Day 4 - 26 April - Urdaniz to Pamplona

As Herman’s Hermits famously sang:

Woke up this morning feelin’ fine                        

Got the Camino on my mind                              

Last night I took my girl down Pamplona way   

Next thing I know she’s snogging Ernest Hemingway

After a communal breakfast with the lovely crew at Urdaniz, we were the last to leave the hostal following a serious bout of fannying around by yours truly. Sometimes you just have to take time with your rucksack strap adjustments. We hit the road at just after half past eight. It was cold but not for too long. Once again, my knees were on display and looking extremely attractive. 

Today’s walk into Pamplona was always going to be the least painful day thus far. Eleven miles of relatively gentle descent, pretty much following the River Arga into Pamplona through woodland paths and trails. Mrs C and I have been to Pamplona before and we were looking forward to re-acquainting ourselves with the numerous pintxos (tapas) bars in and around the city centre.

We deserved a treat so we had a hotel room booked right in the city centre. Having checked in at 2.00 p.m. we caught up with the necessary washing of grundies etc and then hit (okay, meekly brushed?) the town at around 4.30 p.m. First to Bar Goucho for a couple of beers and pintxos then on to a second bar where we sat on stools at a high table, looking out onto the street, when who should see and join us but Michael, our Swiss doctor friend who we met last night. I think I’m beginning to develop a man crush on Michael so it was no surprise when I invited him to join us on a quick reccy of the Cathedral before we located another bar where we were joined by Gwendolyn and Danny who we had been bumping into regularly since Orisson. However, before too long respective needs must and Michael needed a proper dinner, I needed a beer and Gwendolyn and Danny probably needed to escape so Mrs C and I headed back in the general direction of our hotel. And then it nearly all went horribly wrong.

Our next venue saw us bump into Swiss couple Charles and Trudi who were at Orisson with us, not that we had opportunity to properly meet at the time. Anyway, they were very excited having earlier visited Cafe Iruna where writer and serial womaniser Ernest Hemingway hangs out so, after we finished our beers and another modest round of pintxos, they took us to said cafe. Being the ever considerate bloke that I am, I’m busy getting the beers in whilst Mrs C is powdering her nose. So, halfway through my beer and I’m thinking “that girl of mine’s been a long time” so off I go to try find her. Imagine my surprise when I happen upon this;

It was a relief when Mrs C subsequently explained that, minus her reading glasses she had inadvertently mistaken Mr Hemingway for me. Oh how we laughed at my paranoid jumping to ridiculous assumptions.

Day 3 - 25 April - Burguete to Urdaniz

As the infamous Black Lace song goes: 

Arga doo doo doo                                             

Drop your rucksack in the stream                     

Arga doo doo doo                                               

But only if you’re Martin Sheen

So, if yesterday was our first day proper on the Camino, then today was our first proper day. And by that I mean the sun was shining, there were plenty of rest stop opportunities and I had my shorts on. Scenery was seen, regular refreshment was taken and my knobbly knees were unleashed. Lovely.

We awoke to an early morning mist which was already losing out to the sunshine. After brekky at the hotel, we hit the road at half past eight and it was all rather lovely, passing through countryside more rolling than mountainous. We walked for a couple of hours with Albert and Joe, two wise-cracking retired fire fighters from New York. Great company and as New York as a Brit would hope New Yorkers would be. After our first re-fuelling stop, the two of us bade adios to Albert and Joe and set off once more. We hope we will see them again.

The next stage of the day involved more up and down than we had been expecting, through forest and woodland paths, although nothing to rival yesterday’s experience. However the combination of rocky and muddy equalled slippy so it warranted due respect. And another beer once completed. 

The third stage of today’s near fourteen miles was a long descent into Zubiri with the rocky, muddy path getting rockier and muddier and consequently slippier. A stone bridge over the River Arga marks the entrance to Zubiri, recognisable to those who have seen the film The Way as the bridge over which the actor Martin Sheen accidentally drops his rucksack into the fast flowing waters below. It could have been my Stars in Their Eyes moment. “Tonight Matthew, I’m going to be……(walks into the dry ice mist, then seconds later re-emerges as)…Martin Sheen”. But honestly, you’d have to be an idiot to accidentally drop your rucksack over the side of this bridge. Now, whilst I accept that I do have form in terms of being an idiot, this level of idiocy was beyond me. Thus, my moment of fame was denied me so we made do with two large beers and a couple of large bocadillos (big baguete sandwiches).

Thereafter we proceded the final couple of miles to Urdaniz where we had booked a private hostal for the night. Delightful. We sat in the late afternoon sunshine in the hostal garden drinking beer and chatting with some of the other guests. There were ten of us in total and Mrs C and I shared a small dorm with Michael from Switzerland, the type of bloke who makes you wish you were more European. Michael is a doctor with his own practice, speaks five languages fluently (including Spanish which he learnt three years ago for “something to do”) and was knowledgable and interesting on just about any topic you could throw at him. A real gentleman. I couldn’t stand him. Only joking.

The ten of us enjoyed our three course pilgrim menu evening meal together, drinking red wine and generally talking rubbish. It was a lovely evening, made all the more interesting as one of our number was the erstwhile DJ Simon Mayo who must now have time on his hands having been relieved of his Radio 2 drive time slot a couple of years back. Presumably, the Radio 2 bigwigs must have got fed up with his cheesy music choices. All together now, agar doo doo doo….

Day 2 - 24 April - Orisson to Burguete

As the famous Tina Turner song goes: 

I can’t stand the rain, on my poncho…..

