Road Trip to Portugal

My dear family & friends

Pics are in the usual place here ...

(Link to all photo albums here.)

What can I say: We took the dogs to the beach ... in Portugal. This may seem a bit extreme, but the dogs are getting old – and we wanted to do it at least once while they could take full advantage of the experience. Edgar is ten-and-a-half and getting very grey in the muzzle. Hazel is about eleven and she is slowing down on our walks in the summer.

This was all a month ago, but I was waiting for some artistic inspiration to describe our road trip to Portugal in terms that would impress and confound all travel writers. I’m still waiting.

In the meantime, let me point you to our pictures in the usual place  and give you a [relatively] brief taste of our vacation.

The first thing to say is that driving to Portugal isn’t exactly the cheap option: travelling petrol was £650; tolls in France were £121 and in Spain £68; the Eurotunnel with two dogs cost £206. But it was worth it, if only too short.

I did all the driving – all 4005 miles (6445km) of it, 1) because I enjoy driving and 2) because I’m a shit passenger. The experience was enhanced by our new car (after I drowned the last one), and the technology which I used to get us around (except when it failed – and when it failed, it failed spectacularly.) The new (second hand) Honda CRV is really comfortable with cruise control which makes driving long distance so much easier. We were ably assisted by my mobile phone, which provided satnav navigation (Waze) and “safety” camera alerts (Waze and Radardroid.) I also bought a CD slot holder for my tablet, which provided offline mapping and music [plugged in to the auxiliary port of the car's sound system]. (The offline mapping app I use is OsmAnd which serves up the open source maps from Openstreetmap.org.)

The first leg of our journey was from London to Bordeaux via the Channel Tunnel. I religiously obeyed the French speed limits (130km/h) on the autoroutes until I became frustrated by the French-registered cars which came flying past me like I was standing still. No sooner had I decided to speed  it up a bit (135km/h to 140km/h), than a kindly electronic notice board on a gantry over the motorway informed me that I was going too fast.  I know the notice board was talking to me because it displayed my registration in big bold letters, along with the admonition “Trop Vite.” Fortunately these warnings are only advisory, rather than being an actual camera trap. The French – and the Spanish – are also sweet enough to warn you when you are approaching an actual speed trap via big notice boards on the side of the road. [If you get caught after that, it’s your own damn fault.]

While Lucia & I were quite relaxed with the journey, we can’t say the same for Edgar & Hazel who appeared to be quite stressed by the travel.  When we checked in to the Ibis Budget Le Lac (on the outskirts of Bordeaux), Edgar refused to eat, or drink any water without being bribed to do so. The bribes included bread [his favourite], steak, croissants, doughnuts, salami, Parma ham, scrambled eggs and assorted toasted sandwiches – much to the amazement [disbelief] of the serving staff and any onlookers. (Pics here.)

The second leg of the journey was from Bordeaux to Madrid via a slight deviation to Bilbao. We went to Bilbao because I was in the right-hand lane, and Lucia couldn’t make up her mind where she wanted to go.  I also wanted to stop somewhere to buy a Spanish simcard for my mobile broadband wifi device. If you ever go to Spain, don’t even bother with Movistar (the mobile operator owned by Telefónica) – they don’t want you. The staff are uninterested and unhelpful. Orange, on the other hand, seems to have got the message through to its staff that every little bit counts.

The first major technological failure occurred when we were trying to find Monica’s apartment in the eastern suburbs of Madrid. Monica used to work with Lucia in Leamington Spa years ago on a one-year secondment from Spain. Waze (which is owned by Google) swore blind that it knew where Monica lived. The truth is that Waze and Google do not have Spanish addresses properly mapped out. We ended up going round in circles – and through one toll booth at least twice. Given that the outside temperature was 36C, and that I had been driving for eight hours, my temper was in short supply. Osmand – the offline mapping app – eventually got us where we wanted to go, but only after a lot of swearing from the driver's seat.

We stayed in Madrid with Monica and her daughter, Cecelia, for three nights. We were grandly entertained by the two of them, and Monica’s former partner Sayuri. Although Monica and Sayuri are no longer together, they maintain an amazing relationship [apart] for the benefit of their daughter. (Pics on Google+ here.)

Madrid was, err, hot. Very hot. Edgar gave us a huge scare when his back legs seemed to conk out [he hadn’t been drinking water] in the middle of the city. We sat on the sidewalk pouring bottles of water over him, trying to cool him down.  When we got him walking again, I ordered both him & Hazel into a fountain outside the Prado Museum. We seemed to get equal measures of annoyance and hilarity from passing Spaniards. I didn’t give a shit.

