Today Saturday is market day in Bergerac. I had to go and buy myself a small goat cheese rolled in basil. But now I need a cheese knife. So, from the market I walked to the old town and there found the perfect French folding knife for only 10 euros. It is not a Nontron knife, but it is the memory that counts.
Monday, July 29, 2024
France 2024 - Days 65 and 66 – Bergerac
The rest of the
weekend I did … nothing. I stayed in my little château, did domestic
things (like washing clothes, darning my threadbare underwear, and vacuuming), took
naps, read, watched a couple of movies in the TV, and cooked a delicious
paella. Ah, the life of the retiree!
France 2024 - Day 64 – Nontron
Last night I was very glad to come home, to a cold Giulia beer (you are a master brewer, my dear), and ready to turn into a couch potato. But then I started to look at a map of Périgord Vert, and I discovered a town called Nontron. Now, to a geologist that sounds a lot like the name of the mineral nontronite, so I felt it was my professional duty to go investigate. I could take the 9h00 bus to Périgueux and connect with the 10h00 bus to Nontron, to arrive at 11h00. I would have to take the 16h45 bus back, so that would give me almost six hours to explore. On the way there we drove through the village of Brantóme, which looked very charming indeed, so I will have to come back this way sometime later. As we approached Nontron I saw a network of very steep ravines, with the city scattered over canyons and ridges. There are some nice views in Nontron, but the city is not as charming as I would have liked and six hours were going to be too much.
I was right. This is
one of the two locations in the world where nontronite is found. This mineral
is a green iron-rich clay of the smectite group (i.e., an iron-rich
montmorillonite) that for the last 2,000 years has been processed as an iron
ore (seems that, upon weathering, hematite forms at the surface of the clay,
eventually leading to formation of iron-rich laterites). The Romans were the
first to establish a town here, and it seems that in the Middle Ages it grew in
importance. Sometime in the XV century the artisans of the city started
processing the iron in earnest, and created the tradition of Nontron knives,
which to this date are considered some of the best in Europe (and they claim to
be the oldest center of knife manufacturing in Europe). So the highlight of my
trip was to visit the retail shop of the one independent knife artisan, the
retail shop of the artisans’ cooperative, and the workshop of the cooperative.
They do everything here, from the smelting and shaping of the blades (now they use
three types of steels processed elsewhere), to milling and polishing the
distinctive wood handles, to assembling the different pieces into one of the
simplest and most elegant types of knives. I drooled over some of them, but the
price was prohibitive. They were absolutely beautiful, but what am I going to
do with a single blade knife … hmm … it could be my cheese knife.
France 2024 - Day 63 – Pays de Médoc (continued) and return to Bergerac
I have gone north to Port de By, and south to Fort Médoc to the south, so it is time to go west. Looking at the map I see the small town of Hourtain, and I can also see there is a lake there, and if I feel like pushing it I could even reach the beach of Hourtain, in the Atlantic. OK, that is my plan for today. But my beach house is so nice that it was easy to linger over breakfast, thinking, that my departure from my gracious hosts was delayed to 9h00.
I have mentioned that I have seen some pretty sights by following Google Maps “best route” as opposed to “fastest route”, which normally follows a highway, so once again I let myself be duped by Google’s AI. Ay, ay, ay. Yes, the algorithm takes you away from the fast streets, but has no brains! So, it talks you through hunting or logging trails that only see human passage whenever a lost tourist happens by. My father use to say “núnca dejes camino real por vereda”, and I wish I had remembered this admonition before I started.
Yes, the forest of Médoc is beautiful, and I biked past enormous expanses of grapes, separated by vast stretches of young forest. Turns out forestry is an important activity here, and some forests are taken when the trees are less that 10 inches in diameter. Why? Ah, …, vineyards, which consume enormous amounts of wood stakes to prop up the grapevines. Taking the trees while they are young also allows the foresters to keep planting new young forests, and the beauty of the land is thus preserved.
But then again, geology comes and plays a dirty trick on the unsuspecting bicycling tourists, because as you get down of the old uplifted alluvium you get down into older beach sands. These sands are no good for vineyards, but they are great for corn and sorghum, and terrible for the cross-country biker, who now has to plow through loose sand (until he gets tipped out of his bike and has to walk, cussing the day he was born. Now, so far I have been using the many trails used by grape growers, which are open to all because no one was to interfere with the grapes. This is not the case of the cereals, which are a delicacy for the sangliers and the cerfs (wild pigs and deer), so the %$#@ corn growers have enclosed their fields in electrified wire fences, cutting not the bicyclist his God-given right to go wherever he pleases. After being zapped a couple of times I reflected on my vast knowledge of electricity and bypassed the current long enough to jump the fence (not an easy task with a loaded bike). But of course once you are inside the fenced enclosure you have to get out, so I had to do it again, all the time fearing a load of buckshot from an angry farmer. To add to my torture, twice I had to go under the deluge of pivots, because of course corn growers are not under the strict law that forbids grapevines to be irrigated.
All these shenanigans took time, of course, and I kept looking to my watch knowing that I had to catch the 15h06 train from Pauillac to Bergerac. Noon, and I have not even reached Hourtain. I had another half hour of biking ahead of me, on flat ground, but it was one of those ribbons of dirt road, straight as an arrow and flat, that extends to the horizon. I was moving my trusty Moulin á Sang as fast as my tired legs could, but the road extended to infinity and with no end. Finally, at 12h30 I reached Hourtain. “And how was your visit to Hourtain?”, you might ask. “Was the lake pretty? Was the Atlantic beach nice”. I would have to answer “I don’t know”, because no sooner had I reached the outskirts of town I had to shoot past it and start biking feverishly back to Pauillac (22 km), along the very straight highway that joined the two cities, to make it back at the nick of time to jump on the train!
Overall it was a great three days visiting the Médoc, but I have to engrave on my mind the wise words of my father “núnca dejes camino real por vereda”.
France 2024 - Day 62 – Pays de Médoc (continued)
Yesterday I was tired and hungry, so I don't think I made justice to this beautiful region. I was also looking at the northern portion of the region of Médoc, where the towns are tiny clusters around the church, apparently without shops, bakeries, or places to stop and have a glass of wine. I presume most of the people live in the vineyards, their chateaux (there are some really impressive and luxurious residences here), or the more sensible buildings where the grapes are processed and the wine is made. The combination of vineyards and chateaux make for a lovely countryside, which I have been able to explore at my leisure by the simple process of getting lost.
There are myriads of narrow country roads, in some instances with black top but in most just covered with gravel, not for my biking pleasure but for the movement of the funny tractors they use here. They are skinny and have very tall wheels, so they can ride astride a row of grapevines and cover the adjacent one to the left and the one to the right with extensions, so one tractor pass is enough to trim or spray three rows at a time. The trimming uses cutting wheels that take any leaves that are sticking out of the row, so each row ends with a very skinny profile and with the growing grape bunches exposed to the glorious sun. Of course many baby grapes die in the process, but the growers are going for quality and not quantity here. Besides, by keeping the rows skinny and uniform, they will be able to harvest the grapes mechanically, saving themselves enormously in labor and cost. The same gawky tractors are right now spraying some type of sulfur mixture, to keep the grapes from moulding. So these wines have sulfites, but are otherwise grown with an eye toward being ecologically benign. For example, they don't spray herbicides or pesticides, instead trying to maintain a cover vegetation that can host lady bugs, spiders, and carnivorous grass hoppers to keep the bad bugs in check.