It’s now 8.30 pm in Spain as I gaze out of our hotel bedroom window to admire a clear blue sky framing the lush fields and mountains of the Pyrenees. Earlier today, we walked a hard twelve miles along the Ruta Napoleon, a stretch of the Camino many believe to be the most picturesque of the entire five hundred mile route. But you’ll have to take their word for it because we saw next to nothing of it. To be fair, the wet mist that enveloped us throughout was better than the forecast of day-long rain but we did eventually have to resort to ponchos. No one looks good in a poncho (with the possible exception of Quasimodo), not even the nice young German ladies who powered past us, presumably on zer veigh to anuzzer feefty five kilometers in vun day. They did look very nice though when I bade them guten morgen in the communal washroom facilities, first thing this morning.

Anyway, after breakfast at the refuge we set off at 8.00 a.m. heading slowly but surely to the 1,450m high point of the Ruta Napoleon before dropping down fairly steeply towards Roncesvalles and then a welcome level stretch of path in to our destination for the day at Burguete. “Dropping down” is a good description for the descent because the steep, uneven path works your knees hard, leaving them feeling very wibbly wobbly and increasing the likelihood of taking a stumble. It was only four days since this stretch was covered in snow but that had now dissipated leaving soggy, boggy conditions underfoot. But we made it.

The writer Ernest Hemingway was apparently a regular visitor to Burguete. I know that's not desperately exciting and neither is this picture but it’s the most scenic thing we saw today.

I can’t tell you anything about the wonderful scenery for obvious reasons but, after yesterday’s poor showing on the beer front, I can tell you that today’s first beer was taken at La Posada de Roncesvalles with three more at the hotel in Burguete prior to dinner. 

A nice bit of privacy tonight for Mrs C and I, plus a warm room in which to dry out our ponchos and plan for tomorrow’s adventure. And the blue sky I can see out of the window bodes very nicely for tomorrow, thank you very much.

Day 1 - 23 April - Burnley to Orisson

As the famous Irving Berlin song goes;

If you’re so intent to go on the Camino             

Why don’t you pack up all your bits                     

And fly to Biarritz... 

Go on, sing it to yourself. It works. Honest.

So anyway, that’s what we’ve done today, followed by a shared taxi to our Camino start point at St-Jean-Pied-de-Port in the French Pyrenees, a quick visit to the Pilgrim Office to get our Credencial (pilgrim passport) its first official stamp and then off into the hills for a five mile walk to refuge Orisson where we will be resting our weary heads. I say “five mile walk” but it would be more accurate to describe it as a “five mile climb”. It certainly got the old heart pounding.

We had been tracking the weather forecast for St-Jean over the last few days and it hadn’t been looking good. The best the forecast had been able to offer, for any part of the day, was a ninety percent chance of rain. But that does of course leave open a ten percent chance of no rain and so it proved as we arrived at Orisson somewhat windswept but mercifully dry. En route we had been treated to some fabulous vistas. In a future life, if I ever come back as a cow I could do a lot worse than come back as a cow in the Pyrenees.

The three course pilgrim meal at the refuge may not have been a la carte but it was tasty and there was plenty of it, washed down with a not unacceptable several glasses of red wine. There were twenty eight pilgrims at the meal, probably half of whom were American and the rest a mix of German, Austrian, Dutch, Brazilian, Korean, an Italian and four Brits including the two of us.  As per Orisson tradition, after the meal everyone introduced themselves. All very nice and lovely. Almost, almost a bit too nice and lovely for my liking. Everyone was nicer than me, that’s for sure. 

Having arrived later than everyone else, we were shown to a table already consisting three Germans and one Italian, all rather disconcertingly communicating with each other in English. Lovely, nice and multi-lingual. Almost too much to bear. The two young German ladies were positively bursting to impress with their linguistic capability;

How much duz yor ruksak veigh in kilograms pleez? Eh? Vee hef valked fiftee five kilometres in vun day. What? Coming from zee Inglund I sink you vill be yoosed to zee rain yah? Try living in Burnley mate.

We were shown to our dorm after dinner. Just the two of us in the dorm plus Stefano the Italian guy. He seemed a decent chap so, having sorted ourselves out, we invited him to come have a beer with us at the refuge bar only to find out, having got there, that it was closed. At 9.30 in the evening. The French eh? Still, we’ll be in Spain tomorrow and they don’t even start going out of an evening until 9.30 at night so there's every chance we’ll see Stefano to buy him a drink some time soon as, like us, he is hoping to make it all the way to Santiago.

So, but for the minor setback of bar closed early (probably did us a favour), today has gone well and this part of (Basque country) France is stunning. Looks like we have a wet day tomorrow but we’ll worry about that tomorrow.

The Road to Santiago de Compostela

It is March 2020 and with the very recently concluded sale of our business and a newly acquired no-longer-working status, Mrs C and I have turfed up at our apartment in Spain. Something called SARS-CoV-2 is beginning to make a nuisance of itself around the globe and our intended four week stay turns into five months as we decide to spend the resultant lockdown enjoying the double-digit temperatures and sunshine of Mar de Cristal as opposed to the UK alternative. Effectively sentenced to house-arrest for what turned out to be the first ten weeks of the Spanish lockdown, there is only so much painting of the apartment walls and ceilings you can do without compromising both the internal square meterage of the apartment and your own mental health. Despite never having previously been a great reader, I had considered that my new found status might allow me to rectify this personal shortcoming and as a result of which I had brought a Kindle with me. With both time and confinement now on my hands, I set upon searching for a suitable Spanish-flavour read and came upon My Reign in Spain: A Spanish Adventure by Rich Bradwell. In brief, Rich went to Spain for three months in order to attain sufficient competence in the language to be able to deliver a best man speech at his mate’s upcoming Spanish wedding. Rich went from linguistic zero to hero in three months and I was intrigued to find out quite how he did it. Having read and enjoyed Rich’s book, my Kindle imparted the information that he had written another book. Footsteps: A Journey of Redemption on the Camino de Santiago. Apparently, there’s a well-known five hundred mile pilgrimage route across the North of Spain which is known as El Camino. 

