celebration in normandy

    

     Seventeen of us gathered in Normandy this August, this being the sixtieth birthday year for several of our closest friends including Ian: indeed our trip organisers, Sarah and Laura, had theirs whilst we were there (or just before in the latter case). We rented some large, typical traditional Normandy buildings in the grounds of a farmhouse; solidly built of brick, long and narrow with one room leading into another, in extensive grounds.

      Our home from home, Les Ecuries (“the stables”) is located in the tiny hamlet of Mesnil Bénard, between Rouen and Dieppe, deep into farming countryside in the département of Seine-Maritime. We drove down by various routes and looked forward to a week of fun and frolics, with a bewildering programme of activities organised meticulously planned by our esteemed organisers. If the vigorous schedule of sports and games was honoured more in theory than in practice, this didn’t at all detract from a wonderfully mad and hilarious time, with plenty to do in the surrounding area, and at home the sort of culinary finesse and libationary excess to be expected of our friends on such occasions. All despite one of the worst Augusts, weather wise, on record.

     The accommodation: The buildings were nicely restored, with a huge, well stocked kitchen in the main house ideal for us, given that we cooked every night except the last. The owner, a very friendly English lady, lives in the farmhouse adjoining nearby and was very accommodating when we had the odd problem. There was a range of comfortable spacious rooms, with a huge dining table to accommodate all of us.

     Just a short drive away is Saint-Saens, a sleepy and picturesque town in a steep valley, with enough decent shops to keep us supplied (and the odd bar to entertain us while visiting).

      There were plenty of local walks and cycle rides on dry days in the local Forêt d’Eawy, which includes the remains of one of the many V1 rocket launch sites that terrorised Britain towards the end of WWII. The forest is huge and provided with long trails, a quirky local cider museum and a neighbouring farm where they made and sold cheeses. We also visited the eccentric Jardins de Bellevue nearby.

      Some of us took trips to the coast, dodging the rain showers and arctic blasts. There are some pleasant little resort towns with traditional houses from Edwardian times when this coast was popular with the British and Parisian elite. An hour south is the city of Rouen. The cathedral dominates the city and the 14th century astronomical clock is a survivor from a prosperous age. The remains of the abbey of Jumièges beside the deeply incised gorge of the Seine were also worth a visit.

      Of course a trip with our friends wouldn’t cut the mustard without some wonderful meals and this week was no exception. Everyone took turns producing ever more elaborate meals, including a birthday feast for Sarah and Laura, making the most of local produce gathered on daytime trips. A fair few bottles of local wine completed the convivial atmosphere. We were able to eat outdoors on a few occasions, but the huge dining table fit us all comfortably.

      There were some very splendid breakfasts, thanks to Tana's early rising to cook mushrooms and tomatoes, and French black pudding,. Tony and Rob’s ten course tasting menu was gobsmacking too.

      For the active among us, there were reflexology, yoga, water aerobics in the pool, rounders, board games, a sixties quiz and an art competition were among many activities that kept us all occupied.

     But most of all it was a joyful week with a great group of friends.

spain + portugal 6: to salamanca, léon and home

We crossed out of Portugal into Castillo y León and the vast high plateau of the interior. Good farming country no doubt but not very exciting, although less arid here than further south. The plain in Spain is mainly rather … plain! But then we arrived in Salamanca, probably one of the most interesting and beautiful cities of Spain or indeed Europe. Built almost entirely out of a very fine local sandstone that carves well (and preserves in the dry climate) this was one of the four or five great medieval centres of learning in Europe. It still hums with students today, thronging the gothic and baroque buildings of the ancient university.

      It is a city filled with vast institutions, religious and secular, and all in this honey coloured stone, intricately carved, that gives a unity to the whole city, which well deserves its world heritage status. The defensive walls are still largely in place, and a Roman era bridge spans the wide river and flood plain to the south. There are two cathedrals: the jewel like Romanesque building, retained when they built a new much grander edifice beside it, turning the Catedral Vieja effectively into a vast side chapel. What a beautiful survival from this era, almost a thousand years old, a spare, well proportioned, with simple vaulting and strange animal carvings. We were lucky enough to attend a concert by an American university choir here.