The vineyards are not irrigated (except for three years while they are getting started). In fact, irrigation is forbidden by the winegrowers associations that seem to regulate every aspect of the business. The idea is that grape vines have to be tough, reach deep in the soil to find their water, and in this way "develop their character". For example, the cabernet sauvignon and petit verdot grapes like rocky soils and develop quite strong flavors, whereas the merlot grapes like sandy soils and thus develop a more subdued flavor. I already mentioned that wine is made out of each of the varieties of grapes (with the varietal wines on any given region being pretty much the same), and the real art of making good wine comes when the Vigneron or wine master blends different varietal wines, in proportions developed by experimentation, tradition, or the mental image the Vigneron develops about how this mixture will age into a great wine in one or two years. To assure the consistency (but not equality) of wines produced in a region, the Vignerons of a region form a council that reviews the individual formulas, and approves them or modifies them to safegard the good name of the region.
About regions, these are the famous regions de appellation contrôlée that are so jealously guarded by the French. Médoc is a region, and so are Haut Médoc, Pauillac, ..., Saint Julien, and Bordeaux. Wait! Bordeaux is quite far, so why is it included in the list?. Turns out that the silty sand soils of the lowlands surrounding the estuary, and the maritime climate, make wines produced in this areas more akin to Bordeaux wines than to Médoc wines, so they have been granted the permission to call themselves Bordeaux wines. I stopped at a beautiful domain, a short distance from Saint Julien, and in the same sandy gravel soils, but they were on the other side of the creek, so they could not use the Saint Julien appellation and had to use the Haut Médoc appellation. I am sure there is a lot of history behind the regions, but I will note, as a geologist, that the region has been gently uplifted in the not so distant geologic past, and I think one can distinguish three formations: An older fluvial sand (where the typical terroir of the Médoc is found) that is overlain by a fluvial gravelly sand with lots of quartz pebbles (where the typical terroir of the Haut-Médoc, Saint Julien, Pauillac and other of the local regions is found), and finally the recent silty sand of the estuary (where, as I already mentioned is where the Bordeaux terroir is found). Kind of fun to speculate about this relation between geology and wine, although I am sure the œnologues of France might look at my hypothesis with desdain.
The estuary region was occupied by the Romans, who left behind them the archaeologic site of Brion, which I found by pure serendipiti. One can see the remains of the forum, the temple, a couple of houses and an ally, and a quarry where millstones of different sizes were shaped. The Roman mills were operated by slaves, and in French were called moulin à sang or blood mills. I think I might from now call my bike my Moulin à Sang to stress the fact that it travels under strict human power.
My other archaeological visit was to Fort Médoc, a fort built in 1690 on the left bank of the estuary to protect the regional capital, Bordeaux, from the depredations of the bad guys. There were in fact three forts: Fort Médoc on the west bank, Fort Pâté on a silty island in the middle of the estuary, and the Citadelle de Blaye on the east bank. They were all three in a line, and if any bad guys tried to navigate either of the channels they would be showered by cannon fire from the fort in the bank and the fort in the island.
I got back home at a
good time, because I plan to take advantage of my beautiful lodging and its
swimming pool. My turn to be a bum!
France 2024 - Day 61 – Pays de Médoc
I am on the move again! Early morning train to Bordeaux, and from there a connection to Pauilliac (once again I was confronted with needing a bicycle reservation, which I had asked about at the station and was assured none was needed, but this time the conductor was nice and walked me through the process of getting one online). On Google Maps it looked like Pauilliac and Saint Estephe were a grand metropolis but no, they are tiny specks in the grand setting of the Pays de Médoc, the name given to the left side (looking down river) of the grand estuary of La Gironde, formed by the confluence of La Dordeogne and La Garonne rivers. Not that my California students and friends would care about it, but this estuary is as large as the estuary of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, so it was my sacred duty to come and see it. Alas, it was a disappointment, about as exciting as biking along Antioch and seeing an industrialized shoreline.
Underimpressed I took to the hills, which was hard on my flat-land conception of what biking the shoreline of the estuary would be, but soon I was immersed on the most beautiful wine country you could imagine. Not only were there grapevines extending as far as the eye could see, but I could actually see the difference in terroir, from sandy calcareous soils to pebbly sandy soils, that makes such a big difference on the quality of the grapes. Also, I rubbed shoulders with famous names such as Mouton, Rothschild, or Lafitte, which would make an enologist's heart flutter (mind you, not that I could ever afford any of these wines). This wine producing region is called Médoc, and to my distress is divided into the Haut Médoc (High Médoc, with huge hills -- OK, not that huge but larhe enough for me), where terroir is a big deal, and the lowlands, where the estuary of La Gironde provides a more constant maritime climate. As a bicyclist I am a big fan of the lowlands, but in my meanderings I huffed my way up many a hill.
I wanted to look at the estuary, but this is not easy because the banks are covered with phreatophytes and are extremely muddy, but persistence has a reward and I eventually discovered a "path" that followed the shoreline. Clearly it was only used occasionally by fishermen, so I had to bike through some pretty gnarly muddy stretches, but I fulfilled my dream of visiting the estuary of La Gironde (and I will excuse you all of thinking that it was just anther muddy bay).
Back at home in Paulliac I was pretty hot and bothered, but my lodgings are a beautiful beach house I have all for myself! I even have a swimming pool but, rats, I took my swimming suit out of my travel backpack :(
The question is, what
will I do tomorrow?
France 2024 – Days 59 and 60 – Bergerac
It rained last night, so the town was shiny and fresh when I went for a long walk. For the rest of the day I threw myself into my writing work and did fairly good progress. Having skipped breakfast I can now start thinking about a late lunch. I need to keep busy.
Today I will cook for you my cervelle de veau (calf’s brain). First, early in the morning I took it out of its package and admired it. Dr. Warner, my Veterinary Anatomy instructor, would have been proud of me. I recognized the cerebellum and the brain stem, and when I dissected the left and right lobes could peer into the corpus callosum. I cut each lobe in half along the central sulcus, and very delicately peeled the dura mater and the main blood vessels. Then I placed the clean pieces in cold water with some salt and a dash of vinegar, and let it rest in the refrigerator for about four hours.
Brains are an exceptionally delicate meat, and if you don’t watch out you can easily break them. So I put some water to simmer, with a leaf of bay laurel and a teaspoon of herbs de Provance, and just before it broke into a boil I added the brains and let them plump for about 5 minutes in the hot water. After they cooled down the really delicate part of the operation was about to start. The meat is very soft and creamy, so to give it a good texture you add salt and pepper and then roll the pieces in flour, ready to be added to a hot skillet with olive oil and butter. You cook them in the hot oil and butter until the flour starts to crust, then you turn them with care and wait for the other side to get crunchy. The idea is that when you eat them you will have a crunchy crust and a creamy interior. To add to the crunch, in a separate skillet you melt butter over a lively fire, and once it starts to brown you add a generous amount of capers, the juice of a lemon, and bread croutons.
