Still at Detroit zoo… so much to see!

Starting with the ones Sandra had missed out on in Wyoming:



The little prairie dogs, pretty cute things...



The bison, of course, we saw in Yellowstone...



And we had a chance here to learn something from home:



We did know about rusty corrugated iron shacks and this kind of signs, of course...



But mixing lazy kangaroos with aboriginal art was new to us.



I don’t think I’d like to tangle with this gorilla!



The same applies to the polar bear, I’m sure...



The seals had a nice enclosure...



...which included a huge see-through tube where they could swim right over your head:



More bears, this time the juvenile honey bear...



...being attended by a staff member:



For the momma bear it was a bit of a yawn...



...while the black bear didn’t care much at all...



...and the grizzly had a swim...



...and lumbered out dripping wet:



What zoo is complete without a giraffe?



Warthogs are a bit different, though...



...while the rhinos were having a rest:



The lioness was paying attention...



...and the tiger felt his cave was the best place for a snooze:



On display was the old locomotive which took visitors around the zoo and its gardens...



...which would have enabled some to see the red panda...



...but today it’s a more modern-looking train, while the gardens are a treat:



Maybe I should have gone to the zoo last trip, maybe I was better off in the Ford museum, but we both really enjoyed it this time round and it’s a tribute to its keepers that it’s such a well-run place with such good appointments.

Recommended to all...

 

There was just one thing I wanted to do in Detroit before I headed across the border to go to Toronto…

We had time, plenty of time really. I wanted to find the shop we’d been seeing on television for years, the pawn shop of Hardcore Pawn. I’d looked up the address, I was well-prepared and I fed that into the Garmin. And…



Misinformed! Backstreets of suburban Detroit, but no sign of the pawn shop anywhere!

…we weren’t within miles of the place, I’m sure. I don’t know what went wrong but Sandra convinced me that it wasn’t that important.



Neglected. It had put us into an area like those I explored a little last time, too. Where houses have been forfeited to banks who cared not at all about looking after them.

So we proceeded on our journey, and the next step was to head for the border crossing:



Bridge to Windsor. What a wealth of trade goods must cross this bridge each day. Our passports at the ready as we crossed into Canada.




Ambassador Bridge. The name is up there in lights giving it all a friendly atmosphere.

It was well into the afternoon now, the shadows on the bridge – which runs NNW to SSE – show that the sun’s well into the Western sky as we depart the United States.



Freeway to Toronto. Now we were in Ontario and heading East. There was plenty of other traffic doing the same thing on this freeway.

We would simply follow freeway most of the way:
We weren’t due to arrive in Toronto until about midday, so we found somewhere to camp and slept in the van on the way through. The lady who would provide the parking spot for the van for six weeks was a contact through someone I had met on another forum, she’d not long lost her husband and was very generous to make a space in her driveway available to us.



Breakfast en-route. We had breakfast at this ‘On Route’ stop at Cambridge, not too far from Toronto.

More traffic built up as we closed in on Toronto…



Traffic. All kinds of vehicles were in the mix as we headed East to keep our date with the Air Canada flight.



Chrysler Brampton. With my van having been built at the Windsor plant, going past the newer Brampton assembly plant almost made it like a pilgrimage for it.

We had some woes finding our destination due to a lack of GPS facility in Canada, but after a few phone calls and false-starts we made it there. Now we had to get busy.

Our hostess had gone to a lot of trouble getting varieties of things for us to have with her for lunch. It was truly amazing. And my mind was on all the packing we had to do while Sandra was more interested in getting a shower for each of us before we got on the plane.

Not to mention that the van was big enough to require that we move some stuff that was in the driveway so we could fit it in without leaving anything in the way. It was a bit of a rush, but we go t through it all and then we were driven to the airport. The rush came to an end, of course...



Into the queues. As always, queues and waiting as people struggled to get their luggage booked in and overcome airline rules. Or abide by them. Airports can be fun.

Ultimately, of course, we were to walk down the ramp to the waiting Air Canada 777 and take our seats. Before too long we’d be feeling the gentle rolling of the aircraft as it left its berth and found its way to the taxiway. Under its own power it moved along, hesitating on occasion, a gentle giant in slow motion. Until it was time…

Then the power came on as we faced the runway, the brakes came off, the aircraft came to life and before long we were airborne and finding our flight path.



Toronto Afternoon. With the afternoon sun throwing long shadows, the industrial areas of Toronto fill the foreground and the tall buildings of Toronto stand out as we commence our flight to Paris.

We were on our way to a whole new continent, to drive a totally different vehicle and to struggle with unknown languages…

How would that go?

 

Whoops, I forgot to mention...

