489: A beautiful day!

It really is. Clear blue skies, the sun shining overhead. The water looks blue until you're looking directly down on it and then it looks crystal clear. What a day for a walk I thought to myself. Boyed with a big boys breakfast I set out to walk the Cami de Rondo between Salou and the lighthouse on Cap Salou. It's a holiday here today (when isn't it? 😁) and I was concerned that there might not be buses running, to take me home. Luckily there were, although they run less frequently and the bus I caught was only 15 minutes behind schedule. Mustn't grumble. So, to summarize, 10.70 KM, 2 hours 42 minutes (not counting the frequent stops) and 14,968 steps on the watch. 2 beers, 1 BBB and some lovely pictures. Happy All Saints' Day everyone. And now I can't delay revision for tomorrow's Spanish  test any longer. I've run out of excuses!

	The lighthouse (faro)	the straight line shows when I was on the bus.

 

488: Toledo ("city of three cultures")

Spanish lessons (for the academic year 2022-2023) start tomorrow. I thought I might sneak in a quick visit somewhere in Spain before the 3-times-a-week lessons begin. I decided to visit Toledo. It's only 70 km outside Madrid and its historic quarter is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Spanish AVE high-speed trains whisk one from Camp de Tarragona to Madrid in under 3 hours at speeds of up to 300 km an hour. Why city of three cultures? Moorish, Christian & Jewish. Toledo was the capital of Spain for a long time, until they decamped to Madrid. It also has a long history of the production of knives and swords and there were many such available to buy in the shops. 

Using Trivago,I picked a very nicely-modernised apartment inside the old town. The enormous benefit, for me at least, of an apartment rather than a hotel is that I don't have to wait for my breakfast until Spain wakes up. 

The disadvantage of picking an apartment inside the city walls is that there were many narrow cobbled streets, twisting and turning, rising and falling. The tourist office was closed at 5pm, a long siesta I suppose, so no town maps available to help navigate but thankfully Google maps saved me from getting lost until I could familiarise myself with the layout.

There were lots and lots of tourists and they kept getting in my way! (How dare they! 😀). I must confess I enjoyed McDonalds much more than the food I was given in Spanish 'restaurants' (ravioli one day and tortillitas de camarones the next). I do understand that if I could only wait until after 8 p.m. I could find a decent restaurant. But I can't as it's far too close to this old man's bedtime.  

487: Never too old to pose

First blog since May, where has the time gone? Today my friend and I went to Rosehall, a small village in the Scottish highlands, 25 miles from Golspie, for a walk in the bright sunshine. Fantastic weather once the mist lifted. Alisdair drove us there in his MX-5. It only comes out of the garage when there is no chance of rain in the immediate vicinity. (It doesn't come out very often!). I'm pleased it came out today as it was very pleasant being driven around the twisty-turny single-track roads in the Highlands. 

Our first walk was around Raven's Rock Gorge, a beautiful, steep-sided gorge with lush, green, mosses and ferns. 

	look at the gossamer webs
	beams of sunlight streaming through the trees

On for coffee in the Invercassley Tea Rooms (the old post office, re-purposed as so many old post offices have been) then off on another walk in the hills, taking in the magnificent scenery. This donkey forgot to start Strava on the phone until we were halfway round. Doh! Then back to the tea rooms for some lunch - to replace the calories that had dropped out on the walk. 

On the way home traffic was pulled over by the police to allow some extra long wind turbines to pass. Wind farms are now a very common sight all over UK (on land and sea).  

My new, post-cataract, glasses have arrived. Reactolite rapide (photochromic) varifocals. Don't ask how much they cost! I was pleased to see them though. They were sent on a next-day guaranteed delivery basis but the Royal Mail on its web site said there was no guarantee while industrial action was ongoing. I'm very lucky to have got them before I go back to Spain as customs charges to receive them in Spain are exorbitant post-Brexit. (Brexit, the gift that keeps on giving!).

 

486: The Falls of Shin

 (for my students, the indefinite article vs the definite article)

A shin	The shin

The shin, a river in the Highlands of Scotland and the start point for today's walk. During the summer, at the Falls of Shin, salmon can be seen leaping up the waterfall to return to the place they were spawned. A magnificent sight. Have a look at the video at the end of the blog, nicked from You Tube.

There are some fabulous trails through the woods. The local authority has obviously gone to a lot of trouble to create and maintain these paths.   

We were lucky with the weather, a few showers that cleared up just as we started the walk. Here are a few pics from the walk.   

And then, to recover from all that fresh air, the best nachos I've had for ages. In the Coffee Bothy in Golspie.

