Above: the bridges (and their reflections) across the Bidasoa River that separates Spain from France; Hondarribia (formerly Fuenterrabía) from Hendaye.

So! What we are saying is that we chickened out and opted for a stopover in Hendaye rather than doing the whole Monty from Donostia (formerly San Sebastián) to Faringdon.

As one can see from the map below, we could have enjoyed our last burnt cheesecake of the year in Donostia's fabled La Vińa pintxos (formerly[1] known as tapas) bar. But we didn't. We dropped our hire car at Donostia station (see previous blog) and hot-footed it to Hendaye in France. I suppose the fact that there seems to be no way not to change trains there influenced this decision. The Donostia to Hendaye train literally creeps over the bridge across the dividing river and dumps you unceremoniously a few metres from the main station that dispatches super-fast, luxurious trains to Paris.

Above photomontage (top-bottom, L-R): The picture that didn't happen on 9 October, 2024, of Shan hijacking my burnt cheesecake at la Vińa, but might've if we'd had the cojones to stay in Donostia for our last night; a map showing our actual journey although, in our case, unnecessarily spread over two days; we sat outside Paris Gare du Nord consuming wine during our delay; bus finally arriving in Faringdon on the same day we'd set off.

If we'd thought about our chickening out with a stop at Hendaye we could have made a meal of it and overnighted in Hondarribia in memory of our first trip into the region in 1983 when we stayed in  paradors for a pittance. Back in the day when paradors were provided by the Spanish government as reasonably-priced quality attractions for Spaniards and tourists alike. They're still not a ripoff considering their quality but £200 for a pitstop seemed a bit expensive for us in 2024.

In 1983 we'd been relative paupers but had been able to afford accommodation in two paradors, the previous one the night before in Olite. Given the obscure, and possibly gratuitous, reason for including the following 4 Hondarribia/Fuenterrabia pictures in this blog, I need to confess that we slid past the Spanish-Basque town by a whisker on our way home this past autumn.

Above: a 1983 view of the Hodarribia Parador on the outside and leading to Shan sitting in the wall gazing out at her domain below.

Instead, we had a splendid lunchtime pizza opposite the Hendaye (French-Basque?) railway station and followed the scenic boardwalk back to our guesthouse, noting a couple of restaurants along the way for dinner that night.

Returning to and from our evening meal on the penultimate day of our wonderful month-long journey, we were beguiled by the river, the activities taking place on and above it and the splendid bridges joining the two EU countries, who have yet to integrate their rail services.

Feeling rather smug as we nestled into bed in the knowledge that we were poised for a hassle-free and relaxed journey home (Montparnasse Metro notwithstanding) we were already planning our next rail extravaganza as we dozed off.

Of course, it had to happen! Checking my email early the following morning I noticed a message from Eurostar. I almost didn't read it, assuming it was one of those reminders to bring one's passport etc.. Lucky I did though because it informed me that our train from Paris Nord to London St Pancras had been cancelled. Yes. Cancelled. Not even postponed ... the wording was pretty unfriendly. It was trying to push us a few days back, notifying me of the process to rebook.

​I reacted immediately, keeping my temper at bay (which was a miracle in itself) and started the rebooking process. I quickly discovered that there were tickets available on Eurostar Plus two hours later than our original booking (which had been on Eurostar Plus!!!).

You could say it was a minor inconvenience, especially as we did manage to get home on the same day albeit just before midnight.

​Bizarrely, the same would have applied if we'd set off from Donostia that morning but then we'd have had two[2] sore heads: one from doing the pintxos rounds the night before and one from the large (very expensive) carafe of wine consumed in the bar overlooking Paris Gare du Nord (see first photomontage above).

In mitigation for the inconvenience caused by Eurostar (but not in compensation as we'd already paid for it), the meal and wine of the train was pretty good and delivered to and consumed in our comfortable seating.

All in all, we travelled on three trains (including one through the undersea Eurotunnel and one from London Marylebone to Oxford whose pace seemed glacial after what had gone before), two metro/underground trains and one bus, our trusty S6 from Oxford to Faringdon.

In conclusion

It would have been perfectly feasible to travel more than 1,400 km in less than 11 hours (see map in initial photomontage). This is arguably a roughly similar duration as catching a bus from Donostia to Bilbao, hanging around for the normal 2 hours plus at Bilbao Airport, flying to Gatwick, hanging about for luggage and then getting from Gatwick to wherever in the UK, in our case, Faringdon in Oxfordshire.  
​
​The overall experience had been a wondrous one and one we were/are determined to repeat, armed with our newly gained knowledge. I cannot say we'll never fly again, given our worldwide diaspora of family, but rail (especially in mainland Europe) will definitely now be our #1 choice.

I must give a shout out to "The Man in Seat 61", a veritable treasure trove of rail information, and to David Janata (DJ) for pointing us in that direction  https://www.seat61.com/

Coming next

Having become grandparents to Niamh Ava Lyon over the Christmas period, it may be a year or so before we set off on another mega-adventure. But we are taking our granddog, Georgie, to walk some of the Welsh Coastal path near St David's, the UK's tiniest city, in March. In April we will succumb to a Spain vs South Africa BBQ[3] in our garden.

[Endnotes]:

1. Perhaps I'm being disingenuous with all the "formerly" stuff but I mean zero disrespect and it is there merely to form a connection between when Shan and I first visited the area 40 years ago, before the lovely Basque names had been adopted.
2. (Actually 4, ed.. Also the imaginary pic in the photomontage was taken almost a month earlier when you did spend a few night in Donostia ,,, https://www.marksadventures.co.uk/classic-blogs/goodbye-air-travel-the-real-journey-starts-in-montparnasse)
3. If you have to call it a "braai" so be it.

Above: Our C7 castle casts a shadow over the Ribera del Duero landscape first thing in the morning

​Leaving Valladolid we were on a dual mission: wine and steak. World class in both cases especially the steak; not much can surpass the Txuleta de vacuno mayor at Casa Julián in Tolosa, despite the protestations of my friends from other parts of the world. The raw ingredients and Julián's cooking method are a match made in heaven.

However, we had a few days to get there, presumably soaking up the best Tempranillo ​the region has to offer. Our first stop was to be for two nights in a castle a fairly easy 60 km to the east of Valladolid. Originally we'd planned to stop further west, near Quintanilla de Onésimo and inch eastwards along the Duero, taking in bodegas as we went. But, as we know "the best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft a-gley".

Thanks Robbie Burns!

A lack of familiarity with the ways of winemakers, and their bodegas, in this special region sent us aft about face. Having been used to visiting wineries from Stellenbosch to Saint-Émilion, mostly at the weekend, and to dropping in pretty much unannounced, we were caught pretty much flat-footed. Many of our chosen wineries were closed at weekends and definitely needed an appointment.

​We set off from Valladolid on a Friday evening (should have been early afternoon had it not been for Avis's afternoon siesta) and whizzed past my favourite bodega, Garmón Continental, after about 30 km. Thankfully we'd made an appointment for the Monday so all was not lost but, by that stage, we'd have moved on from the castle to a monastery 60km further east. It was NOT Garmón's fault that we had to retrace our footsteps by 80 km. More of this a little later.

​In the meantime we furtled around with mixed success and with a big treat up our sleeves for Tuesday the 8th. In fact two!

A castle and a monastery

The road to Curiel de Duero was easy enough except for the last few hundred metres of hairpins to reach the castle entrance. Once we had breached the battlements everything was pretty splendid although there were one or two signs that it was due for a touch up after a major refurbishment about 15 years previously. I had thought it was extraordinary value and it was, given the views displayed in the montage below and the splendid bed in a vast room.

​Our castle looked at Castillo Peñafiel 5km away across the plain so we had to visit the latter. Once there I was berated for asking how the people in the window-in-the-wall could remain so still[1] and when I was disabused of the "fact", I almost had to use the castle's facility alongside. To add to her frustration, Shan kept being photo-bombed by a fellow visitor shooting back at her and took her irritations out on photographing a barrel in the museum which had inexplicably been decorated with a portrait of Bowie.

​In the spirit of our Dave, I rather liked the metallic sculpture of the bunch of grapes at the entrance to the excellent museum. The foil to that was every winemaker's nightmare - Phylloxera[2] - which, in turn, was counterbalanced by the best aroma testing bench I've ever seen. I could have spent an hour there alone!

We moved on to try to find some bodegas that were open over the weekend, starting with Emilio Moro in Pesquera de Duero, but that seemed more of a vibrant wine-bar going hell for leather on a Saturday. We moved inland a bit, to places that seemed to fit our requirements such as Arbás, just outside Piñel de Arriba and which had a curious horizontal chimney, but there was nobody at home. The town was pretty with a typically dominant huge church but we couldn't find anywhere to eat so returned to Peñafiel and a charmingly ordinary little café with generous portions and a glass-fronted display cabinet of some ancient Ribera wines.  

​Headed back towards our castle and veered off to Bocos de Duero where the Señorio de Bocos bodega  was closed, this time seemingly permanently. Drove on fruitlessly to Mambrilla de Castrejón before turning back to Valdearcos de la Vega and turning off again on a bit of a wild goose chase to Corrales de Duero. At this point fatigue was setting in and we chose some less travelled roads that looked as if they'd take us back to our Castillo. After a few hairy moments on some non-roads, Shan managed to guide us across some spectacularly wild hills and home to the beautiful road in the picture below (row 2, rhs).

It was our last night in the Castillo and we joined some new-found friends from the US, Misty and Randy Knack on a terrace overlooking the village floating in the dark. Check out Shan's cunning pic lower down, just before the monasterial lav. A few bottles were consumed antes y después de la cena with the Castillo management turning the lounge lights on and off impatiently around 11 PM. This seemed a little harsh given Spanish dining hours (no food before 9 PM). Randy was just getting into his stride with some wines he'd discovered during the day off the Tim Atkin[3] recommendations I'd passed him.

After a hearty breakfast the next morning, designed to offset the winey evening the night before (isn't one supposed to do that in Ribera del Duero?) we set off at a respectable hour for our monastery at La Vid. We had expected something a bit grand but weren't  totally prepared for the level of recent refurb that had taken place. Hence the pic of the lav ... hard to imagine that too many monks had enjoyed the luxury and space of our room over the past 9 centuries. The monastery restaurant sold us some decent Matasnos for us to have with our lunch and over the next few days, too.

Some serious wine stuff

Despite having been ill-prepared, we'd already sampled some of the good stuff

but we had saved the best until last. More by accident than design, perhaps, but what a  treat!
​
​Our first big wine visit was the next morning, retracing our wheel tracks 80 km in monsoon-like conditions to Garmón Continental. Luckily we'd given ourselves plenty of time because the weather was truly foul and the traffic was heavy on that Monday morning. We were meeting Paula López de Partearroyo and she gave us a comprehensive tour of their immaculate winery before moving into the engine room (first two pics below) where the final wine is stored under supervision, being monitored for the perfect blend before final bottling. We tried two components of an upcoming blend ... one was fresher but with less tannin. Shan, not a red wine drinker, preferred the fresher option whereas Paula and I, red wine drinkers, liked the one with more grip. I'll be interested to try the mix when it comes to fruition in a year of two. Sadly we couldn't drink too much with a return to La Vid pending.

Paula recommended an excellent nearby restaurant, the Fuente Aceña, for lunch, where Shan and I had a whole new level of burger ... lamb with burrata and Provençal tomatoes. We were replete even after a pretty roundabout journey back to the monastery. There was a simple bar in La Vid where we thought we'd grab a snack (above). Sadly it was closed so it was our home base or nothing, I threw care to the wind and chose a pud, "Drácula", a confection of marinated strawberries with Helado de Vainilla (sic) y Sirope de Coca Cola. It wasn't half delicious, if a bit lurid in its seemingly bespoke bowl.

The next morning we headed off early on another cloudy day. We were bound for Tubilla del Lago and Marta Maté, my other unmissable bodega[4]. Unlike most other Ribera del Duero winemakers marta maté (the name is a concatenation of Marta Castrillo and César Maté who head up the operation) refers to Tinto Fino rather than Tempranillo grapes for their wine[5] although they are basically the same. Whatever! The wine is simply splendid and is carefully nurtured through stainless steel and concrete barrels and large capacity French and American Oak Barrels. Marta can be seen above proudly showing off the installation containing the former, all very modern. 

