The news we were expecting and waiting for has arrived: our return ferry from Santander has been delayed. This is because the outbound boat from the UK  was unable to sail in the weather conditions, thanks to storms Joseph/Chandra/Kristin [delete as appropriate – I’ve lost track]

However, the news is not all bad. Our amended departure is at 01:00 on 1st February so we should only be about 10 hours late. Our amended arrival time is 06:00 on 2nd February which, to be honest, is better than the original at about 20:30 on 1st February, getting us home at about midnight. Check-in at Santander still opens at the original 13:00 but goes on until around 22:00. So, we can get there pretty much any time in the afternoon.

All of which meant that we can spend another night in the campsite at Zaragoza, with power, instead of staying in a supermarket car park at Miranda de Ebro on gas. Excellent. So, second time around with neither the bus nor the city being so scary, we opted for a second bus outing into Zaragoza to check out the market which would, we hoped, this time be open.

Today’s bus was an old diesel unit. Yesterday’s bus had been electric and was much smoother. It got us there but the ride wasn’t as enjoyable.

The market was, indeed, open and was in full swing. It’s a long covered building with a couple of cafes in the centre. We treated ourselves to a coffee.

One of the long “arms” of the market hall was stocked mainly with butchers stalls offering a mouth-watering array of meats and offal. I even saw lungs for sale; not something that we do, although they are an ingredient of Haggis. The quality looked superb.

The opposing arm was where all the fish counters were and, once again, the variety of species on offer and the freshness of them beats the hell out of anything we can manage. Most of the stalls were doing a brisk business with the discerning Spanish queued up eager to buy.

Being unable to make use of any of the produce, we left the market to return to the main square which, yesterday, had been a slightly distressing press of humanity. Today was the complete opposite: things were remarkably quiet and civilized with no long, winding queues to get in anywhere. We went into the basilica but photography is not allowed, sadly. Now we could see signs unobscured by humanity, it transpired that yesterday’s crush had been occasioned by the Fiesta of San Vallero, the patron saint of Zaragoza. No wonder everyone had been on the streets. Maybe this was also why all the supermarkets were closed.

At one end of the square is what I can only describe as “the leaning tower of Zaragoza”. I know it has a more famous cousin in Italy but I really wasn’t expecting to see one here. OK, it’s smaller than Pisa but quite a surprise to see. It actually looks as if the foundations are subsiding on one side.

We retraced some of yesterday’s steps back up to the “El Tubo” district in search of a tapas lunch. We found a bar with considerably more atmosphere than our choice yesterday, This was Casa Colás with all manner of tasty items displayed in two-tier cabinets along the bar. We chose stuffed alcachofas [artichokes], stuffed red pepper and stuffed berenjena [aubergine]. The last two were quite similar with a meat and white sauce filling – both quite rich. A different, plainer third choice would have been better. €27.00 for that and four drinks. Not bad.

Time for the return bus, which was another diesel affair. Buses, taxis and delivery vans really are perfect fodder for battery operation.

Tomorrow we have something like a 5-hour drive up to Santander.

We are spending a day in the municipal campsite at Zaragoza, largely while we wait to see what might be happening with our return sailing but also to give Francine a possibility of going in to Zaragoza to have a look around. That initial plan was weather dependent, to some extent.

The morning dawned overcast but calm and dry, with some rain expected in the later afternoon. I was told I was going into the city [scary]. Our travel options included walking but it would be a 15km round trip. Alternatively we could cycle but Francine’s bike is now fully manual, the electronic controller having given up the ghost. Never mind a few minor inclines, there doesn’t seem to be a decent cycle route. Public transport to the rescue – we were going in on the bus [scary].

A number 41 bus goes from close to our campsite via a circuitous route into the Puerta del Carmen on the edge of Zaragoza old town. Francine bravely boarded the bus with me in tow. We coughed up €1.70 each to the driver and were off. The ride took an initially circuitous route around the houses before heading into the centre. We arrived at the Puerta del Carmen in a little over 30  minutes.