Oooh, that sounds interesting.

I have long held a romantic view of life on the road, walking from town to town and place to place, carrying life’s essentials in a rucksack on your back, stopping to eat and drink whenever and wherever you fancy and regaling the inhabitants of said bar or cafe with tales of adventure and derring-do. Always being savvy enough though never to outstay my welcome. Leave ‘em wanting more and all that.

Clearly, at the age of sixty three such fantasy demands a location where the weather is warm, rain is against the law and all overnight accommodation has en-suite facilities.

This romantic view however does not appear to be on offer. After finishing Rich’s book and then reading several more El Camino books by other writers, it was beginning to dawn on me that walking fifteen miles a day, every day, over the course of five to six weeks was not the proverbial stroll and my walking experience amounted to pretty much just that - the (occasional and) proverbial stroll. Yet this whole El Camino thing was beginning to draw me in. 

I am not religious. The nearest thing I have to religion is football and whilst that may sound like a glib comment, it is not meant to be. The Christian version of religion (and probably most other religions) appears to me to be much about community. Football too - the People’s Game - is about community mixed with tribalism, both being fundamental drivers of human need and behaviour. In my opinion of course. So maybe the appeal to me of this particular pilgrimage is the community aspect, described in pretty much all the books I had read as the “Camino Family”. That and the fact that it occurs in Spain, a country I love and in which I am lucky enough to spend much of my time and of course where it tends to be warm even though they haven’t gotten round to banning rain yet.

But I suspect that the real reason is as a consequence of what I can best describe as my later-midlife-crisis. I have never been good at birthdays that have a zero on the end of them. Every ten years, my latest “big” birthday takes even more getting over than the previous big one. Whilst I readily accept that growing older is better than the alternative, the six and the zero combined to hit me right where it hurt and forced me to start contemplating my personal mortality whereas previously I was invincible. Funnily enough, ages sixty one and sixty two have been fine as that is early sixties but going from having a five at the start of my age to suddenly seeing that usurped by a six took me a good few months to get to grips with.

All blokes have a mid-life crisis but I had already had mine at the age of forty one when I jacked in a twenty-three year career with a major UK high street bank having realised that I didn’t actually like banking. That decision led indirectly to starting the business which we had now only recently sold, the sale proceeds from which would be funding retirement. Retirement, that’s a funny word isn’t it. And similar to having a zero in my age, I discovered that retirement is a word I am not comfortable with, certainly insofar as it applies to me, with all its implications of infirmity etc. Bloody hell, I appear to have gone from respected, successful entrepreneur (my description, nobody else’s) to not-quite-dead-yet in one fell swoop. There really ought to be a better adjective than “retired” to differentiate erstwhile respected, successful entrepreneurs from the time-served recipients of a retirement clock but I couldn’t find one and it bugged me. 

In the months leading up to the sale of our business, Mrs C and I had had plenty of opportunity to discuss what life after work might entail for us and much of this discussion centred around Spain where, post-Brexit arrangements permitting, we were intending to spend a lot of our time. We wanted to explore the country, away from tourist Spain, and the prospect of searching out real beer and real football as an excuse to do so sounded like a pretty damn good plan to me. But whilst we had made it out to Spain as planned, SARS-CoV-2 was now messing us about and our mission to explore Spain on this noble quest was being denied us. Blimey, we weren’t even allowed out of the front door. Painting, reading, watching TV and doing jigsaws just wasn’t cutting it for me. 

Twenty years earlier having walked away from a job I really wasn’t enjoying, I was lucky enough to embark upon a completely different journey, starting up and building my own business, and I enjoyed pretty much every minute of it. But it was always a means to an end and that end had now been successfully reached and I needed a new journey. How about a five hundred mile journey? 

So I confessed to Mrs C my romantic view of life on the road, told her about the El Camino books I had been reading and how I thought this could be a great adventure for us, even if rain might be involved and en-suites might not. She is a wonderful woman Mrs C, the love of my life, and she knows me well enough not to take as read that every idea, plan, scheme, proposal or similar that I might come up with is either brilliantly conceived or foolproof. Generally speaking though, I don’t have too bad a track record in the new ideas department but this one was the first I had ever come up with that involved walking five hundred miles. She loved it.

Over the ensuing weeks and months, we discussed logistics and timings and determined that Spring 2022 would be a great time to undertake this adventure. And now, here we are. It's Spring 2022 and in just over a week, we fly out to Biarritz airport on our way to our Camino start point at St-Jean-Pied-de-Port in the French Pyrenees. We have accommodation booked for the first night. And that's it. Thereafter, we play it by ear. Can we really walk five hundred miles or are we just kidding ourselves?

Only one way to find out!

I Love Driving in My Car - in Spain!

I love driving in my car. I do. I bloody love it. Which is just as well because I’ve driven thousands of miles in my time both for business and pleasure and following my footie team which doesn’t qualify as either. It’s not the make or model of the car that I’m particularly bothered about because otherwise I'd treat myself to a Jaguar, it’s the freedom, independence and adventure afforded by the ability to travel. All I really ask from a car is reliability and a modicum of comfort, both of which the current ElRealThing Fiesta provides very nicely with it’s modest 1.0 EcoBoost 95 BHP engine allowing me to feel like I’m driving as opposed to aiming and usually without concern that I may unwittingly push the boundaries of speed camera tolerances from time to time. Usually. Not always.

Yes, it's a marked walking route but will your SatNav know?