Sadly, this level of quality is almost impossible to procure in the UK. I have tried contacting quite a few wine merchants of my acquaintance to try to make the link but so far with no success. It seems Ribero del Duero wines are not as entrenched in the UK wine markets as they should be. Marta Maté has the complexity that makes it interesting and delicious and, what is possibly even more important, the characteristics such as grip which allow it to improve with age.

I've seen this with Garmón, which is marginally more available on this side of the channel, but even they struggle to interest UK distributors and would rather focus their attention on countries who are more receptive to their emerging excellence.

Boy are they missing out.

But our day was running out and we were still faced with a spectacular 280 km rush to get from the other side of Burgos to Tolosa where we were destined for a late lunch in the pinnacle of world steakdom.

​Off to Tolosa for a steak and pintxos blowout ...

​Our primary (and possibly initially only) reason for visiting Tolosa was to eat steak at Casa Julián. However, if you look in the right corners there are plenty of pintxos bars to occupy a couple of days in the town.

Sadly Julián Rivas is no longer with us but the Casa[6] he started in 1954 ​follows his tradition seemingly to the "T", right up to the retention of the soot stained ceiling in the main dining room, which evidently was a condition of his passing the place on to the next generation.

Our companions for two days in Tolosa were Ann and Craig Eriksen, Shan's cousin. Like us they'd been eager to visit Casa Julián for a few years. It's not easy to get a reservation and Craig had kindly agreed to badger them until we had a spot. This was a few months before the event and we had to be content with a weekday, arriving before 3:30 PM. Actually this was perfect because there really wasn't any rush to chase us out of the place after a good few hours.

Essentially there are only a few ingredients and when it comes to the main course. It really is the rare Chuleton ribeye perfectly coaxed for 45-minutes that anyone's going to order when it could be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Craig, the customer that is not me in the photomontage below, has so many barbecue devices at his house in France that he refuses to admit just quite how many there are. But you could see the admiration on his face when sitting in pole position alongside the open fire and the sheer delight when the current head chef explained, graphically, what he was going to do with the meat.

But first we had to eat our vegetables separately ... perfect specimens of asparagus and tomato and, of course, sublime bread and butter. We accompanied that with a bottle of Ribera (Shan had Chardonnay, which is why she is known in concentric circles as Chardonnay Shan) which did a great job but we decided that a fine bottle of Priorat might just have the edge with a perfect steak. The central plate above contains a helping of roast peppers and two perfect pieces of trimmed ribeye (there was plenty more ribeye for those who wanted it) that were just sublime.

We were left with just enough room for sweets and pudding wine. I think we shared desserts and the state of our table when it was just about time to go speaks volumes. I wouldn't demur if asked if that had been my ultimate meal. Actually as close to simply perfect as you'll ever get.

​What better to do than to return to our hotel, splash our faces and get stuck into the bottle of Marta Maté I'd managed to slip into my suitcase that morning. We may have followed that with another bottle of Ribera and a few glasses of Chardonnay ... I can't remember. I'll have to ask Craig.

A day of pintxos[7].

It was a lovely day loafing around with friends. I believe we might have visited 3 or 4 more Pintxos bars before Shan and Ann finally felt the need for a comfort break and iPhones. The rain continued as we followed the lamplight back to the hotel;

Goodbye for now, Espana ...

It was a short drive, including a stop for the obligatory car wash to get back to Donostia a.k.a. San Sebastián so that we could drop off the car at its Avis destination ...

... and then round and round the city we travelled, trying to find the entrance to the car park. In ever decreasing circles over the Urumea Itsasadara (basically the river) and then in ever increasing circles (incorporating the currently out of use railways station) and over the Urumea Itsasadara (basically the river) followed by ever decreasing circles over the Urumea Itsasadara (basically the river) until we finally made a lunge for what may have been it and we struck lucky and dropped the car on Level -4.

The attendant in the Avis cubicle 3 floors up was as helpful and friendly as her colleagues in Valladolid had been grumpy and rude so it all ended happily ever after on that Thursday morning.

Above: Salamanca may be a pocket city (#37 in Spain to be precise) but everything inside it seems to be larger than life, including its Plaza Mayor.

Our original plan had been to travel upriver from Porto into one of Spain's premier wine regions. Both of these are situated on the Douro/Duero[1] although a fairly serious range of mountains makes land travel difficult and the river also ceases to be navigable pretty much as soon it breaches the border.

So we ended up in Coimbra for a couple of nights as a sort of stepping stone. The fact that we enjoyed Portugal's 3rd biggest city in its own right's a happy coincidence that is covered in our previous blog[2]. Taxis from Coimbra to "somewhere in Spain" seemed substantially cheaper than those available in the middle of nowhere somewhere on the Douro. The other coincidence was that Salamanca was then the closest Spanish city (or at least the closest we wanted to visit) to Coimbra.

Travelling with a special chauffeur

We had found an outfit named Daytrip who introduced cars with drivers to clients and had booked it probably a month earlier. Our decision to do so was validated almost from the moment Miguel greeted us at the top of what had been our painful climb to our hotel less than two days earlier. In Shan's words:

"Miguel fetched us in a large Tesla in the rain and we set off for Salamanca largely viewing the mist. Miguel did history at Coimbra uni and was a mine of information. Told us about the Roman village 15km away and about Pedro, the prince, whose father the king didn’t want him to be with Ines, Pedro’s dead wife’s lady in waiting. Pedro and Ines secretly married and had children while his father destroyed an entire village in anger. Finally had her killed. When the king died, Pedro told the people Ines was their queen and had her disinterred and her body moved to the royal crypt where he had a beautiful sculpture made (Shan's romantic view of Portuguese history) .

"Stopped off at Linhares Castle and walked through the picturesque village to get to the castle at the top. Two keeps, both locked on the inside?! Continued on journey and stopped off at Ciudad Rodrigo. Arrived in Salamanca in a drizzle and Miguel was a little concerned that he couldn’t take us to our hotel because all the streets are pedestrianised. He wanted to be reassured that we’d found it and asked Mark to send a text when we had!"

Above (L-R, Top-Bottom): Linhares Castle's (established by royal charter in 1169) ability to see off marauding Spaniards would have been a tad limited on the misty day we were there; (2) we strolled around the village and were charmed by the sympathetic restoration/maintenance; a typical narrow alley in Linhares. 

But, back to the journey with Miguel and our two stops in Linhares da Beira and Ciudad Rodrigo. These were two reasonably priced stopovers with Daytrip ... they had others, too, but I think we did well. We left Portugal as we had arrived, visiting a castle that would have kept a beady eye out for Spanish encroachments over the centuries given its altitude of 820m. The other thing we noted was just how well preserved these places were. Sure, all countries have their not so salubrious towns and cities but we were pretty impressed in the main.

And now back to Spain

Actually we didn't know much about the town of Ciudad Rodrigo other than that it was a well-preserved, fortified, walled town close to the border between Portugal and Spain.

Above (L-R, Top-Bottom): (4) Graceful architecture abounds in Ciudad Rodrigo; a modern interpretation of the Ciudad architecture; relics of 1812, canons protect the outer wall.

And so it was. Very tidy. In Shan's words:

" .​.. stopped off at Ciudad Rodrigo. Very pretty walled city. Wandered around eating a bacon and cheese 'sandwich'."

But why, Shan?

And what about the Wellesleys

​Well it seems there has been a significant link between Ciudad and the UK for more than 200 years. In fact the Wellesley family has held the title of Duke/Duchess of Ciudad Rodrigo ever since 1812.

For those of you who are now asking the question, "who are the Wellesleys?", you may well do so. Living in Oxfordshire, we know a bit about their immense influence and wealth.

After conquering the French with his Anglo-Portuguese Army at Ciudad Rodrigo in 1812 and some other exploits, Arthur Wellesley became the Duke of Wellington in 1814 and went on to conquer Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815, ending the Napoleonic Wars.

Arthur and his descendants have held the title of Duke (there was a duchess but she seems also to have been a duke[3]) of Ciudad Rodrigo until the current day. In all there have been 6 Arthurs, two Henrys, an Anne (the Duke/Duchess) and a Gerald (Gerry). I like the sound of Duke Gerry.
​
Arriving in Salamanca​

As it turns out, the walk was only about 5 minutes from where Miguel dropped us, even with the bags and we were delighted with our new accommodation, the Hostal Concejo. and its location, just next to Plaza Mayor. It was difficult to believe the value at £70 for two people for two nights. Over to Shan, who had discovered our hotel gem:

"Plaza Mayor - really large plaza with extraordinary number of bakeries and ice cream parlours. Had a drink in a couple of bars, one on Plaza Mayor and La Carboneria on Plaza Liberdad that was fun and quirky. Then supper at Mesón Cervantes upstairs in the one corner of the square. Walked through their very noisy bar to the rather bright dining room. Ate huge plates of lamb chops with potatoes and duck magret with chips. Had nightcap outside on the square as it had stopped drizzling."

Just your typical evening in a Spanish city then ... although that night we were reminded how Spaniards can be rather noisy in the proximity of their squares! Until beyond 4am, actually more like 5!

The other thing we'd done on our first evening was visit THE MOST HELPFUL GUY in the local tourist office who had us fired up for our first morning in Salamanca. I'm not a great church or cathedral person but Salamanca's is just astounding. Just for its sheer size, being two cathedrals in one, but the structures and artefacts are a must for anyone even for a cathedrophobe.

In fact, this pocket city has everything including a House of Shells[4], an art deco museum, a LONG Roman bridge over the Tormes river, providing spectacular views of most of the city, and an extraordinary convent/monastery. So, if any readers of this blog ever find themselves in Salamanca just pop in to the tourist office and get them to help you design your own mini tour.

Above (L-R, Top-Bottom): House of Shans - there are more shells inside; another one of those organs (inside the cathedral) that resemble an historic machine gun; there were so many extraordinary murals; a particularly ornate sarcophagus; the cathedral is so huge it is almost impossible to photograph in its entirety; looking up into the main dome from a supine position; down the road a bit - rather liked this man and pram dwarfed by the art nouveau building; the Convento D San Esteban provides a gracious setting for the ethereal cello music.

​A memorable Dog in the Manger (a.k.a. DiM or knob)

No holiday would be complete without encountering one of these. In our case it was a pity it had to be in Salamanca and on the Puente Romano de Salamanca. The bridge over the Tormes is a particularly long Roman construction that offers very special views of itself and the city. Perfect for a bit of photography. Even our man in the tourist office had mentioned this and exactly where the special place was to take the photo.

Except for the entire time we were there, we and others waited patiently for this DiM who was standing in prime position staring at his cellphone. It was obvious he was not going to relinquish the prime position for us to take the pic but also determined to block anyone who tried to find an angle from somewhere else nearby. He was looking at his phone with no attempt to look at the view and was aware of obscuring others' views. It was tempting to heave him off the parapet into the river but we were all too polite. What entitles these selfish knobs.

Above (L-R,): Puente Romano with Shan and DiM (yellow speck) at opposite ends of the bridge; DiM still there later after many of the people in the first frame had attempted to take pictures from where he remains standing in the exact same stance with his cellphone; inferior picture of bridge and background.

During our return journey we stopped over at the convent and had a look around including listening to the ethereal strains of a cello being played by a young woman in the courtyard. The day had been emotional and we resolved that we'd been, in Shan's words, "churched out". Lunch (late; as is this was in Spain) followed at a superb little bistro named Tapas 2.0. The food was a hell of a lot better than its name, especially the mini Ibérico pork burgers with chimichuri sauce. In true Spanish fashion we then set off for a stroll followed by a siesta and late[5] supper at, you guessed it, Tapas 2.0

"Drink in the Plaza Mayor then second in the queue for Tapas 2.0 to have their delish organic wine and wonderful food: croquettes, risotto and the pork belly burger with bbq sauce and black garlic. Honestly, the best burger I’ve ever had! Then Mark had the Beef “Callos” and “Morros” which was tripe and beef cheek stew, Finalist in Spanish Championship 2022. Absolutely delicious! Followed that with Hinojosa’s cheesecake," quoth my dear wife, who ended up with a "dicky tummy"[6] the next day.

