Feasts for the senses.

Both days we spent in Salamanca we had lunch in a small cafe-bar on Via Libreros called La Andaluza, Low Cost, hardly the most pre-possessing of names, but as it turned out, serving very tasty tapas, and as promised very cheaply indeed. We are finally starting to get the hang of tapas. The secret is to take your time, and armed with a pocket Spanish dictionary, you can eventually work out what most dishes are. Anyway, having to struggle with the menu justifies having a glass of wine first, to pass the time and cleanse the palate.

La Andaluza - stunning value street-side tapas.

The sign of a great place to eat, good menu..dodgy drainpipe.

considering the options...

Good tapas are little miracles, the balance of flavours and textures truly delightful. The deal at la Andaluza allowed you to choose 5 dishes from the gourmet menu for €10. Over the two days we managed to work through half the menu, the other half will have to wait until we return another time. On the second day the bill for us both including five tapas, which we shared,, a side order of patatas meneas with a glass each of vino tinto was €12.70. Back home you would not even get a soup and a roll for that.

Pate de Perdiz (partridge)

Foreground: Champinones Rellenos de Jamon y Gambas con salsa Roquefort.
Back right: Medallon de Solomillo de Cerdo Tournedo en salsa Cazadora.
 Back left: Mini-hamburgeusa de Kobe.

Revuelto de Cetas de Temparara y Virutas de Jamon

Patatas Meneas

Bourgeoise Dreams and Nightmares.

The great thing about tapas is that although it is satisfying, you don't feel you have had such a big lunch that you want to find a corner to have a nap, though there are plenty of spots in Salamanca perfectly set up for a quiet snooze. Instead we went to the Museum of Art Nouveau. The museum itself is based in a beautiful modernista house with a huge wrought iron gallery overlooking the river. Inside the art nouveau ironwork, stained glass and woodwork are of the highest quality. The collection covers glassworks, ceramics jewellery and furniture of the Art Nouveau and Art Decor eras from Spain, France and Italy. The glowing colours and flowing natural forms were exquisite.

The spectacular iron and glass facade is easily visible from across the river

Although photography within the museum is banned, Gill sneaked a few shots in the cafe.

Some parts of the of collection arer broader than this and records more generally the taste of the cultured well to do - the not so petite bourgeoisie - in the first half of the twentieth century. To our eyes some figurines seem overtly racist. Moreover, if you were looking for the way conventional taste objectified women, then the semi-nude figurines of 'exotic' dancers would provide plenty of evidence of the how representation played to the 'male gaze' disguised as glamour. There was a complex relationship between glamour, eroticism and exploitation in many of the pieces. Some were simply kitch, but the dolls produced between the wars by German makers were the stuff of nightmares - manifestations of Freudian neuroses.

As photography was banned, so you will just have to take my word it, or even better, go there yourself. The friendly guy behind the cafe counter did allow us the take a photograph or two of his steam-punk antique Italian coffee machine and Gill nabbed a couple of surreptitious shots of the sumptuous interior for good measure. The coffee produced by the Jules Verne styled contraption tasted as good as the machine looked.

Steam-punk cortada

It looks like you could go deep-sea diving in it.

The cafe keeps to the style of the museum

What a great two days we've had. One of the dangers of getting older is that you develop a 'been there done that' attitude, that the world disappoints rather than surprises you. What we are doing presents us constantly with the unexpected; that's got to be good for us. What was it that Louis McNeice wrote....

"The world is crazier and more of it than we think, incorrigibly plural."

....in my happy place!

Cities are not just buildings....

I suppose the gist of what I was saying in the previous post is that what makes a place memorable is not the physical environment - but how you experience it. So far as cities are concerned this has a lot to so with social interaction. In some places you are forever destined to be an outsider - a wanderer, a dislocated observer. Often this is simply a case of cultural distance; when we visited Tokyo, or Hong Kong, then the social mores and cultural rituals were so non-European that it was inevitable that all we could do was observe from the sidelines. Sometimes places closer to home seem impenetrable, their pace or a self-possesed veneer render them inaccessible - Paris, London, Florence, Nice - all places I feel a little alienated by.

However other places invite you in as an honoured guest, where you step over the threshold of being a visitor, and are gifted a temporary belonging - Athens, New York, Napoli, Valencia, Marseille - all felt welcoming. Today, it was like that in Salamanca; here's why, it's about moments of unexpected intensity.

