Another day another restaurant

The lower display lists all the rules and regulations
governing your use of the funicular railway

Spending a week on a business trip involves nightly forays into town to have dinner. On the one hand it's an appealing concept, being able to eat out each night at a different restaurant, discovering something new each time. On the other hand there's always the downside of a bad restaurant experience and the sense of lost opportunity that brings. Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I head out into the night, a short list of potential restaurant candidates in my head. I've been going through restaurant reviews online, and while walking out from the hotel I try to remember how I would have done this in the pre-Internet days. The good old Michelin Red Guide would have played a role of course, assuming I'd had brought one along on the trip. We used to put our dining faith in the hands of one organisation and its reviewers; now we try to sort out the serious from the trolls and scammers on the Internet instead. Which results in a better dinner I wonder?

Although I have another restaurant in mind, as I walk past the Continental restaurant I am suddenly struck by a lack of enthusiasm for another lengthy walk through the back streets of Pau, and I manage to convince myself to break one of my restaurant rules (Never eat in a hotel restaurant unless you're staying in a place where the alternatives are even worse). The Continental restaurant is next door to the Continental Hotel, and although it's not officially part of the hotel, it seems to have a very incestuous relationship with it. I go inside anyway, and am now committed, despite the rather bleak vista of the large and almost empty space inside.

There's a table of three near the door, strategically placed by the window. This, I know from experience, is standard restaurant strategy: seat your first guests by the window, so it looks to the casual passer-by that the restaurant has lots of people inside, and therefore must be a popular and good place - disguising the fact that the place is actually almost empty. I get allocated the next table along, also at the window, helping to perpetuate the illusion that this is a popular place.

The already-seated party turns out to be an American family; mum, dad and daughter. During the course of my meal, I don't hear the father at all and the mother only every so often. But the daughter makes up for that, talking the entire evening. Americans - and I generalise of course - tend to stand out in French restaurants. There's many reasons for this, but one of them, amply demonstrated tonight, is that they talk loudly and a lot. Go into a French restaurant and it's a generally quiet place with muted conversations happening in the private space of each table. Go into an American restaurant and you're instantly confronted  by loud voices from all directions; nothing quiet or private about any of it.

As the evening progresses, more people arrive. At one stage there are five tables with lone diners, which sets the tone of the sort of place this is: these are business travellers staying at the hotel.

I order a half bottle of wine, and am treated to quite a show when it arrives. Two waiters appear and one of them - he turns out to be the manager - turns the serving of the wine into a training session for the other waiter, explaining how to remove the foil, put the corkscrew into the cork "never turn it too far, and be careful with half bottles because the corks are shorter" and so forth. I'm stunned. It's one thing to do some on-the-job training, but right here on my table without even so much as a word of explanation or perhaps confirmation that I don't mind? Maybe I'm being snooty, but there are ways of doing things, and this isn't one of them. Right at the end of this impromptu show, the manager explains, rather redundantly, that the jeune homme was a trainee. Really?

Actually, the manager looks rather like a trainee himself, with his white dress shirt unbuttoned at the collar (with a tie), his shirt-tails half out, and a general scruffiness about him. He somehow epitomises the restaurant: it has pretensions of being a somewhat upmarket, slightly formal place with nice tablecloths, strategic plants, good glasses, wait staff dressed formally and so on. Yet when you scratch the surface ever so slightly, a casual scruffiness appears. And we haven't even talked about the food, which although it was perfectly acceptable, was in no way memorable.

The red wine is Domaine Guilhemas,  Béarn AOC, by Pascal Lapetre  vignerons de père en fils depuis 1909 (4 generations). Just a little reminder that you're in France, where they've been making wine quite a long time. It is good.

The trainee waiter comes and clears the main course. Without any preamble he begins to recite the dessert choices: moelleux au chocolat, gâteau basque, glaces et ... je ne sais plus (I don't remember any more). The best part is he does the whole thing without the slightest trace of emotion, feeling, or showing that he's actually interested. Even the "I don't remember" at the end of his list is simply included as if it were another dessert in the list, rather than an admission of any kind. Somehow, this nicely finishes off the evening for me; it couldn't have been better if it had been scripted.