      The main university building, with soaring spires and a huge baroque portico, almost outguns the cathedral in scale, but the pièce de résistance is the Plaza Mayor, the grandest of grand squares, full of people eating, drinking, cycling, meeting up, having chance encounters and just generally being very Spanish. Lots of groups all just talking at the same time, gesticulating and generally enjoying life.

      We stayed in a former palace opposite the Convento de San Esteban, yet another magnificent complex. It has a fine transitional church with a huge choir that accommodated over a hundred monks; and a two storey cloister, full of wheeling screaming swallows and nesting storks. It's obvious the Dominicans who built it didn't stint themselves like other orders. This was perhaps the most impressive of many splendours.

      Our final stop was in León, a smaller city, like a more modest version of Salamanca, with a slightly ramshackle Plaza Mayor, and busy narrow streets in the old town, including some excellent tapas places around the Plaza de San Martin. We sat there on Friday evening as it rapidly filled up with locals, starting their weekend in good spirits. There is a surprising amount of the Roman wall surviving, and a very fine Romanesque basilica, San Isidro. The cathedral has some of the best stained glass in the world, dating back to the 13th century, and there is the magnificent Convento de San Marcos, now a parador, which is where we stayed. Its vast public rooms, a cloister, and riverside terrace make this a great place to stay, although the restaurant was disappointing.

      But it was beginning to feel like the end, and a good time to return home. We travelled on quiet roads in the foothills of the Picos, past abandoned coal mines, but mostly through lovely countryside, then the narrow gorge that cuts right through the mountains. We stopped off at Potes, a charming mountain village clinging to both sides of a steep valley, then the quick run back into Santander, the ferry, and home.

spain + portugal 5: o porto and the douro valley

From here we headed towards Portugal, stopping off for a very good lunch at the parador in Pontevedra. We broke our journey in a quiet beach town called Baiona, where we stayed in a little family run hotel with a very chatty lady owner, who had lived in England when younger and was keen to practice her English. Her tiny daughter was very entertaining. Another rather fine sweep of sand here, a popular weekend destination from nearby Vigo, and with an imposing castle on a headland — now a parador — and a view to the Islas Cies. We decided to picnic on the beach and watch the sun go down.

      Next day, at the very last town before Portugal, A Guarda, we drove up a vertiginous hill with many hairpin bends to the top of a mini-mountain, Monte Santa Trega, with fantastic sweeping views of the Miño valley, which forms the border. Here there is an elaborate early Celtic hill fort/town, with the remains of tightly packed stone walled circular houses, part of the Castro culture, which existed across north-western Iberia from the 9th to the 1st centuries BC. A few houses have been reconstructed to show what their their timber and thatch roofs would be like – in shape much like similar timber constructions in the UK from that period. Clouds drifted through the valley far below. Quite magical, but the road up was a bit much for Ian's acrophobia and I had to drive down, very slowly, while he kept his eyes shut.

      So, to O Porto: a vertiginous city, clinging to the steep canyon sides of the River Douro valley, where every street is a major hill. It is a spectacular setting, and the famous two level bridge is impressive, but all in all we were slightly disappointed. Even though it is a world heritage site, the old heart of the city has a lot of dereliction, probably because it is unsuitable for a modern way of life. There seems to be a determined effort to improve things, with a lot of building work going on, but still many empty buildings, some even collapsed or roofless. And below, the river wharves are over touristy, with a lot of touting for mediocre tourist menus and attractions. Our hotel was up near the station at the top of the town, in what used to be the main post office, and did a lot of walking – I'm sure my calf muscles doubled in size with all those slopes. There are some fine buildings and sights, including the cathedral, Sé, but like other buildings here, its interior tends to the over elaborated, showing off the wealth plundered from South American colonies. São Francisco is an even more extreme example: a spare and well proportioned Romanesque building utterly buried in gold statuary and architectural confection.

      We spent a lot of time in the university quarter, which is a bit calmer, with some nice bars, where we watched a waiter covering about 20 tables with incredible efficiency, sometimes carrying four or five full dinner plates. Across the bridge are the old port wine warehouses and barges that used to bring the wine barrels down the valley to be fortified here. On top of the hill in the Vila Nova district is the rather fine old monastery of Serra de Pilar, with an unusual circular cloister, and great views back to the old town.