We had, before starting on our way this day, done a lot of sorting of what was staying with the van and what was going into the bags we could fit on the 'plane. It's always a struggle to be sure you've got everything without packing so much that your bags are too heavy for the airline's limits.

Later, after leaving the freeway, and when we felt we still had time in hand, Sandra asked that I get my hair cut. Well, if you look back at the pic of me at Bill Wiswidel's place, I'm sure you'd agree I needed that.

We went into a shopping centre and found a hairdresser and this was successfully done. Nice, she did a good job despite the fact that I hadn't had it cut in almost three months. And I said to the girl, "Okay, I'll be back in seven weeks for the next one. When we get back from Europe."

 

Once again being cooped up on a plane was difficult for Sandra and her back pains. We flew into the night and I didn’t sleep much if at all. With daylight starting to shine on what I think was Ireland below us, breakfast came around and then it wasn’t long before we were over rural France.

By late Spring the countryside was showing its fertility, and the farmers were growing a variety of crops, so it was a mosaic of colour and shape as we looked down upon it. We were descending into an overcast morning, but that would soon clear…


Mosaic. The colourful patterns of the fields of rural France came into view…


Towns, too. …as did the sight of these old towns surrounded by the fields.


Rivers, towns and bridges. With old time towns all built right on rivers, many bridges have spanned the rivers to connect them.

…The scenes we were seeing were so obviously of much older towns and cities and farms than we were used to seeing. In this way we were entering another world, but it was a world which was keeping up with the technology of today and kept pace with other parts of the world:


More modern. This scene, still with agriculture in the majority, showed that France is definitely a part of the 21st century.


Fast train. And this fast electric train is a part of the technology France has embraced.

The big strong wings of the 777 lowered us gently onto the tarmac at Charles De Gaulle airport and we were soon discharged and facing Customs inspections and all the other things that go along with International travel.


Soft landing. And so we came down for a landing at Charles de Gaulle airport and readied ourselves to disembark. Evident around us were representatives of many airlines from all around the world, the Singapore jet stands out in this shot.

After being discharged from there we had to find a public phone and work out how to use it to contact the people through whom we’d leased our car for the six and a half weeks.

It was an ordeal, but a brief ordeal, and we were told to hold our place there and someone would come to pick us up, and before long we were being ushered into a people mover for the drive to the leasing location where our Peugeot 208 diesel hatch was waiting for us. More paperwork, more checking – passports, licence – and all the while there was some kind of skirmish going on in the background.

I was too busy doing the paperwork and getting our bags sorted and packing them into the car to notice much, but Sandra was watching, I suspect with horror, as a huge argument was going on with a man. I asked the people what it was about but they didn’t tell me, and as we drove away I snapped this shot of the bloke:


Crazy man. Standing on an airport security car’s roof, this stand-off was still in play as we left to start rolling up the kilometres.

As can be seen, he was now standing on top of a car belonging to the security people, two security officers are on hand and the man from the car leasing place has got a golf stick at the ready!

We drove away, blissfully unaware of the outcome of all of this. And we went into the city to see the major sights. We drove around the Arc de Triomphe a couple of times and spotted the open-top tourist buses…


Arc de Triomphe. It took several times around this monument for us to get our bearings.


Tour buses. It’s a popular place for tourists and so buses like this abound.


Ferris wheel. And there’s even a ferris wheel right in the middle of the place.


Paris streets. All kinds of vehicles are seen satisfying the needs of both locals and tourists.


Paris buildings. The buildings, however, have a kind of permanence and Parisian look about them.

…then I left Sandra at a spot we couldn’t stop for long enough to get a good pic, going around the block a few times while she got a shot at the Eiffel Tower…


The Tower. Sandra was determined to get a good photo of the Eiffel Tower. I don’t even think she was happy with this one.


Fountain of Warsaw. The ‘cannon’ fountains with the Palais de Chaillot in the background.


Posing. Anyone can drive a Lamborghini, it seems. And lots of people look at it too.

…and before I got to pick her up again she got a shot of this Lamborghini rental car posing by the fountain. But now it was time to hit the road and a realisation of what the coming days would bring came to me.

Sandra, even though we’d discussed this at home, wasn’t going to go camping in Europe!

“You just said we’d camp at Niagara Falls,” she asserted, but she’d obviously missed the point of the whole conversation when we were discussing what we’d be doing in the course of this trip. I was all set to buy a tent and so on for our European accommodation and she scuttled it completely.

Heading South we drove through farmlands and villages and secondary roads as the Peugeot’s built-in GPS instructed us. The day’s travel would ultimately take us to the village of Déols:



It was not a long drive, by any means. About 270kms. But we were very much learning our way and we had to start equipping ourselves for the days ahead. In time we decided it was time to stop for some shopping and some lunch, so we diverted from the main road into Saran, on the Northern outskirts of Orleans. And what a good choice of venue this was!

