During our 2-night stay, we made a couple of visits into the town of Soria itself.

Our first visit, or should I say our thirst visit, was when the clock struck beer o’clock during our investigation of the Riu Duero. We wandered up into town in search of the main square, usually called Plaza mayor. Here, one is usually guaranteed to find a bar or three. Soria presented us with what seemed like a tangled web of streets and squares, which proved more of a challenge than normal, but eventually, by rewinding the steps of a man carrying some bread, we found it; sure enough, Plaza mayor. There were, indeed a few bars along one edge and tables in the middle. We chose a small side table with two high chairs outside one bar playing good ol’ rock music, music as it should be. Normally I’m not a fan of intrusive music at restaurants or bars but here, with the sun out and locals wandering past, it felt fine.

The barman was genial, too. My by now much practiced “dos cañas” swung into action again but the barman was canny, he could see I was thirsty and queried the size of my drink. “¿Cana o muy grande?”, or some such. Oh go for it, “un caña y un muy grande”, otherwise I’ll be back in here in little more than 10 seconds. I seem to recollect from our trip to Andalucia last year, that they call the muy grandes, tankes, which seems related to tankard. Whatever they call it, he instructed an assistant to grab an ice cold larger glass from the freezer. What a civilized country. I returned to Francine where we supped congenially and watched Spain pass by. The barman beckoned me over through the window open to the street and presented me with a plate of what I suspect was sepia [cuttlefish] rather than calamar [squid]. Excellent; we’re back in the land of tapas.

Round two: Francine fancied a rosado. I returned to the bar with two empty glasses. The barman had changed but at least he waited to hear what I would order, unlike the chap in Darocca. There were various tapas on the bar, too. One of them looked like a slice of belly pork, about 1cm thick, well cooked and with a tantalizingly crispy skin. I asked for one and he made cutting signs with his hand accompanied by a questioning look. Who needs language? Yes, go ahead, cortado por favor. Very tasty it was, too. [We learned later that this seems to have been a Soria speciality.]

We did drag ourselves away eventually and walked further, where we found another square almost filled with restaurant/bar tables being well used in the sunshine. I nearly said “doing brisk trade” but that might imply being rushed and, of course, nobody was rushing; that would be very un-Spanish. [Ignore the crane on the skyline.]

A little further still, we found the municipal park, a restful green space in Soria’s tangle of streets. Whereas ignoring the cranes on the skyline is fine, ignoring the Storks on this skyline is not fine. [That was an attempted avian pun – crane/stork. Just sayin’.] Quite commonly over much of Spain, White Storks (Ciconia ciconia) build their huge nests (a.k.a. tangle of twigs) on various bits of roofs but they seem particularly attracted to church towers. Maybe that’s just because they tend to be the higher buildings; I’m sure Storks are too sensible to have religion. Here’s one with a chick in the nest. You really don’t want to have to clean up the bird mess from these characters.

On our first evening, we’d taken the easy option and eaten in the hotel restaurant. Now we’d discovered an easier route down the back of the hill on which the parador stood, into plaza mayor. Cognisant of the fact that timing might be an issue – late Spanish dining, and all that – on our second evening we thought we might go down and try and find a spot of local Spanish culture. If it didn’t work, there was always the parador, which began serving at 20:30.

Local Spanish culture was exactly what we got, thoug hcertainly not the culture we expected. We continued beyond our lunchtime bar to another which we’d spotted nearer the municipal park. We got a couple of beers and stood at one of the bar’s tall tables, designed for leaning on, just outside the serving port. Now, we’d already seen that TVs are a popular bar/restaurant accessory in Spain. We saw them at restaurants both in La Mancha and Valencia. The programme of choice had always been football/soccer. I missed out on the field sport gene so I’m happy to ignore it. This bar had two TVs facing outwards to the square. Was soccer being shown? No. What was being shown, then? Bullfighting from Madrid, that’s what.

Now we were in the realms of the uncomfortable. We’ve seen a rather tame – I’m tempted to say harmless – French version of bull fighting practiced in Provence where young packages of human testosterone rush around the bull ring trying to snatch favours from the horns of a bull before leaping to safety over a barrier. Their mens’ actions seem to taunt the bull slightly, hence its chasing them, but nothing more. We’d even witnessed a sort of Spanish tame version during the local fiesta in Jalón, though here, the whole point seemed to be to taunt the magnificent creature and then run to safety. This, I found more distasteful. Flaming favours were sometimes mounted on some poor bull’s horns to make things more spectacular but this year, we read, that this practice is being stopped. Here, though, was the real Spanish bullfighting, to the death and on TV. At one point, we caught an image of a dead bull (or dying – it still seemed to be twitching, though that could’ve been either the movement or nerves) being dragged from the ring by four horsemen.