From the bus stop we entered the old town in search of the covered market. Other than a couple of café stalls in the centre of the hall, the market hall was shut. [Grump] The surrounding areas were absolutely heaving with humanity and several lengthy queues were snaking their way into some of the more historic buildings around the square. A musical event was being staged in front of an artistic waterfall in the main square – well, rectangle, really. The giant waterfall is supposedly shaped like a section of central America and the Caribbean to commemorate the discovery of the Americas in 1492. Well, if they say so.

Zaragoza is supposedly home to 1.5 million souls, which constitutes 50% of the population of Aragón, and today every one of ‘em seemed to be in the middle of the city. We were a bit perplexed.

To try and relieve ourselves of the crush, we wandered out onto a Roman bridge to get a more advantageous view of the Cathedral-Basilica de Nuestra Señora del Pilar, dedicated to Mary who (it says here) appeared on a pillar. In any event, it’s got a pretty roof.

Given the seething hoards, every tapas bar/restaurant that we saw around the main square looked pretty full, so we started walking away from the main square back towards our return bus stop. This route led us to an area of Zaragoza called El Tubo, which seemed to be full of tapas bars. At least one of these, Casa Buisan, was not heaving so, partly in desperation, we went in.

Casa Buisan was pleasant enough in an unscintillating sort of way. It was actually so calm that, if anything, it lacked a bit of atmosphere. Nonetheless, we enjoyed a couple of glasses of decent  vino tinto to wash down our raciones. We chose a plate of Chiperones a la plancha [grilled squid] and some Berenjenas a la miel [Aubergines with honey]. Both were very good.

Well fed and watered, we completed our return route on foot to the bus stop to get back “home”. Our disembarking bus stop was close to a Mercadona supermarket which we intended to call into. Much to our surprise, it was shut. Then we realised that our bus ride had taken us past several other supermarkets, all of which had also been shut. Curious.

We sauntered back to Frodo via a rather dismal Proximo “supermarket” which was, going against the grain, open.

And so [lose 100 points] the exciting journey home begins. Exciting because we really don’t know what’s going to happen with the storm that is floating about and messing with the Iberian peninsula’s weather or, indeed, England’s weather, come to that.

Our fifth storm of this trip, storm Joseph, is a big baddie that is threatening Spain. Somewhat unusually, I think, there is another storm a little north of Joseph, storm Chandra, that is smacking into Ireland and Britain. These two storms, one above the other, are expected to merge and the resultant nasty combination would affect both the Bay of Biscay and the English Channel. The combined system has been tagged storm Kristin. If I were being picky I’d call that our sixth storm in six weeks. Weather maps and predictions are a bit on the uncomfortable side. This map has dreadfully unclear detailed icons but it does, at least, show the extent of the yellow, orange and red alerts. [Source: ElTiempo.es with data from AEMET.]

Our return boat is timetabled to leave from Santander at 13:00 on Saturday 31st. For that to happen, the incoming boat has to be able to leave Portsmouth late on Thursday 29th to get to Santander and be turned around. All we can do is to make our way through Spain on the assumption that it will go ahead as planned.

Our initial plan was to head for Zaragoza today, a journey of 430kms and spend two nights there, giving time to see the town of Zaragoza if the weather cooperates. Then we were thinking of heading for the free overnight area at the Leclerc supermarket at Miranda de Ebro for the night of Friday 30th, which gives (what should be) an easy 2-hour shot to Santander. From either Zaragoza or Miranda de Ebro, our back-up route could be up the west coast of France to the western Channel ports or, further, to the Channel Tunnel but, fingers crossed, that doesn’t become necessary.

So, this morning we made an 08:00 start from Alcalalí to make for Zaragoza. Very high winds had been forecast in the Jalón area for the afternoon, hence the early start to try and miss them and miss them, we did. After an hour and a half we sailed past Valencia before turning inland to head for Zaragoza passing Teruel.