There we found the Carrefour Market, and this was one of their larger type where they sell all sorts of stuff. Included in our purchases were cleaning gear, foodstuffs, cutlery and throwaway dishes, a hat for me and more. And we sat down to have a nice lunch there too.


Carrefour Market. We found everything we wanted in this supermarket, even hats, cutlery and lunch.

Driving on that afternoon wasn’t captured by our cameras. Or, at least, the photos weren’t saved, except for this one:


Crops at ground level. Having seen them from the aircraft, it was now time to see them up close.

I later learned that Sandra might take eight or ten photos but then she might delete most of them from her phone. And because she was taking so many I didn’t necessarily take any.

We drove into the darkness and found a place to stay at Déols, where there were several large hotels on the Northern outskirts...


One of three. There were three hotels of this brand in close proximity, reasonably priced too.

...We had a room up high, I think on the top floor, so the elevator took me up and down several times.

It was all an experience...

 

We got away from Déols fairly early, fresh and ready for a day of adventure. I was heading for Pau, where motor racing has been happening for a long, long time. Prior to 1933, the courses used were longer than the one that’s been used around the city since that time.

It’s very much like Monaco in its makeup, tight corners, climbs and drops, and it’s still in annual use just as is Monaco. But it was still a fair way off and we weren’t to make it this day, May 8, 2016. W would get to Auch, however, and see a few sights on the way.



As always with the GPS set on Pau as our destination, we just followed it and absorbed whatever the countryside in Southern France dished up…



Repeaters. The small traffic lights that repeated the signal from the higher and larger ones were new to Sandra. I think they used to have these in Melbourne years ago.



Bridge. More ‘old world’, this bridge also caught her attention.



Art. Again, something different to home.



Crops. Maybe not so different. French agriculture was in full swing as spring was coming to an end.

The morning run took us to Bergerac, where we made our stop for lunch and learned that there are a lot of English-speaking people living in this part of France. Mostly people who have made the decision that they don’t really need to live in England any more and have found solace in this part of the world.



Bergerac train. We caught the streamlined front of this train as it headed through a level crossing as we were leaving Bergerac.

During the afternoon run we settled down a bit more and took a couple of little detours. An ancient French village presented itself just a few miles out of Bergerac and we spent some time walking about that. The name of the place was Issigeac, comprising little narrow streets with homes and shops filling every crevice.

It’s said that the area dates back to the tenth century with a monastry, later things changed and most of the buildings are reckoned as being from the 13th to the 16th century. I can believe it. And we missed the big crowds which get there Sunday mornings for a popular local market that attracts large numbers.



Issigeac. A portent of what we were to see as we walked through the village. Our car is parked off to the right of this place.

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Stylish corner house. The styling and almost elaborate attention to creating patterns is seen in this corner house.



Narrow streets. Presumably foot traffic and an occasional horse didn’t need much room.



Patterns. A further effort to create patterns, this time in masonry rather than timber.



Big house. One would have to assume that someone important used to live in this place.



No go! Contending with modern traffic obviously creates its own problems.



Patterns and tourists. We weren’t alone beating the pavement and looking at the old village.



Flowers too. Despite the closeness of everything, some dwellers made an effort to pretty the place with flowers and gardens.



Surprising Spar. As we have a Spar supermarket chain at home this one was a bit of a surprise, especially in an old-style village such as Issigeac.

One thing I couldn’t get over was that so many places, though built up to the edge of the ‘road’, encroached on the road space in their upper floors, with sections cantilevered out to a point where they could almost touch the building opposite and getting sunlight down to the streets would have been difficult.



Close dwelling. With the upstairs cantilevered out over the street, there wasn’t much room between some of the homes.

I even managed to find something interesting in a car that turned up there, a Citröen from the days before André Citröen started building cars with front wheel drive.



Citröen and Peugeot. Once again our little Peugeot hatch tried to hog the camera here as we spied this old Citröen. Of course, this car was built over sixty years before Peugeot took over Citröen.



Big Citröen. Unlike today’s cars, this one is a large automobile. And still rear wheel drive.



Famous badge. Not the swan, but the chevrons which were used in the badge because André Citröen created his initial fortune making gears to this pattern.



Rear view. This view also emphasises how large this ‘voiture’ was.

This big old thing was probably from the very early thirties (Traction Avant was to come about 1934 if I recall) and the owners were out for a day of enjoyment just as were we. We moved on as there was more to see and more ground to cover.



Old signage. In Australia the presence of signs like this is something that draws attention. Maybe it does in France, too? The main sign is for Hotchkiss cars, which went by the wayside in the mid-fifties.



Water tower. Well, I photographed a lot of these in the US, so why not in France too? This one certainly is different.



