bar so I ordered a slice of that. Surprisingly, based on our previous recent experiences, the coffees were strong, just as we like them. Shazza enjoyed her Tostado, the usual two generous sized pieces of baguette, my large slice of Tortilla came with a small bread basket with four circles of sliced baguette, the Tortilla was still warm and absolutely delicious, a giant potato omelette as I think of them, “I may just have to switch to this as being my regular late morning breakfast when we get back home” I said to Shazza, although today, as we were a little later eating, it was almost certainly nearer being a Brunch. As we were eating, another group of four people arrived, we, as in the royal ‘we’, the barman and existing customers, all offered them the usual greeting, they responded with ‘Bon Dia’, which suggested that they may have been Portuguese 🤔 When we came to leave, the bill was even cheaper than we pay at home, things were looking up I thought to myself, but just another reminder of what normal life, and prices, are like when you are away from the tourist enclaves. As we departed we said ‘Adios’ and, once again, I had to smile to myself, as they responded with ‘Luego’, but you never know, we may see them again ‘Later’, if we end up returning this way and stop in for a coffee and a slice of Tortilla 🤷‍♂️

Shazza was happy for me to continue to do the driving, which I was pleased about, as I was really enjoying being back behind the wheel for a long period, I have always enjoyed driving, wether that was in the Motor Home or the car, but since the issue with my right eye a couple of year’s ago, I think I had lost some confidence when driving in town’s and cities, especially when it involved close quarter manoeuvering.

Our journey on the next stage of this N631 became much slower, their was lots of re-surfacing work being done to several stretches of the road and we had to stop, numerous times, at traffic lights, due to one side or other of the road being closed. Their were no clearly evident signs that this work was being carried out as a consequence of damage caused by wildfires, the landscape and tree’s bore no evidence of having being scorched, so it was probably just routine maintenance, for this road was the short cut, the main cross-country link, from the A66 to the A52 motorway route. It had taken us a lot longer than anticipated, due to the roadworks, to get up to the point where we joined the A52 motorway, but it was a relief as I was beginning to get tired and I really needed to stretch my legs. Shazza looked at Google maps on her iPhone and identified a town, ‘Pueblo de Sanabria’, not far off our route that she believed, from the photo’s, would be a good scenic place to take a break and perhaps grab a spot of lunch. However, as we left the motorway we came to a roundabout, in one direction, the town, in the other ‘Lago de Sanabria’ which looked quite large, so just like we often do, we changed our minds about going into the town and headed for the lake, even though it would entail driving a further twenty-minutes (8-9 miles), but as we discovered, it was through some wonderful underlating lush green forested countryside.

Now this had been worth travelling the extra few miles for, the views were a feast for our eyes, forest, mountains and water. Although the sun was shining, the air temperature was cool, we had considered walking back to the car and getting our swimwear, and beach towels, out of our cases and spending an hour on the beach, their were toilet facilities where we could have changed but, fortunately, we had the good sense to check the water temperature first 🥶🥶 Obviously those already sunbathing and swimming were of a much hardier breed than us Southern softies 😂 We enjoyed a short but pleasant stretch of our legs around the lake. The Cafeteria was more of a beach bar selling beer, soft drinks, crisps, chocolate and ice-creams, than any sort of more substantial food, I could have gone a full on Burger and Chips, so we settled for ice lollies, we could always find somewhere else to eat once we got back on the motorway. However, just a thought to ponder on, isn’t this totally unscheduled deviation from our route just proof, if proof were indeed needed, that actually, I am still more than capable of just ‘Going with the flow’ 😉😂

The short stop, fresh air and walk had done Shazza the power of good, she was feeling much better than she had at the start of the day, how do I know that, other than her of course now being more than happy to eat a cold ice-lollipop 🤔……… yup, she now ‘insisted’ on doing the driving 😂 Now, I would have been more than happy to have continued driving but, her insistence on taking over the driving happened to be very good timing as far as I was concerned, for it was clearly obvious by the surrounding landscapes that we were now in ‘Green’ and very lush Galicia and I, now being relegated to the passenger seat, would be able to provide a public service to you my reader’s by giving my camera ‘clicker finger’ some much needed and overdue exercise 🤗

With our breakfast stop, the delays with the roadworks and the deviation to the lake, it was now well past lunchtime and we still had a little under a two hour drive to Vigo, we had not eaten since our brunch stop and we were both now getting hungry again, so rather than do a major deviation off our motorway route, we decided to just pull in at the next available service station where we could grab a sandwich and also take the opportunity to refuel the car. We hadn’t scheduled another stop until we reached our hotel, but we are suckers for wonderful riverside views and so, as we crossed a wide bridge that spanned the ‘River Minho’, we saw a small village below, down on the riverside, so of course, we went to see if we could get a closer look.