The sky was vary heavy as we stopped at our favoured bar in Barracas, complete with its “Lady Bar”. The restaurant cooks largely in a wood-fired oven, though we’ve only ever wanted a snack. On this occasion the coffee and tortillas were great.

It transpired that what the sky was heavy with was snow and it began falling while we were in the Barracas café. The road hits 1225m and the snow persisted. At first it wasn’t settling on the road but as we climbed to the higher points of the plateau, the outside lane began to collect a thin covering. I was happy to follow the regular traffic in the inside lane as we past a combined gritter/snowplough working the outside lane.

The snow continued falling for almost 200kms spanning Teruel but didn’t become any more scary. We spotted four or five more gritter/snowplough trucks split between the two carriageways. It was comforting to see the Spanish taking things seriously.

As we finally descended from the higher elevations towards Zaragoza, the temperature climbed from 0°C to a balmy 4°C and the snow turned to rain. We were through the worst of it.

After almost six hours, including our comfort break at Barracas, we arrived at the Zaragoza campsite at about 14:00. We had hit light snow but had missed the wind, which was apparently very strong in the Jalón area in the afternoon. It is damp but very calm here.

Time for a drink or three.

For the last two days yet another storm, our fourth, this one named Ingrid, has been smothering the Bay of Biscay and the English Channel. It’s a big storm and we did not escape its effects down in the Costa Blanca. Mercifully we haven’t been drenched but instead rocked by high, gusting winds. Frodo has been shake, rattle and rolling on his suspension for the last two nights which leads, of course, to disturbed sleep.

Ingrid has caused at least one ferry sailing to be cancelled. We may have to get inventive about trying to return home. There is worse news in that yet another storm system, eventually named Joseph, is moving in behind Ingrid and this one is reportedly bigger and stronger. In a classic understatement, we have both had quite enough of this.

Having handed back our rental car intending to resort to local journeys on our e-bikes again, we have another little “issue”. For the third time on our Spanish trips, we have suffered an e-bike failure. Whereas the first two problems featured my e-bike and were self-induced, this one was not.

This time it is Francine’s bike which has, from what we can make out, a failed controller. Last time Francine recharged it, the controller light did not turn off after she stopped it charging. Next time we jumped on the bikes, Francine’s controller light was still on and she had no electrical assistance. Refusing all attempts to turn it off, the controller stayed on for two days until it finally went off and stayed off.

A phone call to our local bike shop didn’t produce much in the way of help. They did suggest trying to remove the battery but doing so would have required my disconnecting the gear change cable, which I was not keen on doing. At the moment the bike is usable, albeit un-assisted. If I messed up the derailleur gear change it could become unusable.

After Ingrid had finally subsided, Francine gamely used her now-manual bike to accompany me into Jalon. I tried to give a little moral support by keeping my bike in the lowest assistance level. It’s amazing how much more difficult riding feels once you have become accustomed to some electrical assistance. There was one short, sharp, shock hill in particular on the return that we just had to walk up.

Brava Francine!

Midday today was time to return the car, which we’ve had for the last three weeks. The car rental office is in Benissa and, after having returned it, we wandered up to Benissa’s main square to kill a little time with a beer or two.

Our route took us through some of the backstreets which were busily being prepared for a medieval market, we presume scheduled for Saturday. Without a car, we wouldn’t be able to come back and see it in all its glory,

What we were killing time for was a lunch at a restaurant called K L’iva. We had eaten there a few days ago as part of a group of six which was very pleasant but the size of some of the portions were not best suited to be shared among six; three or four would’ve been much better. I should explain. The restaurant doesn’t offer traditional main courses as such but a selection of inventive tapas in the form of raciones. Dividing some of the raciones by six is less than ideal but by three or four is fine. We returned as a threesome.

With three easy-to-feed diners, we chose four dishes that appealed to us. The proprietor gets the dishes ready in an appropriate order: fish first then meat, for example. First up was Fritura de Pescado Fresco de la Lonja fried small fish which we think were baby hake. We didn’t get the camera out before everything had been devoured.