Above (L-R, Top-Bottom): This "everything shop" is more than it seems - read the "menu" beside the door carefully; made me think of my friends, especially the "reprobate retirees"; typical Spanish sunset en route to dinner; yep it's Tapas 2.0; with some tasteful special wine; a great little place on the Plaza Mayor for breakfast.

​Moving on to Valladolid

Our Interrail pass did us proud getting from Salamanca to Valladolid at speed and in luxury but two minutes too late to pick up our rental car from Avis for the next part of the journey. Siesta got in the way, it seems, but it didn't stop the two rude Avis reps from opening up late at the end of their lunch&kip. 

Anyway, being forced to spend siesta in Valladolid had two side benefits. The first was a delightful  señora in the station tourist office (what with Salamanca and various other Spanish towns and cities these facilities are really very impressive and an asset if you need guidance). Anyway, this fine señora first of all set about getting me to pronounce the name of her city. I'm not sure she succeeded but she did recommend an itinerary for the afternoon that allowed us to see a great rarity in England: red squirrels.

Coming Next

Wine and steak and castles and a monastery

[Endnotes]:​

1. The Spanish wine region loosely based around the Duero river, which is the upper reach of the Douro that we spent some time exploring in the previous episode of this blog.
2. See https://www.marksadventures.co.uk/classic-blogs/searching-for-and-finding-portuguese-nirvana.
3. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Rhys,_7th_Duchess_of_Ciudad_Rodrigo.
4. ... a shell covered building in honour of Santiago de Compostella and the pilgrims (Shan/Shell{ey}, geddit?).
5. Not necessarily by Spanish standards (i.e. normal opening time is no earlier than 21:00).
6. Very unlikely it emanated from Tapas 2.0, BTW

Above: Last historic train of the evening to Porto goes by just often enough to provide entertainment and convenience without being a nuisance.

This part of our month-long trip was the one we needed to pin down first in order to build our travel plan around it. Boy did we strike it lucky. There was the odd sweaty moment but the actualité was bliss on many fronts.

Our friends Sián and Roger Starr re-ignited the Portuguese Bug after being enticed by the Douro Valley and raving to us about a hotel a little downstream. They enthused about it while we were touring together in South Africa early in 2024. We were captivated, only to have our hopes dashed by "their" perfect small hotel, which was (understandably) fully booked for our target dates. 

I say reignited because we'd been hankering after a coast to coast Iberian trek incorporating the Douro - Duero path for quite a few years. This had, so far, been thwarted by sundry health obstacles, including Covid, and, even now, had put paid to a full boat/walk/cycle/train Porto-Catalonia option. The Starrs' experiences had seemed to be just the ticket for part of our consolation prize..

And so I'd had to search again. Comfortable accommodation in an intimate establishment in an accessible rural setting were givens. A working winery would be a bonus. Perfection would be somewhere where we could just segue into Spain and carry on up the Duero.

We just about made it. The only impediment was the reverse of our travails in entering Portugal from Spain. Earlier we'd failed to find a segue in and now we appeared to have no segue out.

Actually, knowing what I know now, the transition from Portugal into Spain could probably be effected in a simpler, more interesting way. We'll just have to go back and to pray that our hosts, Isabel and Ricardo, are still managing the oasis in Ferradosa.

Above [l-r, top-bottom]: Fledge talisman finally gets to go up the Dowroo[1]; First spotting from the train of a substantial Douro winery; Two lots of Nimbus, Shan's taking the prize; Couple more great shots from Shan, especially the iron bridge which switched the rail from the right to the left bank; Isabel loading the Fledge onto her boat so we could cross back across the river to the Ferradosa winery where we'd be staying; arrived at the farm and looking back across the river at a magnificent pile.

Getting to Ferradosa (the winery)

One doesn't quite just hop on a boat and head up the Douro. First the train takes you from Porto to Pala, which skips the lowest reaches of the river. At that point it is possible to hop on some sort of boat and do the rest. However, the Starrs advised us to stay on the train, which was 100% good advice, as the railway line sticks to the river from there on and provides the panoramic views you'd want. Anyone wishing to make this journey should set off from São Bento station in Porto[2]. It takes just under 3 hours and gets you the best choice of seats. Nab seats on the right hand side if you can. Shan and I caught a separate train from São Bento to Campanha where we had a tedious wait before resuming our journey.

​Worse than that, we had the worst kind of Brit tourists - a couple who'd nabbed 4 seats and got pretty snarky when we asked to use one of them because the train was full. Shan was on the other side of the aisle in a similar situation except that the two on her side were Portuguese and much more pleasant.

My worst kind of Pom seat companion carried out a deliberate, over-loud monotonous monologue at his partner for the entire 140 minute journey from Campanha to Pinhão where he and most of the other passengers got off. Mercifully we then had plenty of peaceful space to enjoy what turned out to be the most spectacular part of our journey, anyway.

"Mark," I heard someone call as we alighted from the train. It was the delightful Isabel who was to be our host for the weekend. She drove us a short distance in her car and then transferred our luggage and us to her boat and conveyed us across the Douro to our lodgings. Her husband Ricardo met us on the other side and made light work of transferring our suitcases to our room. Boy, were we glad to be rid of them for a few days.

At this point it is worth relating a conversation that Shan had with the ticket office in Campanha station where, as conditions of our Interrail passes we were required to book slots for the remainder of the journey. We were used to this from earlier journeys.

"How much will that be," Shan asked the friendly man in the ticket office.
" €8," our friend replied.
"Is that €8 each from here to Ferradosa?" Shan responded, calculating €8x2x2=€32 in her head and thinking it sounded reasonable for six hours of travelling[3]..
"No, €8 for two return tickets for two passengers," our man smiled.

The other attraction of the train up The Douro is that it is conducted on a proudly maintained historic train and railway line. 

Ricardo, having spared us lugging our luggage for the last few hundred metres and Isabel, having showed us our room and given us a quick tour of the area immediately surrounding our home for three nights (and two bottles of the estate's wine) then left us to our own devices. We settled into a couple of loungers beside the infinity pool to contemplate our navels and the busy day we'd just enjoyed.

At the Quinta da Ferradosa 

Above [l-r, top-bottom]: The panorama from one of the higher points of the Quinta's 350 Ha, accessed in Isabel's 4x4; (2) the gin palaces are not universally popular along the Douro, which of these two d'you think is the most vulgar?; they both make waves to spoil this reflection; the writer/artist renovator's dream, set on the hillside with a splendid view of the Douro; a couple of details we crawled over; exotic cat; destructive goat[4]; exotic turtle; bog-standard frog.

At the vinícola guests can do pretty much what they like. Activities include:

1. Laze about, gazing around, especially while lounging beside the infinity pool;
2. Drink wine from the estate, often as an adjunct to lounging beside the infinity pool;
3. Explore the sizeable property on foot, including some derelict buildings from the original vinícola and fantasize about turning them into exclusive renovators' dreams;
4. Explore the outer corners of the steep-sided valley in the comfort of Isabel's proper 4x4;
5. Eat lovely food procured, prepared and served up by Isabel;
6. Commune with the many animals from goats to peacocks and turtles and many variations in between - the attractions of the miniature goats were a little eclectic as they insisted on their rights to go everywhere and eat everything[5];
7. Swear at the leisure cruisers and nod knowingly when the locals reckon they contribute nothing to the riverside community, even eating on board before dumping their garbage upstream to be dealt with;
8. Admire the historic trains that pass closely by infrequently enough to be a joy rather than a nuisance ... to quote my dear wife in her notes, "delighted to be woken up by the train going past our window. Could see it from my pillow!";
9. Sleep or rest in the spacious accommodation in amongst a collection of antiques and gaze at the trains every now and then ... I am not sure if Shan actually waved at them but she did muse about it to the effect that the paradox of a railway line being so close, and yet so unobtrusive as to be a pleasurable experience, was a welcome contraction;
10. Learn a bit more about winemaking (we were lucky to be there while the wine was being readied for the last phase before bottling).

How on earth we managed to do all those things in a little under three days is a mystery, especially as a fair amount of lazing about took place. What an amazing place it would be to spend much longer, churning out blogs and possibly the occasional book!

Wine being made

The current engine room for the wine was thrumming while we were there. As wineries go, it is quite small but all the more inviting as a result. The apparent heir apparent, Jao Calem, was in residence at the discrete main house and was performing his hands-on supervision of this year's batch. He made time for us during this busiest of periods with all hands on deck.

An interesting snippet for me was that the Ferradosa brand seemed to be undergoing a metamorphosis like many of the other houses in the Iberian Peninsular where the emphasis seems to be turning towards fresher styles of wine and staying in step with the rest of the world by doing so. We tried some of the older style and some of the newer. For me they both had their place and I'd be sad to see the Douro lose too many of those deeper, more succulent wines with their attendant gravitas.

I could spend all day on the wine-making process and its subtle differences from winery to winery and there are far superior people to me who have written veritable tomes on the subject. It was lovely for us to witness the barrel-filling process and hear the enthusiasm of the small band of people at full throttle.

The owner of Quinta da Ferradosa, Joaquim Calem, takes great pride in preserving and repurposing the working building that he inherited, which is refreshing to note with all the ultra-modern facilities springing up in the Douro/Duero Valley.

Above [l-r, top-bottom]: The Quinta with the main part of the current vinícola in the foreground and the older, derelict facilities in the distance;  A couple of the Quinta's wines sitting cheekily on the spillway of the infinity pool - the "ferro" is a newer, lighter wine, the other is one of their traditional whites; (2) this year's wine process has just moved from the large tanks to the French Oak barrels; (2) Isabel was most informative, explaining the unique features of the vinícola; (2) some lovely old bits of wine making machinery still lurk in the derelict buildings higher uo on the Quinta..

​All good things ...

Our stay at Ferradosa was over far too soon and suddenly Isabel and Ricardo were helping us across the river to the train station. It was a fond but sad farewell as we clambered on to the train. The return journey gave us the choice of where we wanted to sit and we settled in for the 3-hour scenic journey, this time in the opposite direction. We were to have one connection in Porto where we would have 8 minutes to disembark and find the high-speed train to Coimbra.

Our friend Fiona, a veteran rail traveller, had advised that if there was one thing we needed to do, that would be to have a pee on train #1 to avoid hopping from leg to leg on the intermediary platform. Excellent advice although we didn't need it in the event because our Coimbra-bound train was a little late leaving Porto Campanha.

So we get off the train in Coimbra fairly near to the carefully chosen accommodation and wondering whether to get a cab until Google assured us it was a short gentle walk. So off we went dragging our wheelie bags and within minutes encountered the first flight of many, many stairs. The top of the hill in Coimbra that hosts the old university is sufficiently severe for the city fathers to provide a lift/funicular combo to get you to the top. So we'd dismissed the sensible taxi and combo options in favour of what ended up being a duel of rugby lock-forwards with our suitcases. We finally arrived at our accommodation to find that it was absolutely as quirky as it had claimed to be, only everything was about half the size that might have made it practical. They kind of made up for it with an upgrade to a "suite" and a splendidly abundant breakfast that neither of us could do justice to. I think a younger cohort was probably their target market.

Freshers' week​

BUT ... they did steer us to Terraço do Alta, a most excellent restaurant a few steps away with splendid food and a panoramic view of the colourful houses tumbling down a hillside that Portugal is renowned for.  We went back the next evening . And our first night had resounding musical entertainment from the university freshers' week in the valley below and then the joy of the freshers proceeding up the hill with a similar climb but, happily for them, no suitcases

Above [l-r, top-bottom]: typical Portuguese hillside at sunset; after dark; (2) the black-coat seniors are ushering the civvy clothed freshers up the hill to much hilarity, especially when they spotted me taking pictures; our hotel was pretty bohemian with a very cramped loo behind the mirror and a TV watching gallery to the left of it that you'd have to be a contortionist to get into it; Bohemians and students catered for.