The following evening I am out on the road again, on my nightly voyage of culinary discovery. It's cold tonight, and there's drizzle about. I have a destination tonight: Le Lavoir, which is a restaurant I've been wanting to try since my previous visit to Pau. Last time I was here, each time I went to try the restaurant it was closed either "exceptionally", or because I was there on one of the days it was normally closed. This time I'm prepared and I've checked the restaurant's hours. Tonight is the first night of the week that it's open. I walk briskly (it's cold) straight to the destination, which is about a kilometre from my hotel and arrive to find that, yet again, the restaurant is refusing to be nice to me: it's closed again!

So I go to Chez Canaille, the place next door, which is my backup plan. It's also a place on my list, although quite a bit further down.

It looks quite nice inside, and there's a table with a large group already inside (strategically placed so it can be seen from the street, of course). There's nobody else in the restaurant. The waiter is friendly and things are looking good. Then I scan the menu, which is quite elaborate, and begin to realise that there's nothing on it that actually has a lot of appeal to me. I'm not looking for pigeons, wild black boar, scallops, or sweetbreads. But there's hope, because this restaurant prides itself on its specially aged beef (origin controlled...)

I notice that the large group is speaking English and with dismay realise that it's a table of oilfield people. This is not a good sign.

I choose the Faux Filet since the other cuts are either huge (600g of beef on your plate?) or meant to share with 2 people. The meal arrives amazingly quickly, arousing my suspicion from the start. How could they have had the time to prepare and cook it?  I'd ordered saignante (rare) but this was pushing the boundaries. The meat looked the part, but it was barely even warm. A beautiful tender meat completely ruined by being full of sinew and other, to me, inedible bits. I imagine that had it been cooked more it would have been tough, so the chef - I am perhaps using the term lightly - has decided to cut his losses and not risk actually cooking it very much. The accompanying thick-cut chips were floury and old. The salad was tired with lots of bruising and brown bits.  It looks like the plate (actually a wooden cutting board) had been sitting there with chips and salad for some time. Pass the meat on the grill for a couple of minutes, plonk it on the board with some coarse salt and then serve.

I decide not to risk dessert (I had read bad reviews about the desserts, and the meal had certainly not impressed) and leave disappointed and unfulfilled. Two strikes in a row in my restaurant evenings.

Sunday lunch in Pau

There's a knock on the door. It's the 'femme de chambre' wanting to do the room.  I start thinking about what an interesting expression femme de chambre is, but then realise than in English there is the equivalent (and equally archaic) word 'chambermaid' so that train of thought goes back to the station. It's just as well she has arrived or I would possibly have spent the whole day messing around on the computer. So I take the opportunity and leave the hotel to go for a walk. I head for a nearby park, one of the few green bits on my map. The hotel isn't far from the centre of town but it's on the edge and in a pretty seedy area. I've stayed here a couple times before and know that at night in order to get into town (and dinner) I have to negotiate a path past the drunks and tramps who congregate outside a bar near the hotel.

The park is a bit like a fairy tale, but one with a dark storyline. There are areas of trees with low-hanging branches over dark leaf-strewn paths. I discover what turns out to be a holly tree, complete with red berries. I realise that I had no idea that holly grew as such a large tree. The holly somehow completes the fairy-tale image for me. I half expect to come across a little girl in a red cape carrying a basket in the woods ahead.

The promenade along the cliff looking out to the Pyrenees has a Sunday arts and crafts fair; the usual wood carvings, sculptures made from recycled materials, necklaces made from string and beads and paintings that mostly look like they were made by the dozen, which I suppose they were. You never seem to see anyone buying anything. The sellers are sitting in their little stalls, knitting, reading, having lunch - but not selling.

I end up near the castle, which is still bring restored. It doesn't look like a lot of progress has been made since I was here almost a year ago. No sense in rushing these things I suppose.