Now I can’t pretend to rival Sir Ranulph Fiennes in the adventurer stakes but I’m certainly no Professor Chris Whitty which probably makes me normal, or at least pre-Covid normal before the nation ceded safety for freedom, started clapping like seals and considered a risk assessment necessary prior to venturing outside their front doors. But after seventy eight weeks of flattening the curve, squashing the sombrero, saving the NHS, fire breaks, tea breaks and lots more besides, Mrs C and I decided that it was time for a bit of adventure so off we set in our trusty wagon, early one September evening for the three hundred mile drive down to the Eurotunnel. After five and a half hours on the road, we stopped off for a kip in the car at the Stop24 Folkestone Services, just north of the tunnel in readiness for our 05.50 crossing in the morning. Armed with all the new-normal, "papers please" Covid-related documentation, we successfully negotiated the check-in booth and that was pretty much that. We were out the other side by just after half past seven local time and crossed the border into Spain, via our usual Somport Tunnel route, eleven and three quarter hours later. Lovely! Mrs C found and booked, via booking.com, what turned out to be a splendid accommodation in the small and extremely picturesque town of Biescas. We had sufficient time to nip into town and avail ourselves of a pint of the locally brewed draught Tensina IPA (ABV 6.4%) which also was lovely. And so were the next three pints.

A slightly later leave than originally planned the following morning but nonetheless we hit the road for the enjoyable bit - driving through Spain. Driving through Spain is a delight. The scenery tends towards the spectacular almost as a default. Mountain ranges, dramatic cliffs, lakes, rivers, sunflower fields, vines, olive trees. I could go on (don’t say it). Our usual toll-free route takes us past Huesca, Zaragoza, Teruel, Albacete and Murcia before landing at Mar de Cristal, a mile or so beyond the town of Los Belones. And with the next seven weeks on our hands, we had a lot more driving through Spain on the planner.

Deer my arse!

Little known fact. There are no deer in Spain. There are lots, hundreds, possibly millions of signs at the side of Spanish roads, every few kilometers all across this vast country, warning of deer. Warning: Deer (for the next) ten kilometers. Deer here. Deer there. Deer everywhere according to the signs but it’s all a big lie. I am sure that there used to be deer and I have no idea what the Spanish have done with them all but let me assure you that they do not exist. Not in Spain. Not anywhere near the road anyway. Approximately two and a half thousand miles or thereabouts over seven weeks driving through Spain and probably two and half thousand road signs warning of deer and not a single, bloody one of the little buggers. If you like to see deer when you’re out driving, don’t go to Spain.

Over the course of the next few weeks, we undertook a couple of airport round trips to Alicante, a three day trip to Valencia and an eventual route home via Frigiliana, Gibraltar, Salamanca, Ribadasella on the northern coast near Gijon and then on to Santander where, unusually for us, we took the ferry option back to the UK. That’s a fair bit of driving but I do like driving in my car, especially in Spain. Here are a few highlights from our final week.

Heading south of Murcia on the AP-7 Autovia del Mediterraneo provides, at times, a near assault on the visual senses and at unarguable value for the €10.90 toll charged on the Cartagena - Vera stretch. This was the second time in three months we had driven this route and the long coastal stretches between Almeria and Malaga offer scenery which is just breathtaking. Perversely, the same route heading back north up the coast is tame by comparison, as if all the scenery is constantly behind you. Anyway, first overnight stop is in Frigiliana, just inland from Nerja and famed for being “Spain’s most beautiful and well-preserved village” and it is indeed beautiful and well-preserved and well worth a visit. It is also jam packed with bus loads of tourists visiting for the day from the nearby coastal resorts. I love real Spain but plastic real Spain not so much. But Frigiliana did have one major redeeming feature and it was called El Colmao Wine and Experiences (El Colmao).

I don’t normally do wine bars but we were struggling to find somewhere to eat and there was a punter sitting outside this particular wine bar drinking a bottle of Estrella Galicia so that was good enough for me. We perched on two stools with a small high table outside the bar and awaited our fate. It always bugs me when we are recognised as being English even before I have opened my mouth and delivered a few utterances of Essex-accented pigeon Spanish. Nonetheless, we were banged to rights on sight by the proprietor, a local guy who spoke better English than what I do (joke!). This guy is passionate about his wine, I mean really passionate, so he was less than impressed with my ordering the Estrella Galicia. Nonetheless, Mrs C certainly does have a penchant for the Spanish red stuff and so the beer heathen was accommodated. A second round of the same soon followed and then a third accompanied by plates of iberico jamon of quantity guaranteed to induce a meat sweat. Almost replete, one for t’road was most definitely in order and by now, feeling suitably mellow, I asked our fine host what drink he would recommend I should indulge on this, our last opportunity at his fine establishment. Now, imagine any one of Guillem Ballague, Mikel Arteta or Cesc Fabregas responding with their heavily-accented but nonetheless perfect English and you’ll understand his retort of “You’re in a fucking wine bar, drink fucking wine” was entirely in keeping with a most splendid evening.

Scary mechanical theatre actors 

There is only one reason I would bother returning to Frigiliana again and that is the bar at  El Colmao Wine. I certainly wouldn’t go back for the various and arguably quaint mechanical theatre installations dotted around town because they can be a bit scary late at night, especially when you‘ve had several beers throughout the day and a glass of fucking wine.

The next morning and we’re on the AP-7 again beyond Malaga, then switching to the toll-free A-7 all the way down to Gibraltar which, of course, is not Spain. Gibraltar is where Mrs C and I met and married thirty years ago and we love the place which is why we’re here again, for the first time in over ten years, to celebrate our thirtieth wedding anniversary with some very special friends. The ElRealThing Fiesta however did not make the cut, opting instead for a three day rest in a car park just over the border in La Linear de la Concepcion and as this particular blog is about driving through Spain, we now fast forward seventy two hours to said car park from where we exit and follow a once familiar road out of town where we pick up the last stretch of the A-7 heading south before we hit the Autovia A-381 heading towards Jerez (home of sherry). We’re on our way to the autonomous region of Asturias, six hundred miles north.