​I suppose we chose Coimbra for some fairly intangible reasons but, having now experienced the place, we'll certainly stick it on our list again. It has its own charm as Portugal's #3 city. We may have chosen to go there as a stepping stone to get from the Douro to the Duero because no-one in the Spanish or Portuguese transport hierarchy felt the inclination to make travel between their two countries easy. Now we departed having enjoyed ourselves and believing there was plenty to draw us back for a return visit.

A cynic might observe that both countries, especially Spain, appear to have done pretty well out of the EU and/or Unesco in recent years so we hope intercity trains between places like Salamanca and Coimbra won't be ignored for much longer.

Coimbra does have a proud history in its university going back to1290 and permanently 1537[6] and has been in its current location to some extent since. We stayed where we did to absorb some of this. It did turn out to be a bit of a curate's egg. They do like their graffiti and they are distributing the university gradually around the city. So when we asked why the Faculty of Medicine and, even more so, the Centre for Neuroscience and Cell Biology, were beginning to look decidedly tatty, we were told they were being moved to other parts of the city. 

On the other hand, the central icon of the university has just been renovated at vast expense just a praça away. Coimbra University has had a leg up from UNESCO and it would be a pity if that has begun to fizzle out?

Above [l-r, top-bottom]: (2) the Sub-ripas House with handy plaque to tell one all about it; we had to have a Francesinha (Portuguese for little French woman, making the connection to a croque madame although the Coimbra version was a lot more elaborate; lively Old Town; gate to a posh gallery; organ pipes in the cathedral that looked as if the might double as a machine-gun emplacement.

​We didn't know if it was the time of year (beginning of October) but there seemed to be a disproportionate number of American tour parties thronging the old part of the city.

However, in summary, and to reassure Shan, I DID enjoy Coimbra and would certainly go back, especially if I could insure that I got to listen some Fado.

Coming Next

All trains to Spain are off, even those that were possible a decade ago, for who knows how long. Our guide books, necessarily a little behind the curve because they report what exists, show routes to die for, but now these have been withdrawn in the last few years. So we are returning to Spain but, once again, there's no train (although there is a bit of rain) ... 

I have to say, though, that the necessary, quite expensive car journey was pleasant indeed ... but that's for our next blog​ ...


[Endnotes]:​

1. Unless someone's having me on, this is how to pronounce the Douro when you're in Portugal. We'd spoken about our yearning when spending time with Fledge winemaker Leon Coetzee in Calitzdorp in South Africa ... it seemed fitting to have this sticker on my suitcase and had the added benefit of making it instantly recognisable.
2. Sample timetables from São Bento to Ferradosa can be found on Google at https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Porto,+Portugal/
3. Watch this space in the last instalment of this blog to find out what a one-way journey from London Marylebone to Oxford cost for the penultimate leg of our Grand Iberian Tour.
4. Having an insatiable omnivorous goat on a wine farm may have its drawbacks;
5. The little ram, particularly, felt the need to go everywhere and, while we were having a meal one day in the splendid dining room, he started head-butting the glass door which was a bit alarming ... I seem to remember that Shan suggested to Isabel that she throw water at him and that seemed to have worked so we may have contributed to goat therapy at Ferradosa a tiny bit;
6. Quite a while after Bologna, Oxford, Cambridge and quite a few others in Medieval Europe and then the Renaissance.

Above: Finally settled for our first night in Portugal with the sunset in the West.

Try getting from Santiago de Compostela (SdC) to northern Portugal by train. Whatever one does it falls apart at the border. A 1.5 hour car journey turns into an 18 hour train journey via Kathmandu. Booked seats are abandoned. The interrail pass becomes a brow-sweating nightmare ...

"I think we are just going to have to get a bus," I confessed to Shan, hating the humiliation of defeat. 

The deal with interrail is that the train rides are included in the price of the pass but to travel on certain "superior" trains one has to have booked seats. For these you have to pay extra. Not a lot. But an extra amount nonetheless. Scouring the timetables for trains that might transport us from SdC involved days of frustration. I thought I'd cracked it by booking a train from SdC to Ourense ... a mere 35 minute journey to the south east plus a few € for seats. From there we could get a choofing train westwards to Tui on the Portuguese border, more or less 3.5-4.5 hours with a couple of changes, depending upon who one believed. And then a mere 3.9 km hike dragging a wheelie-case across the bridge over the River Minho into Valença, Portugal . Perfect.

Come the day, it turns out there are no trains running on Fridays from Ourense to Tui.

We ended up swallowing our pride and catching a bus from SdC train station to Valença bus station. We had to buy new tickets but they weren't too expensive; €10 for both us to be exact; for a 1h 45m journey. The final 0.8 km suitcase drag was almost a pleasure. Especially as we arrived at our destination in time to share a pizza and a bottle of delicious Portuguese white before going off to meet our landlord for our night's accommodation.

An excellent accommodation it was, too. We had been a little sceptical because Valença seemed a bit of a dump. What were we going to do with ourselves until the onward journey the following morning?

But.

Not only did our accommodation have just about everything a tired traveller would need, including clothes washing and drying facilities, our landlord gave us the lowdown on the town. There wasn't that much but there was one of the best forts in the region. The external walls were mostly extant and the internal space was vast ... so much so that it encompassed a small, sympathetically restored town with restaurants, posh shops and bars. Located on a hilltop, the majestic walls looked out over the Minho River and Spain beyond and would have provided the perfect defence lookout for spotting would-be Spanish insurgents looking to invade Northern Portugal.

Above [top-bottom, l-r]: walls within walls at Valença castle; looking down from the castle to an ancient farmhouse in the foreground with Tui across the river in the background; castle to distant castle/cathedral, Portugal to Spain; shiny new Audi, weathered houses, setting sun; through the wall with cat-guard to the inner sanctum; shops that have stood the test of time.

Come to think of it, it hadn't been entirely seamless getting from France into Northern Spain, either. Superfast express from Paris to Hendaye (where dat) and then a short, slow ride on a local train to San Sebastián. But who's complaining, we're now in Portugal and looking forward to a coastal train ride the next morning.

Viana do Castelo (VdC)

Our intention with VdC had been to take it easy for a few days and it seemed to be just the place ... there were boulevards and beaches and a rather pleasant hotel to look forward to. Having got the coastal stopping train from Valença (ran every hour or so), we walked around most of the town before lunch (rather a decent one, which was beginning to become a circumferential problem).

Above [top-bottom, l-r]: relaxing on the train from Valença to Viano do Castelo with all those lunches and suppers beginning to tell circumferentially; and so to another lunch; we'd debated actually visiting the church[1] but it looked enticing sitting up there on its hill; an emotional memorial to the Carnation Revolution[2].

The Carnation Revolution - a personal link

Portugal and Spain were, in some ways, the last of the arguably "Western Countries" to follow Greece into 20th Century democracy. Portugal with an almost bloodless coup on April 25, 1974 that became known as the Carnation Revolution, Spain beginning the process with the death of Franco in November 1975 and taking around 7 years to settle in fully.

I had fancied myself as a bit of a Gucci socialist during my early university years of 1969-1972 during which time the Greek film "Z[3]" provided a rallying call for "lefty" students and provided a heightened awareness of remaining fascism.

In my case, Portugal was particularly memorable for a number of reasons. Mozambique was a Portuguese colony just to the North of where I lived on the North-East coast of South Africa and I, personally, was the Argus Group (Daily News) reporter responsible for what was then known as Zululand. I worked out of a cubby hole in Empangeni, 270 km from the South Africa - Mozambique border (quite close in African terms).

On September 7, 1974, the Lusaka Accord was signed in Zambia between the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO) and the incoming Portuguese government. This precipitated a convoy of Portuguese refugees to make their way over some pretty severe terrain to get into Apartheid South Africa. 

"Get yourself up to the Mozambique border," my news editor commanded in a very early phone call on that Saturday morning. I had been supposed to be leaving Empangeni that day and heading back to Durban in preparation for my imminent marriage before being transferred to the Argus London office. There had been a humdinger of a party the night before and my then fiancée, Carmela, was with me in Zululand for the celebration, staying with a friend so she could officially be chaperoned.

I remember the dusty convoy and having to interview the participants. They were in a pretty miserable state but all appeared to have some idea where in South Africa they were headed. I also remembered resuming smoking that day after having given up and recall Carmela's delight that I was doing so. As far as I am aware, she never succumbed but sucking on a Lucky Strike in those days was evidently a manly pursuit to be noted and commended.

So now, in 2024, I was contemplating the monument in the picture above, with its broken chains as a result of the Carnation Revolution, and wondering about those people who had fled Frelimo for Apartheid. I felt the irony that South Africans such as Ruth First[4] had travelled in the opposite direction only to be assassinated in Maputo with a parcel bomb, courtesy of the South African police, on August 17, 1982.

A mixed bag (a photographer's dream?)

Portugal's links to South Africa aside, small cities, such as Viana do Castelo, had the properties of a curate's egg. Smart historic buildings intermingled with huge shopping malls, closely juxtaposed with distressing dereliction. Shan and I had to admit that the latter added photographic interest (so we took a lot) but also baffled us as to how closely the disparate elements were interspersed with each other. We'll leave it to the photos shall we?  

Climbing up that hill

We decided to grasp the nettle on our first full day and made an assault on the Mount of Santa Luzia. Actually I blame an undiagnosed recurrence of Covid/Long-Covid for rather less of an assault and more of a funicular ride; there are two pedestrian ways up, a gazillion steps in a straight line and the less demanding ride. We started off in rather pleasant weather and reached the top just in time for the swirling mist to blot out the city below.

We also discovered, once we were up there, that there was an added attraction: the Citânia de Santa Luzia (CdSL), an Iron Age town that had also been occupied by the Romans

Sadly the village is much reduced and a bit of ferreting around revealed that the rather large hotel and luxury accoutrements, such as swimming pool and spacious garden, not to mention the imposing Sanctuary of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (SotSHoJ), had claimed the land from the prehistoric city now reduced to a few hectares.

As is her wont, Shan popped into the church as soon as we got there while I stood outside and contemplated the mist swirling in from the Atlantic and enveloping the city below. We grabbed a quick coffee and headed off to the Citânia in the hopes that we could see something. Actually, the mist added a bit of frisson and and made it easier to imagine the expanse of stone structures that would have been there not much more than 100 years previously.

Above [top-bottom, l-r]: (2) timing was a teeny bit nail-biting as the summit bound car squeezed past its downward-bound partner; the SotSHoJ has just about disappeared mistily; but not when Shan crept inside during a service for a sneaky shot; a rather disconsolate street photographer wondering how to take pics of tourists with the city and the sea below; Shan in search of coffee; 3,000 year-old structures in the remains of the CdSL; just note the precision in the 1,000s of years old rock cutting in the remains of this tiny dwelling.

Of course, you guessed it. Just as soon as we hit terra firma at the base of the sacred mont, the fog began to evaporate! We strode off to the ground-level castle overlooking the port. The approaches should have provided the harbinger that this part of town was not Viana's high point.

Above [top-bottom, l-r]: (2) a couple of less than salubrious sights in VdC; (2) the dockside is brightened up a bit by the lighthouse (with Santa Luzia in the background) and a statue celebrating the importance of the sea and maritime trade in the city; (2) things get a bit brighter as one walks upstream along the Limia estuary; loads of fish in the clean water; the remarkable 645 m Ponte Eiffel iron bridge, designed by Gustave Eiffel and commissioned almost 150 years ago[5], is two-tiered with rail traffic on the lower deck and road on the upper.

​Portugals's oldest village/town?

Well, perhaps not, if you believe all the Iron Age stuff further up in this article. But, as a working town, perhaps.

For our second full day in VdC, we eschewed the notion of lolling around and asked the lovely guys on reception at the AP Dona Aninhas (our truly comfortable hotel with the most helpful staff) for recommendations.

"You could get a bus to Ponte de Lima (PdL)," he suggested, expounding on the Roman bridge that still crossed the River Limia about 30 km upstream from VdC ... apparently it is the oldest town in Portugal.

​Well we enjoyed it and the bus rides in both directions.

