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Showing posts with the label Basque

Returning Home ~ A Great Adventure

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Returning Home ~ A Great Adventure Several months after starting out on our epic and life changing trip, we found ourselves once again in a cross channel ferry port awaiting embarkation... this time back to England. Our Afrique sign (used for 'thumbing' lifts as hitchhikers) was discarded long ago, because it had taken us across Europe into North Africa. A piece of cardboard that we had used to get us home...a simple Union flag painted onto it... had gotten us back to Le Havre. Much wiser and somehow, many years older, we patted each other on the back as we boarded for the crossing. We got into Portsmouth Harbour, very late at night, but being the hardened travellers that we had become, we were not phased by the prospect of sleeping in a bus shelter or perhaps in one of the fortress towers that encompass part of the town....all was good... we had after all just arrived home. We were both euphoric ! the feeling of accomplishment was immense, and I know that we had both cast off

Sand Dunes And Dresses

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SAND DUNES AND DRESSES Walking out of the Pyrenees, we  headed North and West towards the coast. In those days, Northern Spain was not a tourist destination. It was gritty, dirty, impoverished after many years of neglect and of course was still trying to recover from their vicious civil war, as was the rest of Spain. The British, Dutch and German waves of second home owners had not arrived. Arriving late one evening in San Sebastian, I noted how friendly the people were. They were all smiles and curiosity. This  didn't  change for our entire trip through Spain....the people were (and still are) wonderful. Upon our arrival we sought out coffee and tapas. We'd heard the coffee was good and the tapas were mouth watering. Finding ourselves lost in what was a large town, we wandered into an area with many tall tenement buildings...... it  didn't  look welcoming, at all. Looking up we were surrounded by tall concrete monoliths that were foreboding....however, there was a gaggle o

The Smells Of the Countryside...And New Friends

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The Smells Of the Countryside....And New Friends Heading down the West coast of France, we eagerly anticipated crossing the border into Spain. It was a lengthy trip, in part because we got stuck in  Biarritz  and St Jean de Luz....  no-one  stopped to pick us up, and to make matters worse the weather turned sour. Strong winds and rain meant that we were reluctant to stand on roadsides with our thumbs out. Anyway we eventually found ourselves in Hendaye, right on the border,  and after consuming rather a poor baguette for dinner, accompanied by some equally bad table wine ( we  didn't really care as it was cheaper than water in those days), we formulated a plan for our border crossing. As part of our history classes, we had learnt a lot about British airmen escaping POW camps and crossing over the Pyrenees, following forgotten trails. We decided that by following a disused railway track up into the mountains we would probably locate some of those trails... what an adventure ! We dra