Bridge and deer. Animals always appeal to Sandra and so this deer in a park caught her attention.



Lifelike deer. Captured in bronze, it’s a tribute to the artists that they’ve done such a nice job.



Toilettes. Yes, it is amazing what you photograph on a trip. These were in the same park as the deer, probably the reason we went there!

Further down the road we stopped at Astaffort, where a weir and some old buildings presented themselves with plenty of ‘old world charm’.



Astaffort welcome. Arriving in Astaffort we had plenty of information at hand from this sign – if we understood French, of course.



Astaffort weir No 1. This weir is just a little upstream from another…



Astaffort weir No 2. … and clearly this one was used to help operate a mill or similar that was housed in the adjacent building.



Astaffort bridge. And the bridge in between them captured Sandra’s interest too.

And so we had spent a pleasant day and were now a lot closer to Pau. We found somewhere to stay and eat at Auch and looked forward to another day of touring in the South of France on Monday.

 

We finished up not covering much distance on this day, Monday May 9, 2016. Only about 280kms as the main roads travel. But, despite the short-ish distance of the day, it gave me the opportunity to look at a circuit about which I’d been reading race reports for over fifty years. It also took us across the border into Spain.

The bland view of the map for the day:



Somewhere between Auch and Pau (or, more truthfully, perhaps between Astaffort and Auch) Sandra spotted these in a paddock alongside the road:



Gorilla and dinosaur. Just on the side of the road, as to why I can’t say. But well done.

But we were definitely in Pau when I went to the tourist information office, found out where the circuit was and set out to drive around it. It was all made easier because of the time of the year, as the races were to be held there just two weeks after our visit and streets that are sometimes one-way the wrong way weren’t so as they got the setup done for the racing.

It was all yet another lesson in learning how to deal with our language shortcomings, but ultimarely we came onto the circuit perhaps a quarter of the way around from the start:



Blockage. Obviously there’s disruption when this kind of thing is going on in your city, but the delay for us was minimal.



Bridge erection. All kinds of infrastructure has to be put in place for events like this, the bridge will give access for spectators to reach better viewing spots.



Grandstands. No doubt there was a significant charge for those who wanted to be comfortable in these temporary stands.



Tight! Like Monaco, this kind of street circuit usually includes corners too tight and too close together for comfort.



Grass banks. Those grassy banks off to the right will no doubt be covered with spectators on race day. And scrap paper and bottles the day after, quite likely.



Setup blues. Inevitably there will be problems while the setting up is going on, traffic impeded and (sometimes) tempers frayed.

In the old days it would have been so much easier, I reflected, than it is today. Trundle around with a truckload of haybales and drop them off where required, no fences to erect, save for some temporary ones to control spectators and ensure that people pay to get in.



Starting grid. The markings for the grid positions are clear here, so this is where the races begin.



Fast section. Not far from the start, this section would be very fast in the quicker cars racing on the day.



Climb. This becomes very much like the climb at Monaco, where the F1 cars head up towards the Casino. It’s not quite so romantic here, though.



Mid-city. Tall buildings line one side of the circuit here, while the proximity of the fences show how little room there is to make mistakes in a place like this.

After leaving Pau we headed West towards the coastline. More and more of the greenery of Southern France whisked by us as we made progress, but we had to stop somewhere. And one stop was made at an Intermarche Super location just off the Route Nationale 817 West of Puyoo at a little place called Caunielle.



Laundromat. These pics were taken at the Intermarche Super outlet at Caunielle, where Sandra was captivated by the laundromat and photo-booth setup outside the store. Many of the Intermarche supermarkets have laundromats, by the way.



Shiny and new. Our leased Peugeot 208 diesel hatch, still shining and unaware of where it’s to go in the next six weeks.

After having something to eat there we went on, it wasn’t long before this roundabout caused Sandra to take another photo:



Kiwi fruit. I had trouble locating exactly where this was until I found a website with pictures of ‘cool roundabouts in France’ where it had been noticed. It was only a few kilometres further on at Peyrehorade.

Then there were no more stops until we were almost in sight of the Bay of Biscay, by which time the weather was looking threatening as it came in off the Atlantic Ocean. We drove on to the beach fronting the bay at Bidart, where Sandra took a walk on the beach and dipped her feet into the water briefly.



Weather closing in. From a hilltop along the road we saw this storm threatening.



Bay weather. It’s looking worse on the Southern side of the border with Spain in this photo Sandra took from the beach.



Sandra on beach. Ever keen to get her toes wet, Sandra walked across the beach to dip them in the waters of the bay. And stopped on the way to take more photos.



Bay dwellers. I have no doubt that these locations would be very expensive to either own or rent. This is the little headland at Bidart.