Above [top-bottom, l-r]: (3) sundry ancient buildings in PdL; view from the bridge of the market; the Medieval/Roman bridge; van with a wig.

Leaving Viana

Well, well, seems after pronouncing Viana to be a bit tame, I've found rather a lot to write about and for Shan and me to photograph. And we haven't even been to the beach yet. Actually the scenery from the ocean side of the estuary was the best bit of catching the boat to the beach ...

Above  l-r]: we'd seen more inspiring beaches; the estuary is kept clear by a dredger that plies back and forth to the sea - omnipresent Sanctuary of the Sacred Heart of Jesus always in the background.

So now we're off to the bright lights of Porto

After a relaxed breakfast at our hotel we caught our first Interrail long(ish) distance train without having to pay any extra to actually travel (i.e. no need for seat reservations). We were headed for the splendid Porto Sāo Bento station, which is right in the heart of things ... a journey of just under an hour-and-a-half with interesting scenery. Note for anyone doing it soon: there was/is massive improvement work going on around the station which spoils the scenery a bit but doesn't affect the ongoing journey much.

Which, in our case, involved lugging our wheelie-bins up a significant hill and then 4 flights of stairs (which, for me, probably also meant competing with a bout of Covid[6])

So 650 m of what felt like an assault on Everest to end up in an environment that was more shabby than chic was a little dispiriting. After an afternoon snooze, however, things looked substantially better. Our actual location was still pretty crap but it was 100 m or so from the beating heart of an area of excellent cafes and restaurants. So we were happy again. Good food and refreshing Portuguese wine. OK, so the noise continued unabated until about 4 am but it was only for a few nights and served as a reminder that we were in the beating heart of the city.

Beating with such rhythm that we were a mere few hundred metres from the Livrario Lello[7]​.

Above: the outlook from our "loft" in the Rua do Almada, possibly the noisiest street in town, where hooting starts before 6 am.

​What is it about Porto drivers? In our area there were always traffic jams and the people behind the wheel were on their hooters within seconds of a pause in the flow. Often it was more than a pause and the cacophony could go on for some time. It never budged the traffic an inch, either.

We had promised ourselves that we would walk across the Dom Luís 1 bridge, with its late 19th century association to Gustav Eiffel, along with a number of other iron bridges in Portugal, including VdC. This stroll is a must for those who are not too affected by vertigo and offers another perspective of Porto and the Douro that flows beneath it.

Above [top-bottom, l-r]: a luscious creation at one of Shan's favourite cafés; the Douro with the city behind; Oporto's finest iron bridge carries trains and pedestrians across the river; lost in translation for do Ingleesh; a junk-based sculpture of a hare tarts up a building on the left bank of the Douro; unfortunately one doesn't have to stray far in Oporto find buildings that have lost their former glory; this shop caught us out initially, too, but at least we didn't announce to the street and a tour group that this was the "Harry Potter" bookshop, as did the tour leader; The actual "Livrario Lello" with queue stretching off screen.

Returning from the bridge we found much of the magic had gone from the Livrario Lello, with hour long queues and an up to £9 entrance fee. Open since 1906, it had been a true haven for book lovers and architecture fans alike. In fact I had been looking forward to visiting and probably buying a book, as I often do while travelling, but the link with Harry Potter and possible hints of Hogwarts bringing in the crowds, the gilt had gone off the gingerbread.

​Coming Next

Heading up the Douro for a few nights on a magical wine farm and then down to Coimbra ... 

[Endnotes]:​

1. Church on a hill https://templosantaluzia.org/
2. Carnation Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnation_Revolution 
3. A great review by Roger Ebert at https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/z-1969
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_First
5. Twelve years before Paris's Eiffel Tower.
6. There wasn't any obvious way of getting a test and the symptoms were fairly obvious having contracted the lurgy at least 3 times previously, including a bout of Long Covid.
7. a.k.a. the "Harry Potter bookshop" now with hour long queues

Above: Let's just do this bit in 5 days - and why not throw in Bilbao and Oviedo?

That eejit would be me! Northwest Spain and Northern Portugal in 4 and a half weeks by train (including getting there and back). There is no-one else to blame. 

It all started with the whimsical magic of Interrail and the assumption that all trains are equal. Just buy a ticket and everything will follow. European trains are amazing, aren't they?

Well they are if you want to travel long distance from major city to major city. But just try inching across the North coast of Spain on a "stopping" train or, even worse, crossing a border into Portugal. Sure, there are buses that rocket along at a fair old pace but try being a 63/73-year-old confined in a bus for 9 hours and not being able to stand up, let alone walk up and down. For example, we wanted to go from Ferradosa on the Douro in Portugal to Salamanca in Spain, 141 km as the crow flies, takes 3 hours by car and 9 hours by public transport. By comparison, Barcelona to Salamanca, 657 km as the crow flies, takes 11.5 hours by car and 5.2 hours by public transport. Oh, and BTW, a quote for a taxi from Ferradosa to Salamanca was in excess of €400. We'll revisit this comparison when attempting to get from Santiago de Compostela (in Spain) to Valença in Portugal.

We abandoned our street cred (green conscience) and hired a car from Bilbao to Santiago de Compostela, 

And then we started driving westwards. 

Above [top-bottom, l-r]: Good night and au revoir Bilbao and the Plaza Nueva; Good morning Castro Urdiales; with your stately buildings; and your all-in-one seaward costa "furniture".

We hadn't had much time for breakfast, getting the bus from the centre of Bilbao to the airport to pick up the car but the most friendly woman at the hire counter convinced us that a stop at Castro Urdiales would be just the biscuit. And so it was. If brunch takes place between breakfast and lunch, how does one label the midpoint between breakfast and brunch? Whatever it is we had it in Castro during a short but pleasant interlude before resuming the journey proper with los Picos in mind. Destination Fuente Dé.

​Los Picos

Above [top-bottom, l-r]: looking across at los Picos from the NW, across the R Deva, near Buelles on the Cantabria/Asturias border; Fuente Dé, los Picos, the cable car station from the Parador; Dramatic peaks; green valleys and sheer mountains from Fuente Dé.

​​We flew through los Picos, driving 460km from Bilbao to Orviedo in 7 and a half hours plus an hour or so of breaks. Shameful! 

It just served to demonstrate to us how vast and varied is the Iberian Peninsular. And this only included the NW quadrant of Spain with a bit of Portugal thrown in. At least an entire week should have been devoted to los Picos. My only excuse was feeling a bit too crap to do some of the walking required to maximise the appreciation of the mountains. It seems as if Shan and I both experienced a recurrence of Covid ... how many times do we have get it? At least 4 for me and each time seems to sap my long-term energy and breathing that little bit more. 

​That's enough of my whingeing! We were headed to Oviedo for its culture. That included its food culture.

The drive along the North Coast (well a teeny bit inland from it) is a triumph of relatively recent Spanish engineering with a fine dual carriageway traversing vast viaducts spanning the gorges of the many rivers that enter the Bay of Biscay a short way downstream. This arrangement continued for the 130 km that bypassed Santander before becoming even more spectacular after turning suddenly southwards along the Cantabria/Asturias border and along the twists and turns of the River Deva. After Potes, and a brief excursion to Fuente Dé, this road becomes increasingly narrow and twisty through the foothills of los Picos to the South. It didn't really let up until we'd soldiered on for 4 hours to complete the remaining 353 km to Oviedo. The scenery continued to be spectacular but it was definitely a relief to finally reach Oviedo and ditch the car for a few days.

Whether the extra 50 km or so that we travelled (slowly) as a result of missing a turn in Riaño made much difference is cause for speculation ... speculation that can only be allayed by another foray into the Parque Nacional de los Picos de Europa and spending at least a week nosing about the area.

Apologies for this beginning to sound a little like a Nick Broomfield saga[1], but that's how it's started to feel for me ... 

Oviedo

... and Oviedo, too, where we had booked our hotel early on in the planning process, the city having been heartily recommended to us by various friends whose opinions we respected. However, after our booking had been extant for quite some time the hotel contacted me to apologise/explain that Oviedo's annual festival would be taking place, literally on their doorstep and that there would be loud noise at least until 4 am if not 6 am ... we all know the type.

We deliberated, eventually deciding to go with the accommodation despite the health warning. It would be difficult to relocate to such a convenient place in the city at that point.

Above: They happen everywhere - booze, music, and fast food; perhaps the food options are a little more imaginative; the balcony from a lounge on our floor of the Soho Boutique Oviedo.

To the management's credit, we had been located to the rear of the hotel for our three nights and the exterior noise was negligible. The night and day managers were also solicitous and provided us with as much information as they could to make our stay as comfortable as possible. Yes. We enjoyed Oviedo.

We had a great time there once we'd settled in and come to terms with the fact that not all of Spain in September is warm all the time. A few extra bits of clothing purchased later, and a whizz around the delights of the old town, and we were ready to roll.

Before we get to the art and the fine-dining this is probably as suitable an interlude as any to tackle the subject of cider in the Pais Vasco (Basque Region), Cantabria and Asturias[2]. In short, it is weird. Especially the pouring of it! If one chose to pour it as we might elsewhere the result would be a glassful of stagnant piss. To avoid this debacle, it has to be poured from a great height by an expert who performs this tradition with great elegance, holding both the bottle and the glass and pouring without looking at either. To make things more complicated an absolute maximum of 2 cm of liquid must enter the glass and be necked immediately before it returns to said piss. It is too complicated for me to describe the whole art form in a single blog but here is a handy link if you'd like to find out more[3].

Above [top-bottom, l-r]: This guy's somewhat of an expert (pic borrowed from[3]) although we did actually see someone who performed a similar exercise behind his back; a young lady pouring a couple of shots for us, discreetly hiding any spillage; we paused for a nanosecond to take the picture and, bingo, it had lost all its life; there are various cheating gadgets provided to customers of some restaurants ... this one at Casa Ramón, which nonetheless had fabulous grub.

Oviedo is a relatively small city but is packed with hidden delights in its Old Town, which dates back to Medieval times, having started life around 720. It is easy to be drawn to just wandering through the ancient lanes although you will soon pass some serious magnificence, too, from the cathedral to handsome banks' headquarters for which this extended region has become world renowned. And just to provide the crowning glory, there is a comprehensive art museum that extends to Dali and Picasso.

And all this in a city that has also become a culinary Mecca for everything from tapas (we've left pintxos country now) to world class fine dining. 

So I'm going to leave most of this to a few selected pictures ...

Above: random photos from strolling around the city ...

... there's so much to see, you'll just have to go there yourself!

We started running out of time with only 3 days in the city. There was one big treat we'd promised ourselves, viz. a full-on gourmet meal in this foodie town. For various reasons we ended up at Casa Fermin ...

​... but before we took ourselves off for our feast we "popped" into the rather magnificent Fine Arts Museum of Asturias that almost adjoins the cathedral. It doesn't look like much from the outside as it does once you enter and then there is a revelation. For those who are experts in Spanish art it probably requires several visits; we were able to appreciate the vast collection but were stopped in our tracks by the work of Picasso and Salvador Dali (the Metamorfosis de Angeles, particularly, blew Shan, our artist, away). 

Unfortunately, while the museum is free, the receptionist was a bit grumpy and insisted that we put our bags in lockers in reception. Fair enough but he didn't explain that cameras would be OK.

SO WE GOT NO PHOTOS. Y'all will have to go and see it for yourselves. And while you're about it, pop into Casa Fermin for the tasting menu ...

Above: A meal for one person (there was also a five-part amuse bouche). Food and service were exemplary.

And then we were off ... a quick (and probably last) Sidra (Cider in Asturias) and then our last kip in the Soho Boutique Oviedo before heading off towards Santiago di Compostela where we would retire our hire car for a while.

So we made the most of it by dropping down to the coast at Luarca for a wander and lunch. Shan described the town as: "buzzy ... apart from the bloody (sic) seagull that tried to make off with our lunch!"
​
​I think she (Shan) was more freaked out by the baby eels that garnished our exotic lunch special of prawns, potatoes and egg served up by the award-winning Sidreria el Duernu (see below).