As we looked down, over the nice small vegetable garden directly below where we were standing, we also noticed the very nice swimming pool and the South facing balcony on the house they belonged to, with views directly over the river and the forested hills, this was certainly one of those idyllic ‘wished we lived in this’ sort of a house, on the side of it was a sign declaring that it was ‘For Rent’. Shazza mused over the thought that perhaps they may consider selling it 🤷‍♂️ and suggested that she may know some potential interested buyer’s 😲 “We would certainly not be too far from the ferry ports if, or when, we wanted or needed to go back to the UK and, we would not be too far from the French border and the rest of Europe for doing more road trips” she said, with a bit of a sparkle in her eyes and a grin on her face. “Very true” I said, then I reminded her of the fog from just the previous morning, and the cold temperature, and how she had felt. We already know how cold it gets in the Autumn and Winter months up this part of the world, let alone the Atlantic storms, frost, ice and snow 🥶 She gave one of her mischievous smiles, we both knew that she, and I, had no intention of moving anywhere else, well not in the immediate future at least, for we both enjoy our year round warmth and are very settled and quite happy where we currently are 😉

It was almost 5pm when we checked-in at the hotel reception, but we knew beforehand that this was going to be yet another very long travelling day, although in all honesty, we had enjoyed this day’s travelling more than the previous one, probably because we had some nice stops along the route, but now we were both ready to take a bit of a break from such lengthy driving day’s. The hotel was very modern and a smart looking place, the car parking was in an underground public car park, with reserved parking spaces for hotel guests (€13 per night), which we had pre-booked, and there was a direct lift up to the hotel lobby. We were allocated a room on the 5th floor, it was very modern and spacious and immaculately clean. Their were the usual facilities, Stocked Mini-Bar, with a choice of alcohol, soft drinks, water and various snack items, but those came at quite a cost 😲 so, apart from using it to store our ‘Oat Milk’ and our own bottled water, we wouldn’t be availing ourselves of ‘their’ provided contents. There was a large LCD TV, free WiFi (Very fast connection) and plenty of electrical and USB sockets. But of course, no Tea/Coffee making facilities, no balcony and only the side view of a tall building to see outside our large windows 🤷‍♂️ However, we were not planning on spending a lot of time in the room, only at the end of each day after we had been out somewhere sightseeing or walking, and then again after we had been out and eaten dinner, and perhaps partaken of a few Anti-Covid Vaccines in the process, well you know that it would have be been rude not to 😉 The hotel itself was in a perfect location, right opposite part of the large port, so I had plenty of very large fishing and commercial vessels to look at, but more importantly it was within a very short, flat and easy route to lots of eateries and, we were just a two-minute walk from a large ‘Mercadona’ supermarket, which sold water, snacks and just about anything and everything else that we may have needed, but at prices that were very much more aligned to our ‘pockets’. We had not booked breakfast as part of our room package, they wanted €13 each (per day) for the privilege 😲 The hotel had its own Cafeteria, and separate Restaurant, and it provided room service and, although no words of confirmation were spoken between us, they didn’t need to be, as we usually sing from the same hymn sheet on such VFM matters (Value For Money), so we each knew instantly that we would not be utilising any of those facilities.

We were both tired from the long journey but, unlike the previous evening, we daren’t risk taking a ‘siesta’, we needed to eat a proper meal this evening, so we enjoyed a hot strong coffee, checked our separate Email and social media accounts and then started looking on Google at the local eateries available, and of course the associated customer ‘reviews’. We were in Galicia, renowned for it’s seafood gastronomy, but we were not finding anything out of the ordinary, at least nothing that we couldn’t get down on the Costa del Sol, so we thought that a bit later we would just wander and see if we just fell on something that would tantalise our taste buds. We had read lots of reviews, which all gave a particular establishment 5* and sung its praises, but it was a ‘Mexican’ restaurant, really !! we said to ourselves, ‘Come to Galicia and Eat Mexican Food’ 😲 Little did we know though, that later that same evening, that is exactly where we would end up eating.