Next day we took off and had a quick look at the nearby beaches, which are very extensive and a more popular place to live nowadays. Then it was off up the Douro, where we had booked into a B+B above the little town of Mesão Frio. This was a very comfortable, modern villa with a very friendly owner and just five rooms. A terrace had a huge panoramic view over the valley and the town.

We ate in a local restaurant recommended by the hotel: we would never have tried it, having to run the gauntlet of a bar full of old farmers in the midst of a violent political argument, but upstairs was a little haven of home cooking, in a room probably unchanged since the 1950s.

      After an evening of heavy rain, the next day was sunny and we did a short tour of the region, on hairpinned, switchback roads, visiting the hill town of Lamego and the pretty river port town of Pinhão at the start of the wine country. This is where the barges set off for O Porto and is now the destination for big river cruise boats. Later we saw one of these passing through a huge lock in the river downstream. So rather a lightning tour of northern Portugal: the countryside more interesting in general terms than the city and would be worth visiting again with more time.

spain + portugal 4: to santiago de compostela

     

In the ninth century, a body was found in a cave that was held by the local bishop to be that of Saint James, and this became a rallying point for the Galicians in their battles with the Moors. He is even said to have risen up and joined the battle himself. Pretty soon an elaborate legend built up around Santiago, and the place where his body was found, Compostela, became Europe's greatest centre of pilgrimage, which did very nicely for the Galician economy.      

     Ever since, it has been a city of religious tourism, with a vast cathedral, major monasteries of all the sects, and great marshalling areas to control the crowds of pilgrims.

      We had encountered little straggles of pilgrims all along the way from Santander, and more were here. Mostly retirement age, with the latest all weather gear and hi-tech walking poles, but some were with the more traditional wooden staves. All fix a scallop shell ('coquille St-Jacques’ in French) to their rucksacks to symbolise the pilgrimage.

There are several routes for the Camino Santiago, and we mostly encountered parts of the 'French way', although later we came across other routes from the south. It's said that 100,000 complete this every year, not all for religious reasons – for many it's just a physical challenge. You have to do at least 100km on foot to get the official certificate.

      And when we got to Santiago, there they were: little groups of euphoric/exhausted people, boots off, staring in wonder at the buildings, or queuing up to get their certificates, or just lying flat out on the ancient flagstones of the Praza do Obradoiro.

This is a vast square in front of the west entrance of the cathedral and surrounded by other imposing institutional buildings of various periods. There is the wide facade of the pilgrims' hospital in elaborate transitional style, provided by Ferdinand and Isabella, and an equally impressive classical town hall. We stayed in a small, friendly hotel in a narrow colonnaded street, right by the cathedral, with massive stone walls and a pavement cafe for breakfast.

      Very much a tourist town since medieval times, the streets are full of religious gift shops and restaurants with special pilgrims' menus (you can get these all along the Camino if you can show you are a bona fide pilgrim). Portions tend to the enormous and we seriously over ordered at one place, mistaking mains for tapas plates.

The cathedral itself, extended over and over, is like a huge dark cave complex. At its heart the original romanesque aisles remain, austerely simple and beautiful, compared with the later over elaborate external additions. There is also a shady park on a hill facing the old town, a popular place to stroll and admire the view.

spain + portugal 3: to avilés and a coruña

     Next, it's back to the coast and the town of Avilés. This has a hellish hinterland of old industry, all smoking chimneys and rusting sheds. These northern provinces, iron- and coal-rich, were Spain's major workshop and the industry still clings on. But the town itself has a rather fine medieval core, with colonnaded streets, small squares and many noble palaces, a nice size to wander around at random.

      We stayed in the Palacio de Avilés, now an NH hotel, which has a lovely interior, with grand staircases and wide, tapestried passages. There is a formal garden and a park behind, and the hotel faces onto the main square, with the grand facade of the town hall opposite. The restaurant provided one of the best bargains of the trip, with a fixed price meal of three courses for 20 euros, including water and wine. Santiago, our extremely friendly young waiter, insisted on filling up our glasses frequently; and they obviously had a chef who cared, with some mouth watering offerings.

