Rainy Days and Mondays – Santillana Del Mar in Cantabria

Holidays and travel are not always about sunshine and blue skies, sometimes it is about raincoats and umbrellas so I have been taking a look back.

This time I am in the village of Santillana Del Mar in Northern Spain.

Actually, when we arrived there it was raining so hard that it did matter.  It was that sideways rain that makes an umbrella superfluous (especially a £2.50 model from Wilkos) and which soaks you from every angle.  Not that this happened to us however because we did a circuit of the city and then drove straight out and back to Santillana Del Mar and I am now so familiar with that stretch of the E70 motorway that I could choose it as a specialist subject on Mastermind.

Read the full story Here…

International Day of Forests

The International Day of Forests was declared to be the 21st day of March, by resolution of the United Nations General Assembly in 2013.

The territory with the most forest is French Guyana at 98% but it isn’t really a country but a Department of France.  The country with the most forest is nearby Suriname with 94%.  The least forested country in the World with 0% is Eygpt.

The USA has 35%, Australia 17% and the UK 13% because two hundred years ago we chopped down all the trees to build Royal Navy Ships.

The largest forest in England is Kielder Forest in Northumberland, just about three times larger than the New Forest in Hampshire, the most wooded county in England is Surrey and the city with the most trees quite surprisingly is Sheffield is Yorkshire.

Living in the Midlands the forest I am most acquainted with is Sherwood Forest, home of Robin Hood.

Read the full story Here…

 

 

Festival Days – National Potato Chip Day (USA)

March 14th in the USA is Potato Chips Day which I confess makes me smirk because in the USA they don’t even know what a potato chip is.

These are potato chips…

These are potato crisps and according to Wiki…

“A potato crisp is a thin slice of potato that has been deep fried, baked, or air fried until crunchy. They are commonly served as a snack, side dish, or appetiser.”

There is some uncertainty about the origin of potato crisps.  They first appear in a recipe in England in 1817 but shortly after in 1924 in the USA,  It seems unlikely to get to the bottom of it, rather like the riddle of the Sphinx I guess.

And for the avoidance of doubt, these are French Fries.  That is unless loony Donald Trump hasn’t signed an Executive Order renaming them American Fries…

These are Patatas Bravas from Spain  which are neither chips or crisps or fries…

Which brings me back rather neatly to England and especially my home town, the fishing port of Grimsby.  They know a thing or two about chips in Grimsby let me tell you and there is a chip shop in every street – sometimes two and people there know best how to cook them and to eat them.

Never mind the fancy restaurant trend for twice or even thrice fried potatoes they just cut them up and sling them in a vat of boiling fat or preferably beef dripping and then serve them piping hot and crispy on the outside with delicate fluffy middles with the only two accompaniments that chips really need – a generous sprinkle of salt and lashings of good vinegar.  No mayonnaise, no gravy, no tomato sauce, definitely no curry and best served by the seaside…

Stairways – Steps or Shadows

Back now to my black and white stairways and this one is in the Portuguese town of Vila do Conde in Portugal just north of the city of Porto.

Steps or Shadows?  I really cannot be absolutely certain…

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Rainy Days and Mondays – Folegandros in the Greek Islands

I have been to the Greek Islands many times and in all of those visits I am certain that this is my only experience of rain…

On account of the weather Folegandros was a bit of a disappointment this year but unlike last year at least the ferries were running and there would be problem getting to Ios the next day.

The rain returned and like a candle taper snuffed out what remained of the day, which wasn’t a big surprise but at least we had wine now and later we caught the bus for the second time today up to the Chora and on the way we glimpsed a sliver of blue sky but before long the rain came sweeping back in.

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Five Years Ago – Crossing a Line

Five years ago I reached the milestone of State Pension Age and following an especially bleak Winter I decided to splash the cash of the first payment on a late Winter holiday and chose the Mediterranean island country of Cyprus.

As it turned out this was the last bit of travel for sometime because whilst we were away the Covid story was beginning to break and no sooner was the holiday over and we were back home than we were in lockdown.

One of the places that I was determined to visit in Cyprus was the capital city Nicosia.  I thought I might hire a car and drive there but I changed my mind when I saw daily coach trips advertised as a much cheaper option.  With an eye for a bargain I signed up for the tour.

What a mistake that turned out to be.  One of the first to be picked up we spent a tedious hour driving around Paphos collecting up everyone else.

Read the full story Here…

There is a footnote to this story.  When it came time to go home there was a problem with the Easyjet plane and there was a five hour delay.  The compensation payment covered the cost of the holiday, it cost me nothing and I got to keep my first State Pension payment.

Rainy Days and Mondays – A Cottage in Wales

Holidays and travel are not always about sunshine and blue skies, sometimes it is about raincoats and umbrellas so I have been taking a look back.

This time I am in Wales, near Lake Bala.

Almost immediately that we crossed Offa’s Dyke somewhere near Wrexham there were single carriageway roads with ever widening puddles and bleak gloomy conditions ahead as heavy grey clouds stuck like stubborn Velcro to the tops of the Welsh hills.  It rained in Llangollen, it rained in Corwen and it rained in Bala and it was about now that I was forced to concede that we probably wouldn’t be having an outdoor dining experience this evening.

Read the full story Here…

Staircase to a Building Site

This is a staircase from Porto in Portugal. Kim took this one. I like it, the iron staircase is a fine specimen but I especially like the backdrop.

If you look beyond the staircase there is a redevelopment, but a disguised redevelopment with a tapestry of amusing construction workers…

Read the full story Here…

Wall Art – Rimini in Italy

Kim and I look for different picture opportunities,  I look for doors and windows and washing lines, Kim looks for murals and wall art.

I posted a set recently taken in Portugal and readers asked me to do some more.  Well one reader actually.  Thank you John.  So here is a second set this time from  Borgo San Giuliano in Rimini, Italy…

Obviously I took the last picture in the sequence.

After a walk along the Rimini beach we had unexpectedly found ourselves in the trendy district of Borgo San Giuliano, originally a poor fishermen’s settlement but now a charming neighbourhood of small cobbled streets, trendy piazzas, and colourful street murals. This is now one of the most picturesque places in the city and one of Rimini’s most popular areas, with narrow streets and squares, colourful small houses and many frescoes representing characters and locations of Federico Fellini’s films.

The district was once a lot bigger but it a lot of it was demolished during the frenzy of the Fascist redevelopment period of the 1930s and it suffered more damage in World-War-Two.

The neighbourhood is closely linked to the famous Rimini filmmaker who despite being born and raised on the opposite side of the city is said had a special affection for the Borgo.  In 1994, the Festa del Borgo was officially dedicated to him and many of the most striking murals lining the walls of the buildings depict scenes and characters from his films.

 

Ten Years Ago – Warsaw in Poland

In 1945 as the German army prepared to retreat ahead of the advancing Soviet Red Army Hitler gave orders that Warsaw should be razed to the ground.  The sad thing for me about that is that not that a deranged madman gave the order but that others actually carried it out.  Surely it must have occurred to someone that what they were doing was wrong, was criminal or was just simply insane?

Read the full story Here…

This what the Nazis did to Warsaw…

but before we get judgemental this what the British RAF did to Dresden in Germany in 1945…

and this is what the USAAF did to Japan in the same year…

and this is what Israel has done to Gaza right under our very noses…

If history teaches us anything it teaches us that we never learn anything from past mistakes.

History has a dreadful habit of repeating the bad bits.