485: The battle of Littleferry - 1746

Nations have been fighting each other since time immemorial. Why can't we just bloody stop it and live in harmony with each other??

I'm in the Highlands of Scotland and, for a change, the weather is wonderful. Or at least it was this morning. Can't really expect sunshine for the whole day.

My friend, Alisdair, and I, went for a walk to look at the recently installed memorial stones remembering the battle of Littleferry. Bonny Prince Charlie's Jacobites were defeated by Government militia in a 'prequel' to the more famous battle of Culloden. Read more about it here . 

I didn't think it was a very long walk, stretching from Golspie out to Dunrobin Castle and back along the beach, almost to Littleferry itself but my watch shows I've done >18,000 steps today - not too shabby. Think I'll take the rest of the day off!

 

Some stunning Scottish scenery in the video:

484: LLeida, Zaragoza & Madrid

 I've got a good friend who lives more than 500km away from Salou, up in the mountains in Southern Spain. I realised it was time for another visit but when I looked into train times it turned out there were no spare seats on the daily high-speed train from Camp de Tarragona to Granada.  It is Holy week this week and Spain is on the move. 

We decided to meet 'half-way' in Madrid and we both spent about 7 hours each on trains for a 3 hour meeting in Madrid. What do you think? Is that stupid? or worth doing? Would you do it?

I decided to split my journey(s)over two days. Hotel accommodation in Madrid was more than I wanted to pay so I spent the night in Zaragoza and went on the Madrid the next day. So, on Tuesday bus to Reus, slow train to Lleida and AVE (Spanish equivalent of the French TGV) to Zaragoza. On Wednesday AVE to Madrid, meeting with my pal and AVE back to Camp de Tarragona. The AVE trains are pretty swish and travel at speeds of 300 kph. Quite expensive, even with an old person's discount card.

Salou had rain on Tuesday and Wednesday but in Madrid it was a lovely, warm, sunny day. Nice. 

A couple of pics taken in Lleida, Zaragoza and Madrid.

483: Just for Jan

Jan is one of my Face Book friends. I've never met her, but I've met her two daughters and I know her first husband.It turns out that she's coming to Istanbul on Thursday as I'm leaving on Wednesday. Shame, we could have finally met.

But I wanted to write with some advice for her. KEEP YOUR WITS ABOUT YOU AT ALL TIMES. Istanbul is a great place, my blogs and diaries tell me that this is already my 4th visit. Johny Turk is a nice enough character, always willing to help. In my experience most times the help is offered out of the goodness of their heart but, occasionally, they like to help make your wallet a little lighter.

On this particular visit the scams started even before I left Salou. The Pegasus airlines official site included a link to a health site to allow people to complete the now ubiquitous (except in UK) health locator form. I filled it in and, on the last page, was invited to pay $104. Knowing that it was the official Pegasus site, and knowing how keen Turks are to help you spend your money, I, reluctantly, paid. I learnt later it was a scam, the real health locator form is free of charge. Didn't need it anyway, there were no health checks coming through SAW airport, just the usual passport checks. IST airport might be different, I don't know.

Thought I would splash out on a birthday meal last night, not dreaming for a moment it would cost me £85. £85 for a meal for one!!!! The Pina Colada (£6.21) (it's the Del boy in me) and the glass of house white (£3.88) were both acceptably priced but I grudge them £62.16 for the Turbot and then £7.56 for a service charge, just to rub salt into the wound. Making a total bill (including the soup) of £85. I had to go back to my room and lie down to get over the experience. It was partly my fault, I had the fish page of the menu open and had no idea what to choose. The waiter pointed at, and suggested, the turbot. I just agreed. In my defence, to look at the price I would have had to move my eye patch from one eye to the other and lifted the menu to my weak eye. I just agreed. When it arrived, it could have fed the whole street. Super-duper presentation including lwo flaming bowls at the corners. See picture below.

I've had other scams perpetrated on me here in the past, I must just look gullible. One particular incident, on Galata bridge, involved a shoe-shine boy dropping a brush. By the time I had picked it up to return it to him, there was his partner-in-crime already cleaning my shoes! 

So, enjoy the experience Jan but BE WARY. There are >15 million people in Istanbul, even more now that it's one of the few places Russians can go, but I know that you'll be used to crowds as you're from the Lake District! Masks are mostly worn on public transport - don't forget to buy a transport card when you arrive and top up as necessary. As far as Covid is concerned I'd say the picture is much as in England. Young people seem to have thrown caution to the winds and it is left to older, and more vulnerable, to wear their masks.