I am not averse to driving six hundred miles and more in a day but we’re in no great hurry other than a desire not to fall foul of the post-Brexit ninety day rules so we determine to head initially for Salamanca, being around two thirds of the way, on the A-66 Autovia Ruta de la Plata which route roughly corresponds to the ancient “Silver Route” from the mines of northern Spain to the Mediterranean.

Autopista (AP) tolls in Spain tend to be fairly few and far between nowadays and not unduly expensive. Indeed, whilst of no benefit to us on this occasion, the AP-7 toll charges from the French border down to Tarragona were scrapped on 1st September, adding to other sections of the country’s AP motorway system similarly freed up over the last few years as the highway concessions expire. Over the two days and six hundred miles of this particular journey, we hit just the one toll road north of Leon at a cost of €13.50.

I have already alluded to the scenic delights that come with driving through Spain. The biggest surprise of this particular two day journey occurred between Jerez and Seville with a long stretch of completely flat landscape (wonderfully scenic nonetheless) which was not dissimilar to driving along the A17 through Lincolnshire except for the fact that you’re doing 75 mph and there are no tractors. But then it was back to normal again with the same old boring mountainous settings, rivers and lakes etc etc.

Salamanca is a beautiful university city, its Old City declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988 and we did enjoy an hour or two wandering around the old bit from bar to, err, back to the same bar again as it happened. We had neither the time nor inclination to do the city any real justice and the one real memory that sticks is how bloody cold it was the next morning when we hit the road again. Are temperatures of four degrees even legal in Spain?

Ribadasella with the Picos in the background

We have decided to stay in Ribadasella, a town situated on the Asturian coast to the east of Gijon and our drive there takes us along the fringes of the Picos de Europa, a mountain range forming part of the Cantabrian Mountains. Before that, the Autovia A-66 remains a joy to drive before picking up the equally joy-giving AP-66 at Leon (with the toll referred to above) towards Gijon before turning right and heading north east cross country to Ribadasella.

Throughout this road trip, I have been poorly looked after in terms of decent craft beer but Ribadasella came to the rescue via two particular bars which stocked bottled craft ales. Cafe Bergantin had a fridge full of options including Mahou IPA, Alhambra Citrus IPA, Complot IPA, Ordum IPA and an Asturian Pale Ale, plus others, from Asturian brewer Cerveza Caleya. Needless to say, our four night stay in Ribadasella included four visits to said bar. Guadana IPA by Asturian brewer Asturian Brewing Company was another very acceptable quaff on our final evening but my memory is surprisingly hazy as to where I actually had it. Somewhere in Ribadasella is about as close as I can get.

Looking down on Ribadasella from
the top of Pico Mofrechu

The Picos de Europa are stunning. So much so that to control visitor numbers, you can’t get to a lot of it without indulging in something akin to park and ride schemes. Warning: The Spanish are not good at queuing. Particularly the oldies. However, it transpires that a bit of jumping up and down, demanding a refund of your bus fare because the oldies have gazumped your queue position does in fact work albeit would probably not qualify one for a position with the diplomatic corps. Anyway, armed with a cash refund, Mrs C and I thereafter explored the Picos independently of officialdom by using the age old method of driving around aimlessly which, on this occasion, proved to be reasonably successful (ha ha, take that you ill-disciplined, septuagenarian, queue jumping bastards). Admittedly though, we never did get within ten miles of the Lagos de Covadonga being the lakes we had originally intended to visit. Hey ho.

I think it may be an age thing but I can be a bit of a luddite from time to time. It took many years before I would consider using a satnav and even now I am a firm believer that one should only use it as an accomplice to a previously well researched route plan. But if you ever find yourself in or near the Picos, you must use a satnav. This is not because you might not know where you’re going but rather that the satnav will almost certainly add to the enjoyment if, like me, you love driving. It would seem that your typical satnav has little comprehension as to what may or may not constitute a modern-day drivable road in terms of road width, surface condition, steepness, oxygen levels or indeed a combination of all these things. In the Picos de Europa, set your satnav free and you will love it forever more.

Top of the world.

As we were getting a little tight by now on our ninety day European allowance, a firm plan was required for getting back to the UK by no later than 20 October. It had been our plan all along to undertake the twelve hour through-France journey in one fell swoop as we had done on the way down. The usually redoubtable explorer that is Mrs C is somewhat less redoubtable when it comes to crossing water and the prospect of a ferry crossing has long been filed in the "it ain't gonna happen" drawer. So it was with no little surprise that I received her suggestion we might consider the Santander (a mere seventy five miles from Ribadasella) to Plymouth crossing as an option to France. The weather forecast looked good. It would save us either the cost of a hotel on the UK side or another five hours in the car after twelve hours in France and it would be a final mini adventure to finish off what has proven to be a fantastic few weeks. So that is what we did.

It only took us an hour and a bit to get to Santander along the coastal N-632 road and Autovias A-8 and A-67 all forming part of the European E70 route. It was an easy enough journey but something was particularly intriguing. As one drives through Spain generally, the flora and fauna encountered is plentiful and majestic, not least of which Cortaderia Selloana, a species of flowering plant in the Poaceae family commonly referred to as pampas grass. Back in the UK, one tends to see this resplendent plant adorning suburban front gardens but here in Spain it grows wild and nowhere more so than along the E70 route. As we progressed towards Santander, the pampas grass was positively bulging out from the Autovia roadsides and central reservations and Mrs C was positively sniggering as we went. Me? I am none the wiser until Mrs C tells me why it generally only adorns suburban front gardens in the UK. Well, I never knew that. And does it mean that they are all at it

Very Pleasant

in Spain? Fortunately, I remain very happy with Mrs C even after thirty years of marriage so I won’t be looking to introduce Cortaderia Selloana to our modest collection of flora and fauna here in Burnley any time soon. But I’ll never be able to walk down Lakeland Way again without sniggering just a little bit.

