I might add, “… and good riddance”.

Having enjoyed a third night on a bona fide campsite with a second day visiting Zaragoza courtesy of our delayed ferry, we embarked on our 5-hour drive up to Santander on Saturday 31st at 09:30. There was no rush, which is exactly how I like it: our ferry was expected to depart now at 01:00 on Sunday morning [1st February] and the check-in booths were to open at 13:00, our original departure time.

I much prefer the port of Santander to that of Bilbao. Santander offers a straight shot in and a straight shot out whereas the roads surrounding the port of Bilbao resemble Spaghetti Junction on steroids.

The other great thing about Santander, particularly in the situation which we now faced, is that the port lies right beside the middle of town and there is a very nifty system to allow waiting passengers out of the checked-in area to visit the town on foot, with re-entry controlled by your ferry cabin key. Excellent! Once settled in our line with a 6-hour wait for passport control ahead of us, we took full advantage.

Francine was already a little familiar with Santander town from her visit on our September escorted tour of northwest Spain. [I had opted out of that visit.] What I was keen to be shown was a covered market hall, which seemed to be a collection of eateries. How bad could that be?

We exited through the port’s cardkey controlled gate and walked about 30 minutes into town. Francine remembered just where to go and we were soon wandering around tapas bars and restaurants. Naturally, the walk had generated a bit of a thirst so we settled down to a glass of vino. We had been just in time, it transpired; no sooner had we sat down on some stools with our wine, that particular bar closed. We hopped across to another whose kitchen was now closed but who was still open with an array of pinchos available on the counters. A second wine, of course, was no problem either.

A third wine was as easily obtained as the second after which, having washed down the tapas, we sauntered back to re-enter the port. We were still several hours away from any action so we settled down to a couple of episodes of Spooks streamed through my phone’s hotspot, with another bottle of wine, I might add. Quite why we had not thought of this approach before eluded us.

Francine was getting a bit concerned that we still had no ferry to board. All was well, though, as we eventually spotted its lights drifting past into dock close to 21:15. We watched disembarking vehicles driving off wondering what on earth they’d be doing having arrived in the late evening 10 hours later than originally planned.

After yet more waiting, the first of our embarkation lines began to move to the next hurdle of passport control. At just after midnight, so technically on 1st February, it was Frodo’s turn. We noticed that our exit stamp actually read 31st January, though, so we hadn’t “wasted” another Schengen day.

Once boarded, we found our cabin and hastened off to find the club class lounge. Brittany Ferries had kept the necessary services open late into the early morning so that we weary, delayed travellers could find the necessary refreshment and sustenance.

True to plan, the ferry cast off very shortly after 01:00. It eased its way out of the harbour as we retired which is when the fun started. The Bay of Biscay was rough, as befits its reputation. Rough seas had delayed the sailing of the outbound boat and the effects of the storm had not yet died down completely. We were tossed around in our bunks and, at one point in the night, were awoken by falling water bottles and other sundries. One of the sundries was Francine’s wristwatch which lost its second hand and stopped, though it looked otherwise undamaged.

In the morning things were little better and we remained prone for some time; it was the safest and most comfortable option. Eventually, though, we found our feet and made it to the lounge. Being right at the front of the ship, the lounge’s movement was a little exaggerated and Francine decided she’d still be best off in bed. I stayed watching spray and waves breaking over the bows whilst helping to reduce the wine stocks.

As the journey progressed, the ferry threaded its way through the collection of islands lying just off Brest, about the half way point, before rounding the turn into the English Channel or La Manche, as the French call it. Quite soon the seas calmed dramatically, much to our relief. We went to bed for our second night aboard to let the ferry plod its way up the Channel to Portsmouth.

We awoke at 04:45 in time to get breakfast before docking at 06:00 on 2nd February. We were not in pole position to disembark this time but I think the ferry was quite lightly loaded and we were through UK immigration in 45 minutes.

Monday morning rush hour is not a great time to hit the jaM25 so we suffered a few relatively minor hold-ups but eventually arrived home at 10:00, or thereabouts.

Time for tea. We had stopped to buy the necessary fresh milk.

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.