After that we headed into San Sebastian, crossing the border and noting the style and age of the buildings. It was getting late by this time and we had to find somewhere to stay. This we accomplished as we found a hotel just on the South side of town, then we went back to the centre of town to get a meal.



Puente Maria Cristina. The Spanish way of saying ‘Maria Christina Bridge,’ but it’s their bridge and they can name it as they will – just as they have decorated it too. This is getting right into San Sebastian.



San Sebastian buildings. Solid old buildings which have stood the test of time made up most of the bayside city.



In town. Laid out as most of the older cities are, squares and converging streets give a focus to everyones’movements.



Isle de Santa Clara. That’s the little island to the left, the larger land mass here is the headland on the Northern side of the city. It was very picturesque, even as dark encroached.



Cervantes Plaza. This is at the end of the walk where the view above was highlighted. The little place where we bought our dinner that night is straight ahead here, but somewhat hidden.



Lift. Or ‘elevator’… to cross the street you could take this and walk below ground level.



Architecture. I’m no expert on these things, no doubt there’s a name for this style of architecture which caught our eye as the evening started to fall.

I was quite concerned now. The whole timetabling of this trip was based on being at Monaco for the Historic Grand Prix the following Friday, yet I had purpose in going to Spain to show Sandra the Festival of the Patios in Cordoba. Which was supposed to be a surprise for her, a flower lover.

My concern was just how far it still was to Cordoba, and then back to Monaco, and I’d actually hoped to slip into Portugal on the way. But that was now quite out of the question and the drive to Cordoba would be a big day on the road.

 

With a nice early start from San Sebastian (really it’s Donostia-San Sebastian, I don’t know why), we had a big day ahead of us. A Day of discovery, too. A whole new country to explore.

I should mention first that I’d tried to ‘explore’ the San Sebastian area itself to find out where motor races were held there early in the twentieth century, but I couldn’t find anything I could relate to modern roads with the maps I had. I gave up on that.

Here’s the route we finished up taking on this Tuesday:



One of the first things we were to discover was that the Spanish roads are incredibly good. Later we’d learn that this isn’t true everywhere, but on this day we drove on delightfully smooth roads for the whole day. And there wasn’t much traffic about on what started out as a pleasant day.



Cepsa. One of the fun things about trips like this is learning new brand names. Cepsa was one of the first.



Pleasant day. As the morning progressed it began to look like a good day for a drive in the country. And a new country was as good as any.

After going through Miranda de Ebro, where we did see a little traffic…



Miranda de Ebro. Not yet onto the freeway system, we caught some traffic at this roundabout.

…we were on a 2-lane road for a while. This went through to Pancorbo, but just before this town we came upon this spectacular setting:



Spectacular. The 2-lane here is about to go under the railway, which is about to enter a tunnel, and the freeway is just up there the other side of the railway.

Then we tried to get a good pic of rock walls on a farm. They were just everywhere and this played on my mind. It was to continue to do so the whole time I was in Europe as I was seeing roads built of rocks, fences and walls, houses, all kinds of buildings and more. I just had to ask:

“Who collected all the rocks?”



Rock fences. It was hard here to get a good pic to show them, but every wall or fence in the picture is built of rocks.

And don’t they say something about ‘the rain in Spain’ falling mainly on the plain? Well, we saw a little of that before the morning was out…



Less pleasant. The rain started to fall on this plain as we passed through. Fortunately it wasn’t with us for very long.

Nevertheless we were able to press on without any delays or problems. One thing that started to come into sight frequently was the large number of bull-shaped cutouts standing on hills near the freeways. These were everywhere!



All bull. Steel profiles of bulls stood on a lot of the hills across Spain. This one was closer to the road than most.

Past Salamanca we drove, and Placensia, keeping an eye out for anything we could see. Then, before Caseras, near the exit to a place called Hinojal, there was something standing out. It was the almost complete Almonte Viaduct over the broad waters of the Tagus.

This bridge is a part of the new rail link between Madrid and Lisbon in Portugal. It’s a railway for super-fast trains, trains with speeds up to 350kmh. You can see in the pic that there are vertical pylons supported by cables above the level of the railway. These were there only for the construction phase as cables went from these pylons to new sections of bridge being cast in concrete in suspension out over the water.



Almonte Viaduct. In a late construction phase, this concrete viaduct still carries the pylons from which cables supported new sections being built.

I found more information about it on this website: https://www.iabse.org/IABSE/associat...uct_Spain.aspx

But this is even better:
Its span, by the way, is about 60m longer than the bridge over the Colorado River near the Hoover Dam.

Later in the journey we started spotting castles. They were all somewhat distant from the main road and so not easily photographed.