Next up we tucked into Tartar de Atún [chopped raw tuna]. This was given an oriental dressing of toasted sesame oil, sesame seeds and pickled ginger, with a few bits of greenery underneath. The taste combination was simply sublime. Like the fried fish, this was a repeat of the dishes we chose when we were six [very Winnie the Pooh].

Our third choice on the table was octopus; Pulpo de Galicia a la Pancha. This is not something readily available at home but is something we seek out. Our normal source is sadly closed for the month of January so the alternative source was welcome. There’s a little bit left here but again, the camera was a bit tardy.

The last dish was a real experiment: Mollejas de Tenera con Chimichurri. We needed Google translate. It was Veal Sweetbreads with Chimichurri sauce. There’s a commonly held misconception that sweetbreads are testicles. Not so; they are the pancreas and thymus glands. These were very soft and absolutely delicious.

The young chef who runs this restaurant, along with its sister restaurant, Bar Trinquet, works very hard and very long with 16+ hour days. He puts an enormous effort into a very inventive menu, presents the food brilliantly and deserves to do very well.

In pleasant but relaxed surroundings, we were very well pleased with what we had.

We are in the grip of yet another storm; our third on this trip. We began by suffering storm Francis which delivered constant heavy rain on Christmas Day along with 12 hours or so either side. After an intermission of some decent weather, during the run up to Three Kings (Epiphany) spanning 3rd to the 5th of January, we were treated to storm Goretti.

Having been in Spain for four weeks and following a second meteorological intermission, beginning on 19th January, we have been in the grip of storm Harry. Storm Harry was apparently named by Spain, though I don’t recall Harry being much of a Spanish name (just an annoying former British working royal).

It’s gone beyond being a joke; it’s getting tiresome. We have managed to eat lunch outside in some sun precisely twice. The better of these occasions was at a new discovery for us in Alcalalí itself: a restaurant called “Cha Cha”. Cha Cha has a menú del dia – three courses for €14.50. The food was basic but good and the service was fine. It’s downside is that it only has the menú del dia – you can’t pick and choose tapas from the menu to make a lighter meal. Sitting outside in some warm sun in between storms was very pleasant, perhaps even more pleasant owing to the occasion’s rarity.

If only that pattern had continued. It was tempting to think that the bad stuff had passed us and that more settled conditions might now be the order of the day. It seems not.

On Thursday 22nd, the rain abated and we have sun, accompanied by some ferocious winds which are probably the back of Harry.

The west of Spain is now, we think, benefitting from storm Ingrid. There seems to be no end to this.

I have often found it appropriate to comment, internally at least, that the world was rarely arranged by a photographer. Landscape photography frequently suffers from an unsightly man-made obstruction being plonked squarely within what would otherwise be a splendidly photogenic view. I can think of one “wildlife” example at Whipsnade Zoo [OK, not exactly wildlife] where the observation area to the lion enclosure is positioned such as to place the photographer facing upwards, the lions frequently sitting on a mound, directly into the sun.

Hold those thoughts for a moment.

I am not a fan of cities but I do find some appealing interest in Valencia. For a foodie, the covered market is an Aladdin’s cave of toothsome delights. Valencia’s other gem is the City of Arts and Sciences out to the east of the centre; it’s a photogenic collection of artistic architecture designed by Santiago Calatrava. The whole place is largely white concrete. We have visited twice before and were up for a third trip.

I think the three most photographed buildings are the science museum (formally, the Museu de les Ciéncies), apparently designed after a whale skeleton, the Hemisferíc, an IMAX theatre (more of which later), and the absolutely stunning Opera House (formally, the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia) with its enormous cantilevered roof hovering above the main structure in an impossible-looking fashion.

On this occasion, Francine was keen to go inside the Opera House, something we had not previously done. The first items of interest were the handles on the plain glass doors leading into the building; these were very tactile shiny blue human torsos, both male and female. You could be forgiven for just hanging around the doors caressing them. (I’ve removed the dividing lines between the two glass door panels to clean the image up.)