Above [top-bottom, l-r]: The elusive coastal train line pops out high up at Luarca; the once rather grand Mesón de la Mar, now seemingly closed, still has a presence overlooking the harbour; a renovators' dream on the waterfront; another renovators' dream a little further back from the sea; baby eels; the "scuff" on our hire car. 

The last part of our car journey to Santiago de Compostela followed the spectacular mountain autoroute with even more spectacular viaducts and mountain passes reaching up to 698 m above sea level. This highest of passes took us through some pretty dense fog, which must be a little rare in September.

We dropped the hire car off at Europcar at the Santiago airport where the receiving clerk took an inordinate amount of time crawling around in front of the car, emerging to point out the scuff marks below the grill (see above). We hadn't really checked the car when we picked it up but were certain we hadn't nerfed anything along the way. I've never seen a hire company receiving-clerk perform such a close detailed inspection before.  Anyway we accepted we hadn't done our due diligence on collection and conceded that we might need to fork out perhaps around €30 to polish off the black residue. 

​Nope: €147.18 PLUS a €50 admin charge! Caveat emptor when taking advantage of Booking.com's "special rewards". Thankfully our second rental was directly through Avis.

And now for our grand finale to our Spanish sortie

Everyone knows of the existence of Santiago de Compostela. Most people I've spoken to have left me with the impression that it was a bit of a hippie destination with a religious twist. Both Shan and I were also of that impression, although she had blown some of her inheritance on a two nights' treat in the Parador de Santiago de Compostela. 

The Parador has been through various iterations (it is more than 500 years-old and very possibly the oldest hotel in the world) but is now a 5-star hotel. It was built as a royal hospital at the beginning of the 16th century to accommodate pilgrims traveling to Santiago and to administer medicine to those who'd arrived a little worse for wear.

There it joined the cathedral, that had been consecrated in 1211, flanking it on the Praza do Obradoiro. They were joined later by the Colexio de San Xerome[4] and, in 1766, the Pazo de Raxoi[5], turning the Praza into a giant quadrangle, the size of which astonished Shan and me the moment we clapped eyes on it. 

These days the Praza (plaza in English) forms a Mecca for the pilgrims who descend on it from far and wide but most significantly from ​the city of Puy-en-Velay, which is more than 1200 km away[6] and is the site of the monumental statue of Notre Dame de France[7].

​These days our fellow travellers lolling about in the Praza swapping anecdotes and queueing up for group tours could just as easily have meandered on foot or, quelle horreur on bicycles, for as little as 100 km over 7 days[8] (even my Covid ravaged body could manage 14 km a day with a bit of an overnight razzle). Caminoisti indeed.

The benefit to Santiago must be immense, though. There are literally miles of alleyways with wall-to-wall restaurants and bars and even this old curmudgeon was happy to indulge in the cornucopia of Spanish food, tapas or otherwise, during the couple of lunchtimes and evenings we were there. And, of course, having lodgings in the 5-star Parador was a ten-star bonus. Thank you Shan.

 Above [top-bottom, l-r]: The ornate entrance to the Colexio de San Xerome; The once traffic laden streets below the Plaza now form pleasant walking spaces to explore the wider delights of Santiago; here a self-appointed "influencer" struts her stuff; looking back up the street to the cathedral to see what she's talking about; our tranquil room in the parador; there are many squares in SdeC - this couple were spotted in the Praza da Quintana de Vivos on the rear of the cathedral; this bloke was definitely a hardened caminoisto - check out the backpack, the suntan and the the flamboyant walking pole; caminoisti complete with t-shirts and selfie-stick; Shan with Ramón María del Valle-Inclán[9] in Alameda Park[10]; a couple of smart ladies walking across the same park en route to the shops; Geraniums soften the barred windows of the convent[11]; Shan liked this take on the sunset with the lady on the poster peering around at the fading red orb.

Coming Next

 ... overcoming the extraordinary challenge of getting from somewhere in Spain to somewhere in Portugal without a hire car and the extortionate drop-off fee that entails.

There is also a river in it, which was part of our raison d'être for the month-long trip.

[Endnotes]:

1. Summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Broomfield 
2. Probably elsewhere, too.
3. https://thecraftycask.com/craft-cider/how-to-asturian-cider/
4. The Colexio de San Xerome building was originally constructed in the 17th century as part of a monastic school (college) and now houses the Rectorate of the University of Santiago de Compostela.
5. Pazo de Raxoi ('Palace of Raxoi') is a neoclassical palace completed in 1766, it is located on the square, in front of the cathedral. It is currently the seat of the city council and regional government.
6. ... and a total amplitude of more than 14,000 metres; no wonder the earlier caminoisti occasionally needed medical attention at the parador!
7. The Statue of Notre-Dame de France is a real technical feat of the 19th century. It was created with the metal of 213 cannons taken from the Russians during the Crimean War and offered by Napoleon III to the city of Le Puy en Velay.
   Work of the sculptor Jean-Marie Bonnassieux, it is 22,70 m high and weighs 835 tons. The Statue was commissioned in 1860 and  was completely renovated in 2013.
8. Read all about it at https://caminoways.com/
9. Ramón María del Valle-Inclán y de la Peña was a Spanish dramatist, novelist, and member of the Spanish Generation of 98. His work was considered radical in its subversion of the traditional Spanish theatre in the early 20th century.
   
10. The Alameda Park is the most prominent public park and the main lung of Santiago de Compostela, located halfway between two of its most emblematic elements, the University Campus and the historic centre where the Cathedral is located.
11. The Monasterio de San Pelayo de Antealtares is now a Spanish convent of an advent of Benedictine nuns ... not quite sure that the bars on all the windows of this massive structure remain required?

Above: Guggenheim by Shan - she was the one[1] that captured the sun, smoke and silhouette.

Bilbao was a revelation. Personally, it moistens my tired old eyes every time I think about it. The synergies evoke joy and frustration. Joy because of how the old city has been preserved and the interstices have been crafted alongside the Guggenheim.

Frustration at how few cities around the world have managed to emulate the imagination and synergies that have been achieved here in Spain. The way it all fits together has taken vision and integration to another level, accommodating many forms of travel and architecture to join the dots in a way that is most rare.

It also symbolises the path of Spain from a relatively decrepit nation not that many decades ago to a world-leading country that has a lot to teach its neighbours in Europe and aspirant nations further afield. Sometimes nations need inspiration to make a sea change and Bilbao's city fathers grasped the nettle[2].

But let's take a step back. The city is not just about the Guggenheim. After all it's only been there for fewer than 30 years. 

Our sojourn in Bilbao started in the old part of the city, as our sojourns often do. 

Arriving in town (Casco Viejo)

It wasn't particularly auspicious to start with. We'd lugged our heavy bags a fair old way ... 2.5 km with little wheels across the cobbles only to find we couldn't actually find our accommodation, which was supposedly in one of the entrances to the Plaza Nuevo. We had also been expecting entrance codes for access to our apartment but, in fairness, were only due access at 3 PM. Pintxos beckoned; we were hungry after our journey. The closest bar to where we thought our accommodation might be was the Gure Toki and we were able to kill two birds with one stone: eat some delicious pintxos and find out where the entrance was to our accommodation. We still had to acquire the means to access our room, though, which arrived pretty much at the 11th hour, starting a process the first step of which required us to get through the front door, which turned out to be virtually unmarked, required a code and opened directly on to the Calle Chevas Ekain, one of the side-streets providing entrance to the Plaza. It then became obvious that we needed to shift our luggage up four flights of stairs and go through another code entry process to get into the "apartment". Until this point, it hadn't been very clear[3] that we would still have to use a code for our very cramped bedroom, which shared toilet facilities with two other bedrooms.

It was absolutely the worst room of our month-long tour and it certainly wasn't the cheapest.

But Bilbao! The rest of Bilbao just made up for any quibbles we had with our digs for two nights ... and heaven knows why we would wish for cooking facilities, shared or otherwise, when we actually overlooked the greatest pintxos Mecca in the Basque country.

Above: the dingy alley and the unmarked door leading to the bottom of the stairs to our room; the daunting stairs to our room ... even without heavy suitcases.

Do the Pintxos never stop coming

The answer is, not when you're in the Basque Region. So you might as well buy a decent bottle of Rioja (the white's pretty good) and let the good times roll. But before that, we took a stroll around the Old Town Mecca of Bilbao, which pretty much surrounds the cathedral[4]. Gotta get a bit of kulcha to earn the Plaza experience. The thing that caught my imagination on our peroration was a brutalist tower (see pic below) that appeared to be more than 12 storeys high and suspended one end of a bridge across to the Etxebarri Parkea hilltop on the opposite side of it from the nearby River Nervión.

A huge amount of the metropolitan energy in Bilbao since the 1990s has been directed at its de-industrialisation. The Guggenheim museum was central to this but that magnificent addition to the Basque city's landscape is just part of a grander scheme to transform the city into one of the world's best places in which to live and to visit. Either "my" tower predated this to some Brutalist period in Bilbao's history or it was part of this movement and chose to emulate that earlier architectural epoch in the 1990s.

So I have spent an inordinate amount of time on t'internet trying to find out more about "my" tower to no avail. Maybe a reader or two of this blog knows the answers, if so pleeeeez leave a comment pointing me in the right direction. I was so preoccupied with it that I neglected to find out much about the cathedral [4].

Cathedrals, towers and plazas led us back to the Nueva and the Gure Toki, a decent bottle of Rioja Blanca and evening grub. In Shan's case the grub was Iberian Foie and Beef Cheek Pintxo. Bliss, as she has reminded me daily for the intervening 6 weeks it has taken to get this down on paper. I had something forgettable on that night so I do wish my dear wife would just recreate the cheeky Cheeks in her inimitable fashion, drool, drool, as I was accorded a mere nibble to taste on that evening.

Above [top-bottom' l-r]: My little conundrum was very tall, this picture taken from near its base; and here with a long lens from the other side, quite a bit further away downriver; next 4 are assorted food stalls; gargantuan pork scratchings; Shan surveys the ultimate pintxos bar - in the fresh food market; stained glass roof and (art nouveau?" structure; an aerial view of part of the fresh food market with red umbrellas outside[5].

Walking tour of the Casco Viejo (Old town)

The next morning we were expecting to go on a walking tour of the older parts of the city before moving on to check out the Guggenheim. This being Spain nothing happens too early and we were finished breakfasting around 9AM with time to kill for our 10AM start. Time to kill for a location that appeared to be pretty much adjacent to the river and the magnificent Erriberako merkatua (Fresh Food Market). All we had to do was look out for "the" red umbrella. We strolled around the stalls in which everything food-wise seemed to be bigger and better than anything we'd seen anywhere else in the world, including the ultimate pork scratchings that immediately brought our great friend and inspiration for this rail trip, David Janata (DJ), to mind.

Come around 9:50 we thought we should look for a group and a red umbrella in the piazza outside. There was a group forming next to where someone was erecting red umbrellas. After a short while we asked the small crowd of people if they were the walking tour group and it turned out they weren't and they moved off towards a waiting bus. After another interval we asked the guy who was finishing off erecting the umbrellas if he was the group leader. He seemed a little irritated by the question and denied all knowledge of a walking tour.

At 10:15 we rather irritatedly decided to abandon the idea of the tour and set off towards the Guggenheim along la Nervión's right bank (Orilla Derecha/Eskuineko ertza). We hadn't gone far, just around a gentle bend in the river, when we came apon a largish group of people gathered around a man with a furled red umbrella and spouting off about Bilbao's history. We hovered on the outskirts of the group for a minute or two and couldn't hear very much so decided to push on towards the Guggenheim on our own.

Embracing the Guggenheim.

Above [top-bottom, l-r]: Only in Bilbao - I don't know what it is and probably don't want to; attention to detail in the facade of the station across the river; a modern mingitorio[6]; quality modern architecture and Shan's view of the Zubizuri (bridge); Shan on the bridge, which swoops toward the gap between the two tower blocks[7]; the sculpture ‘Las Sirgueras’; the artwork on the underside of the Salbeko Bridge.
​
​Parallel handsome boulevards, purely for use for Active Travel[8], adorn both sides of the river as one strides from Bilbao's old town towards the world-esteemed gallery, built on reclaimed industrial land on what had been the edge of "town". The swooping sweeping White Bridge[9] is a fine example of how this urban restoration has been comprehensively thought through from both aesthetic and practical viewpoints and reinforces the seamless integration of this beautiful city.