      Nearby is a beautiful beach, at Salinas, unfortunately backed by insensitive 70s residential blocks, but great for a long walk on the blustery, grey day we were there. We also visited Gijón (Xixón in the local language), a lively town with some fine very early Romanesque churches, set on rocky promontory between two beaches. There is a bagpipe museum: we gave it a miss.

      Our road, the A8, continued to burrow through mountains and fly over wide estuaries as we travelled on into Spain's most remote community, Galicia. This region has a strong Celtic heritage, with a fondness for cider and bagpipes (smaller and more tuneful than the Scottish variety) much in evidence. In this northern part of Spain you can find many red-headed, pale skinned individuals who would look perfectly at home in Scotland or Ireland. Each of the autonomous communities has its own language these days, although judging from the roadsigns, Asturian is not so different from Castilian (though they call it Bablé, which may be a joke). However, Galician is closer to Portuguese and the two can understand each other. We passed rapidly along this far north western coast to A Coruña, a bustling port city.

      The medieval core was built defensively on a rocky peninsula. Some pleasant streets here but signs of neglect with many empty buildings, especially on the less fashionable side where we stayed, which however has a very nice beach. There are signs that the local authority has put a lot of money in recent years into the port side of the city, with many smart bars facing onto newly renovated streetscape by a marina and in the nearby vast pedestrian square, Praza María Pita. She was a local heroine who rallied the troops when Sir Francis Drake attempted to invade the city, home port of the Armada.

      In fact, the English and this town have a lot of 'previous'. It was the main port for trade with England, and for English pilgrims going to Santiago, and John of Gaunt was married to a Galician princess and tried to take over the throne. His descendants included Isabella, the Catholic Monarch. It was also the site of a Dunkirk-style retreat by British forces during the Napoleonic wars.

      Just behind the port esplanade is a network of narrow streets crammed with tapas bars, and crammed with people too at the weekend when we were there. This is how the locals eat: in fact, there are very few formal restaurants. We happened upon a delightful bar where a well tattooed staff member chatted and guided us through the options, not just the traditional tapas basics but many innovative options too, including a delicious ceviche. Very nice, and she also recommended an excellent and cheap bottle of the local vino tinto.

We walked around the head of the peninsula, which is a little bleak in places, with some ill conceived municipal housing, but features the Torre de Hércules, a huge foursquare stone tower, which claims to be the world's oldest functioning lighthouse. Its core is second century Roman, although it has been overbuilt over the years. It is now a world heritage site.

      We took a side trip from A Coruña to Cap Finisterra – 'the end of the world' – in the far NW corner of Spain. This is also the end of the line for the keener pilgrims who, not content with trekking on foot to Santiago de Compostela, carry on a few days, some of them burning their boots when they get here! You could understand how this once felt like the end of the world.

      We also visited one of the best beaches we have ever encountered, hidden and untouched, with just a boardwalk across the marshes behind, near Carnota, just to the south. So good that we came back next day en route to Santiago and found ourselves literally the only people on the beach. A perfect crescent of soft white sand, backed by marram grassed dunes, with the wild Atlantic waves crashing in. Above Carnota on a remote mountain road amidst a forest of elegant wind turbines, we found a fantastic panorama back to the cape and the sparkling sea, an eagle's view of this rugged coast.

spain + portugal 2: to fuente de

     So after settling into Spanish ways we headed towards the mountains. We had glimpsed the jagged profiles of the Picos de Europa last year and they are also visible from Santander.

We stopped off first on the way at Santillana del Mar, a delightful little town. This seems to have been prosperous in the 13th century, but nothing much has happened since, judging by the many early Gothic buildings that survive, possibly because it is no longer ‘by the sea’. Claimed to be the prettiest village in Spain, it’s a popular tourist haunt.

      Just by the town is the cave of Altamira, which has some of the oldest known European art, dating back to the old stone age, by some of the earliest modern humans, up to 20,000 years ago. They lived in the cave mouth and made large numbers of lively artworks, mostly of the animals they hunted. The cave, now a world heritage site, was deteriorating due to visitors, and so an exact replica has been built of part of them, which we visited, along with its excellent museum.