The third leg of our journey was from Madrid to The Algarve via Seville. By this stage, I had figured out (by watching the locals) that the speed limits only applied where there was a fixed speed trap. Much like South Africa, the autoroutes across Spain are dead straight, crossing vast arid plains under huge open skies. The difference is that the scenery is interspersed with ancient villages and stone castles telling long-forgotten stories.

In the Algarve, we stayed in one of the cottages owned by my sister and brother-in-law’s neighbour, Idalecio at the Quinta da Amoreira. If you’re ever looking for an “out-of-the-way” place to stay in The Algarve, I can’t recommend it highly enough. (See pics.) In this hidden corner of The Algarve, you are about 15 – 20 mins from all the major shops in Loulé, and about 30 mins from the nearest beaches while still staying in the middle of a rural idyll.

We spent our time in Portugal doing much the same thing that we have done for a number of years. Go to the beach, go to a cafe & chill out with Barbara and Terry. The difference this time is that we had the dogs with us. I can’t even begin to tell you how many times in Portugal we have said: “I wish we had the dogs with us.” Well, we did – and we loved it. It was special. (Pics on Google+ here.)

Our most challenging moment was when I lost my phone in Loulé. The phone fell into the road when I was getting out of the car. I heard something fall, but I couldn’t see anything. Sitting at a cafe 15mins later, I wanted my phone. Here’s a tip – if you have “location” apps on your phone, make sure all the options are activated and operational. While I had made sure that all this tech wizardry worked on Lucia’s phone – I hadn’t quite done the same on my own phone ... with the result that I wasn’t able to send SMS text messages to my phone to tell me where it was. In this case my only option was to attack-dial the phone until it was answered by some toothless fucking fisherman who had picked it up in the road. He explained to my sister later that he would have answered the phone sooner, but he couldn’t figure out how to achieve that task. (Note to all mobile phone manufacturers: just make a big green button that answers the phone when you press it – just piss off with all this geeky swiping left and right. This isn't Tinder - I just want to answer the phone.) So, with a huge sigh of relief – and a €20 reward to the toothless fisherman – I got my phone back.

Lucia flew home a week-and-a-bit later while I stayed on a day to get the dogs de-wormed and have their passports stamped by a vet as per UK requirements. My journey home took me via Madrid and the Millau bridge in southern France with a very short excursion to Barcelona en route. I’d been wanting to see this bridge (for myself) ever since we came to the UK. The bridge is both engineering and art rolled into one by architect Norman Foster.

The overnight stop was well worth the deviation --- not to mention the entertainment I provided for various locals. Wandering around Millau in the evening, I eventually found a sidewalk cafe/restaurant that met both my culinary requirements and budget. I explained to the patron (with the help of Google Translate) that I wanted two steak-and-chips baguettes – one for me ... and one for the dogs. There weren’t that many places open in the evening in the middle of the week, so I assumed that the crowd which gathered as Edgar, Hazel & I waited for our food was normal.  It was only when the food arrived that I realised that we were  – in fact – the entertainment as the crowd waited to watch me feed my dogs prime beef and fries. The pictures of me and the dogs do not do justice to the crowd behind the photographer arguing – in French – how he should best take the photograph. When I asked for the bill, I noticed that there was a beer missing from the total – and pointed this out to the proprietor. “Commission,” he said, without missing a beat.

The final leg of the journey, from Millau to London – 1200km (720 miles) – was coloured by both logic and technology failures. The logical failure was hanging around for breakfast at 9AM at the Gîte des Grands Causses in Millau where I stayed overnight. That left me precious little time for navigational errors in order to make my train from Calais to Folkestone. The technological failures included being routed through the middle of Paris at rush hour on a Thursday afternoon (courtesy of Google and Waze), as well as the complete failure of the “roaming” broadband feature on my phone ... in the middle of Paris.

It’s a little unnerving when you find yourself stopped on the side of the road in the middle of Paris with NO maps, little idea of where you are, and a train to catch 300km away. The phrase “completely fucked” comes to mind. So, ignoring all the panic of my predicament, I eventually got broadband connection for long enough to get a route to Calais – but I was running seriously late for my train. Once I got out of Paris, I put my foot down, travelling in a group of five cars (all French-registered except mine) travelling at 150 – 160km/h (95mph) on the autoroute all the way to Calais.

I made the train.

Love, light & peace

Llewellyn

Link to all photo albums here.

Letter from London: 2 of 2015 --- A Tale of Woe ...

I have a tale of woe.

I am waiting for the insurance company to tell us how much they will pay us for our car.

