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Showing posts with the label Spain

Fes And A Scuffle

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Onward to Fes... And A Scuffle ! I'm sitting here, at this moment, drinking tea..... a nice cup of tea ! I'm English  and its what we do! On a fateful morning, many moons ago, we decide that we had to move on. And it was over a cup of sweet tea that we made our plans. We'd already spent several days languishing in Ouezzane....the people were wonderful and we'd been enjoying the food immensely... but our feet were itching and wanderlust was driving us onwards.  Our next destination was to be the medieval fortress city of Fes. You may ask why ? My simple answer is because its there and we wanted to see the place that gave its name to what is, a rather odd hat with a tassle. So off we went. The public bus was once again our main means of transport. Hiking across the mountains was not an option in those days. There was too much risk attached to it. Hitchhiking was 'improbable' because of the lack of roads with vehicles on them. So once again it was to be a beaten up

Traveling Companions !

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Traveling Companions ! After Leaving the North Coast of Spain, our simple plan was to head south, and using our 'Afrique' placard,  hitchhike into North Africa.... sounds simple doesn't it ? It was a hot and very uncomfortable day for two Brits, who enjoy cold wet weather, but we found ourselves on the outskirts of Burgos. In those days a military town, and home to large numbers of conscripted soldiers...... so what?, you may say... It was demobbing day ! Thousands of young men in uniforms were heading home after their term of conscription, and the roads were full of hitchhikers....   we realised that we... two Brits in 'civies' and sporting Union Flags on their packs stood no chance of getting a lift. Here we were in the midday sun (with only cheap vino Tinto in our water carafes), facing a very long wait indeed. It was decided that we should head over to the adjacent fields and pitch our tents, garnering a little shade and getting us away from the horde of soldier

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