A strategic lettuce leaf completes the meal

Passing through the square near the castle, with its restaurants with tables set up outside, I decide to have lunch today. After all, I might not make it to dinner since I know jet-lag is going to set in around that time. Normally these sort of restaurants don't have a lot of appeal, since they invariably seem to aim rather low in terms of quality, relying on a tourist trade that doesn't depend on repeat business. But I see quite a few groups that look like they might be local, so against my usual (and it turns out, better) judgement, I sit myself down at one of the places. The blackboard menu announces the day's special: Souris d'Agneau au miel et au thym, avec garniture du chef. The 'garniture du chef' turns out to be chips and a single lettuce leaf. Clearly the chef is lacking a little imagination. The lamb isn't bad, but it's not at all inspiring either. Plus it takes forever to arrive, which is pretty impressive, considering it's the special of the day and it's a dish that is cooked well beforehand. Perhaps it took them a long time to select which single lettuce leaf to add to my plate.

Still, the Madiran by the glass arrives quickly, and isn't actually at all bad. While I'm waiting for my food there's plenty of opportunities for people watching in a place like this.

An impossibly cool (at least, I suspect he thinks so) guy in a suit and sunglasses walks by. Or rather, he struts by. He's the sort of person who'd be wearing those sunglasses inside as well. A little later, Ronnie Corbett (half of the Two Ronnies) walks by. I know it couldn't have been the Ronnie Corbett, but it was definitely his twin. At the restaurant across the street, a woman who looks nowhere old enough to be the mother of the girl she's with - but probably is - is changing tables to take the one vacated by someone there. The waiter arrives and she explains that her daughter wasn't happy at the other table; the waiter obligingly shuffles tableware between the tables to accommodate her. A bit later the daughter decides she wants to sit on the other side of the table, meaning she's pretty much sitting on the street now. The mother is negotiating with her daughter about this, but clearly losing the argument. Not long after the daughter decides she's had enough of the restaurant and they leave. Clearly it's the daughter who is running this relationship.

At the table next to me is a guy in his early sixties with his daughter. Or is it his girlfriend? It's hard to tell, and although I do my best, by the end of the meal I still haven't worked it out. It keeps me occupied though. Surprisingly he asks me if I mind him smoking - an unheard of question in France, particularly when sitting outside. Even more amazingly, he doesn't light up when it's obvious that I do mind. I am impressed.

The dessert I've ordered finally arrives and proves itself to be definitely not worth the wait. I remind myself that this is the reason why I don't eat at places like this and tell myself "I told you so". Maybe next time I'll pay more attention.

Fragile eggs on the road

Different country different restaurant

A bit more than a day later and I am in a different continent and in a different  restaurant. And everything's in a different language.

But it's much more than that. The place I have chosen for a quick dinner is relatively small; there's about 30 people inside. There's another fifteen or so outside, even though it's November and we're in the northern hemisphere. Actually, it's unusually mild for this time of year in France. But here people sit outside even in the middle of winter - as soon as the sun makes an appearance you'll find people outside. Of course the fact that it's night-time now makes that logic less relevant, but you get the idea.

To serve forty or so people there's one waitress and two cooks. It never ceases to impress me how here in France a single waiter will manage an entire restaurant. That's not something you will see in Australia, and it sort of goes against the general labour market trend in the two countries. Restaurants and the job of the wait staff are clearly an exception. Actually in a sense in this particular restaurant there are one and a half people serving since the waitress is heavily pregnant. Her enormous tummy is bulging over her pants and other parts of her are also straining at their containing garments. She's already not a small person, and now is doing an amazing job getting around the tiny restaurant. 

The two cooks look like they've been working here for decades and look like caricatures: if you saw these characters in a movie you'd say they were overdone. The only thing missing is a half-smoked 'Gitanes' between their lips. One is behind the counter in the tiny open kitchen putting large handfuls of spaghetti into an enormous pot of boiling water and plating up veal escalopes and chips while the other is manning the pizza oven, which is just behind the front door so he's essentially standing in the doorway as he makes his pizza bases.

