Glass Onion

 The Beatles "White Album" is an album  that I don't think I've ever played from beginning to end. Or even from beginning to part way through. It's not clear to me why or how that's happened, it just has. One clue might be that as Apple Music describes it, it's an "eclectic, 30- track album of largely stripped down music". I sort of knew that and I suspect somewhere in my subconscious is that knowledge which has stopped me from playing it or at least starting to do so. Anyway "Glass Onion" from that album popped up on a playlist today and firstly it's a great song that I had no memory of ever hearing before and secondly it made me think about never hearing the album and then about what other albums by bands I love, I have never played.

I need to be clear here, these are not albums that I've heard and didn't like (much of Genesis after "Duke") it's albums to which I've just never listened. Which sounds daft (and it is to be honest) but, for example, Physical Graffiti was another album that until it was bought for me a couple of Christmases ago, I had never sat down and played all the way through. Now both of those are double albums so maybe that's one barrier, but "Afraid of Sunlight" and "Somewhere Else" by Marillion are not and I've never played either of them! Nor is "Let it be" by The Beatles and I've not listened to that either. Another example is Bruce Spingsteen's "High Hopes and I loved it's predecessor "Wrecking Ball". 

But is listening to an album still "a thing' these days? How many of us just ask Siri to "play my music" and skip what we don't like or are not in the mood to hear? (other voice activated services are available!). Or compose playlists and play them? Sitting and listening to an album was the only option in the past but you also had to own it, so maybe our listening tastes have been irreversible changed by "all you can eat" streaming services, but they also remove the excuse of not ever listened to something because you didn't own it. But it also means you can listen to the ones you like more easily, just look back at the end-of-year reviews that your streaming service of choice readily supply. 

Anyway what's your "missing" listening list look like? 

I'm off to  play the "White Album"! 

I’m gonna sit right down and write myself a letter

I’ve struggled with this blog for most of the time that I’ve had it. Latterly over “what or who is it for?”

In part it’s just so I can write, which is school of the blindly obvious I know, but true none the less. So in part is what I write is less important than that I actually write? But then I want the words to mean something. Which brings me to the next question. Who are my audience? Am I writing for myself or for others and if so, who are those “others”? All very deep and confusing.

My Dad wrote a “memoire” before he died, and I and my family have loved reading about parts of his life that we didn’t know about together with reading his take on stories of which we were aware. My sons have together encouraged me to do the same and I’m starting think about what that would look like (or read like, to be more specific!). There’s always that feeling that “my life” would be of no interest to anyone but reading what Dad wrote was fascinating and I only wish we’d talked about parts of it more before he died. So I hope my family might similarly talk to me?

l’m not planning to share it at this stage, but never say never!

Little pink houses

Im a bit behind with my travels, so I’ll cover a few stops in this one blog. 

After Pontevedra, I participated in some time travel. Unbeknown to me, Portugal and Spain are in different time zones so when you cross the border, you lose an hour, or travel back in time, 

(Crossing the border)

My first stop in Portugal was Viana Do Castelo and a mighty fine city it is as they switched on the Christmas lights as we arrived. Actually drove through the crowds for the big switch on. There was a medley of Christmas music that is co ordinated with a brilliant light show and it’s very well done. It plays every hour, on the hour for ten minutes or so until 10pm, except at weekends when it goes on to midnight. What’s slightly less good is when your hotel is yards away from said light show, oh and you’re there at the weekend!! I’ve eventually got the Mariah Carey ear worm out of my head!! It was a seriously good light show though. 

(The lights, but my poor photography doesn’t do them any justice!)

Viana do Castelo also has a funicular railway that goes up to the Sanctuary of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which is a Catholic Church high above the city. Of course I went on it! The church is worth the climb up both in its architecture and the views the site gives you all around the city and coast line. There was a mass under way while I was there so I only briefly saw the inside, but that was beautiful too. My step count is still important so I walked back down the 200 plus steps and was glad I took the train up! 

(The church and associated views)

My stay in Viana also included a day trip to Porto, but that will get its own blog.

After Viana I went to Esposende, a surfing resort with a great beach that stretched for miles which included an impossibly long boardwalk that also helped my step count. 

(The beach and church)

It also had one of the most effecting churches I’ve come across so far. Why, well it was empty which sounds silly but the silence and beauty of this simple building was what I needed at that time and it moved me. 