For serving, I like the idea of serving the crusty medallions over two split croissants and bathing them with the buttered capers and croutons. Delicious!
Since I arrived in the Périgord I have been looking for a performance of Cyrano de Bergerac but have been constantly foiled by seeing the placard of a performance that happened a couple of days ago or, like what happened in La Rochelle, being at the right place at the right tome just to find out that the tickets were sold out. Finally, by absolute serendipity, I found a recorded performance by La Comedie-Francaise in YouTube. It is a very long play (5 acts), so today Monday I interspersed my work with seeing one act at a time. It is such a beautiful play, but I am afraid my French is not good enough to follow the fine points of the dialogue, or follow Cyrano’s witty dialogues about what a clever man could have said about his nose, a duel in rhyme, or his trip to the moon. I did read the play in Spanish when I was young (yes, many years go), and in fact re-read it many times, and the translation in verse was impeccable, so I know what is being said. I just cannot follow the flow and music of the original ☹
In retrospect, I believe I was fascinated by the fact that Cyrano was smart but unattractive, which played well with my own adolescent insecurities. One of my favorite retorts was “I might not be handsome today, but you will be stupid all your life”. Then again, in the lines of Rostand, J'ignorais la douceur féminine at some key turning points of my life, so maybe that is why I felt such a strong affinity for Cyrano. To follow up, here is a gift for you, from the pen of Francisco Quevedo (1580 – 1645):
SONETO A UNA NARIZ
Érase un hombre a una nariz pegado,
érase una nariz superlativa;
érase una nariz sayón y escriba;
érase un pez espada muy barbado;
Era un reloj de sol mal encarado.
érase una alquitara pensativa;
érase un elefante boca arriba;
era Ovidio Nasón más narigado.
Érase el espolón de una galera;
érase una pirámide de Egipto,
los doce tribus de narices era;
érase un naricísimo infinito,
frisón archinariz, caratulera,
sabañón garrafal, morado y frito.
Muchísima nariz, nariz tan fiera
que en la cara de Anás fuera delito.
France 2024 – Days 57 and 58 – Bergerac
One of the best things about being back home is that I am finally able to enjoy a cold and tasty Giulia beer. She brought me four bottles of her own brew, admonishing me that they would not be ready to drink until July. Guess what? We are in the middle of July and I can enjoy a cool glass of beer in the warmth of the sunny afternoon of southwestern France. I am also realizing that I now have less of a month before this European adventure comes to an end ☹
Today Saturday is market day in Bergerac, so after working for a few hours in the early morning I went to stroll through the colorful fruit and vegetable stands, gawk at the exotic mushrooms, capture the aroma of the smelly cheeses, and search for that treasure you can only find in a French market. Eureka! Hidden in a corner of the butcher’s stand I found a cervelle de veau. Having one of the ingredients of a delicious dish reminded me that I needed other basics, since I had emptied my fridge before going to Spain, so I had to pay a visit to my supermarket, where I also found langue de boeuf à la vinaigrette. Now I needed more additional ingredients, so I went to my second supermarket, where I found some blood sausage that would go great in a paella (and I had brought saffron with me from Spain), which in turn triggered the need for a good assortment of fruit de mer that I could buy at my third supermarket. While I was there, I might as well get a steak of tuna and a liter of gazpacho. Hmm … how about if I make a fideua instead of a paella? That means I will have to go back to my first supermarket to buy the fideos. In short, in just a morning I have packed my tiny refrigerator with delicious things to cook and eat.
Friday, July 19, 2024
France 2024 – Days 55 and 56 – Santiago de Compostela to Bordeaux
Not much to report, except for the long bus trip back home. On Thursday I returned the rental bike, walked to the bus station, boarded the bus to Paris at 11h30, and didn't reach Bordeaux until 1h30 the following Friday. The "station" is inexistent there, so the travelers wait huddled under the railroad tracks until their bus comes.
I took the Périgueux bus at 2h45, and like on the original travel landed on this random stop at 4h25 in the dark of the morning. The regular bus to Bergerac didn't run until 7h00, so I found a dark spot by a nearby building, laid myself down in the floor, and fell asleep. My bad luck was that the building I chose was a bakery, where the action started at 5h30, but I was tired and didn't mind being taken by a homeless bum. I woke in time to take my bus, and by 8h00 I was finally in Bergerac. There is no place like home!
After a shower, a
two-hour nap, and a good breakfast I feel like new. I need to go buy some
basics and should really get back to work, while I mull what to do for an
encore.
France 2024 – Camino de Santiago Day 8 – Santiago de Compostela
Aquí se rompió una taza, y cada quién para su casa!
Margarita is heading back to Porto by bus, to take a cooking class tomorrow Thursday (she is going to learn how to make the famous tarta de nata), and head back to Guatemala on Friday. She also wants to transcribe her audio notes to keep a lasting record of her own El Camino experience.
Chrissy and Raimund are also going back home, by plane, and come the early afternoon will be back home.
Me, I still have one more day in Santiago so, after saying goodbye to my friends, I jumped on my bike to go visit La Ciudad de la Cultura. This is the name given to an architectural monstrosity built on a high hill overlooking the city, which from the distance is supposed to merge with the rounded hills that surround it. The thing is, it is built of a light-tone creamy phyllite that clashes with the green hills. I think it was built in fits and starts over the last 20 years, with the idea that it would be a convention center. However, nobody wanted to have their conventions there, so the cost overruns were horrendous, and it ended being used as office space for the provincial government. It has a small museum with an interesting visiting exposition on the Vikings (which once entered the bay of La Coruña but lost interest quickly over the poverty-stricken fishermen communities), and another on treasures of the Holy Land. A third temporary exposition on modern female painters let me completely cold.
I walked around and can certainly confirm that the whole complex is a bit rarito (strange), y como lo raro es pariente de lo feo ...
Afterward I bicycled around in the glorious countryside, enjoying the sun, fresh air, and bounty of the ag fields. The corn is brilliant green and growing, but I have to ask myself why grow corn if they don't eat tortillas here?
I came back home kind of
early, around 5 pm, to catch up with my blog, watch kids play in a giant Splash
Mountain inflated in the middle of the hostel (ah, to be a kid again), and plan
my next move. Tomorrow Thursday around noon I will be taking the bus to
Bordeaux (arriving at 1h00) and from there taking another bus to Périgueux
(arriving at 4h30), to wait in the dark for the bus to Bergerac. I will count
myself lucky if I can get home at 8h00 in time for breakfast.
France 2024 – Camino de Santiago Day 7 – Santiago de Compostela
We have come this far, so we now have to complete the ritual of El Camino.
First, we had to come to the Centro Internacional de Recepción al Peregrino to register our trip and our arrival to Santiago de Compostela, where we received the compostela (an impressive certificate in Latin recording our route and arrival date). Then we went to the cathedral to attend la Misa del Peregrino, when after the service the pilgrims are blessed. One of the big parts of the ritual is the burning on incense in the big botafumeiro (incense burner), which hangs from a very long rope from the dome of the church and is put in swinging motion by a cofradía of 5 or 6 men, who enthusiastically pull at the rope to give the botafumeiro more and more impulse, until it is swinging across the church as the best piñata you have ever seen (me, I would be more sober in the swinging, to give it more gravitas).
After the mass you line up to visit the sepulcre of Santiago, which contains an ornate silver urn with the bones of the apostle, and to embrace his statue. Afterward you can gawk at the cathedral, which is very beautiful, and then ... you are done. Time for a little refreshment, which I used to visit the Museum of the Pilgrimage and Chrissy used to get lost shooting pictures of everything under the sun.
In the afternoon the grand event was to return the rental bikes (all but mine, because I still have two days to go), and pay a visit to a supermarket to buy the Spanish products one cannot get at home (e.g., saffron, a tin of callos a la Madrileña, a tin of pig's ears in tomato sauce, and Spanish pimento powder).
I am definitely
deflated, spent the afternoon reading, and went to bed early. Chrissy and
Raimund chatted late into the night, which reminds me that these two seem to
never run out of things to talk about. Now, Chrissy speaks in short, elegant
sentences. Raimund, in contrast, speaks in long, never-ending paragraphs (in
German the verb comes at the end, so it is possible to build a very long and
complicated sentence without the fear of being interrupted because nobody has
any idea what you are talking about until you reach the end). Raimund has
mastered this technique and is able to string 5 or 10 of these never-ending
sentences, without taking a breathing pause between them, or using commas or
periods to provide inflection. It is a Niagara Falls of words!
France 2024 – Camino de Santiago Day 6 – Cambados to Santiago de Compostela
Last night we pooled our resources (emergency rations and a couple of bottles of wine) to watch the final Spain vs. England. It was all you would expect the Final of the Eurocup 2024 to be: Spain scored the first gol, then England tied 1-1, and finally--late in the second half--Spain scored the winning gol. Viva España!! All sorts of fireworks went over the town, but since our country mansion was out of town we saw very little action on the streets. Perhaps it was crazy in town, but we were tired and decided not to go out, imagining that the following day the festive spirit would still be in the air. Alas, it wasn't, and Monday was just another day. Our last pilgrimage day.
It was a great biking day. Santiago is surrounded by mountains, so we had many uphills, but the Galician forests are luscious, so it was hard but beautiful going. Unfortunately, when everything goes well there is not much to write about. Chrissy tried real hard to give me new material for another issue of the Chronicles of the Space Academy, but it was a half-hearted attempt and not even I could spin a tale about a disappearance that lasted less than half an hour.
We came across a statue
of Santiago, in his peregrino outfit, showing a big weeping
sore on his leg and accompanied by a dog holding a loaf of bread in its mouth.
What was that all about? Turns out that it was not Santiago, but San Roque,
a peregrino from the Middle Ages, who was following El Camino
when he caught the bubonic plague. He fell sick in the forest and lay down
there, waiting to die, when this dog came to him carrying a loaf of bread in
his mouth. The dog came every day for several days until his owner, curious
about the fact that the dog would grab from the table a fresh loaf of bread
every morning and go into the forest, followed it and found the ailing peregrino.
At great risk to himself the man brought the peregrino back to his house
and nursed him back into health. Since then San Roque has been the patron saint
of the peregrinos of El Camino and the patron
saint of dogs. I remember a poem about El Perro Cojo by Manuel
Benitez Carrasco, which in part reads:
Portero
y dueño del cielo, San Roque en la puerta estaba.
Ortopédico de mimos, cirujano de palabras,
Bien
surtido de recambios con que curar viejas taras.
"Para tí ... un rabo de oro,
para tí ... un ojo de ámbar
tú ... tus orejas de nieve,
tú ... tus colmillos de escarcha,
y para tí", y mi perro le sonreía,
"para tí ... una muleta de plata."
Ahora ya sé porque está la noche estrellada:
Estrellas? Luceros? No.
Es
mi perro, que cuando anda,
con
la muleta va dejando agujeritos de plata.
The path was so abrupt that we started noticing that our batteries, for the first time in six days, were rapidly losing their charge. We were so close! According to the signs along El Camino we were less than 3 km away from Santiago, when I realized that we were approaching the city from the south, whereas the big hostel where we were staying, Monte de Gozo, was on the northeast of the city. That added another 5 km to our trip and, alas, Margarita's battery gave up two kilometers short of our destination. So we all walked the uphills, and tried to coast the downhills as much as we could, until we finally made it to our home for the next couple of nights. Now we all understood why it is called Monte de Gozo!
After resting for a while we decided to go to the city. Out of battery and accepting it was already 7 pm we took a taxi to Plaza Galicia, close to the Alameda, and walked to the big Plaza of Obradeiro, right in front of the cathedral. It was time to rejoice because we had made it to our objective, but I couldn't help being a bit depressed and sad from the fact that this particular Camino had come to an end. Everyone sees the Camino as something different, but the one thing that is certain is that once can never go back. Even if you follow the same route, you will meet new friends, face different challenges, and learn new lessons. Antonio Machado expressed it best in his famous poem:
Caminante,
no hay camino; se hace camino al andar.
Al andar
se hace camino y al volver la vista atrás
se ve la
senda que nunca se ha de volver a pisar.
Caminante
no hay camino, sino estelas en la mar.
France 2024 – Camino de Santiago Day 5 – Ponferrada to Cambados
Still smarting from yesterday's misadventure, the girls are now picaditas de la araña (stung by the spider) and wanted to know exactly where we were going and promptly dove into their cell phones to make sure I was not taking them somewhere else. No problem, the path there is as straight as an arrow, but I didn't tell them that the arrow had to cross a pretty substantial mountain range. Once we took to the small streets the slope kept getting steeper and steeper, until suddenly the black top stopped and a rocky trail started climbing up the hill. With the confidence of a Guía de Peregrinos, and after a quick peek at the satellite image in Google Maps, I assured my fellow peregrinos that it was just a small stretch before we found the blacktop again. Up we went, huffing and puffing pushing our heavy bikes until, just at the verge of mutiny, we spotted the edge of the blacktop and three angels peering down to us from it. They were surrounded by a heavenly aura (and I could have sworn I heard the singing of the Heavenly Host) but--what is wrong with this picture--they were wearing spandex shorts and shirts, helmets, and aerodynamic sunglasses.
"Hola! Son peregrinos? Están muy lejos de El Camino." I felt the cold stares of the womenfolk piercing my back, so I hurried to assure the angels that yes, we were peregrinos but had chosen this way on purpose, to avoid the narrow byways of the hiking paths. The angels, who go by the names of Marta, Carmen, and Silvana, agreed that at the end we could get to the Monastery of Armenteira that way, but the blacktop was two windy and steep, so it would be better if we followed them through dirt tracks that ran parallel to the contours of the mountain. They were all riding regular mountain bikes and looked fabulously fit, but we were in e-bikes and thought we could keep up with them. So, thanking Santiago for sending us such help, we followed their lead through a maze of logging roads, at the same time that we engaged in happy conversation. I spoke mostly with Marta, who is a very petite woman in her 50's, but tough as tough can be. I found out that they three live in Ponferrada, that she has three children, loves books and mountain biking, and is a very chatty person. Carmen is clearly the leader of their small group and the pathfinder in all their adventures through the forest. Silvana just started riding not too long ago, and she was puffing a bit more than the others, but they helped each other with encouragement, at the same time that they guided these peregrinos with many comments about "This is where El Camino goes, but the slope is very steep and has big boulders on it", or "Make sure you don't follow this other path, because the trail turns into a creek and it would be very easy for you to tumble over". We eventually came to the Monastery of Armenteria, where we all sat around a restaurant table partaking of coffee and exchanging many stories in Spanish, English, and German. Of course we had to take any number of photos with our new friends before parting ways. They were going to continue on their mountain adventure, while we were going to visit the monastery and then head downhill toward the valley and the town of Cambados. Meeting Carmen, Marta, and Silvana was one of the best feel-good moments of the whole trip!
The downhill road eventually brought us into the Camino del Vino around Cambados, where we cycled around many small plots of albariño grapevines, from which the Albariño white wine that is the pride of all Galicia is produced. It was a lovely path through narrow corridors between vineyards, overlooking a rolling landscape of broad hills carpeted by shimmering green leaves. The weather was perfect for such a sojourn, and when we arrived to the center of town we had to conduct our own testing of Albariño wines at the local café (unfortunately they only handled two local wines, so it was a very limited taste test).
For once we arrived early to our lodgings, the top floor of a country mansion that has been decorated with great taste. Our hostess, Rosa, was very welcoming and accommodating, and after giving us some key tourist pointers sent us back into the town to get lunch and cycle around the ría. There we saw another of those dams that were built two hundred years ago to impound the water brought in by the flood of the tide, and then released through the vanes of wheat mills during the ebb of the tide. This is one of the oldest applications of the mechanical power of the tides, and is very characteristic of the Atlantic coast of both Portugal and Spain. Farther north, in France, the range of the tide is so large that a power generation station operating under the same principle has been in operation for more than 50 years at La Rance.
We came home early
because it is the big day: Spain vs England playing the final game of the
Eurocup 2024! Needless to say we are rooting for Spain, and are looking forward
to watching the game in the TV of our penthouse. Viva España!
France 2024 – Camino de Santiago Day 4 – Vigo to Ponferrada
Just before we started Chrissy spotted a church, high up on a lonely mountain, and suggested we should go up there. Yeah, right! We started by following the shoreline east but were cut off by the installations of the port of Vigo, which kept bumping us farther and farther away from the shore, up steeper and steeper slopes, until at the end we ended in Monte de Guía, precisely the lonely mountain that we had snorted at. The view was magnificent, and I took the opportunity to pontificate about what a ría was (a fluvial valley that has been flooded by the ocean because the land subsided) and how this type of coast with many such embayments is called a ria coast.
Down from our high overview, on the land side, we navigated through a series of small streets until we reached an old railroad track that has been filled with compacted DG (that is geotechnical speech for "Decomposed Granite sand"), and had a very comfortable ride for about 5 km down the very gentle incline, just before we once again took to the hills, high over the ría. It was a tough but exhilarating bike ride, with very steep grades and long stretches of off-road biking. A true adventure crossing through a luscious forest. Lots of peregrinos happily walking in the cool of the morning.
Eventually we reached the town of Redondela, in time for our elevenses. Tita and I had tortilla Española, which was good but not as good as the one I make at home (the potatoes were sliced too thick and overcooked, it didn't have enough onion, and had little or no nutmeg). Chrissy, who has a sweet tooth, ordered an empanada de choco, tricked by the false cognate, and was surprised to find that the little black morsels were of squid rather than chocolate!
Back on the road we decided to abandon the yellow arrows of El Camino, which were pointing toward a steep and narrow valley with a muddy trail, but my sense of orientation worked rather well and I found a delightful path along the shore of the ría where Chrissy had a field day, stopping every 10 meters to take a picture. I could have had to end this blog in this idyllic note, but Chrissy gave me a whole lot of new material by her innate ability to be a Space Cadet. All along in this trip we have tried to get used to the fact that she will lag behind, with the sisterly support of Margarita, who often waits patiently for her. Raimund, a nice guy that he is, often waits at intersections where there could be a question of whether to turn left or right, and I have taken the position of pathfinder. Well, on this unlucky day, we were going along, and within the last 100 meters of the last Chrissy sighting, Raimund and I emerged unto the main highway, and confidently awaited there for the womenfolk. Wait, and wait, and wait. Where were they? Looking back over a couple of bends there was no one on sight, so Raimund got on the phone to Chrissy, and found they were lost. What? How can you get lost in 100 m? Yes, somehow they had turned into someone's driveway and followed it down back to the ría shore. Well, no big deal, just turn around and go up the slope until you reach the highway. Half an hour later they had not appeared. And here the versions differ: I am pretty sure that as Lead Space Cadet, Chrissy tried to use her inexistent sense of direction to find an alternate way to Pontevedra, and just managed to get them lost into the forest. They found an old woman who told them they were going in the wrong direction and had to go back, but conveniently neither of them understood her and they kept getting deeper and deeper into the forest. Raimund called Chrissy one more time, and got a sharp retort about how they would meet us in Pontevedra, 10 km away. She claimed Google Maps had gone crazy, both for her and for Tita, but "she could find her way out" just as easy as if she were finding her way out of a paper bag. OK, so be it, Raimund and I forged ahead, got to our lodgings, and given that it was getting late went for our dinner. Curiously we ended in the restaurant of a Portuguese chef, so Raimond got a francesinha and I got the most delicious arroz con pulpo (soupy rice with big hunks of octopus), liberally irrigated with several glasses of vinho verde. Just as we were ending our delicious dinner the waiter came to tell us that the girls had arrived. Oh, good (burp), so we don't have to go looking for them.
The girls were kind of short describing their adventure. According to them we had purposefully taken them to the middle of the forest, like a modern Hansel and Gretel, and abandoned them there to their own devices. They had wandered aimlessly, under the spell of an old hag (with a long beaky nose and a big wart on it) who had disabled their Google Maps, and who with a crooked finger had directed them through a long passage, right under the freeway, to an old gingerbread house. It was only through resourcefulness and determination that they had managed to escape, and crashing through thornbushes reach the highway and bike down to safety.
After the adventure we had a very pleasant afternoon in Pontevedra, which is a very handsome old city, full of life. The cafés were full, music was playing, and the sun was shining. Mind you, at this point in the mid-afternoon there was no place the gals could get something to eat, because supper is not served until 8 pm, when the Spaniards are just beginning to wake up. For the rest of the night, and until 5 am, the sound outside my window told me that there were many revelers out on the street, enjoying la marcha (a type of bar hopping that is world famous).
On a more serious note,
we are all finding that El Camino is an experience in self-reliance and
problem-solving, greatly aided by the support of your fellow pilgrims, trust,
faith, and the occasional turbo boost of your e-bike. May the lesson stay long
with us.
France 2024 – Camino de Santiago Day 3 – La Guardia to Vigo
Yesterday I forgot to say a proper goodbye to Portugal and its friendly people. We were very happy while we stayed there, ate well, and had wonderful stays. Now I know a bit of the north portion of the country, and from past trips I l know the southern half, so the next time I should concentrate on the stretch between the Taugus (e.g., Lisbon) and the Duero (e.g., Porto) rivers. I am sad this time I didn't get to eat a nice plate of grilled sardines, but there are only so many delicious things you can eat in three or four days.