Given the input of the world renowned architects (such as Frank Gehry, Norman Foster, Zaha Hadid and Santiago Calatrava)[10] to Bilbao's city planning it is interesting to cast one's mind back to Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann's massive urban renewal programme of new boulevards, parks and public works in Paris in the mid 19th century. It might be a lesser known "fact" that he was responsible for the large scale introduction of pissoirs[6] in his new street architecture. This was to lure Parisian men away from the city's walls. It is tempting to conject that one of the great and the good involved in the redesign of Bilbao was delivering a nod to Haussman with the urinal/pissoir that we noticed soon after heading off along Nervión's right bank.

Having crossed the White Bridge, one'd be pretty hard hearted not to be affected by the Las Sirgueras sculpture by artist Dora Salazar, which pays tribute to the life of the "rope girls", women who towed vessels along the estuary using only a rope and their own strength.

By the time you reach the Guggenheim itself it's almost as if you've reached another day in your discovery. The exterior, the smoke and water shenanigans and the intricate integration of the museum with the 1970s Salbeko Bridge, not to mention Louise Bourgeois's Maman[11], the almost 9m spider, and Jeff Koons's more than 13m Puppy[12].

​and that's before you go inside which we very nearly didn't do ...

Above [l-r, top-bottom]:The museum's complex structure is multi-faceted and extremely difficult to capture in one go - this first picture was caught while approaching the main building from upstream along the Nervión's Margen Izquierda having crossed the river shortly after abandoning our "tour"; Maman[11]; Looking upstream from downstream; Puppy[12] note the weed growing from more or less fox terrier tail position.

Diving into the Guggenheim​

We'd walked up to the Guggenheim, walked past the Guggenheim, had elevenses staring at the Guggenheim, moped around Puppy ...

"Should we try and go inside the museum?" I asked Shan tentatively ... I had neglected to buy advance tickets - there'd been so much to concentrate on organising the trip, it had slipped my mind!
"I'd love to!" my spouse exclaimed.
"Let's give it a go ..." both of us were already moving in the direction of the entrance to the building.

Less than 10 minutes later we had cleared the entrance gates having paid a mere €27. Being completely venerable, my share of that had been €9. How the hell did we almost miss out on that opportunity through ignorance and or lack of initiative? 

One of the best times of our lives ensued. There's not much point trying to itemise in text what we saw, from the classics  through avant-garde to completely wacky. The only possibility of conveying a smidgeon of our emotions will be to pick a few favourite exhibits 

Above [top-bottom, l-r]: from the inside looking upwards and out through the museum's structure; Richard Serra - the Matter of Time; Soft Shuttlecock - Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Brugge; Jenny Holzer - installation for Bilbao; Yayoi Kusama, Infinity Mirrored Room - A Wish for Human Happiness Calling From Beyond the Universe; part of El Anatsui's gigantic sculpture, Rising Sea, made from discarded liquor bottle tops; Andy Warhol's self portrait and Orange Disaster; 3 pictures from a major showing of the works of Martha Jungwirth; Yoshitomo Nara - My Drawing Room 2008, Bedroom Included.

​Joining the old to the new

I have already enthused about the holistic approach that has been taken with the "de-industrialisation" of Bilbao. I honestly believe the only way to experience the visceral sensations it evokes, as opposed to the intellectual - all those venerable architects for starters, is to actually go there. 

As we walked back to the Plaza Nuevo for a well-earned bottle of Rioja and plate of pintxos, we felt something like panic to be leaving the next day. 

So it is goodbye from me and goodbye from her ... this was only the second stop in Spain and we'd already acknowledged we'd tried to embrace too much in a mere month. A slow return will be imminent. Anyone care to join us?

Above [top 5]: The museum, bridge and landscaped boulevard, including a statue of Ramón Rubial Cavia, Spanish Socialist leader, blend together in seamless harmony; [next 2] complimented by the architecture across the Nervión; [bottom 1] the quiet local trains glide across a manicured lawn with the old and the new in the background; [bottom 2] providing a tranquil setting for wedding photos. 

Also ... afterword, perhaps

I promise this entire Iberian series of blogs won't be a day-by-day, blow-by-blow account but just this once, in this special place, and lubricated by another bottle of lovely white Rioja, we were in a reflective mood as we spent our last evening in Bilbao's memorable Plaza Nueva. The thing is, these sweeping Spanish squares, however much they may or may not have grown out of bullfighting and accommodating the aficionados of old, they now provide a multi-faceted recreational home for Spaniards and their visitors. Young, old, families, friends and visitors all join together for an evening's entertainment (and even betterment), often in the fading sunshine and even when the weather is less clement. This evening on September 14 had everything and we exploited it to the full ...

Above [top-bottom, l-r]: we returned to the Plaza in the mid-afternoon to grab a quick lunch; possibly the most beautiful hair we'd ever seen; we were waylaid by a very friendly hen party while we were en route for a siesta; post siesta and the sun is sinking over the surrounding structures; 4 monochrome vignettes over the evening from intimate conversations to a philosophy lecture; Shan is lurking with intent, cellphone camera in hand; spot the result ... it involved new young friends sharing a nightcap and enthusing with me about what they were going to do the next day; quintessential Spain ... young boys and a football while their families intermingle, eat, drink and put the world to rights. 

Coming Next

We pick up a hire car for the next leg of our journey across Northern Spain. There were trains and buses but we were soon grasping that we might have over extended ourselves somewhat ...

[Endnotes]:

1. ​... and I am so jealous. 
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guggenheim_Museum_Bilbao
3. We weren't alone in this ... reading the customer comments (stupidly after the fact) revealed that many others hadn't understood the communal nature of the bathroom etc.
4. The Bilboko Donejakue Katedrala https://catedralbilbao.com/public-visit/
5. Picture copied from Google Maps
6. Mingitorios! Yes they are called that in Spanish and "pixategia" in Basque, and perform a similar function to the Parisian pissoirs.
7. If you wish to know more about the bridge and its controversies it's worth taking a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zubizuri
8. Walking, wheeling and cycling
9. ZubiZuri in Basque
10. For more details of architects, see https://www.bilbaoturismo.net/BilbaoTurismo/en/arquitectos
11. Maman https://www.guggenheim-bilbao.eus/en/the-collection/works/maman
12. Puppy https://www.guggenheim-bilbao.eus/en/the-collection/works/puppy

Here we go: this is where our real European journey starts in earnest. Wherever we go in Europe has to start with the Eurostar. Surprise, surprise, the most expensive "mileage" is that which originates in London and passes through le Tunnel.

Eurostar is also, from our experience, the least reliable and the most expensive km for km. We each had an Interrail Pass that theoretically allowed us 10 days of 1st class travel for "free" (i.e. included the price of a pass for two months). Except there IS one little catch: travel in the top class trains  (TGV/inOu! in France, Eurostar through the Channel etc) requires that you purchase a seat ticket over and above the Interrial Pass. First class seats on Eurostar for both of us in both directions cost an additional €80 (approx €0.11 per km) and for both of us in both directions from Paris to Hendaye cost an additional €44 (approx €0.05 per km)[1]. These were our prices when we booked them. If you want the latest almost infinite detail, you may like to follow the trail on one of the most comprehensive internet sites known to man or beast[2]. 

Just one little note, too: of all the 11 "overground" trains we caught during our travels, only one was cancelled/delayed. I do believe it was the Eurostar return from Paris to St Pancras..

Everything about French trains was not altogether jolly, though. We had booked our overnight Paris hotel in Montparnasse so that we could have a relaxed evening and next morning before we had to board our inOu! heading South. The outside of the station was visible almost from the moment we left the IBIS. Finding our way into the building and further into the bowels of the station to catch our train were rather fraught and probably took another half hour.

C'est la Vie, we got the train and were finally on our way to our holiday-proper. Shan even had time to stroll around the concourse sporting her baggy trousers while the 10.11 to Hendaye shone brightly on the screen and the Fledge Wine[3] sticker on my suitcase got wind of its eventual destination in the Douro Valley.

​The inOu! train was typically prompt and we arrived in Hendaye on the button at 14:47. The little stopping train from this French town into Spain gave us a bit of a preview of crossing Spanish borders with its EU neighbours. Logically, the inOu! would have trotted the last 25 km to San Sebastián but we soon grew to realise that nothing was that simple with trains in Spain. Apart from lugging luggage from the main station to a little side line less than 100m away, it wasn't too bad and were in San Sebastián by 4 PM, lugging our luggage to the old Town.

Above [top to bottom, l-r]: Me with the train's speed indicator in the top left hand corner; we flashed through French estuary towns on our way to Donostia-San Sebastián; dragging our bags through the cobbled Old Town en route to the hotel we spotted our first destination of the many, many bars in the pintxos zone ... the posher ones only opened, generally, at 7PM; but there were oases that stayed awake all day.

Our pad in Donostia / San Sebastián

​ We'd been given a fabulous upgrade[4] on our apartment, from one room facing backwards on to an alley to a penthouse suite with a sweeping view of the glorious San Sebastián (SS) bay and waterfront. We'd been to SS a few years earlier but stayed way out of town and now we were in the prime spot in the Old Town with its sea views and glorious pintxos[5] nightlife.

We'd deliberately gone for something a bit special on the first couple of nights of our holiday proper and the SANSEBay Boutique Hotel definitely didn't disappoint. We were allowed a small interlude to settle in our room before reporting for complimentary glasses of Txakoli and an introduction to SS by a local member of staff. The Old Town has a bewildering array of pintxo Bars, many of them extraordinarily popular and our hosts had compiled a list of their 11 favourites for guests, one or two we already knew about and the others promising a whole new adventure. I think we managed 7 over two evenings and one lunchtime. The trick with pintxos is theoretically to have one small course in each and then move on to the next.

This is an impossible feat. The array of delicious dishes is legendary so we seldom escaped with less than three. The only exception was La Vina where one course was the order of the day but we've been there 3 times now for the fabled burnt cheesecake. What a way to round off an evening.

​The only other thing we needed from our gracious hostess was advice on how to transfer ourselves from SS to Bilbao. In the first blog of this series we spoke of the snail-like progress of local trains across the Northern Spanish Coast. Turns out Spain has a highly sophisticated and very reasonably-priced bus network that goes at least three-times as fast as the local trains.

Pintxos are go ...

We were freed to pursue pintxos persistently.

Above [top-bottom, l-r]: Shan and I were pretty much first through the door of the Tamboril at 7 PM, having doorstepped the place 5 minutes early and I am toasting her through the window on to the alley; these ladies were a little late and are looking wistfully through the same piece of glass at 7:20; there comes a point when its is necessary to move on ... here to the Borda Berri (BB); The manager was extraordinary in the way she never missed a beat serving patrons in the order they entered the bar; delicious ravioli was one of our BB three; and then we found some new friends who insisted we share their sublime, juicy entrecôte; les Belles starting off a long 2022 afternoon, mainly at the Bergara Bar; two years later and Shan is sporting a double portion of the esteemed cheesecake.

Our first night of pintxoing started pretty much bang on at 7 PM to make sure we could make it into the 2024 Michelin listed joint just off the SS Old Town's Plaza de la Constitucion. We were lucky we did and ensconced ourselves in the window looking smugly out into the street. The pintxos were too delicious for us to depart after just one each so we hung in for three rounds before feeling guilty enough to make way for other punters.

We didn't have to walk far to our next bar on the list, the Borda Berri. By this stage we didn't need our list to point to the selected establishments; they were the ones with the doors straining against the buttocks of the aspirant punters now trying simultaneously to shelter from the rain that had recently started. According to our list, this bar's customer service was ensured by the manager who was renowned for never allowing a queue jumper (the queue was by no means linear) to push in. And so it came to pass and Shan and I agreed that it would be wise to order three pinxtos to share. Yum. 

