My dear family & friends
(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.