Although the restaurant is called "L'Entrecôte" - a pretty archetypal name for a French restaurant where you'd expect to find steak-frites, crème brûlée and mousse au chocolat on the menu, this turns out to be a pizza and pasta restaurant. Not quite Italian, since both the pizza and the pasta have a decidedly French influence, but nevertheless it's Italian-inspired.

I spot some flies circling in the open kitchen and am glad I cannot see further around the corner where presumably the salads are being made and the dishes are being washed.

Most of the people in the restaurant are seated at two long tables. When I arrive the waitress points me to a still-empty space between two groups and I squeeze between the rows until I get to the indicated spot. It's almost convivial, although I detect a certain coldness in the returned "bonjours" of my neighbours who clearly were not expecting someone to join their party. I am in between a group of four (mum dad and daughter with boyfriend) on  my left and a young couple on my right. I am facing the kitchen, and together with the two groups on either side of me and the goings-on in the kitchen I have plenty to keep me occupied during the meal.

There are too many notable things happening around me to be able to remember them all, but here are a couple of highlights:

The young guy on my right has ordered a steak with a creamy pepper sauce. When it arrives, his first comment is "where's the mustard?" Even his young girlfriend questions this: "You want mustard with a pepper sauce?". He insists and calls the (rather busy) waitress over to bring him his mustard. "I can't eat steak without mustard". 

At the end of the meal the family on my left asks for the bill. The boyfriend rushes to grab is from the waitress before the father can get it - clearly this is going to be his treat! There's a mock argument about who's going to pay for the sake of appearances and he triumphantly pays the bill.

When I finally leave, the restaurant is still completely full inside (the family on my left has been replaced by another party of four). When I get outside I discover that the tables there are also almost all occupied - and it's still just the one waitress! Admittedly, someone from the back (the dishwasher?) has appeared and is helping to re-set the tables, but the food service is still being done by that same waitress, who even manages to say goodbye and thank me for dining with them. I leave impressed.

Restaurant voyeur

At the airport again. Thank goodness I am flying business class and so get to benefit from the lounge. And there goes my train of thought. Derailed by the expression I have just used: 'thank goodness'. Like so many expressions we use without thinking about them, if you make the mistake of actually thinking about it, you begin to realise how strange they really are and you start to question where they came from. In this case it seems to be a form of 'thank God' without the religious overtones.

Meanwhile there's a lot happening around me.

To my left there's a large woman. Actually, when she stands to go to the buffet, I realise she's not just large, she's huge. She walks with the aid of a walking stick; by the way she moves I guess she's had hip surgery, or perhaps she needs hip surgery. One thing she does need is to lose weight. She's at the buffet and with the help of one of the staff she is loading up with pretty much everything on display. Back at the table a waiter is offering wines. He returns with several bottles and she tries them all before settling on one.

A bit later the waiter is back, this time with not one, but two main courses and a large bowl of salad. She sends the salad back. What seems like moments later, the waiter is back again, this time with desserts (plural). I can't help but see the Monty Python sketch of the exploding fat man: "just one more little wafer" prompts the waiter before the fat man explodes from overeating.

To my right is another woman. She's slim. Although she's almost certainly quite a bit older than the woman on my left she looks much younger. She orders the smoked salmon and a coffee. A decaf soy. A healthy choice perhaps, but also a double oxymoron of sorts. Firstly there's the contradiction of coffee without the caffeine. But she's added insult to injury - I feel my thought train derailing as I write this - by asking for milk that isn't milk.

The waiters are lovely. One even remembers me from my previous visit, or at least is very sweet about pretending to. They are male and Filipino and while it would be rather presumptuous of me to say that they are gay, they're certainly camp. They do a great job, as does the chef: good food in an airport lounge is not what you would expect, but the Etihad lounge is very impressive.