      A real privilege to see this: obviously skilled artists, they used bulges in the rocks to give 3D enhancement to their works. There are lively images of bulls, deer and other species, more abstract pictures, and even the painted outlines of the artists’ hands. An amazing survival. This was not some first time dabbling: much of it it is the work of skilled artists, and you realise that their life must have been filled with art, on skins or wood or other lost materials.

      From there, we continued to the Cantabrian/Asturian border then turned inland through increasingly remote towns, rising up to our destination in the Picos de Europa. The countryside is almost Alpine: green and fresh everywhere, buildings with wide overhanging snow catcher roofs, and herds of cows with bells around their necks.

      Into this landscape a big new road had been inserted, which barely touches the ground, flying across valleys on bridges and viaducts then plunging through mountains in many tunnels. Throughout Spain, it seems, the infrastructure is constantly upgraded: yet the roads are almost empty, a joy to drive on.

      The final stretch winds up and up to Fuente De, just two hotels and a cable car station almost surrounded by the high peaks. The parador itself is a fairly modern, but very welcoming building, with another good restaurant serving a local cuisine, brought out by two very friendly and efficient middle aged ladies. We were beginning to understand the strong loyalties the people of Spain have to their own regions and traditions.

      The weather was dramatic, with clouds pouring fast across the mountain ridge from the ocean. Next morning I took the first cable car up to the ridge, through the drizzle and disappearing through a cloud layer. The car was filled with mad mountain bikers who apparently intended to ride the bare rock ridges for miles. The top is bleak, raw granite, with hardly a blade of grass, but with fantastic views of the wild mountain peaks and the huddled green valley far below, glimpsed between rolling clouds. Two golden eagles wheeled effortlessly overhead as the bikers set off grimly determined into the driving rain.

spain + portugal 1: to santander

     Another road trip and it's off to an area we have always wanted to visit but never got around to: the area known as ‘green Spain', in the north-west between the Atlantic and the mountains, then looping back through northern Portugal and Salamanca. Ian and I passed through this area last year on the way to the ferry from Santander and liked what we saw: this gave us the impetus to make the trip this year.

      We stayed in ten locations, including three former palaces, in four Spanish autonomous communities and two Portuguese provinces; we visited seven world heritage sites and many churches; we walked 120 miles and drove 2000 miles by car; we sampled some surprisingly good local cuisines, with lots of queso and jamon and uncountable varieties of tapas. We experienced the Camino Santiago, vicariously, and had lunch at the End of the World. We found spectacular countryside — huge empty beaches, mountains, gorges and remote picturesque villages.

      We also experienced a wide variety of weather — it’s not green without a fair amount of rain — and maybe this is the reason it’s less popular with tourists. But for us it was fine, all in all a great region to explore.

      Santander proved as good as it looked from a first glimpse last year, which is what prompted us to plan this trip. Once again we crossed by Brittany Ferries to the port at Santander, and the 24 hour crossing was as smooth and pleasant as ever. What a civilized way to travel.

      We stayed at El Sardinero, with its huge beach, a wide strand at low tide divided by a rocky spur into the Playas Primero and Segundo.

This resort was developed at the end of the 19th century as a Cantabrian rival to San Sebastian. The local government decided to build a vast summer palace for the king on a peninsula at one end of the beach, to encourage this, and many noble villas followed and survive to this day. It has a prosperous feel, with groups of impeccably coutured old ladies chatting away in the cafes as their spouses take exercise at the water's edge or play rapid fire ping-pong. The town was also filled with smart suited boys and girls in white first communion dresses when we were there.

      The Gran Hotel Sardinero sits right in the middle of all this, its grand Edwardian exterior completely gutted and concealing a very comfortable modern hotel, and we had a lofty, airy room there with a view across the bay. It forms a group with the casino (right), also recently restored.

      Santander is a great place for long walks, and we managed ten miles a day, west to two rocky capes and a lighthouse, along clifftop paths and past little sandy coves; or the other way, via the shaded landscape of the royal palace to the old town, built around the port on a steeply rising ridge with narrow streets and the typical projecting windows of this region.

A very formal shady square, Plaza Porticada, faces the port and from there you can wander the lanes and visit the delightful old Mercado del Este. We ate very well in Santander, mostly in the hotel, which has an excellent menu, although the restaurant is a bit characterless (better to eat in the bar or terrace).