In Spain you can expect as a tourist to be more than occasionally irritated by beggars and wandering street musicians. Which are more annoying? The latter, I think. At least  conversations with beggars tend to be short, if not sweet: they ask for money summoning up as much pathos as central casting can provide, we politely refuse, and that is that, apart from the occasional guilt pang that strikes you as a 'have' faced with a 'have not'.

The menace of buskers, especially the wandering minstrel variety, is more profound. Firstly they are inescapable, plonking themselves right by your table as you are trying to have a quiet couplish moment. Secondly they are persistent, clearly feeling that a full rendition of some execrable tune will be better rewarded than a snippet. Finally they are either entirely talentless, or have a gift for utterly mismatching instrument and music with the spirit of the place. 

Star prize for this must go to the moderately talented solo saxophonist who ruined our visit to a cafe in Granada's lovely medieval centre with a pretty good pastiche of  Coltrane inspired  be-bop , which in its atonal improvisation, extreme register and enthusiasm for the un-melodic, must have persuaded the entire cafe that the chap was a tortured soul who deserved a euro or two, if not to reward his musicianship, then at least as a contribution to the cost of his therapy.

None of the above applies to the guitarist playing outside  Salamanca cathedral. We had noticed him yesterday playing a variety of Spanish classical pieces. He was very good, exceptional even. Gill, who rarely goes beyond the loose change stage of reward put €1.50 in the hat. Big money for her in the busker stakes. Today he'd moved pitch to outside the main door. He was being roundly ignored by a small crowd that had gathered, who looked like it was waiting for something to happen. What occurred next was a small prelude to Salamanca's Holy Week events. A group of teenage girls arrived shouldering a flower-decked bier. Some older boys, in their late teens were with them, teaching them how to make the bier gently away as they walked. Suddenly a priest opened  one of the big main doors of the cathedral and the girls started to walk gingerly towards the steps. At the time I was holding the camcorder  on 'still' mode to take a photo.

I changed to video mode and framed the guitarist in the foreground with the little procession behind him. He was playing some jaunty little melody.  As I pressed the start button he changed tune. Was he aware of the scene behind him, or was it mere serendipity that as the girls moved towards the portal the romantic and soulful opening chords of Concerto d' Aranjuez echoed quietly across the square? The girls and their flowery bier vanished into the darkness of the cathedral and the doors closed. I wanted to record more of the concerto, it was being played beautifully. Slowly I panned the camera across the ornately sculpted facade, briefly the sun reflected on the golden stone and the lens flared. I zoomed out to take some more video of the guitarist, passers-by wandered across the frame; he was still playing the haunting melody when finally I pressed stop. It had been one of those entrancing, intensive moments  that stay with you forever. It's rare indeed, however, that you are left with a permanent record.

Salamanca

We have just spent two days in Salamanca. What a great city! I keep saying that about every single city we visit, but it's true, and what is even better, due to the regional nature of Spain each one is great in a unique way.

Salamanca's character, like Oxford or Cambridge, is moulded by its university whose faculty buildings are spread across the old city. Salamanca too, is best viewed from across its river. It cannot quite rival the idyllic pastoral vista of Oxford from Christchurch Meadow, but then its Anglican twin can't quite equal the sheer grandeur of Salamanca's High Baroque monuments nor its venerable Roman bridge.

The city and roman bridge from across the Rio Tormes

The cathedral mixes Gothic and Baroque elements - but still looks coherent.

Salamanca University was founded in the early 13th Century, some of the buildings are late medieval, though most date from the 17th and I8th centuries. Spain developed a variant of Renaissance architecture called plateresque. It is more ornate than classically derived Italianate buildings: unsurprisingly, the Spanish style reveals both Islamic and Gothic influences.

The oldest university library building in continuous use - over 500 years

You can sense Moorish influences in this Renaissance period courtyard

An eclectic mix of styles on the old cathedral portal

18th century sculpture on a Gothic facade

It looked a bit like Gormenghast to me!

The 18th century buildings are almost overwhelming in scale. As you wander about the sheer wealth and power of the Counter Reformation church strikes you. Both the University buildings dating from this time and the ecclesiastical are impressive rather than lovely, to my mind. They are products of absolutism, designed to impress through scale and power rather than persuade through beauty.

The buildings are so big it's tricky to photograph them

This small square is one of the few places you can get a more general vista of the university area.