The ferry was fine, ideal in fact in current circumstances and the Lagunitas IPA was a pleasant surprise. But it was a bit boring and I certainly wouldn’t choose it as a preference to driving. But there again I love driving my car. I do. I really bloody love it.

Walking (A Bit of) The Alpujarras

In early March of last year, with the business sale behind us and having flown to Spain for an initial four week break at the apartment in Mar de Cristal, I thought I would indulge myself and start a blog about aspects of real Spain which might appeal to your typical Brit. Hence El Real Thing was created with a view to Mrs C and I exploring the country in a quest for real football and real beer and then my spouting words of wisdom about our findings. But no sooner had I set up the blog then someone in Wuhan left the bloody fridge door open and nothing’s been the same since. Whilst we got to spend plenty of time in Spain during 2020 we obviously didn’t get to travel very far so no real opportunity to blog about much else other than my newly found dislike for politicians, a view which various “lockdowns” since our return to the UK in October has only served to reinforce. But anyway, after very nearly eight months away and without a PCR test in sight we’re back in Spain.

During the intervening months Mrs C and I have done a lot of walking, partly because there has been bugger all else we have been allowed to do for much of the time anyway, but also because last year - during the initial lockdown in Spain - we read several books about El Camino de Santiago, known in English as the Way of St James. And we quite fancy doing it.  It’s only five hundred miles after all and we’ve got to find something to do now that we’ve sold the business. So we’ve been getting lots of practice in - in and around the beautiful countryside surrounding our UK home town of Burnley and now that we are back in Spain we have Calblanque Regional Park pretty much on our doorstep so we can do the heat training.

La Alpujarra is a natural and historic region in Andalucia, on the southern slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain range where the whitewashed villages and towns are collectively known as Las Alpujarras. British writers Gerald Brenan and Chris Stewart can both lay legitimate claim to having brought Las Alpujarras to the attention of their fellow countrymen. Brenan moved to the area in 1920 and from where he wrote The Spanish Labrynth, a historical work on the background to the Spanish Civil War and, later, South from Granada: Seven Years in an Andalusian Village. Chris Stewart is the author of Driving Over Lemons, A Parrot in the Pepper Tree and The Almond Blossom Appreciation Society, all three autobiographical about life in Las Alpujarras to where he and his wife moved in the late 1980’s. If you suffer from insomnia and have a propensity for retaining complex information then I would recommend Brenan’s Labrynth but for all normal people the Chris Stewart books I found to be hugely enjoyable. Whitewashed villages in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, as recommended by Gerald Brenan and Chris Stewart. And it’s only 350 km south. Mrs C?

Mary Poppins incoming? The town of Lanjaron hosts the world's biggest  
water fight every year on the 23rd of June to celebrate its water heritage.
They obviously need lots of umbrellas. And we found a few!

So that’s how we found ourselves, on Monday morning, heading in our Fiat 500 hire car to the town of Lanjaron, one of the many towns on the GR7 (Gran Recorrido - Long Journey) walking route. And I mean many towns. The GR7 is the path through Andalucia forming part of the European E4 route from Tarifa (southernmost town in Spain) to Greece. Yes, I said Greece. But as we don’t have the next year and a half to spare we’re just going to concentrate on that part of the route between Lanjaron and Trevelez. A 2.00 p.m. check-in at the rather splendid Alcadima Hotel Rural in Lanjaron gave us the rest of the day to relax, plan for walking day no.1 and explore the home of the eponymous bottled water company. In truth not a lot was open in the town, a factor we became accustomed to during the week as the absence of tourists to the area - all down to that bloody fridge door - has hit the area and it’s businesses hard. Having said that my beer nose did manage to track down two splendid little bars and we finished the evening with an excellent meal back at the hotel restaurant, washed down by a glass of Tempranillo. Lovely.

Looking back down to Lanjaron and we have only
just located the official GR7 route!

Oncoming Vehicles in Middle of Road. Is to me an example of a ridiculous road sign. To my logical mind why warn others of possible oncoming traffic in the middle of the road when, instead, you should put up a sign on the other side of the road saying Don’t Drive in the Middle of the Bloody Road (!) But in this respect the Spanish are no better. They like to mix it up a bit on the GR routes by sometimes putting a way-marker on the path you’re not to take rather than marking the one you should take. Yes, admittedly the red and white stripes on these markers form a cross instead of the parallel positioning of their correct-path cousins but surely, surely it’s just easier to mark the correct route, not the incorrect one? Anyway, that’s my excuse. That and the fact that at least 50% of the way-markers like to play hide-and-seek. Long story short, we missed (what should have been) the first important GR7 way-marker just outside of Lanjaron which cost us 4km. Accordingly, the cross-country route to the beautiful village of Canar, offering first opportunity to top up our water supplies, was achieved not in 8.4km but in 12.4km. All villages and towns along the route have ample drinking water fountains but an 8.4km gap between towns means that you have to ration your resources accordingly. Add 4km to the equation and an initial supply of 1.5 litres between you is clearly inadequate in 30 degrees of heat. Whilst we had originally planned to get to Soportujar that day, the appeal of Piki’s Bar in Canar was too great for two dehydrated mortals to resist and the fifth “copa” of the draught Cerveza Alhambra was just as sweet and satisfying as the first one had been, all of which were accompanied by complimentary tapas. The bar closed at 4.00 p.m. and we decided to miss out on Soportujar completely and head straight for the larger town of Capileira. The nice lady ordered us a taxi and it was worth every cent of the forty euro fare. Whilst at Piki’s, we booked the Finca Los Llanos Hotel Rural for the night and looked forward to soaking up the atmosphere of an excited Spanish public at the prospect of tonight’s Euro semi-final between Spain and Italy.