Two tables across there's another woman. She acts like she's used to being waited on and makes no attempt to be nice to the waiter. He takes it in his stride. A bit later  the woman is joined by a friend. A colleague perhaps? The two women discuss their respective challenges in getting to the airport on time. It seems like it's a contest. "I was still packing when the driver arrived" says the second woman, effectively winning the contest. She orders and makes even less attempt to acknowledge the waiter as a human being than her friend did.

There's an older couple who look like they don't do this sort of thing very often. They both have drinks; his looks like it might be a gin and tonic and it looks like it's not his first. I don't see any food on their table. She looks like she is resigned to having to deal with him; no doubt she has years of experience.

Back in the UAE

So I am (back) in Abu Dhabi for a week. It's summer (although not the hottest part) and the temperature hovers in the low 40's (C) during the day. Everyone retreats to the air-conditioned comfort of some luxury hotel, their luxury car, or a luxury shopping mall. Everyone that is, except for the migrant construction workers who are still being bused* to and from their non air-conditioned quarters (which, complete with corrugated iron roofs, make ideal saunas) in non air-conditioned buses. At least the bus windows open.

I am inside all day since I'm working. I don't venture outside until the late afternoon, when the sun's direct heat has retreated and I only have the 40 degree heat to deal with. I want to cross the road outside the hotel but it's turned into something like a ten-lane divided freeway since the opening of the Salam Street tunnel. Luckily I remember how Abu Dhabi has a network of pedestrian subways (rarely used, since there are relatively few pedestrians, and apart from the subways, not much pedestrian-friendly ground to walk on). These are grandly built with walls of tiled artwork. Like much of the infrastructure, maintenance and longevity are less of a concern, so things degrade quickly. Paving and brickwork is cracked and broken, drains, when there are any, are blocked or broken (or uncovered). A pity.

Pedestrian underpass - desert camel racing scenes in this one

* Annoying, isn't it? When you write an apparently simple word and all of a sudden your thought flow comes to a crashing stop when you can't convince yourself whether you've spelled (or spelt) it correctly! Being transported by a bus (of which more than one would be buses, while 'busses' is tempting) is being bused. But that looks a lot like 'abused' without the 'a', so can it be correct? A quick search digs up 'buss', which is a form of oral communication, so being 'bussed' is definitely something different to being transported mechanically. So 'bused' it is then.

Dubai police car - if you can't beat them, join them!

Here the people's car is a Toyota Landcruiser - the most expensive V8 model of course. In white. Given that there's so many BMW X5 and X6s and Range Rovers on the roads they are now a bit passé. The Porsche Cayenne is still popular, although you'll definitely not stand out in the crowd driving one of those. Having a Porsche is not something particularly special here. Something more exotic (and expensive) is required. Perhaps an Audi R8, or why not a Bugatti Veyron or Lamborghini?

In a country where the police (in Dubai) have cars like a BMW M6, Mercedes AMG SLS, and Lamborghini Aventador, you need to make the effort to stand out from the crowd with your car.

I am staying in one of the luxury hotels on the island. Actually "luxury hotel" is almost a tautology here; every hotel is "luxury" by the standards of any other place. The forecourt is - as is the norm - crowded with valet-parked fancy cars: from BMW and Mercedes to Porsches, Bentleys, the odd Aston Martin and Ferrari. Footpaths are for cars, not people and to get to the front door you have to negotiate this parking lot. I meet up with some old colleagues. One arrives in his Porsche and the other turns up in his Aston Martin DB9. And there I am thinking that when I had a car here I was driving a Nissan Tiida....

A novel use of 4WD to get over the traffic?

The class I am teaching is almost monochrome. I look out at a sea of white on one side and black on the other. Boys on one side in their white dishdashes (traditional male dress) and the girls on the other side in their black abayas. An occasional splash of colour is provided by the few expatriates in the class. Coffee breaks inevitably turn into very  lengthy affairs. Speaking of coffee, one morning one of the girls pulls out a Harrods bag and from it produces a large decorated ceramic coffee pot (with gilded decoration), a doily, and a set of ceramic coffee cups. I'm impressed. When I question her about it, she explains: "It's local coffee - I couldn't live without my coffee". She proceeds to offer coffee to others and the coffee break turns into a long local social event. The room is always fragrant, smelling of the typical woody local perfumes of oud and bukhoor, which are worn liberally by the men.