Castle. Not close enough to the road to get a good look at, but still this castle reminded us we were in a land where such things are to be seen.



Two together. It was actually one of two, as this picture shows.



Sentinel. I’m not at all sure what this structure on top of the rocks might be, but it does appear to be standing guard over the much more modern houses in the foreground.

There was also evidence that accidents happen here as much as they might anywhere else…



Truck mess. Some clean-up crew are on hand and no doubt this reminder that things don’t always run smoothly will soon be taken care of.

… and that people here are also interested in drawing their electricity from the sun’s activities.



Using the abundant sun. Spain is famous for its sunny weather, so these solar panels should give a good return for the investment.

As the day neared its end we went into the town of Cerra Muriano to see if there was some accommodation and somewhere to eat. And we really did do well in these pursuits.



More of those rocks! Streets of little towns here were narrow and as often as not paved with cobblestones.



Bar X. Our home for the night, this hotel and restaurant provided hospitality, comfort and economy which is worth recommending.

Going into the Bar X to enquire, I was (in broken English, some Spanish and sign language) asked to wait as the proprietor phoned his son who was fluent in English. From that point on everything just fell into place. They young bloke even came around to meet us and help us out in person.

The room was, perhaps, over-decorated. In fact, the photos show that vast numbers of tiles have gone into creating patterns all over the place and plenty of art and craft filled available spaces not covered by the tiles.



My bed. Sandra decided this was where I’d sleep. The room had three single beds.



Table and chair. Lots of little things added up to a nice room, which had an en-suite as well.



Tiling everywhere. The owner has spent years renovating and adding yet more tiles to the establishment.



Stairs, too. Even the walls of the staircase were covered in tiles.



Dining room. The restaurant was also lavishly decorated, but it was the service from the owner and his son which is best remembered from our stay here.+6

The food was good, the beds brought us comfort and rest and we didn’t have to spend too much money. And we were now close enough to Cordoba to roll in there mid-morning on Wednesday and let Sandra enjoy looking at all the floral displays.

 

Wednesday we awoke refreshed after being with such nice people the night before and having been able to sleep soundly in the Bar x ‘Hostal’. I was really looking forward to the surprise that Sandra was to enjoy at the Festival of Patios.

This was in response to her telling me that she liked surprises, and I knew she was keen on gardening, flowers and so on. So when Elizabeth and I were talking about the trip she realised that we might be in Spain at the right time. She checked on the internet and sure enough we would be.

Hence we were heading for Cordoba. And by the end of the day we’d be heading right out of Spain again. Here is the path we were to take:



It wasn’t far and didn’t take long to reach Cordoba and Sandra was pestering me to tell her what this ‘festival’ was all about. We reached Cordoba and parked in a spot near a large park where a Douglas DC6 was permanently on display.



DC6. This old aircraft, state-of-the-art in the late fifties, has long since been justifiably consigned to being some kind of museum display.

And then we walked. With my knee and its torn ligament and all, we walked. Before we crossed this bridge…



Bridge to Cordoba. After having a walk through the shops we had to cross this bridge to find the ‘Festival of the Patios.’

…we went into an old-style shopping area and bought something to eat, then we went back to walking. Sandra was still wondering about this ‘festival’ but became more interested in the presence of horses. We didn’t know what was going on – yes, our Spanish was just too lacking for us to bother asking anyone – but we were aware of the equine activity. The fine example was right there as we walked:



Horse and carriage. Looking a little lonely here, but obviously well cared-for, this horse was very attractive to Sandra.

And then we were in the area of the ‘festival’. And just to explain, the ‘Festival of the Patios’ is the opening up of backyards (or front yards) of homes in a small area where the people a keen gardeners and have nice floral displays. Visitors walk from home to home and enter the courtyards to see (and smell) the multitude of flowers the owners have growing there.

It began down this street…



Flowers in the streets. This was as far as Sandra was prepared to go in getting pics of the flowers. This street led to some of the open courtyards.

… and the courtyards looked like this:



Flowers. Though Sandra didn’t want to go looking, I figured it would be a sad state of affairs if I didn’t get some record of our visit there.



More flowers. No doubt these people are seriously devoted to making their floral displays so they can open their courtyards once a year.

But, to my amazement… no, let’s say ‘shock’, and possibly ‘horror’, Sandra wasn’t in the slightest bit interested in this. She didn’t want to enter any of the places and she didn’t want to take any photos of the flowers there at all. The surprise I had thought would be a delight for my new wife just got the response: “We have flowers better than that in Toowoomba.”

But she was keen to look at the horses. We went across to a pavillion where preparations were being made for some kind of event and she saw some horses, carriages and so on, but we didn’t stay for the show.



Horse pavillion. Surprising both of us was the interest in horses in Cordoba. This was the verandah of the pavillion where they were setting up for their display.



Another carriage. Two horses this time, as we departed Sandra took this picture.

Dejected by this, I walked with her back across that long bridge, we looked at an ancient water-wheel…



Waterwheel. An old waterwheel by the bridge was a reminder that times have changed a great deal in the lifetimes of these old European cities.



Fountain. More decorated roundabouts were seen, this one as we headed out of Cordoba had a spectacular fountain.

…and we drove out of town, the nose of the 208 pointed roughly towards Monaco. As I drove I figured out that I’d driven a thousand extra kilometres and missed out on going into Portugal to give her the chance to see this floral display and she hadn’t appreciated it at all. So I had to find something more positive to keep me going. I wanted to visit Carlos that afternoon and that was something to look forward to, but then there was even worse news.

We had been driving on these brilliantly smooth roads all over Spain, but as we headed towards Barcelona the motorway was in shocking condition. The surface was fine, but the road seemed to have been made in concrete with expansion strips and there was a consistency with which it sent a ‘thump’ through the car – and into Sandra’s back.

There was nothing I could do about it. Varying the speed made little difference and it went on for over a hundred kilometres like that.

Meanwhile, the Spanish scenery was different to the kind of scenery we’d seen the previous day:



Olive groves. For many years, of course, the Spanish people have been growing olives.



Mountains ahead. During the day the scenery would change, with mountains…



Out of the mountains. … and some less outstanding landforms. Whichever, it was there to be enjoyed.



Dodge? I was surprised when this went blasting past, a late-model Dodge was right out of character in the automotive company you’d expect to see on these European roads. I also saw a RAM pickup the next day.

The afternoon whisked itself away with this, a stop at one of the large sales outlets on the motorway and then it was time to head off that and onto some twisty roads into the hills where Carlos lives. It started to rain as we got there (see, the rain doesn’t only fall on the plain in Spain!) and with us in touch by phone Carlos got soaking wet coming out to direct us to his place.

His wife comes from Romania and they made us most welcome, laying on a snack with bread and cheese and the kind of hospitality you would expect of a long lost friend. But this was our first meeting in person and we’d only otherwise encountered each other on an internet forum.



Carlos and his wife. We were welcomed into the home of this couple, treated to some refreshments and some interesting conversation.

Sandra really enjoyed this visit too, so with everyone enjoying themselves the available time soon evaporated and we headed back down the twisty road and back to the motorway. Darkness soon came and we had to find somewhere to stay, and without the help of my Garmin, and without a map to look ahead and do any planning, it was now time to play a game with the on-board GPS.

I would look for accommodation and get a list up, then I’d select one based on distance and direction according to the list, then we’d head off towards it and learn it wasn’t accessible from the motorway, was the other side of some barrier or other and that it was time to try for another one.

Eventually, worn out and well and truly ready for a night of rest, we found a place somewhere near Girona and slept the night away.

Thursday would obviously be a better day...

 

This day’s journey would return us to France and take us part-way across the Riviera…

Sandra’s back was reeling after the thumping on the concrete joints of the motorway the previous day, but fortunately it as all smooth now. We were, however, driving on motorways with tolls now, something I didn’t think I’d be doing during much of this trip.

From our overnight stop just before Girona we would drive through to Arles:



The scenery changed a bit as we drove, naturally, but this day we saw one of the now familiar bulls mixed in with a wind farm:



Bull in the windfarm. These bulls were just everywhere to be seen, one hopes they didn’t interfere with the wind needed to keep the power generating.

This day introduced us to multiple tunnels, too, something we were to see more and more of as we drove on. Some were short, a few were longer.



Tunnels. Many parts of Europe, we would learn, have tunnels to take the motorways smoothly through the landscape.



Repsol. Having seen plenty of Repsol signage on racing motorcycles, I found the presence of their service stations...



And tankers. ...and their tankers in large numbers to be no surprise.

Driving through this part of Spain there was also a number of retail outlets on the motorway. The structures straddled the roadway with parking areas serving both directions and bridges, sometimes for public use and sometimes not, to get from one side to the other.



Straddling the motorway. Huge retail outlets allowed travellers to stop without leaving the motorway.



Cakes. Naturally they offered the opportunity to satisfy the sweet tooth as well as solid fare.



Little presents. Sandra would be buying some of these to take home to grand daughters.



Inside the cafe. Plenty of tables and chairs reflected how busy these places get at mealtimes.



Cafe display. If only the signage had been in English we’d have been better informed of what they wanted us to buy!

Sandra’s desire to get little presents for her grand daughters would be assisted here as she found some souvenirs to take home to them. And, of course, we found something to eat. Then back to motoring, where we found… more tunnels…



More tunnels. Hill after hill was found to have a tunnel go under it.



Round house. I have no idea what this place really is, but Sandra snapped a pic of it anyway.



Outcrop. This rock formation was one of a few like it. We got this shot from a rest area.



Cut off! And you thought European drivers were all well-behaved? As anywhere, you have to remain alert in case someone does something unexpected.



Toll collector. Automation of toll collecting undoubtedly makes it more profitable. This machine was the first such we saw.



Air and water. And this dispenser of air and water was right next to it.



Border mountains. The border district between France and Spain features some mountainous areas. Note the cloud which was with us almost all day.

We motored on into France, but it was little different as it was all a motorway. The language on the signs changed of course, but they were still much of a mystery to we monolingual travellers. Nevertheless, there was always something to look at.



RAM pickup. Like the Dodge seen the previous day, this RAM was out of place amongst all the smaller European cars.



Tunnel and sign. We saw these signs a couple of times, I think they are asking drivers if their lights are on low beam.

As always, it’s the things which look different to what you see at home which stand out. Sandra spotted these garbage bins at a rest area:



Garbage bins. Garbage bins at a rest area – both rubbish and recycling catered for.



Toilets. But I don’t know what she found fascinating about these toilets!



Wind generators. A couple of times I spotted these generators which were installed in a line, this was my attempt to capture the picture while driving.

As mentioned, the destination for the day was Arles, where there is an ampitheatre dating back to Roman times. Built around the year 90CE, it’s still in occasional use today for annual bullfights and sometimes for concerts.

I had previously seen this on my 1981 trip to France, but this time I managed to get some good photos of it, as did Sandra. They will form the bulk of the next episode.

 

The really big difference between Australia and most other countries in the world relate to the age of civilisation – as we know it – in the various places. Australia’s first settlement by other than Aboriginals began in 1788, about 250 years after the Americas and thousands of years after most of the rest of the world.

Therefore when we look around Australia at some of the relics of the past we find a bridge built in 1813, buildings still standing which were erected a little before that and monuments declaring that the roads might have been carved out in the 1820s. And these things are ‘historic’ to Australians.

In these parts of Europe we were now visiting it was very different to that. Much of the ‘historic’ building was done under the auspices of Rome, with the Roman Empire in force from about 2500 years ago to around the tenth century. And the Romans were great providers of infrastructure, so they left plenty for us to see.

At Arles, an ancient city on the banks of the Rhone River near where it flows into the Mediterranean Sea, they built an amphitheatre of the same pattern as the famous Colloseum in Rome, and at about the same time towards the end of the first century. It’s surrounded by the town with narrow lanes, very old apartment buildings and the trappings of those who try to make a living out of providing services for locals and tourists.



Imposing. The arena at Arles, dating back tot he first century CE.



“Modern” seating. Because the interior of the arena has been gutted over the centuries, those viewing modern events held within sit on structures which look out of place in an old stone structure. Bullfights are still held here and there are concerts.



Changes. The towers that stand up from the rest of the arena are additions made in medieval times. Housing and other buildings come right up close on most sides.



Shining through. Perhaps our timing was fortuitous as scenes such as this wouldn’t have been available other than near sunset.



Middle Ages housing. A lot of people lived within the outer perimeter of the arena in the 1600s, houses being built inside the walls and dwellings made from the segments of the main structure. Undoubtedly this is when the original seating structures were dismantled.



Dining close. This restaurant and the housing seen here is just across the narrow street from the arena.



More housing. Though this scene shows the only space where a number of cars can be parked nearby, it also emphasises that this is still a town where people live everyday lives, that they are close to this ancient edifice is inconsequential.



Laneway. One laneway leading away from the arena is a staircase, non-navigable to most automotive traffic.



Sunset over the Rhone. Just a stone’s throw away is the Rhone, this section having been bridged by the Romans during their occupation and in more modern times by the bridge seen here. Again, the time of day is showing.



City gate. While it’s showing its age, the city gate also remains near the Rhone. More modern buildings abound in this area.



Brasserie. As we left the area places such as this were lighting up and preparing for their Thursday evening business.



Flowers too. Sandra got a couple of shots showing flowers where people have attempted to overcome the compressed city feel with a little natural colour.



Glaces and crepes. A sweet tooth could be rewarded at this cafe, ‘glace’ is ice-cream.



Tatty housing. We don’t know what’s behind those shutters, but it certainly doesn’t look attractive.



Graffiti. Even less attractive is this graffiti, all of this right near the arena.



More flowers. Sandra to the rescue again, some more flowers to put colour into a drab scene.

Having revisited the arena and shown something new to Sandra, it was now time to find somewhere to eat and sleep. The next morning I wanted to see Pont du Gard and then be in Monte Carlo by the early afternoon.