Next on my trip down the Portuguese coast was Costa Nova, which is a peninsular roughly 21 miles west of the city of Aveiro. Again a long beach with the power of the Atlantic  present, but this place had a charm of its own, based around the houses that lined the streets, which were mostly painted in stripes from top to bottom. The history is that originally the fishermen would paint their huts that they used for storing pots, lines and other equipment red and black stripes so they could see them on the shoreline. This developed into painting these huts a specific colour, say red, with white stripes so you knew that was your hut through the mist and fog and your neighbour would be yellow and another blue, etc etc. Over the years these designs have become the norm for all properties so that every one is more or less painted a different colour with white stripes and the whole effect is both charming and beautiful. Obviously I liked the red and white striped ones best!

(Striped houses)

As someone who has lived a largely black, white and grey colour scheme over the last few years, seeing such vivid colours reawakened a part of me that needed rediscovering. No more black hoodies, jeans and trainers. 

I’ll end this blog here as it’s getting too long. Stayed tuned for Aveiro and beyond! Oh and Porto!

Honesty

This trip is very much an exploration of foreign travel for me as the last time I went out side of the UK was over 20 years ago and my trips abroad have always been in a group or when I was married. Finding what I like about where I’m visiting is therefore a new experience and it’s taking time for me to understand that. If you had said to me this time last year that I’d be travelling around Spain/Portugal, I would have said you’d mistaken me for someone else. If I’m really honest, I was treading water, fooling myself I was ok and literally shutting out the world by keeping curtains closed as my garden was horribly overgrown. Over the last 8 months much has changed in my life and latterly very much for the better. This trip is a good way to bring this year to a close and begin 2025 in a new place with exciting possibilities. 

At first arriving somewhere without a place to sleep was rather daunting and finding a place to eat even more so, as my previously documented attempts to order dinner prove! But that changed as I got more confident. Now I’m arriving somewhere mid afternoon or later and booking a room there and then plus finding dinner in a place I don’t know, and it’s fun and I’m loving the variety and spontaneity of each place I visit. 

I didn’t think I was a museum person but then I went to Pontevedra museum! To be honest it was free and I’m ashamed to say that was what initially attracted me. It was amazing however and almost too big to take it all in. There was room after room  - 6 floors, half had 4 big rooms, half had up to 8 rooms - of paintings, sculptures, statues, furniture, relics and pottery/ceramics. Mostly it was art works and there were far too many to do justice to many here, but they were from the Middle Ages to this century, mainly Spanish artists and of all shapes and sizes (murals to miniatures). I loved the variety of styles, the way that emotion was expressed, that an artist could fill three massive mural size painting with life as he saw it. In some just the colours used spoke to me and there were modern paintings where parts were three dimensional with objects reaching out from the canvas. I left feeling lifted by the experience and grateful that notwithstanding my reason for going in I’d found something that I’ll always remember. 

Pretty green

We left Lugo for Foz, which is actually going backwards across northern Spain, but there was a reason for doing that which I’ll cover in the next blog. (Oh a bit of tension….)

Foz is a coastal town of c10k residents that like a lot of northern Spain, was once a fishing village but is now mainly dependant on tourism. 

After sourcing and checking in to my hotel, a walk along the coast was taken as it was late afternoon and slightly overcast, the colours of the scenery started to change as the sun started to set and some of my most scenic photos to date were taken. That walk reminded me that just being there in the moment is important, whatever the time of day.

Dinner was a local pizza restaurant and the owner was a fan of motorbikes as there were two on display (think Hard Rock Cafe, but motorbikes not guitars) and then one wall had 30 of so bike helmets from various sources. The pizzas were excellent and the sink in loo was great too!!

I can take no credit for many of the places I’ve been to as my friend and driver is far better at seeking out the jewels on her travels and this was especially true the next morning when we arrived at Playa de las Catedrales or Cathedral Beach. What a beach! It’s clearly a well known local tourist spot and was reminiscent of Durdle Door in Dorset. 

I was there late morning and it was quietly busy with other visitors, so I took myself off down one side of the steps down and started taking in the amazing beach and the even more impressive cliffs and rocks including the star of the show as per the picture below. Having moved along the beach to the other side from where we were parked, the wow moments continued. As part of the Gallic traditions of the area, a bagpiper was on the beach playing which just added to the must see element of this amazing place.

After a quick coffee break (with a green tray) it was on to the next stop, a lighthouse on a small island linked by a short bridge. This houses the two lighthouses of Ribadeo, one now accommodation and the other, built at the end of the last century, in traditional black and white. The sea surrounding the island was rugged and powerful, which made the experience all the better. Another great find.  

A great couple of stops, seeing our beautiful planet at it brooding and colourful best and it was time to return to Lugo, again!!

Another brick in the wall

My journey continued from Oviedo to Lugo. 