What saves Salamanca from being overwhelmed by its autocratic past is the energy and vivacity of its street life. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the famous central square, built in 1755 in an unremittingly ornate late Baroque style. When we first walked across it in the morning it seemed dull, it's architectural uniformity somewhat tedious. By mid-afternoon the square had been taken over by groups of older school kids all meeting up to celebrate Friday, and the end of term . There was a real buzz about the place, but this was nothing to how it felt the next day. On Saturday everyone heads for the centre of town, particularly Playa Major to meet, chat, fill the cafes to overflowing, flirt, sit down, lie down, try out some impromptu flamenco moves, read a book, walk hand in hand, play tag; just being among it all lifts the spirits - it is a lovely, convivial, humane place.

Friday, 10am - hardly a soul about, the square looks somewhat empty and severe...

By 4pm. it's alive with older school students getting into an end of term mood...

By Saturday late afterrnoon, all human life is out there...

cafe's are full...

and there is a happy hubbub in the early Spring sunshine.

Cuidad Rodrigo

This small walled town near the Portuguese border, built on a rocky outcrop on the banks of the river Agadon looked like an attractive place for an overnight stop from the description in Lonely Planet. When we arrived it was later in the afternoon than we had anticipated due to the shenanigans with the motorway toll. We were pleased to find the camp site open, for it was not listed in the ACSI book, just somewhere we had come across while browsing Google maps; its web-site seemed to say it was open all year, but our Spanish is minimal and we could not be sure. In some ways we have been unadventurous so far as places we've stayed in - keeping to the ACSI listed sites and stopping places in All the Aires book. Next time we might do a bit more on-line research and seek out places where you can wild camp, or stay in other unlisted Aires. It would bring the cost down, I think this half of the trip has been more expensive than in the Autumn, even if you discount unforeseen expenses like the €195 spent on the new battery.

Although the site gates were open, and eventually a man appeared from the bar and told us to choose a pitch and someone would open reception at six to sign us in, we were the only people staying, and clearly the place looked more or less closed  However the hook-up functioned, the women's half of the toilet block was unlocked, and once I had worked out how to unlatch the heavy metal security gate on the washing-up room, it too became accessible, and there seemed to be hot water on tap. The place was a little old fashioned and down at heel, but functional, reminiscent French camping municipal. It was fun being the only people on site, it felt slightly off the beaten track and adventurous.

On our own

The walled town on the hill seemed like about a 15 minute walk, the sun was trying to break through, so we decided to take a look. To get there we went through a small bario of working class housing - perhaps dating from the nineteenth century. When we crossed the narrow old bridge across the Agadon, I noticed a five storey abandoned mill building with a substantial race built downstream. Perhaps the area we had walked through once provided housing for its workers.

The town itself is much older than this, with medieval walls, an ancient castle, now converted into a swanky Parador, and old twisting streets and little squares lined with Renaissance period palacios. In many ways it looked like a smaller version of Caceres, it's more famous southerly neighbour. There is one in important difference however, though Caceres may have World Heritage status, its old city is a museum piece, empty and unused; Cuidad Rodrigo's citadel is still the town centre with shops, restaurants and cafés which as the afternoon moved towards evening were beginning to liven up. Gill even found an Orange shop to top-up the Moto.

The castle is one of the first Paradors, opening in 1932

These towns do have a distinctly Tuscan look

The main square

A modernista addition.

We took a wall around the walls which have extensive views across the plain towards the mountains of Sierra de la Pena de Francia. After the colour of the south, even in the bright evening sunlight the scene had a forbidding wintry look. We spotted Maisy parked a kilometre or so distant among the camp-site's plane trees. Their pale bark and leafless branches looked bone-white as twilight gathered. Only the cherry blossom next to the Parador reminded you that Spring was on the way. I think it's probably a tardy visitor to the high plateaux of central Spain.

Ancient ramparts

A clock tolled six. We headed back to the campsite to sign in. It's the sort of place where the most ordinary things provide momentary excitement, such as a flock of sheep clanging past the van, or the visit of a wagtail hopping close to filch our crumbs. It was very starry when I went out later with the washing-up. It would be a cold night.

Leaving Portugal more than once.

In fact I am a little hazy about just how many times we actually left the country, but I'll get to that presently.