We saw on Google that most of the eateries shut their kitchens between 3-4pm, and then re-opened them again between 8:30-9pm, so we got showered and changed and headed out on our eateries reconnaissance mission. Shazza decided to wear her warmer fleece, we were on the Atlantic coast after all, but I risked just wearing a lighter one and was glad that I had, for whilst there was a stiff breeze blowing, it wasn’t cold, in fact the evening was warm and very pleasant. The thing with Google maps is that it is difficult to sometimes assimilate real time distances and, as this was an unfamiliar place, so we headed out at 7:30pm. However, it had only taken us a gentle 15 minute stroll to reach the main food street that accommodated the majority of the eateries, at least those in that particular area, we were later to discover that there are many other areas here in Vigo, but you needed hiking boots to get up hills to them 🤭 but more about that in another ramble. We walked up and down the long narrow alley, all of the eateries had their tables, chairs and umbrellas lined up on the pavements, some with menu’s on the tables that we could stop and peruse. Unsurprisingly, the majority advertised fish, fish and more fish, a variety of both shellfish and wet fish, and of course lots of Galician Octopus. There were plenty that also offered the usual mixture of Salads and, for the Carnivores, plenty of meat choices from Hamburgers up to prime Steaks and everything in between, their were also Pizza’s, Paellas and even Kebabs, this told us just how much of a tourist resort it actually was, so actually I had quite a wide choice, but nothing actually any ‘different’ to what we can, and already have, experienced in our own Marina and local Town, yes even there we can get Galician style Octopus. I did wonder what the difference was between this and any other sort of Octopus, unless it had an additional outer furry coat because of the cold sea temperature 😂 Anyway, I was a little disappointed, where were the Galician Stews or Fish Chowder’s 🤷‍♂️ As for Shazza, apart from Salads, or Vegetarian Pizza, there wasn’t a lot of ‘Plant Based’ options in fact, we didn’t see one establishment that advertised any kind of vegetables, so personally, I wouldn’t hold out much hope if you were truly of a ‘Vegan’ persuasion as I don’t think that they have yet heard of that particular word in these parts. Fortunately, Shazza does now eat some fish. As for those speciality Galician dishes, well perhaps these are more seasonal, more Autumnal style dishes and we had just arrived a little bit too early to sample them 🤷‍♂️

We stopped at a small bar, what Shazza calls and ‘Old Man’s Bar’, not a fancy pub with loud music blaring out so as to make any kind of normal conversation inaudible, or a lively cocktail bar, and certainly not a place for raucous youngsters, in fact we could have walked straight past it as it was such a quiet an anonymous looking place and, we probably would have done so, had it not been for an elderly man sat outside, with his beer, newspaper spread out all over the table, smoking a cigarette, and coughing a quite chesty cough after each puff 😁 We sat outside with our glasses of ‘Vermut’ just enjoying the evening, people watching and mulling over what gastronomic choices were available to us 🤭 We decided, that as everywhere appeared to be much of a muchness, we may as well try something different, okay the ‘Mexican’ it was then. We nearly walked past that too for it was advertised as an Oyster bar. I just happened to see a waiter preparing the outside tables and asked if this was the ‘Mexican Restaurant’, he said that it was a ‘Mexican Style’, not one that served authentic Mexican food like Chilli-con-Carne or Burritos, but they used locally caught fish and served it in a Mexican style, with an assortment of different Mexican fusions. That sounded interesting, we thought, our eyebrows raised, but only because neither of us had a clue what this ‘fusion’ business was that he was talking about, it was more a case of ‘Con-fusion’ to us 🤭 I looked at Shazza, she looked at me and we both said “Okay, why not”, he asked if we had made a reservation, our hearts sunk, “No, we have just arrived in the city this evening” I told him, “Just wait a moment please” he asked, a couple of minutes later he came back and said “Yes, I have a table for you”. Now this waiter, ‘Adoni’ turned out to be a right gem, we told him we had no idea what we would be ordering so asked him for his recommendations and from that, well what a truly different type of gastronomic experience we had that evening, he told us that much like Tapas, we just order as we go and stop when we have had enough, he recommended a ‘Ceveche’ starter which was a Salsa with raw fish, served with home-made Tortilla Chips, but when it came out there were two strange, what looked like dried flower buds, on a side-plate. He told us to squeeze lime juice over the ceveche and then eat some, with the plain unsalted Tortilla Chips, after our first taste we then had to chew these flower bud looking things, just one each, then taste the Salsa again. WOW ! If we thought the Salsa tasted good after the first taste, the rest was just amazing, it just seemed to combine and lift all of the flavours to another level, was that the ‘Fusion’ that he had mentioned 🤔 Thereafter he made other recommendations, explaining what each dish was, and without any exaggeration, each dish was just as absolutely fantastic, spicy hits with some, but not of the hot mouth burning spicy variety, he served each course and then went off to serve other customers, but he always came back and asked how we had enjoyed what we had eaten and wether we wanted to try anymore, we just kept going until we were full.

Well I said earlier in the ramble that I was disappointed with the gastronomic offerings, I take that back one hundred per cent, this wasn’t just food that once eaten you would forget about, this was a celebration of food, combining presentation, colour, flavours, or more simply put a ‘Fusion’ 😂 To top it all off, the exceptional service was quite honestly over and above anything we have previously experienced and the cost for this wonderful gastronomic experience, including four generous glasses of wine and at least four different courses, less than €50 😲 We were so impressed that we immediately booked to go back three nights later, to try some different things, Saturday evenings were apparently Oyster Night, so what the heck, I ordered half a dozen Oysters which, the waiter informed me, would be served three different ways, now I really did have another gastronomic experience to look forward to 🤗 I have only ever had Oysters once before, on that occasion they were just served naturally with a squeeze of lemon juice, they were okay, nothing to write home about though, so it will be interesting to see what I make of this next experience 🤔

We had had a very long day and we were both pretty tired, but what a way to round it off. As for what we will do on our first full day in Vigo, well that is for another day 😉

To be continued……………………..

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena