Category: Travels for Fun
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LUNCH ON THE CANTABRIAN SEA
Visitors to Asturias wake up with a nice dilemma as they plan their day: mountains or the sea. From our base in Gijon, Padma and I could have had either within a few minutes drive. On our last day in Asturias we chose the sea. Our local friends, Terri and Juan, suggested we try Puerto de Vega, a small fishing village where the locals actually fished rather than just appearing to be a charming fishing village for tourists. We arrived after an hours’ drive and didn’t find the typical traffic jams…
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RUTA DEL ALBA … WITH FRIENDS
Earlier in the year when Padma and I starting dreaming of a home in Spain, I joined a Facebook group of expats in Asturias. Someone posted a question about buying property and a local named Juan provided a detailed response. I clicked some links and found Juan’s website and figured he’d be the sort of local person we’d need to manage any property. Turns out Juan has a strong Aussie connection so I contacted him and for the past few months he has been invaluable to us and has freely provided…
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THE SEA FOR OUR SENSES
Padma prefers the sea; I’m for the mountains. In Asturias we’ve got them both in abundance so we’re happy. Today we set out from our base in the port city of Gijón to explore the western coastline of Asturias, along the Bay of Biscay. We started the day with a hike down to the Playa del Silencio, which is considered to be the most beautiful beach in Asturias. We didn’t find silence there as there were plenty of other holidaymakers joining us. But we did appreciate the beauty of the beach.…
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FORTY YEARS OF SPANISH DREAMS
While in university, I took a travel literature course. I loved getting homework … I could do it while lying in bed and drifting off to foreign and exotic lands. My favourite assignment was to read Laurie Lee’s As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning. The author sets out on foot armed with a violin and a blanket from his home in England and embarks on a walking journey through Spain just before the onset of the Spanish Civil War in the mid-1930s. The imagery Lee presented of Spain became firmly…
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‘MENU DEL DIA’ IN OVIEDO
I thought I had never heard of Oviedo. But I was wrong. Years ago, I watched a silly Woody Allen called ‘Vicky Cristina Barcelona’. In one scene, Javier Bardem tells two American women that they will fly with him that evening from Barcelona to Oviedo and then make passionate love. The Americans rolled their eyes and said ‘Where’s Oviedo?’ That movie brought 15 minutes of fame to the capital city of Asturias. And the city acknowledged Woody by making a statue of him. It deserves a lot more fame than that.…
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WHERE THERE ARE NO CROWDS
There’s a big problem of travelling in the province with the lowest incidence of COVID in Spain. Everyone else has the same idea as us. Asturias is packed with holidaymakers. Almost all are Spanish with a sprinkling of French. No Yanks. No Poms. And probably just two Aussies. The hotels and restaurants are bursting with customers. The hiking trails are chock-a-block because outdoor sports are the safe thing to do these days during COVID. We wanted to take a hike in the Picos de Europa National Park. If you Google ‘hiking’…
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WINDOW TO ASTURIAS
Earlier in the year – the pre-COVID times – Padma and I started dreaming of buying a holiday home in Spain. All of the land agent websites seemed to direct us to the south of the country … to the classical hot and dry Spain with abundant sun. One day as we were looking at the map of Spain, Padma said ‘what about up here?’ No, I said, that’s Bilbao and Basque Country … way too expensive for us. She slid her finger western along the northern coastline of Spain ……
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BASQUE COUNTRY
A couple of days ago I had never heard of the Basque fishing town of Hondarribia. Padma and I needed a place to hang out for a few days near Biarritz, which is in French Basque country. But Biarritz is too posh and expensive for simple folks like us. So I brought up the map in booking.com and searched for places still available during this busy August holiday season. I got lots of availability in Spain’s San Sebastian but that’s kind of a party place on the beach. I scanned the…
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ANOTHER CHATEAU
There are about 1000 chateaux in France’s Loire Valley. Padma and I saw one and a half. That’s enough. Been there. Done that. We started our drive through the Loire with a stop at Amboise and really enjoyed walking through the chateau and the gardens and courtyards. Then we travelled south to the River Cher to Château de Chenonceau, which is labelled as ‘if you only visit one chateau, then visit Chenonceau’. We paid our 15 euros to get in but, give our fear of COVID, just couldn’t muster the courage…
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