We skipped any guided tour, which would have given us access to more of the internals, and eventually dragged ourselves away from the tactile door handles. We were primarily interested to find the spiral staircase and, to be honest, that was the most interesting feature of the internal architecture, though some of the balcony curves were also pleasing. It’s the staircase that is the real photographic magnet. On the left is a “straight” shot showing the detail whilst on the right is Francine’s more artistic twisting ICM shot.

On one of our previous visits we had gone into the science museum but we thought it rather dull. This time, with its external reflecting pool having been drained, the outside didn’t hold much interest either, so lets move on and talk about the Hemisferíc.

Back in 2017 we had made an evening visit to capture some of the impressive lighting. Francine in particular waited very patiently for conditions to settle and, at 23:00, manage to capture the classic reflection shot of the Hemisferíc when the whole image resembles a huge eye. It really was very striking and Francine did extremely well.

Imagine our horror when, confronting us this time, were huge letters in front of each building declaring its name. What absolute numbskull thought that ruining the buildings’ reflections with huge lettering could possibly have been a good idea? They’ve taken one of the most photogenic collections of modern architecture and utterly ruined it, photographically speaking. Here it is now, admittedly in rather more tedious daylight, but still … I can only say that this development makes Francine’s original shot more valued since it cannot be repeated.

There is still an interesting angle on the Hemisferíc, which is end-on. I waited patiently for various groups of people and pushchairs to clear the scene before snapping what, to me, resembles something like the top of a helmet from Star Wars.

It remains an interesting place to visit with lots of detail to point a camera at but, really, what a travesty.

We’ve had a couple of trips into Calpe recently. Calpe has been one of our regular destinations both for wildlife and for lunch. We had heard people muttering about it becoming a second Benidorm, rather worryingly, so we thought we should go and take a look for ourselves.

Our first trip in was on a sunny but windy day. We abandoned ship at our regular parking spaces beside Las Salinas, crossed the road and began sauntering along beside the southern edge of the water. The usual gaudy pink flamingos were in residence but mostly too far distant for any engaging photographs. Much better positioned close to shore was a youngster, sifting water as it waited to develop its pink adult plumage. Francine snagged it as the wind whipped across into our faces.

To the left (west) of Las Salinas was abundant evidence of the development going on in Calpe; several high rise blocks were under construction with their attendant cranes standing guard. “Salinas Towers” overlooked Las Salinas itself. Further west nearer the centre of Calpe, other new towers stood completed. Through the imprecise memory induced by time, it’s difficult to be sure precisely which blocks were additions but there were clearly many,

In search of shelter from the wind, we wandered along to the base of the Peñon d’Ifach, the large rock that stands sentinel overlooking Calpe. There was a large, shiny, metal gate into a shipyard which produced some interestingly abstract images. Worth a try.

Once on the short path at the foot of the rock wildlife interest proved rather scarce, though it looked as though some of the seagulls were pairing up ready for the coming breeding season. We did find a couple of specimens of Potter Wasp, an Ancistrocerus species, I believe, but I wouldn’t attempt to be more precise than that.

Our usual lunch stop here was Las Barcas beside the fishing harbour. We stopped there again, sitting in the sheltered sun, for some chiperones [baby squid] and boquerones fritos [fried anchovies] washed down, of course, with some rosado. The passing years have brought with them a changing of the guard and, pleasant though it was, it didn’t quite feel the same.

Our second trip to Calpe was in much calmer conditions so we walked the circuit around the margins of Las Salinas, two sides of which go through what has been productive from the point of view of nature. This time, however, we saw the sum total of two honeybees [discounted] and a wasp; hardly a scintillating haul. Well, it is January, I suppose.

In the halcyon days of Casa Libélule Francine and I had what we used to refer to as our ”training walk” from Senija up to the top of one of the mountains behind it. The summit was adorned with a cross. These days, with advancing years and some reduction in fitness, the thought of the walk felt more of an expedition but we decided we’d go for it again.

