I’d planned this post months ago, and I was intending to give a list of things I will and wont miss about Spain. Unfortunately Alan got the before me, so I’ll skip that. Besides, one can’t really predict what one will miss… I’ll have to wait and see. First impressions having returned home though, are that people are courteous when driving and mopeds are actually quiet. My last week in the office was pretty hectic, mainly sorting my own stuff out. Despite the leaving parties, last pub quiz and packing it didn’t really feel as though I was leaving after…
To end our week’s vacation we decided that for the return trip we would take it easy stopping off at Cuenca for an evening. Having heard and read a lot about Cuenca, it was somewhere that I just had to see before leaving Spain. I wasn’t disappointed, the old town spans the immense cliffs of two river gorges with houses built the rocks. It was great exploring the twisty back stepped streets and taking photos. Truly a wonderful place, but I leave the photos to do the talking… On Saturday afternoon we made our way up to la Ciudad Encantada…
I’ve just finished The Truce by Primo Levi (thanks to Carter for the recommendation) which follows on from his first book If this is a man, in a continuation of his of his experiences in German Concentration Camps. It takes off from the day of liberation and describes Primo’s 10th month repatriation trip and as a result has a much happier tone to the hard hitting tales from Monowitz. Levi’s writing is descriptive and observant, yet with no trace of hatred towards the perpetrators can be seen, something that Levi describes well in the afterword. The more I read about…
On Sunday morning we drove South to Oliva for the start of my Catamaran Course, a birthday present from Espe (I’ve loved Dart catamarans from a very young age, and use to dream of owning one). We were due 3 hours tuition on Sunday and 3 hours on Monday. Espe had looked into various courses but this one ended up being the most convenient. Others had stated that I’d have to take a normal sailing course before climbing aboard a cat. Likewise I had been declined the use of a cat in Thailand, as the owner stated that sailing a…
On Friday evening we left Alcobendas at 5pm after another dental check up. Our destination: Alaquas, Valencia. Our route, the one with the most twists and turns. Having been so fed up of Spanish Motorways of late, I decided we were going to reach Valencia avoiding motorways. We completed the whole trip on nice roads with no inconsiderate Madrileños winding me up and managed to avoid traffic jams completely. We took the N320 via Cuenca as recommended by Philippe over a year ago. We missed our intended turn after Cuenca and found ourselves in the hills again with yet more…
So it’s true, British Drivers are the most uptight. Leaving Madrid for a weekend away I found myself getting increasingly wound up by the standard of driving of the Madrileños. Leaving Madrid for any weekend is tough as the roads are full of people escaping the city for the Mediterranean coasts. That is far too many people for the motorways to cope with, especially given that of only two lanes the first lane is plagued with slow moving lorries. A new points system on the driving licences and the “50 deaths on these roads this weekend last year” signs illuminated…
The weekend didn’t turn out quite as expected. We turned up at the dive center early to find it closed. 45 minutes later, we got a call from a friend of Philippe/Ana saying where the hell are you. It turns out that we were supposed to go round to the back of the center. They leave the front closed as there is no one to man the shop… So for a good start we missed the first dive. As a form of compensation, the dive center offered us a special trip with two bottles to get a double dive in.…
We had decided against going away for the whole of the long May weekend due to a multitude of tasks to sort in the flat and a general fatigue from the last few weekends away. I couldn’t face another weekend with 4-6 hour motorway journeys at either end. Instead we did decide to get out of Madrid for one day and go over to Toledo which, despite it’s close proximity to Madrid, is somewhere I’ve never been to. It truly is a stunning city, raised on a mound surrounded on three sides by the river Tajo. Steeped in history and…