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!).