At dinner at one of the restaurants I am, as usual, dining alone. So I engage myself in some people watching which waiting for my meal. There's a young Emirati couple. He's in his sparkling white dishdash; she's in her black abaya, carrying the de rigueur large and obviously expensive handbag (with a large gold chain) and large sunglasses. It always impresses me when people wear sunglasses indoors. The couple arrives, are seated, and proceed to extract their smartphones (she from her handbag, he from the specially-designed pocket in his dishdash). I briefly reflect on whether traditionally, when people were still riding camels and living a nomadic life in the desert,  the dishdashes had phone-pockets. The restaurants "no shorts or slippers" dress policy clearly doesn't apply to the sandals traditionally worn by the local men.

Neither has said a word to each other; they are engrossed by their smartphones. They are briefly interrupted by the waitress - who, of course, is Filipino, like virtually all hospitality staff in the UAE - and then revert back to their phones. Throughout the entire meal they are engaged with their phones, but not each other. And while I eat my meal I'm wondering how it is that Emirati men manage to keep their dishdashes so brilliantly white and free of creases.

You call this summer?

Before you point it out, I realise that two months is a long time between posts. And a lot of post-able things have been happening in my travelling life so no excuses there (except perhaps the fact that, with all the travelling, there's been little time for posting). So much for preamble.

When we last met, I was taking a decidedly long time to cover little ground - pedalling my way across northern Spain. Since then I've added several thousand more kilometres at a more rapid pace - by car. Including, coincidentally in fact, quite a few thousand kilometres back in Spain. But more on that in another post.

My most recent journey took me even further in even less time, travelling this time by air for something like six and a half hours and covering 5,300km. And this exercise nicely highlighted how summer in one place can mean something entirely different to summer in another. In my case, leaving France on a decidedly fresh "summer" morning of 10 degrees (C) and arriving at ten o'clock in the evening in Abu Dhabi in the "cool" evening of 39 degrees. (Daytime temperatures at the moment in Abu Dhabi are in the low to mid 40's).

I would have arrived in Abu Dhabi earlier, but the flight left almost an hour late. "Of course it did" you will be quick to point out, given that I departed from one of the world's more unpleasant and disorganised airports, Charles de Gaulle in Paris. To be fair, there are plenty of worse airports in the world: Murtala Muhammed airport in Lagos and Jacksons International airport in Port Moresby come to mind for example. But in some places your expectations are low to begin with, so when they are met you are not too upset. In Paris one has - you would like to think justifiably - high expectations. But in the case of CDG these are most definitely not met.

I'd been to Abu Dhabi before - in fact lived there - so I knew that it was hot in summer. But that still didn't prepare me for the slap-in-the-face feeling as you step off the plane into 39 degrees in the middle of the night. Of course, the fact that France was unseasonably cold for summer (or at least, they try to convince each other that it's unusual) only served to amplify the difference.

A lightly-loaded trolley at Abu Dhabi airport

Abu Dhabi airport was unusually busy; end of holidays, families getting back before the school year starts, local families laden with Hermès and Louis Vuitton bags (de rigueur in this part of the world) and so forth. The normally well-run airport was showing signs of strain and the arrivals area was bordering on pandemonium. I couldn't help taking a picture of a trolley loaded with what seemed a typical load for one person. The woman who had been pushing it - invariably it is the women who are tasked with pushing luggage trolleys, the men presumably having more important duties to attend to - was taking a break. Or perhaps she was waiting for the next bag to come off the belt.

And then I thought back to my bike ride and how little luggage I managed with for three weeks and it put things in perspective. How much stuff do we really need?

Off to the south of Spain (again)

And now it's a year later and another road trip to the south of Spain in July/August 2014.