The Finca Los Llanos hotel was another little gem and the receptionist was lovely. Indeed a feature of our few days in La Alpujarra was how friendly and helpful all the locals were in their dealings with us. She advised me that the hotel pool bar had erected a big screen for Spain’s quarter final match the previous Friday and whilst she couldn’t be certain they were going to do so again tonight - why wouldn’t they? So we took a stroll around town. Again, all very quiet with not much open and a worrying theme emerging of most bars/ restaurants typically closing at 4.00 p.m. and not opening again until 8.00 p.m. I say worrying because that’s the time I usually like to start. Anyway, a couple of nondescript bars were open for drinks during this twilight zone, not that there was any great (or even modest) apparent football-related excitement and we determined to return to the hotel for our meal and then the footie. Hmm. The hotel pool bar not only doesn’t have a big screen erected, it isn’t even open. Bloody hell. We better have more luck tomorrow when England are playing. Anyway, a very nice steak at the hotel restaurant and we ended up watching the match on the small TV in the hotel room, albeit with several “resting my eyes” moments by the time penalties had decided the match in Italy’s favour. The Spanish may have their footie fanatics but they certainly don’t live in La Alpujarra.

Walking day no.2 and we leave Capileira at around 9.30 a.m. after a very nice hotel breakfast and with full chilly bottles of water, still only 1.5 litres but safe in the knowledge that the proposed route has plenty of villages en route in which to top up. This time we do manage to pick up the GR7 route albeit my “it’s downhill all day today” statement to Mrs C proves immediately to be wishful thinking as we head uphill out of town. However, what goes up must come down and the gentle uphill eventually turns to gentle downhill offering stunning views of Capileira behind us with the village of Bubion below it. Then a more or less level terrain of dirt track provides alternative stunning views as we make progress towards our first village of Capilerilla. We are surprised to see a 4x4 heading towards us at the dirt track junction where we are picking up the GR7 route. With map in hand we must look lost because the 4x4 stops, the drivers window winds down and an English voice asks “are you lost”? The English voice and his wife retired to nearby Pitres - where we should be heading to after Capilerilla - five years ago. The usual “where are you from” questions follow and it transpires that the English voice and myself were both born in Colchester, Essex. Anyway, unlike yesterday we are not lost and we part company in this small world of ours and proceed to Capilerilla where there is not much more than a collection of whitewashed houses and a drinking water fountain where we duly top up our supplies. Then a short and occasionally steep footpath down into Pitres which, whilst small, has a bit more to it than most of the villages with three bars, all open, in and around the town square. It is only just coming up noon but it’s been a nice walk so far, we’ve not got lost yet and we’re well watered. Time for a beer. The small bottled Alhambra lager is cold and sweet and it comes with a complimentary pork tapa. The second one comes with some cheese. I like Pitres. No wonder the English voice and his wife retired here. From Pitres we do some cross country down to Atalbeitar where there is not much except the drinking water fountain and a long uphill path into Portugos. The wrong uphill path as it turns out which brings us eventually on to the road between Portugos and our end destination Busquistar, albeit closer to the latter. No matter, we head back up the road to check out Portugos where we enjoy a large beer in the one and only bar/ restaurant apparently open in the place. We then head back down the road to Busquistar where, when earlier in Pitres, we had decided upon and booked Casa Sonia as our shelter for the night. As with many of the villages we were encountering, the steep paths and streets of Busquistar were at times every bit as challenging as the GR7 mountain tracks but we found Casa Sonia easily enough at the base of the village. Unlike yesterday, we had done as planned and reached our destination with only the slightest of deviations from the GR7 route and completed the 12.6 km without mishap. And Casa Sonia was delightful as was the hostess herself. We sat in the late afternoon sun on the property’s roof terrace, taking in the spectacular views of the lower River Trevelex valley whilst our washing dried on the line behind us. It was in many ways the highlight of the three days of walking.

The terrace at Casa Sonia, Busquistar enjoys stunning views over  
 the lower River Trevelex valley. And in the meantime our smalls are
now drying on the roof top terrace upstairs. All very efficient.

Busquistar is a small village community with a population of less than three hundred. It has one bar and it was closed. Not just between 4.00 p.m. and 8.00 p.m. but closed. Not permanently I suspect but it may as well have been from our viewpoint. Ooh ‘eck. England are playing Denmark tonight. I can’t miss that. Can I? We had no TV in our room. Sonia, bless her, said she could bring a small TV into the communal lounge and if we could find the appropriate channel (the footie was on something like channel no. 60 the previous night on the hotel TV in Capileira) then we were welcome. We trudged to the local supermarket - which was open - and spent 15 euros on beers and crisps then back to Sonia’s. “You did try Paco’s Bar?” Sonia enquired upon our return. No. Bar Vargas in the village I replied. Paco’s Bar. On the main road just outside the village. Doh! Back up the steep paved streets out of the village and just a couple of hundred yards West along the main road was, indeed, Paco’s Bar. And didn’t they treat us well. Every round was accompanied by a complimentary tapa. On round no. 5 I had to ask them for no more tapas. We were stuffed. They stayed open for extra time even though, by then, we were the only two in the bar and round no.7 consisted of a final celebratory liquor and a big fat tip to top up the ridiculous total of 22 euros they were attempting to charge us. What a result. It’s coming home. 

Walking day no.3 got off to a dull-headed start. It must have been a dirty glass or something. Our supermarket purchases of the previous night remained in Sonia’s fridge. 

Looking back at Busquistar as we walk along part of the Ruta Medieval
towards Ferreirola, close to Chris Stewart's El Valero homestead. 