We did extricate ourselves from Coimbra aire's small bay and soon were tootling along the xxx towards Viseu. The road follows the valley of the Mondego which is wide, wooded, and in the Spring sunshine rather lovely. Soon you are climbing, out of an arable landscape into a pastoral one. Deciduous trees give way to eucalyptus, the sky grows bigger and the valley sides steeper. Central Portugal is beautiful, green and not developed to the same extent as similar countryside in the more industrialised north.

Deciduous trees in the valleys.

Evergreen as you climb

We arrived at Viseu which looked a prosperous place judging by the outskirts. There was nowhere obvious to park Maisy, so we decided to press on, after calling into an Intermarché to stock-up. The road climbed and climbed crossing a series of ravines on tall viaducts as we went. Past the Barange de Frangile we stopped off at a service area to buy a pass for the electronic toll. The cashier advised he did not sell them but the next area did. Very confusing, back on the road climbing higher, over the gorges of the upper Dao of vino fame.

Parked-up with the trucks, failing to buy a motorway pass

The next area did sell tokens for the motorway toll. But only those where you had to phone a call centre. Our attempts to buy them interrupted what appeared to be a protracted row between the formidable lady cashier, and two truck drivers, one Hungarian, the other Portuguese. They too were mightily confused about the system. In the end the cashier informed us that we could pay our dues at the border. So off we went.

Towards the Spanish border the motorway reaches 3000ft+

Beyond the mountain town of Guarda we reached a high. desolate plateau, wobbled across a huge viaduct as Maisy was buffeted by cross winds strong enough to blow the roadside windsock horizontal; then we reached the border. There were no toll booths to be seen. We pulled off into a lorry park. An old rusty fence separated the now defunct custom posts between Spain and Portugal. The pedestrian gate was half hanging off its hinges so I hopped over into Spain and walked back towards Portugal to the nearby building which sported a large I for information sign. There was no one in. Back through the fence and back down the road to a Repsol garage we had spotted. The cashier advised Gill that the booths were actually in the last service area in Portugal, 14km back down the motorway. About turn.

As you head towards the service area foreign vehicles are directed through an automatic gate. You stick a bank card in the slot, a camera snaps your registration number, and that's it. From that, any time you pass a paypoint your card is automatically debited. Aside from the fact this seems as secure as a sieve, the whole system presupposes that foreign cars will enter the country on a toll motorway. It does not acknowledge that some people will enter on a trunk road and leave the country by motorway. Goodness knows if it will cope with the fact that some of our motorway use happened prior to registration. I hope I don't get a red letter some months hence. The entire system is utterly bonkers.

So how many times today did we cross the Portuguese/Spanish border..... Gill and Maisy 4, Pete 6, if you count my short jaunt back and forward through the rusty fence. Quite frankly, it's a relief to be back in Spain heading along a free motorway towards Cuidad Rodrigo.

Department 62a

I've got it! Finally I understand why I have been struggling to understand Portugal, it has been secretly annexed. Squeezed-in alphabetically between Pay de Calais and Puy de Dome, France has a new department, number 62a - Portugal. It is remarkable that this has not been more widely reported especially as word on the streets has it that Marie le Pen is headed for the top job on the basis that Portugal is well used to having fascist leaning leaders in charge.

You doubt this is the case - I can present you with incontrovertible photographic evidence:

Renault 4's have all come here to die...

all public rooms have ancient TV's in the corner, usually blasting out day-time TV even when the room is empty

then there's the penchant for orange plastic furniture

the Gaulish retail take-over

with familiar stap-lines

an ageing Peugeot parked beneath smiling girls clutching vegetables....Vive La France!

Houses like you find in the Vendee - even the fire hydrant looks French!

and of course, strange attempts at la moderne on rond point

No wonder the place is crawling with French motorhomes, Their grey-haired owners are here for one of two reasons. The left leaning jaunty ones, clutching ipads and looking bookish, are touring around here instead of Maroc, because since Charlie Hebdo, they are nervous of travelling independently in Islamic countries.That leaves the majority who look glum and bored and stand about for hours chatting at mega-volume. My theory is that they are here because it looks French, has familiar stores - Intermarche, even Continente, but the wine is cheaper and cigarettes even more so. Furthermore, some of the camp site sanitary arrangements look distinctly pre 1968 and they can all pretend that in Department 62a that nasty M. Mitterand never came along and modernised everything. So if you yearn for France as used to be, come to Portugal, it's all still here, drainy smells, Renault 4s, rude shop-keepers and miserable looking, black-clad elderly people.