Now, strictly speaking pintxos are not supposed to constitute a main meal but 6 different platters each had pretty much filled us up ... definitely if we were going to finish off the evening just up the road by revisiting our experience two years' previously of "burnt cheesecake" at La Viña . Shan and Kerry[6] had insisted on that occasion that they'd not have any and then proceeded to eat half of mine. On this September's excursion my dear wife was nowhere near us much of a shrinking violet as the pics above will testify.

This first evening had been accompanied by some pretty heavy rain and while it made the experience in the packed bars even more cosy, we were thankful our hotel was not much more than a stone's throw from the main attractions.
​
Another day in paradise

A massive storm played out through our Velux windows through the middle of the night and we woke up to a dull and drizzly day. Time for some shopping and sorting out our travel arrangements for the next day, requiring a walk through the shopping district and across the river into the station. Before lunch of course!

 Above [top-bottom, l-r]: inside the Bar Antonio Boulevard provides a gentle setting for those of us who like to lunch, as many Donostians do; often accompanied by a dog in the middle of the day; others are lured into the bountiful delicatessens; your guess is as good as mine but there is a chain in Spain of these that evidently are dressed appropriately every morning!  

Good time for a Siesta to prepare for the second evening's foray into Pintxoland. This time we were sort of going to break with tradition and try one of the new-fangled bars where a table could be booked for a meal. 

Last night in Donostia-SS

And lo, when we emerged, the thoroughfares of the Old Town had been transformed by sunshine. SS has a lot of rain - roughly 1,500 mm (59 in) annually. It had started mizzling almost the moment we'd got off the train the night before, climaxed through the night and drizzled throughout most of the day. Now the pavement cafés were thronging with punters. We raised a metaphorical glass to serendipity that we had made a reservation at the Ssua Arde Donostia for the first part of our evening. It was one of the few where booking was welcomed on our list of 11 recommendations from our hostess at the SANSEBay .

In much of Spain people look at you weirdly if you arrive expecting to eat before 8:30 PM. Even then, if you do arrive a 8:30, you'll be the first. Some time between 9 and 10 is the norm. I seem to recall that we'd booked at Ssua for 8:30, counting on the odd sharpener or two beforehand.

We hadn't counted on the sunshine. Every bar with casual, outside seating was heaving at 7:00. No worries, we thought, Ssua had a bar as one walked in so sharpeners could be enjoyed for 90-120 minutes before we sat down to eat. This was theoretically true but, at 7:00, our chosen hostelry was a wasteland. No-one else huddled around a bottle of ardo zuri lehorra[7] or anything else, including vino blanco seco. The staff didn't seem all that pleased to see us either. Neither did I ingratiate myself by grinningly asking for "uno bano bino blanco seco, por favor", which for 49 years I had thought, and convinced Shan, meant "one glass of dry white wine please" while it really meant "one bath of dry white ???? please". Either my intervening Spanish/Basque interlocutors had been polite or sadistic?

Some had delivered a glass of dry white wine, others a glass of sherry ... I had just assumed it was my poor enunciation in Spanish.

We did eventually manage to extract a bottle of marvellous dry white from the counter and retired, chastened to a small table in the bar. Another couple arrived a while later and were taken to a restaurant table deeper inside the establishment. We asked if we could also be taken to our table and the staff happily obliged. W carried on drinking our wine in a crowd of 4 and eventually ordered our first course just after 8:30.

​Above [top-bottom, l-r]: even the casual bar just down from our hotel had opened; and all the bars in in the Plaza de la Constitucion were rammed; there is a lot of meat[8] in the amazing Spanish/Basque cuisine as our first and second courses at Ssua reveal.

​The half-eaten food in the first picture above is testament to the alacrity with which we consumed it before a bit of a pause and some exquisite ribeye.  The night was building up a momentum and we felt obliged after our splendid mains to make a bigger dent into our list of 11.

We headed off for Txepetxa but decided en route that the time had passed that evening to get stuck into some anchovies so we swerved away to the Bar Sport, which we had bypassed earlier due to the huge crowd ballooning from the door. This time was a little quieter but the atmosphere didn't quite float our boat.

"Come on, we need a swansong in La Vina," one of us said to the other. The other didn't demur and off we trotted.

Above [top-bottom, l-r]: this is it; we made some more young friends; Shan eyeballing the staff to try to score an outside table; outmanoeuvred by an American on tour.

When we did eventually turn our eyes away from the Old Town and its pintxo bars, it would, without doubt, have been anticlimactic to march unceremoniously back to the hotel. A stroll was required to complete the balmy evening and we meandered through quiet streets and along the waterfront to drink in the fine night air which we'd been so rudely denied by the previous evenings's deluge.

Above [top-bottom, l-r]: dead straight narrow streets lend an aura to a post-prandial stroll; one or two nightclubs with smoking restrictions; a grand hotel and restaurant grace the promenade; a young couple sharing a romantic interlude on the seawall[9] having arrived on their monocycles; the waterfront surmounted the beacon that is a lit up representation of Christ, the Monumento al Sagrado Corazón de Jesús attached to the Motako Gaztelua[10] on top of the mountain.

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Moving day - off to Bilbao

It was with mixed feelings that we cleared out our loft and set off with our wheelie-cases for Bilbao. A city we hadn't visited before, with so many new things to see, but SS was becoming an old friend and we felt as if we were forsaking an affair we had just started.

​And the sun was shining.

​Now there was a short walk to the station, and a bus to catch, for the next important step in our adventure

Above [top-bottom, l-r]: sunshine edged the grandeur from our rooftop vigil over the bay and the mountain foothills behind; a last glance backwards at the opulent dwellings reflected in the Urumea; the opulent quirkiness of Bilbao was not going disappoint as we wheeled our way from the bus station to the jewel of the city's Old Town, the contradictorily named Plaza Nueva, where we had accommodation reserved.

Coming next

Wow, Bilbao. Some of the grandeur of San Sebastián juxtaposed with the architectural flare lighting up the Guggenheim.

[Endnotes]:

1. ​Seat tickets in Spain and Portugal seemed even better value than France but you've got the gist and I couldn't be bothered to do the additional arithmetic.
2. The Man in Seat Sixty-One ... https://www.seat61.com/index.html
3. Part of our inspiration for the Douro portion of the trip had been gleaned from the Portuguese-inspired wines and Leon Coetzee's enthusiasm for them expressed during a visit to the Nel family Boplaas winery in Calitzdorp, South Africa ... https://www.marksadventures.co.uk/classic-blogs/around-the-cape-in-144-days-gourmet-food-and-calitzdorp
4. There were huge benefits of visiting this popular resort during the week rather than at the weekend ... probably saved us literally €€€€
5. Pintxos are known as Tapas outside of the Basque Country.
6. On that occasion Shan and her sister (Kerry a.k.a. Kinks) had insisted after a long lunch of pintxos I needn't get some cheesecake for them because they had eaten enough already
7. Vino blanco seco in Basque.
8. Later on our Iberian tour we stopped off at Casa Julian but that will be described in a forthcoming edition.
9. Yes I did ask their permission for this "street" photograph, which may have been spoiled slightly by the wide grin he gave us as I was taking it.
10. A medieval castle on the mountain top.

Above: Martha Jungwirth, part of the Australidelphia series, photo by MH taken in the Guggenheim September 2024.

Excruciating flights to and from South Africa in February 2024 pushed us towards thinking again. Friends had recently done the Interrail "thing" and regaled us with its delights. In some trepidation we decided to give it a go. 

The whole thing almost collapsed in a costly mess at the eleventh hour; more of that to come later on in this episode. First the painstaking planning.

Planning the itinerary

A broad outline was key to the planning process. Where would we go? This was kind of essential but not too much of a conundrum after we'd barely scratched at the surface of North-Western Spain a couple of years previously. There had been so much more to explore. But more sane people than us had routinely settled for air flights or shifting their cars by ferry from Portsmouth to Bilbao or Santander. Why would we struggle across England and France by train just to get to first base (i.e. Donostia - San Sebastián).

​Initial investigations suggested it may not be that much of a struggle at all ... just 8 hours from London to Hendaye and then a short hop on a local train to Donostia. Of course it wasn't quite that simple but nonetheless doable with a few contingencies like an overnight stop in Paris in Montparnasse. 

And so it was that we took the plunge and invested in two first class Interrail passes. These allowed us to choose how many months and the number of days of actual travelling we would need. We went for two months and 10 days. As it turned out we would've got by with one month and fewer travelling days but we were risk averse and could've saved a few hundred Euros there. C'est la Vie!
​ 
Turned out that on closer inspection and with more recent maps we'd have to give up on plodding across Spain's Northern Coast and any of our desires crossings of the Spanish/Portuguese borders. The former because the trains making this journey appeared to stop at every minor station along the way and the latter because of Spain's rebuilding the infrastructure on its side.

We did have a fleeting bit of excitement when we discovered a luxury train that traversed the Northern Coast of Spain from Bilbao almost to the westernmost point. This "Transcantabrico[1]" did exactly what we wanted ... get from San Sebastián to Santiago de Compostela with eight days of interesting bits in between. It took an hour or so drooling over the features before we checked the price of a double "room" ... €18,000! And so it was back to the drawing board and a hire car from Bilbao to Santiago.

​The trip gradually came together over the intervening months but ...

Above: (clockwise from top left) At least the food wasn't half bad on Eurostar in Premier; Desperately needed drink in Montparnasse IBIS after a traumatic day; Ibis had one of the more intimidating corridors we'd come across; The station for Spain (or at least Hendaye) at last.

It almost came a cropper - the eleventh hour!

​The first day involved exiting the UK and was planned, it seemed the last "i" had been dotted and "t" crossed. All the tickets, credit cards, my passport and initial currency were safely packed in my handbag. Our taxi to Didcot station, 45 minutes away, arrived comfortably early. We were getting the train from there (via the Underground) to London St Pancras to pick up the Eurostar to Paris.

We settled back in comfy seats with our thoughts while we were wafted to Didcot. Upon arrival <our driver> helped us lift our rather heavy luggage from the car and I went to get my handbag to pay her.

"Where's my handbag?" I asked, starting to panic. It was nowhere to be found.
"You must have left it at home," Shan said, trying hard not to sound condemnatory.
"Can you take me back to Faringdon I asked <our driver>," with my heart in my throat. We left Shan at Didcot. That was a tense return journey in so many ways but <our driver> was a total star, rescheduling her later journeys so that she could attempt to get me back to Didcot in time for a train that might still get us to St Pancras in time. Thankfully my bag was still where I'd carefully left it at home. 
Meanwhile Shan had been busy at Didcot making sure we could get a likely train to make our St Pancras rendezvous... she had done a brilliant job and after shelling out for a triple cab fare we just made it to our London-bound train. Our taxi driver had offered to take us to St Pancras but there was no way she'd make it through the traffic quicker than the train, which, mercifully, did its business with applomb.

Lugging our suitcases through the Montparnasse section of the Metro nearly killed us but we mercifully reached the Ibis and ordered a drink to restore some sanity before flopping into bed in preparation for our rendezvous with the legendary inOui TGV to the Spanish border.

Oh my God we've missed it ...

One of our "must visit" destinations in Northern Spain was Guernica. The town lies in the Basque Country between San Sebastián and Bilbao and we'd been so preoccupied with how we were going to get from the one to the other that we had an itinerary hiatus that we only recalled after we were too far along our journey to rectify the situation. A sad omission that we can hopefully rectify on another trip to the Basque Country.

More recent travel related episodes​ (reverse chronology)

1. France, Spain and Portugal by train
2. South African road trip 2024 (would-you-take-your-friends-to-south-africa-introduction.html)
   1. traversing-south-africa-by-road-part-1.html
   2. traversing-south-africa-by-road-part-2.html 
   3. traversing-south-africa-by-road-part-3.html
   4. traversing-south-africa-by-road-part-4.html
   5. traversing-south-africa-by-road-part-5.html
   6. traversing-south-africa-by-road-part-6.html
3. Three venerable jollers hit France and Spain - 2022
4. Around South Africa in 144 days in the time of Covid - 2021/2022
5. Scottish Serendipity - 2019
6. Karoo pub crawl - 2016
7. Random day trips
   1. Lacock