In Spain. Might be forgiven for thinking I'm still in Spain, but in fact since that trip I've been to France, Belgium, Netherlands. Bit difficult to get to Holland from France without going through Belgium, although it doesn't take long and apart from the naked cyclops along the motorway there's not a lot to say about Belgium. Perhaps more on that later.

28-July-2014
Getaria, Spain

29-July-2014

Bibao, Spain
Guggenheim museum, finally get to see it. Definitely worth a trip though!

30-July-2014
Burgos
Stayed here to re-live a little bit my bicycle journey along the Camino de Santiago, during which I also stayed at Burgos.

31-July-2014
Merida

01-August-2014 to 14-August-2014
Jimena de la Frontera

With a trip to Malaga and some other local trips including to Ronda

14-August-2014

Olvera: Narrow streets, had to reverse back down one. Parked and asked a woman for directions to plaza where the bar I wanted to go to was, she started to explain, then said "It's too complicated, I'll take you there" and walked with us all the way to the top of the village, up steps, around the church, delivered us there. So many friendly people.

15-August-2014

Wake up late (almost 9 am) buffet breakfast, all Spanish except for us. Leave at 10. Quiet since it turns out to be a public holiday.

Roads are great.

Terrific road from the A5 to Alvira, over the mountains. A bit of everything from long straights, twisty mountain bends, sweeping curves, etc. lots of bikes on the mountain section.

Alvira walled city, intact walls. Walk around, choose a small local bar with outdoor tables and chairs for morning coffee. Order. Nothing happens. Go inside, the guy had obviously for gotten all about us; he says 'won't be long' I say 'we're leaving' he says 'ok'. Just as well since later we find a place that unusually, sells nice pastries so we can have a pastry and coffee. Much better than the almost certainly unpleasant bocadillo we would have had. Cathedral in granite. Wooden huts like a Christmas market set up as drinking stalls with music. Detracts from the whole experience.

Segovia larger. Roman aqueduct, impressively long and high. Fancy cathedral. Coffee and a coke and toilet stop. Some but not many foreign tourists. Many French cars on the road though.

Santo Domingo de Silos

Driving along small country road, see something in the distance on my side of the road. Coming towards me. Bigger than a pedestrian, smaller than a horse or vehicle. Slow down, get closer, then realise it's an old woman pushing an even older man in a wheelchair along the road.

Dinner at hotel after waiting in vain at chosen bar/restaurant to be served

Monks chanting Gregorian chants. Baby behind us is unimpressed and voices its dislike.

Notes from along the way:

Tolls in Spain. Great example of bureaucratic idiocy. Tolls are, for example 2.19 euros, or 3.29 euros. And the attendant gives you the one cent change. He must have an enormous pile of one cent coins (which can't be used to actually pay anything, including the toll machines which don't accept 1,2,5 cent coins...

Great roads again. Lovely twisty small roads to and from Santi Domingo. The AP1 to the border from San Sebastián is absolutely marvellous, although many of those bends are impressive at the 120k limit!

16-August-2014

Crossing into France, suddenly everyone is driving at almost exactly the 110k limit, whereas a few km previously they'd still be driving at 140k in the apparently poorly monitored 120k Spanish roads.

Notice many - many - Swiss cars on the road from Burgos to the border. Most of them expensive. Odd. You almost never see Swiss cars in Europe (except in Switzerland). Then I see one with pink ribbons tied to the door handles, and I begin noticing that many of them have similar ribbons tied to rear wipers. A Wedding between rich Swiss and Spanish families?

Got stopped twice in the one day by Police. Odd. First time by Guardian civil, who when he found I didn't speak Spanish, and after checking the French plate on the front of the car waved me on with an air of 'I can't be bothered dealing with you'. Then again later in France at a standard roundabout check for papers. Oncoming cars were furiously flashing their lights and everyone miraculously driving at exactly the limit.

Spent a while in Limoges, buying crockery, as one does.

Dinner 43 euros, Brasserie du Commerce Miramont-de-Guyenne

17-August-2014

Stay at Chateau de la Cazine, Noth. An anniversary to celebrate!