Our lodgings at La Guardia were a notch below our inflated standards, as we stayed at a hotel. Oh well, cannot win them all, but I will say that the staff was very friendly and they gave us a good breakfast.
It is a gloriously sunny day and we are looking to an easy ride, mostly along the coast. The high tide was on retreat, slowly unveiling the wide wave-cut platform with its many granite boulders and clefts. I have not mentioned it before, but we have been seeing this muscovite granite for a couple of days now, and my fellow peregrinos have been delighted at the glitter of the soil that clings to our tires. The thing with granite is that when the trail takes you through unimproved stretches you can find some very bumpy road that can only be negotiated on foot. It was a glorious coastal ride, however.
We stopped at a couple of chapels along the way, but the place that clings to my mind is the old Cestertian monastery of Santa Maria de Oia, close to Pedornes. It is a big imposing building, designed with a half-mind that it could act as a fortress, but is now closed and apparently in disrepair. The church is stern and a bit dark, but imposing in its proportions. One could almost hear the echoes of past Gregorian chants, and feel the cold air that accompanies the passage of a ghostly procession of monks. Brr!
To dispel the sense of the passing of time we made a bee line for the local bar, which unfortunately was a very small affair without much to offer in the way of tapas. Fortunately, however, the weather in Galicia is not conducive to the growing of grapevines so they don't make any pretenses of having a house wine. Rather, they have excellent bottles of Rioja wine and, one glass at a time, we soon took care of a new bottle.
The next leg was along the coastal highway, high above the shore itself, with great views and easier going, so we made good time to Oia (the town, not the monastery), where we stopped for lunch. Not a very well chosen site because it was a fine but expensive restaurant, but we had a great appetizer of pulpos a la Gallega, Tita had some huge langostinos, Raimund had hongos al ajillo, Chrissy had almejas a la marinera, and I finally had my grilled sardines. Very yummy!
An easy ride through mostly urban Baiona and Nigrán finally brought us to Vigo, which is one of the most important ports of Galicia and a big modern city. Navigating through it was a bit challenging, but Raimund found the bicycle path that liberated us from traffic and took us half way to our destination, the Hotel Del Mar. Alas, we seem to have reached bottom, with all four of us in a room without windows. Chrissy said she had to go down to get some air, and when I got down 5 minutes later she was sitting on the porch café, minding her own business and lost in the depths of her cell phone. I though she needed some alone time, so I respectfully went out the other door to go see the harbor, a short block from our quiet hotel.
The place was crawling
with people! Apparently there is some sort of gastronomic fair going on, with
games for the kids, lots of food booths, music, and flying flags. I had a
delightful time walking through the crowd and when eventually back at the hotel
found my fellow peregrinos calmly shooting the breeze in what
was otherwise a dead water. "Come on, let's go, there is a fun festival in
the other block!" Looking around at the quiet street and tall buildings
around us, they made sympathetic noises and ordered another round of drinks.
Ay, ay, ay. But eventually those drinks were consumed (while I engaged in
lively conversation with a couple of Gallegos sitting at the next table) and we
ponderously made the short walk. In astonishment to the explosion of life, Chrissy
turned to me reproachfully and said "Why didn't you tell us this was going
on?" Sometimes I feel like a prophet speaking in the desert.
France 2024 – Camino de Santiago Day 2 – Esposende to La Guardia
We woke up our hostess at her house to pick up our bikes from her front yard, and under a drizzle we got ready to start the next leg of our trip at a good time, but after biking for five minutes I got a call. It was Chrissy, still at Esposende. Her chain had jammed on the sprockets of the front gear. I turned around and found, much to my relief, that it was a simple case of jumping the chain back to the sprockets, with little more damage than me ending with grease in my hands. OK, here we go again, following the northern shore of the estuary of the Cávado River, and eventually joining the coastal path with its many rocky tidal pools, now exposed because of the low tide. Interestingly, the folks here have built "pools" in the tidal flat, through the simple expedient of blocking with a masonry wall the low points. The high tide fills the pool, and the kids have a place to go swimming during the low tide. I saw similar recreational structures in the Azores.
After less than 10 kilometers of coastal riding we took to the hills, which were an explosion of green, and half way between biking and walking dutifully followed the yellow arrows that peregrinos know so well. Some of the stretches were difficult with the heavy bikes, but with a little help from our Camino friends we made it through, until high on a hill, we reached Castelo do Neiva and the Iglesia de Santiago. This church was renovated recently and is, of course, an important stopping point for peregrinos, both for devotion and because it is the oldest known church of Santiago. During the renovations an inscription was found on one of the stone walls, which dates its construction to the 8th century, probably a few years following the discovery of the burial of Santiago in Compostela. I learnt a little more about the history of that discovery. First, Santiago comes to spread the Gospel in, say 40 AD, and dies somewhere in the Iberian Peninsula, without anyone knowing where. Then, in the early 800's AD, a missionary still spreading the faith to the heathen Iberians has an apparition of Our Mother Mary, surrounded by stars, who guides this missionary to Compostela, to the place where the saint rests, at which point the remains are recovered, a cathedral is built, and the saint is laid down to rest in the crypt of the new church. Apparently it is at this time that the veneration of the apostle becomes very important, and new churches, like the one we were visiting, get built. The church has very pleasant grounds where peregrinos can use their shells--like we did--to scoop water out of the spring, and rest under the welcoming trees.
All this had taken time, and by 11 am we had advanced maybe 10 km of our 60 km stretch. But we couldn't move along, both because we were still crossing forest with alternating muddy and steep rocky trails, and because our paparazzi Christine had to stop and take a picture of every flower, every rock, and every cute stretch in the road. It would not be a big deal if she took a shot and moved along. Oh, no. She has to set her shot, stopping us all for a couple of minutes while she takes 10 or 15 frames of exactly the same thing! I love this girl, and I could repeat Lady Gaga's words I'm your biggest fan ... I'll follow you where I can ... Papa-paparazzi, but at that point I was ready to take away her phone and throw it into the river--which we crossed along a very handsome walk bridge made of big blocks of granite, unsurprisingly called Puente de Granito.
While we were negotiating the rough trails, a woman helping us told me quite seriously: "You know, this trail may not be for bicycles". Thank you, Captain Obvious. But all roads come to an end, so we finally made it to a paved road, hopelessly behind schedule. And then my beloved paparazzi had the cheek to remind me that it was getting late and she was getting hungry. Could we stop for a coffee and a snack? Breath, breath, breath. Sure, no problem, will stop in Chafé for our elevenses (at 1 pm), but of course one thing led to the other and, after a couple of glasses of excellent Vinho Verde, we finally got under way.
We pushed hard for the next couple of hours but, alas, it was time to stop again for a proper lunch. Margarita had a yummy salad with goat cheese, and we three had a nice "hot dog", which was about a foot long, had a "salchicha" but also generous layers of ham, chorizo, and cheese, all floating in a deep dish the length of a boat that had been filled with Francesinha sauce! It was a mighty dish, and after that we felt we were going to roll the rest of the way to La Guardia.