The story is this this:-

Friday is my cleaning day. Lucia usually works at home on Fridays - so I make sure I get going early. But, two Fridays ago Lucia had to go into the office. The result is that I got going quite late. When I finished cleaning (and because Lucia wan't at home), I decided to take the dogs for a long walk in Richmond to the far side of Richmond Park and back. As usual, I parked in Ranelagh Drive (in Richmond), next to the Richmond Lock & Weir, and walked through Richmond to the far side of Richmond Park.

But, owing to certain astro-physical phenomena, the moon was was the closest it has been to earth for several years. The result is that there was an exceptionally high tide: specifically, the tide at Richmond Lock & Weir was 5,5m above its mean level. I finally got back to the car about 30 minutes after high tide. At that point, the water was still was about a halfway up the passenger side of the car.

This from The London Evening Standard.

I had to wait about 15 minutes chatting away to an older couple in a similar predicament - waiting for the tide to recede - before I could approach my car. I took my boots off, rolled up my trousers, asked the older couple to hold onto the dogs, and waded along Ranelagh Drive (which was now essentially part of the River Thames) in my socks to get to the car. The water was fucking cold. When I opened the driver's door, the first thing I noticed was my iPad (with its keyboard cover) floating in the footwell. As a good South African, I had had it well hidden under the driver's seat in order not to tempt some nefarious bastard to break my window (not that that has ever happened to us here, or anybody else we know in the UK).

So, I drove home in my wet socks, with water sloshing around my feet - and started baling The Thames out of my vehicle. But then I had the great idea to call my insurance company - Honda "Happiness" - to see if I was covered for the loss of my iPad. Let me put it to you this way:- Honda insurance needs to reconsider the use of the word "happiness" in the name of their insurance company/brokerage/whatever ...

- First, I was put on hold for about 35 minutes to get hold of the underwriter

- Then I was put through to the wrong underwriter/insurer (because Honda UnHappiness had changed their underwriters)

- Then, somebody, somewhere put the phone down on me because I had become - shall we say - a bit excitable.

- Some two, maybe two-and-a-half hours later - I actually spoke to my real insurers: or should I say, that I spoke to someone who was only really interested in following the call centre script. (Do you want to make a claim, do you want to make a claim, do you want to make a claim .....)

- To cut a very long story short, I wasn't really covered for the iPad because because it wasn't really worth once we had paid the insurance excess.

On Saturday, Lucia and I continued baling out the car. I took it to valet service run by Serbians just up Uxbridge Road, near Ealing Hospital, so they could suck the carpets with their high-power vacuum cleaner. As I drove home, I noticed that the "SRS" light (the thing that does the airbags) had turned on. By the time I got home, other dashboard lights were flashing on and off. On Sunday, we couldn't get into the car because the remote wouldn't work - so I unlocked the car with the key. But then the alarm went off and wouldn't stop - so we called the RAC. The RAC man struggled to get to the siren in the boot area so that he could just unplug it. Removing panels in the boot area (where the siren is hidden) just revealed --- more water.

 So, on Monday morning, I called the insurance company again - a much easier experience because I didn't have to go through Honda "Happiness". On Wednesday, the "salvage agents" came to fetch the car. I also received a letter from Zenith - our actual insurers - which started: Dear Mr Jones, We write to advise you that from the description of the damage when reporting your claim, we believe that your vehicle will be deemed a total loss ... etc

It's a week later, and I haven't heard from them yet. All our neighbours have heard the story (from each other) and they all say: NEVER accept the first offer from the insurance company. You HAVE to negotiate. I think I'll leave that to Lucia ...

L

Letter from London: 1 of 2015

My dear family & friends

We’re in 2015 already – whatever happened to 1989? I am reminded of a T-shirt slogan from many years ago: “Stop the world – I want to get off.” Although my favourite T-shirt humour is still: “Fuck Google. Ask me.”

But that’s not why I started writing this. My point was rather to say that you can find the pictures of our short stay in France over xmas in the usual place here.

This is the link to the top directory to all my web albums, if you’re interested.

We had a really interesting few days. It was the first time we had taken the dogs with us on vacation in Europe, and we enjoyed their company. They haven’t expressed any opinion one way or the other as to their French sojourn, so far.

It also wasn’t really one of those “sit back and laze around holidays” because I am genetically pre-programmed to do and see as much as possible when going somewhere new. So we drove around quite a lot. Among my pictures you can see maps of where we went each day. I’ve got Google Location Reporting set to “On” on my mobile phone, so I can always see exactly where I’ve been. The maps in the album are essentially screenshots of that location history.