Back in the UK we know that we can (relatively) easily do twelve miles a day on foot. Indeed we have been gearing up for fifteen miles a day with El Camino de Santiago in mind and have managed same both here in Spain and the UK but two days in the July heat of La Alpujarra and we’re peaking at twelve kilometres, let alone twelve miles. A bit of circumspection is called for and after consulting the GR7 route map with a particular eye on the proximity of villages en route, we decide to miss out on the sparse route between Busquistar and Travelex and instead to head back in the same general direction from whence we came. The alternative GR142 route takes in the lower slopes of the Sierra Nevada and whilst there is a similarly long drag were we to follow the route in its local entirety to Lanjeron, a small part of it runs literally from the doorstep of Casa Sonia, forming part of the local Ruta Medieval between Busquistar and Portugos. We decide to follow the first 2.3km of the route to Ferreirola which just happens to be the nearest thing to civilisation to where Chris Stewart’s El Valero homestead is situated. I think I am correct in saying that. Not that there is much to Ferreirola, a few properties and a church and that seemed to be about it other than Casa Ana which specialises in creative pursuits including painting, writing and walking, the latter in conjunction with our esteemed author friend so he must live pretty close. From Ferreirola we walked the road to the next larger - but nonetheless still small - village of Mecina and then up the world’s steepest uphill 1km footpath to Pitres. Walking uphill is hard work. This was purgatory. Bugger me we needed that coffee when we got to the bar in Pitres. I was way too knackered to think about a repeat of yesterday’s bottled Alhambra lagers. After recovering our breath, composure and with a quick visit to the local chemist for some Imodium tablets (needs must) it was off again to return along a 2.5km stretch of yesterday’s GR7 route to the place where we met English voice and wife yesterday, then to remain on the official GR7 route down into Bubion.

The earlier 1km of purgatory into Pitres had taken its toll and whilst we stopped to draw breath on several occasions between Capilerilla and here the landscape, whilst spectacular, was not conducive to a restful break. But one hundred yards from where we had met English voice and wife twenty four hours earlier, the GR7 produced. I strayed not ten yards from the official path to witness the view down to Bubion - below it Pampaneira and above it Capileira - when the dusty, gritty path gave way to smooth rocks offering the view of the trip and a comfortable, warm seat from which to enjoy. We made good use of it booking a room at the Villa Touristica de Bubion, approximately 2km south of our vantage point, whilst indulging in our recently re-charged water supplies. 

This panorama shot doesn't really do justice to the magnificence of the view looking down towards Bubion.
Capileira can just about be made out, further up the mountain from Bubion whilst the village of Pampaneira 
lies south of Bubion, just out of shot. The rocks on the left hand side provided a very comfortable resting place.

The 1.5km trail into Bubion cut a steep downhill zig zag path into the village. It would have been hard work in the opposite direction. Arriving at the bottom end of the village we walked up to the top end to find our hotel, check-in and take a breather before walking back in to town to explore. As before, very little was open and with 4.00 p.m. upon us only a couple of bars remained open although their kitchens did not. All the villages we encountered had a church and the churches would typically stand high and proud when viewing the villages from a distance. Try finding it though when you’re actually in the village itself. Such are the gradients in some of these villages that the tallest church tower will be obscured from view by just about anything and everything that might stand between you and said tower. So it took us twenty minutes to locate the church in Bubion, even though we could have walked the length of the place twice in similar time. But find it we did because where there’s a church there is usually a bar and thus it proved to be in Bubion. Restaurant Plaza 6 to be precise where, despite the fact that the kitchen was closed, the lovely lady rustled up some jamon and quesa and croquettes for good measure. Truth be told we were both still pretty knackered - last night hadn’t helped - and following our church-inspired mini feast we retired back to the hotel where a very quiet night was had by all.

The next morning we were up early, bright eyed and bushy tailed having decided the night before that we would catch the early bus back to Lanjaron where we had abandoned the hire car. Whilst we both felt fully recovered from yesterday’s lethargy, all walking routes back towards Lanjeron involved greater distances between villages and their drinking water fountains and there were weather warnings out for “extreme temperatures” and these certainly didn’t involve the prospect of snow. We booked the bus ride on-line at the princely cost of two euros each and the 07.55 bus duly turned up, albeit a few minutes late, for the one hour journey back and during which we passed through Pampaneira, Soportujar and Orgiva, the first two of which we had missed out on when abandoning our original plans, two days ago, in favour of the taxi.

Soportujar. Always handy to know an
LGBT-friendly Alpujarran village.

Soportujar looked to be particularly interesting. Not only does it afford great views of the lower Alpujarra but also of the Mediterranean beyond. The village also has a bit of a thing for witches. Local legend has it that any children of the village who strayed, unaccompanied, beyond its limits would be snatched by the local witches’ coven, duly despatched and their fat sold to the local dairyman to be turned into milk and cream. The village purports to be LGBT friendly. Less so child friendly it would appear.

Life needs a plan. The great thing about a plan is that it gives you a starting point and an initial direction of travel (in the case of a walking holiday both literally and metaphorically). Thereafter you adapt the plan if and as necessary and see where it takes you. At long last it was great to be able to get out and explore a bit of real Spain, to plan it, execute it, learn from it and (for me at least) write about it. So what did we learn from our three days walking in La Alpujarra?

First, don’t do it in July! In the normal scheme of things we wouldn’t have considered doing anything like this in July or August but frankly we were gagging to get going on our hitherto stalled retirement adventure so we did it anyway and we don’t regret it - we enjoyed it - but it was too hot. Also, make sure that you are aware of typical opening and closing times for local facilities. And learn how to read a map properly! If you have kids with you then don’t let them wander off on their own anywhere near or around Soportujar.

We arrived home, back in Mar de Cristal, safe and sound. We now know that the football didn’t quite make it home last night. Nearly but not quite. Ultimately, three of England's millionaire footballers failed to hit the back of the net from the penalty spot. Millionaires. Is it real football any more? I don't know. But there’s still plenty of real football to be found and now that we are out on parole at last, Mrs C and I are hoping to get searching for some of it here in sunny Spain.