The main appeal for me is that this was a mountain used by butterflies for their habit of “hill topping” – they tend to congregate at the top of hills. I’d regularly seen a few species up there the most appealing of which are the two species of Swallowtail resident in Spain: the “regular” Swallowtail (Papilio macaon) and the Iberian Swallowtail (Iphiclides feisthamelii). They are always a delight and I’d love to see them again. The weather was sunny but very windy. I also suspected I’d be a bit too early in the season for the Swallowtails, so my expectations were not high. We really just wanted the leg stretch.

We drove to Senija and began our walk. Not long into the route a lady appeared to implore us for some help. Our Spanish being pretty awful, we had to rely on our eyes to figure out that another poor wheelchair-bound lady had fallen and needed helping back up. We obliged as best we could and tried to check that she was OK before moving on.

Our friendly Dutch neighbours had loaned us their trekking poles (ours were back at home – duh!”) and we made our way the modest 2kms up the hill to the cross atop the mountain. The climb was not so daunting with the poles which were a great help – you sort of push yourself uphill.

Arriving at the summit we soon spotted a couple of butterfly species flitting about and occasionally sunbathing. Trees at the top shelter some of the summit from the worst of the wind. As expected, one customer was a Wall Brown (Lasiommata megera), which cooperated quite readily. There was also a small blue butterfly which was not keen on settling. Fairly quickly, I managed a shot of a Wall Brown and set about patiently waiting for the blue. One did eventually settle up in a tree so I could snag it. It was a Lang’s Short-tailed Blue (Leptotes pirithous) somewhat unusually displaying its topside. Happy camper.

Not wishing to spend too long in the wind, we began our descent. Once again, the trekking poles were helping keep us stable on the way down the steeper, rocky slopes. Part way down eagle-eyed Francine spotted a brown caterpillar on a stem, quite low to the ground. How she spotted it, I know not. The angle is odd but the caterpillar chose it. As far as I can make out, this is the caterpillar of an Oak Eggar moth (Lasiocampa quercus) but, being a moth numbskull, I’m prepared to be corrected.

Now, where’s that beer for weary legs?

I just had to do a brief post of this.

I THINK that’s pronounced “oop-oop-a ee-pops”. Upupa epops is the scientific/binomial name for what we commonly know as the Hoopoe and it has to be one of my absolutely favourite scientific names. Pronunciation is one of the problems with the acceptance of scientific names amongst the masses, especially, in my view, with the Brits who are notoriously rubbish at foreign languages. The Hoopoe’s call is a two or three syllable, “hoo hoo (hoo)”, which I believe gives rise to its genus name of Upupa.

Any-hoo, a few days ago when we were wending our way back along the lanes winding through the orange groves, in-between Jalon and our campsite, we did scare up a Hoopoe who settled briefly in the limbs of a bare tree before fluttering away. I use the term “fluttering” advisedly because with broad wings they have a flight reminiscent of a butterfly. Naturally, we didn’t have a camera, not that we could have deployed it in time. I was pleased to see one of these colourful characters but a picture would have been pleasing.

Yesterday fortune dealt us a better hand. Francine spotted a Hoopoe working its way along the ground of one of the paddocks just behind Frodo. They use their rather long, decurved beak to probe for grubs in the ground. I went into Frodo to get my camera out, fully expecting it to be gone by the time I returned but, no, it was still there. It was partially obscured by greenery and quickly moved in to the next paddock which was more thickly covered in vegetation, thus disappearing from view.

I waited a while and eventually thought I must have missed its departure but then glimpsed it again. It fluttered up onto the top bar of the neighbouring fence, just long enough for me to grab a couple of shots before it did, finally, decide to depart. The metal fence rail isn’t the most appealing of perches but, hey, it’s a Hoopoe, albeit a serious crop. They really do look like the most unlikely assembly of separate components but they are delightful.