We had a bit of a disconcerting start to our time in France. Within five minutes of driving off the Eurotunnel train at Calais, we were considerably  surprised to see someone on the roof of a truck travelling at around 80km/h. My first thoughts were: “What is that dickhead doing on the roof of that truck?” He then proceeded to swing himself over the side of the trailer, and kick and slash his way through the tarpaulin on the side of the trailer. We did the most logical thing under such circumstances – slow down and take pictures (which you can find in the album.) The truck driver was desperately begging passing motorists to call the police. Which I dutifully did. Except the Emergency Services operator didn’t speak English, and I don’t speak French. We never did see how the episode ended.  Perhaps more importantly, I sent the pictures to the Daily Mail – but they didn’t seem terribly interested either (or maybe they weren’t interested in my suggestion that they pay me for the pictures.)

Instead of annotating our days, let me pick out a few experiences.

We really enjoyed the xmas market in Amiens (despite the persistent rain.) The stalls sported a wide range of interesting handicrafts and goods. The whole ambience was really festive. We bought saucisson and a cured ham, and I found an xmas present for Lucia – a sort of a pendant thingy used to secure a scarf around her neck.  I was struck by how different the Amiens market was compared to any of the xmas markets we’ve experienced in England which I find to be quite boring and over-commercialised. My neighbour David explained it to me like this: There is no real tradition of xmas markets in the UK and councils simply use them as a revenue earner, charging very high rents. The result is that the ambience is quite soulless, and goods on sale are just the usual over-priced tat.  It’s such a pity.

On xmas day we did some serious driving from our apartment in Le Tréport to Sword Beach near Ouistreham, where British and Canadian soldiers landed on D-Day 1944 – a round trip of 500km. I got to see the Pont de Normandie over the River Seine near Le Havre.  I’m a bit of a bridge nut, and this one falls into my all-time must-see bridges. It’s a cable-stayed, humpbacked bridge – a true feat of engineering, a marvel to behold and beautiful.I still want to go and gawp at the Millau Bridge.

Just over the bridge, one comes to the town of Hornfleur. If ever we get to do something like this again, this is where we’re staying (on the assumption that we’ll be able to afford it, of course.) It’s ancient, quaint and beautiful, set on a hill around a small fishing harbour. There are plenty of sandy beaches for long walks with the dogs, and the drive along the corniche to Trouville-sur-Mer is quite beautiful. I noticed that there were quite a few gîtes and other accommodation advertised along the road which all looked magically alluring (although, I suppose, that magic rather depends on price – it may turn out to be more like witchcraft.)

At the far end of our drive, we walked the dogs along Sword Beach which stretches five miles from Ouistreham in the east to Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer in the west. I found it quite hard to get my head around the fact that people had fought to the death over this lovely strip of sand 70 years ago. It really is just a fantastic beach – albeit one dotted with concrete machine gun bunkers.

Continuing on the theme of war, we also spent half a day exploring Dieppe which is just 28km from Le Tréport.  The history buffs among you will know that the Dieppe Raid in August 1942 was an unmitigated disaster – and it’s not difficult to see why. The town is surrounded by high chalk cliffs on either side of the Arques river – and those cliffs are dotted with the remains of concrete machine gun bunkers that made it easy for the Germans to defend the town. But on the flipside of that disaster, it taught the Allies that any invasion of France would require overwhelming force on ground that could not be easily defended. And so it was that the Allies landed 156 000 soldiers on the beaches of Normandy on 6 June 1944.

But my abiding memory of Dieppe is a little more prosaic. It was freezing on the morning we visited the town, with an icy wind blowing in off the Channel that hunted down any gaps in your clothing with malice. The first port of call was a cafe/bar/tabac on the waterfront for a warming cappuccino – dogs allowed. While my back was turned ordering our drinks at the bar, Lucia was busy wrapping her scarf around Edgar (alias: soft dog), and then she topped the look off with her knitted woollen cap. (See pictures.) Shortly afterwards a table of locals came and sat down next to us, happily taking note of Edgar’s jaunty look. But they really fell apart laughing when Lucia removed the hat and scarf – and dressed herself with them once again.  Now ... given their reaction, it struck me that they appeared to think that such a nattily dressed dog was normal. Umm ....

My final point of interest comes from our drive back to Calais on our way home. We chose a route which would take us up the coast to the mouth of the River Somme, before cutting back to the motorway – just for the hell of it. What we discovered was the town of Saint-Valéry-sur-Somme. It too is just lovely. It has a medieval town with a church and walls dating back over a thousand years, surrounded by a more modern (18th century) town running along the river at the mouth of the Somme.  It also looks like a place where I could spend a lot more time – a beautiful town, sandy beaches around the corner, and lots of interesting places relatively nearby. My point is – this is definitely something to consider if you’re looking for a place for a short stay break just across the channel.

And that was our xmas.

Happy New Year to you all
Love, light & peace
L