But before we could get there we had to cross the Limia River at Caminhá, which forms the border between Portugal and Spain. We were told there would be a ferry, but much to the anguish of Raimund and Christine, all that was available to cross the very wide estuary of the Limia were motor launches. They were terrified at the idea of crossing on those flimsy cockleshells and the guy in charge, seeing their faces, immediately started talking to me about how the ferry had been beached for three years now, walked me to where I could see the beached Santa Rita de Cassia (who, if I remember correctly, is the patron saint of impossible causes), and basically made it clear that they could carry all of us, plus our very heavy bikes, in one trip. So we did, and Chrissy had the best moment of the day (but, alas, when she wanted to start her paparazzi stunt again she was asked to stay seated so the boat would not flip on its side). Great fun had by one and all, and we were welcome to Spain with lots of laughter and best wishes for a Buen Camino!
The 5 km left to La
Guardia were beautiful, along a wild granite coast battered by the high tide
waves. La Guardia is a port town, and our hotel was high on the slopes, but we
navigated there without problem, and seeing the open underground parking garage
of the hotel we drove straight into it. The only snag was that it was not that
of our hotel, but the classier hotel next door. Once the mistake was discovered
we beat a retreat and lodged our vehicles in a much more humble shed by our
2-star hotel. The folks at the hotel were very sweet, however, so we felt that
once again we had landed in a good place.
France 2024 – Camino de Santiago Day 1 – Porto to Esposende
Again we woke up to drizzle and fog. But this was not going to dampen our spirits, because today is the first day of our pilgrimage, and we were all eager to leave city traffic behind and fall unto contemplation of the Portuguese coast. But first we had to get to the coast, by following Boa Vista Avenue for a good 5 kilometers to the west to reach the seaside. Once we got there we took pictures of the small fort that protected the entry to the Duero estuary, and changed direction to the north, finally heading in the direction of Santiago de Compostela. We didn't go too far, because at a stop at the Information Bureau of the city of Matosinhos I saw a photograph of the incredible Cathedral of our Lord of Matosinhos, and turning on a dime we headed for downtown to see this jewel of religious art.
The outside of the cathedral is not very imposing, and could be described as squat and minimalist, an impression that is confirmed by a nave where the platforms used to take the saints in procession seem to be stored. Once you move under the stern looks of the saints of the church, you see a halo of light emanating from the altar and pulling you to approach what for all purposes is a grotto of pure gold. It is of course gold leaf over exquisitely carved niches, columns, sprays of leaves and flowers, and a magnificent oratory where Our Crucified Lord looks benevolently over the congregation. I have seen many beautiful works on gold leaf in the churches of Mexico, and can say that the Cathedral of Matosinhos would hold a place of honor amongst them.
Back on El Camino we went through many a beach, where school children in every imaginable uniform and age group were having their end of the year field trips. They were of course blocking the path so we slowed down and tried to attract their attention with "permiso", "disculpen", and other useless formulas, until Tita thought about saying simply "Olá!" It was the magic word. All the kids turned their heads at once, happily answered "Olá!" back, and parted like the waters of the Red Sea to let us through.
We did have our first challenge when the path we had been following was blocked off, and we had to climb a steep goat path to go around the hill. Normally it would not have been a big deal, but with bicycles that weight something like 50 kg it took a true Camino de Santiago effort to push them up, with the help of other pilgrims pushing from behind and we pulling from the front. We did it, and almost immediately struck a friendship with a mother and daughter from Denmark, also on their first day walking after starting from Porto (they must have started walking real early in the morning). Feeling full of ourselves we rolled for another couple of clicks, and stopped to have our elevenses at a tiny bar where the patrón welcomed us with open arms. Chrissy and Tita had their beloved espresso and a pastel de nata, Raimundo had a cool beer, and I had the first of many glasses of wine that I intend to mark my passage of El Camino with.
Vila do Conde and Povoa de Varzim are two beachside communities that merge with each other, very hype and very modern, and looking for a more "comfortable" restaurant we landed in a quite elegant place, where Raimund had a lamb dish, and the rest of us shared a grilled robalo (aka snook) that was very good.
After lunch I started hearing the feared "are we there yet", and since we still had 20 kilometers to go we turned on the turbo, reached Fão, crossed the Cávado River, and made our triumphal arrival at Esposende. By real good chance we arrived when the mother of our host was at the property, talking with her son, and wondering where these foreigners were. She saw the bicycles with panic and asked "where are you going to put them?" "I don't know, Do you have any suggestions?" Caught unawares she had to think fast and said "well, you could put them in my yard." Perfect! We quickly unloaded our saddle bags and bicycle batteries, took them up to our (once again) roomy apartment, and then followed her to her house where the bikes were safely inside the walled compound (which didn't stop paranoid Raimund from chaining his bike to one of the trees).
The afternoon was
delightful, with a nice walk along the estuary of the Cávado River, a visit to
the local cemetery (one of Chrissy's weird character flaws), and dinner at home
with a couple of pizzas and sliced bell pepper and tomatoes, to watch the England
vs Netherlands game. Spain and England are now heading for the final on
Sunday, when we will be in Cambados, so we are planning to make a night out of
it and hopefully help celebrate the final win by Spain. Viva España!
France 2024 – Day 46 – Biking in the rain
Margarita slept her jet lag like log, so we didn't go to visit the beach early as we wanted. Then again, we woke up to a light but persistent rain, so the idea of walking to a windy beach was not appetizing at all. We did take a walk to the mercado we had visited last night, just so Tita could see what she had missed, and then pushed "down" toward the river (turns out that Porto is perched high above the river, so the land elevation drops like a stone as you move from the cathedral to the port), pass the university (which at the beginning I took for the bullfight arena on account of its colorful tiles and circular footprint), and then back to the flat to have breakfast before going to pick up the expedition bikes. Chrissy, Tita, and Raimundo took an Uber to the rental place, while I went there in my bike, under the annoying rain.
Once everyone was on a steed, we took a very cautious ride to the old downtown, to make a reservation to visit the Livraria Lello (the Lello Bookstore), which is normally so packed that you have to pay 8 euros to make a reservation (in our case the first open places were at 13h30) so we had a couple hours to do something else in between. And no, we didn't take the bikes into the bookstore, but parked them at a nearby plaza and went to explore on foot.
The walk through the old town had a significant charm, and eventually we reached the Cathedral, which we wanted to visit and where we were going to get our Credencial del Peregrino, the "passport" that peregrinos get stamped as they progress through El Camino as a reminder that this is a road of devotion, reflection, and humility (plus it is the proof that the peregrino has met the distance and time requirements for la compostela or certificate issued after one reaches Santiago). The Cathedral is small but exquisite, and the blue-on-white mosaic scenes are some of the best exponents of this art, which is so characteristic of Portuguese churches.
Back at the Livraria Lello, we joined the long 13h30 queue at 13h00 under the persistent rain, had to endure the endless complaints of the Spanish woman behind us, who had nothing good to say about having to wait on line, and eventually were allowed into the hallow space. It is a small but very tall bookstore that has handsome old bookshelves, a fabulous staircase, and a colored-glass ceiling that gives it the aspect of an old mansion. The place was crawling with tourists who were gawking with open mouths at the colorful display of so many books (although I suspect most of them have not read a book in the last couple of years), posing for selfies, and taking a zillion videos and cellphone pictures. What is going on? Then Raimundo told me that J.K. Rawlings had worked at this particular bookstore at some point in her life, and that much of the inspiration for the Harry Potter books came from her fascination with the zany staircase and the many nooks and crannies where book worms could hide if the place was not such a zoo. So it was Harry Potter who brought in the tourists, not any love for books.