Lugo is a walled city and that’s a proper walled city where you can walk around the walls and I know that because I did! It’s 1.27 miles if you’re interested and to be honest it’s still that even if you’re not!! It was built in the 3rd Century BC by the Romans (what have they ever done for us?) and is apparently the only city in the world still surrounded by completely intact roman walls. This makes it a UNESCO world heritage site.

(the Wall or rather the path at the top of the Wall)

I stayed in two different places while there, one a 4 star hotel and the other an AirBnB. The hotel was amazing and when I checked in the receptionist uttered those magical words “I’ve given you an up grade” and I had a suite! A real proper lounge, bedroom and bathroom with two sinks! Free water, crisps and slippers too! My bed was big enough to be in two separate post codes back home! Ok no more exclamation marks. 

(The view from my suite!)

I loved Lugo - not just because of the suite - as for me every street had a view around the corner that made you smile, none more so that when I came across Lugo cathedral for the first time. It was around lunch time and I came at down a side street and there was just this beautiful church in the sun, which I walked around ending at the front in all its majesty. I took many photos of it from all over the city and at all times of day. 

The food in Lugo was also great with a couple of particularly good places for breakfast near the hotel and a square in the centre of the walled city with a row of excellent restaurants. I tried two of them and one I actually ate in or outside 4 times. My ordering is getting better and I mainly got what I wanted! 

After two nights of luxury, it was time for a bit of domesticity as I needed the use of a washing machine and AirBnB provided a very nice apartment with a washer drier and it was home from home for another two nights. 

I used this time to explore more of the walled city, including the aforementioned wall walk, and took in two amazing murals, one of which (Julius Caesar) I’ll admit I missed the first time, despite seeing it when we drove into the city. 

(Is this a dagger I see before me…. Well yes actually!)

My apartment had a Celtic theme to the rooms and I was in the “love knot” apartment!  🤣🤣🤣. Well I loved the washer/drier!! It was also slap bang in the middle of the walled city so all the good stuff was still close by!



I’ll remember Lugo for lots of reasons, all mainly good and for being the place they gave me an upgrade!

Se a Vida è

We left this travelogue, with me in a supermarket car park, rejoining my transport for the trip to Oviedo. While “avoiding tolls and motorways” has been the route choices, on this occasion we took the motorway as there is boulder in the middle of the N road apparently and getting round it makes your heart rate go to unacceptable levels!

We found a park up on the edge of the city and me a hotel close by and then set off for the city centre by train. 

My first impressions of the city were very favourable, with lots of photogenic churches, parks and statues and that feeling stayed and was enhanced over the three days I visited it. 

Churches. Spain being a catholic country has lots of beautiful churches and Oviedo was no exception. The first one that I came across was the Basilica of St John the Real. The current church was completed in 1915, but as with a lot of such churches there have been acts of worship in this place for many years and this site goes back to AD 862, when Alphonso III “the Great” built an alter dedicated to San Juan Bautista. So St John the Real refers to John the Baptist, not the writer of the gospel. As the photos show it is very ornate and the lights after dark are particularly effective in showing off the edifice. 

The second great church in the city is the Cathedral of San Salvador or the Cathedral of Oviedo and I spent time both looking at from the outside over lots of different occasions and also took a tour of the church itself. It’s a destination for pilgrims and the architecture is in the image of the Jerusalem of heaven as per the Apocalypse. The area behind the main alter is made up of a number of floor to ceiling gold embossed scenes and they are remarkable both in their detail and the images they portray. The architecture of the outside is also stunning and can be viewed from many different angles and from across the city.

Parks. The main park in Oviedo is 22 acres in the centre of the city. The website says that there are 955 species and I’ll take their word as I lost count after a while!! That 955 is made up of 51 different species and 100 varieties. The oldest trees are 300 year old oaks and the tallest is a shade banana tree at 40 metres, although I saw a giant redwood that also looked pretty tall! It’s just bursting with nature is therefore just a great place to walk, think and have a go on the outdoor gym! 

Statues. Oviedo has lots and of differing varieties, styles and size. Most are classical in subject, famous locals, animals and thought provoking images but they also include one of Woody Allen 🤷‍♂️. There is one of Malfada sat on a bench, who is there in part as a tribute to her creator, Joaquin Salvador Lavado Tejón “Quino” and is the twin of another statue installed in Buenos Aires. Finally there is one of some naked people which is better viewed from the back than the front! 

I enjoyed my time in Oviedo and this is just a snap shot of my days there and yesterday i do know that a snap shot is meant to be brief!!