For lunch we chose a cozy bar restaurant, where Margarita and I had a very comforting Caldo Verdhe (a creamy soup of collard greens and potatoes), everyone else had a Francesinha and I had a nice cod fish dish with a mountain of potatoes. My only complaint is that they didn't put much salt on the food (they must be on a health kick or under some draconian EU regulation), and there were no salt or pepper shakers on the table. Unfortunately this is very common in restaurants in Portugal (and France, and Spain).
For the afternoon we crossed to the other side of the river, to the district called Villanova, where the warehouses that stored the famous Porto wine have been located since the 1600's. The vineyards are upstream, many kilometers from Porto, and there are many different types of grapes, and after fermentation has started the bacteria get shocked by the addition of aguardiente distilled from the previous season. This has two effects: First, the fermenting bacteria die because of the alcohol and the high sugar content of the grapes is preserved in the wines, and second the wine is "fortified" in its alcohol content to give the characteristic sweetness and kick of the Porto wine. The final wine is a blend of the different batches, one blend different from the other. The fortified wines were then barreled and brought down the river in special boats to Villanova, where the warehouse would store them in small barrels and store them for years and years to let the price grow. A 1953 bottle of good Porto will put you back 450 euros!
To partake in the
cultural experience we stopped at a bar, and had our very own Porto tasting
experience, with five different wines that went from pale yellow, to straw
yellow, to rose, to tawny, to ruby. We did all the right moves, sniffs, and
gargles, and I am glad to say that at the end each of us had our own favorites,
and resisted being swayed by the opinion of the others. On rather wobbly legs
we went across the river in a small boat and climbed on our bikes to tackle
going up the steep hills back to our lodgings (and were very happy to have the
electric power on turbo mode). Tomorrow we will start El Camino!
France 2024 – Day 45 – Los Peregrinos del Camino de Santiago se reúnen
Lots of things to do today. First, I had to go pick up my rental bike, on a part of the city that seemed to be mostly residential. On the way I noticed some pretty steep streets, and the total lack of bicycles, bike lanes, or bike racks. Obviously the topography is a bit challenging for cyclists, which to me means that drivers are not used to sharing the road with us two-wheelers.
This was my first encounter with an e-bike, and the first thing that came to mind is that they are big and heavy. Operation seems to be pretty straightforward, and the best piece of advice I got is "Don't torture the bike. Use the gears to your best advantage so the motor doesn't have to work too hard and the battery doesn't drain too fast". One thing is for sure, if the battery goes dead there is no way I can bike this panzer bike on human power alone. The takeover of the machines!
I biked ten minutes down the hill down to Avenida Boa Vista, which is the umbilical cord of the city, and where our lodgings are located. It was too early to check in, but I had to park the bike to take the metro to the airport, to be there in time to welcome Chrissy and Raimundo who were flying in from Frankfurt. The airport was packed with European tourists, a reminder that today segunda-feiria (or "second day", which in Portugal means Monday because the week starts on Sunday) is the start of the summer vacation. Eventually my two fellow peregrinos came through the arrival hall, and we had a happy reunion after not coming together for nearly two years. A metro ride brought us back home, where we met our hostess, Margarida, who checked us into the most spectacular 6th-floor penthouse. I was very lucky when I booked the apartment six months ago, and we will start the Camino in style.
Next step was for us to go get lunch, at the small café across the street. Chrissy and Raimundo went for cod fish croquettes served with a black-eyed pea salad, and I went for the trademark Porto dish, a Francesinha (which translates to Little French Woman), which is a sandwich made with layers of toasted bread and assorted hot meats such as pork roast, steak, wet-cured ham, linguiça, or chipolata over which sliced cheese is melted by the ladling of a near-boiling tomato-and-beer sauce called molho de francesinha. Basically a very sophisticated torta ahogada that will satisfy the biggest appetite.
I left Chrissy and Raimundo to their own devices, and for the second time that day I went back to the airport to go receive Tita. Timing was perfect, and less than 10 minutes after I had arrived she walked through the arrivals hall. I am so glad to see her, another of my beloved Goddaughters, who is jumping out of her skin to partake of this adventure. Back near the house we had to stop at the café, where they were closing but the cook kindly agreed to cook a Francesinha for this starving girl (they are so nice here), and just as we were crossing the street we bumped unto Chrissy and Raimond, and just like that the peregrinos came together!
Tita had to get to bed
to try to recover from jet lag, but the other peregrinos chose
to go for an evening walk and ended in the Mercado de Bom Sucesso,
a refurbished old market that now is the center of jet set dining in Porto,
where you can get a very nice dinner and listen to live entertainment. Nice,
but when we came back I was just ready to hit the sack.
France 2024 – Days 43 and 44 – The long road to Porto
These two days might as well be written off, because outside of some work I got done in the first half of the day, the following 28 hours were devoted to travel. I had the brilliant idea to take the bus from Périgueux (21h55) to Bilbao (4h05), and there making a quick connection to the Bilbao (4h10) to Porto (14h30) bus. Long, but I was going to be able to sleep away most of the trip. Things started going wrong at the Périgueux end of the trip, for I was supposed to take the bus not at a main train station, but at a tiny side-of-the-freeway stop, and the bus I took from Bergerac didn't want to drop me off there. The driver was just being cranky, so after I asked very politely for the third time he grumpily agreed. Why do we have to make life difficult for others when a little bit of human decency can make things so much smoother?
Then the bus to Bilbao was late, by an hour, so I was getting worried I had somehow misunderstood the pickup instructions (but there were other five people there, waiting anxiously, so I relied on the old axiom that misery loves company and waited). And finally, with an hour delay, the bus showed up. It was packed! I got the middle seat in the very last row, sandwiched between a big guy to my left, and a young woman in shorts to my right, both of whom had no problem cozying against me as we rolled through the night.
Miraculously we made into Bilbao at 4h05, so I jumped out looking for my connecting bus. Nada! I asked one of the security guards there, and he nodded saying that the bus would be there in a few minutes. Finally a bus came and they called for the people going to "the aerOPORTO", and not to OPORTO. Bilbao is in the Vasque Country, and they are forgetting how to speak in Spanish. Grrr. Again, misery loves company, and I was happy to see there were two other people waiting for the Porto bus (a very funny Corsican Count--now an ex-pat in France--and a Portuguese solar panels installer going home to Porto for a few days holiday). We waited and waited, and finally it came to me that although the trip had been sold as two different legs, the same bus that had brought me to Bilbao continued to Porto, and I should have remained on bord. Clear as mud on the Artificial Unitelligence info provided by Flixbus, a company that of course no longer has support personnel available to speak to clients.
Given that it was my mistake, the AuI refused to rebook me in the 8h15 bus to Porto, and I had to pay for a new ticket Grrr Grrr. The rest of the trip was uneventful, except that after many hours of travel nerves become frayed and a fist-fight broke up at one of the rest stops (on another bus), which the Corsican Count dismissed as trivial because "in Corsica it would have been solved in an instant with the plunging of a knife.
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