Francine couldn’t watch and I don’t blame her. I’d never seen it before, knew little about it, and morbid curiosity made me stare a while, followed by snatching the odd glance. There were several (6-ish) men dressed in gaudy matador costumes carrying pink, yes pink, capes. What happened to red? I have a feeling that all but one were there as a distraction to the hapless bull, which began as a magnificent creature. It didn’t seem to move particularly fast, more sort of nudging through the cape as the matador side-stepped, forming what he presumably regarded as macho shapes with his body. It seemed neither particularly dangerous nor skilful, from an ignorant foreign spectator’s point of view. The most sickening part of the performance in my eyes was another macho mounted on an armoured horse. The horse looked most like a knight’s jousting horse with an armoured skirt all around it. This man, I think a picador, carried a long lance and every now and then – I know not what the signal or trigger was – he would ride up to the bull and jam his lance into the poor creature’s shoulder muscles, between the shoulder blades, his whole body weight acting down through the lance, thus weakening the bull and, of course, causing it untold pain. (Here’s a picture of what I mean – don’t look if you don’t want to.)  This picador would then retire and the so-called fight would continue.

I did see one moment where several other bovines (sex unknown) entered the ring, seemingly to shepherd the main bull out, So, apparently not every bull gets dispatched. As a result of a couple of audience shots, I began to wonder if this was something like Caesar at the Roman games; some bigwig  giving the thumbs up or thumbs down depending upon performance. Whilst that may be way off the mark as an assumption, that’s certainly what this debacle resembles, a gladiatorial contest in the Roman Colosseum. This degrading Spanish version is perhaps even less evenly matched than that of the Romans, not that I’ve witnessed gladiators, of course, but the dice here were quite clearly heavily loaded against the bull.

Two words spring to mind to describe Spanish bullfighting: barbaric and abhorrent. What a great subject for a TV show. We’re supposed to be more civilized than that, these days, are we not?

I wonder how much longer such bullfighting will be allowed to continue? Probably a distressingly long time, as deeply ingrained in the Spanish culture as messing with bulls is. There may be moves in the right direction, though. Jalón is stopping the flaming favours and I noticed from these TV shots that the audience seating was nowhere near full in Madrid, though maybe it never is/was. I’ve no wish to watch further to learn any more. We’d finished our beer and had had more than enough. Unenthusiastically, appetite diminished, we went in search of food.

We sat down at a restaurant in plaza mayor and ordered a couple of glasses of soothing vino. When in doubt, drink. We perused a menu which looked expensive, particularly by Spanish standards. Curious, given that we were not in a high tourist area. Then we discovered that service commenced at 21:00. Here we go again. We paid for our wine and wandered back up the hill to the parador where we could dine in relative luxury and 30 minutes earlier. Besides, the walk might help our degraded appetites, though I certainly wouldn’t be ordering the rabo de toro again this evening.

So, there’re two things I dislike about Spain: dinner time and bullfighting. At least my originally theoretical dislike of the latter was now based on some minor amount of knowledge.

With a very decent restaurant in our parador, at least last night we had no trouble finding a restaurant in Soria. Having walked back up the long, winding, steep boardwalk from the river below, we certainly weren’t going to go back down again to eat elsewhere. The dining room began serving relatively early by Spanish standards, too: 20:30. 😀 I went for the rabo de toro [oxtail], which had been taken off the bone, shredded, and rolled into a sort of sausage affair, whilst Francine opted for turbot with black rice. The black skin of the fish and the black rice made it look like a sandwich. Clever. Very relaxing and quite good – a touch more seasoning in the rabo de toro, chaps.

On another blissfully sunny morning, we returned for breakfast, most importantly, coffee, before heading back down the winding boardwalk to the river. The walk would help digest the morcilla [black pudding]. 😉

Our first port of call was a set of supposedly notable cloisters, the Knights Cloisters of San Juan, beside the river just over the bridge we’d crossed when arriving. We shelled out the exorbitant entrance fee of 1€ each and wandered around the quadrangle of cloisters, open to the sky. Fortunately, we got in before a few others arrived, and managed some people-free pictures. Why is it, I wonder, that, when faced with an area, people will insist on standing in the centre, thus ruining almost every possible photographic angle?

Francine ventured inside the  church. There were no windows at all. This is where having a camera that’s good on noise performance at high ISO settings comes in. Fortunately, Francine’s got one.

A coachload turned up and began to stand … right in the centre of the cloisters. OK, now, where’s my river?

There were footpaths on both sides of the river starting at the town road bridge. We chose the sunnier town side, rive droit as the French would have it relative to the flow, since that might give the best chance of insect action. We were right. I was soon stumbling about in some reeds trying to follow a damselfly that I was having trouble identifying without a decent picture. Further along I kept seeing more and eventually managed a long distance contre-jour shot. With only a distant, dark image on the back screen of the camera, though, I was still struggling with an id.

The path was heading towards some very rocky cliff-like banks. Almost magically, the path became another of those metal-supported boardwalks, engineered perfectly into every twist and turn of the rocks. You can see it curving round a few rocky outcrops, left middle distance, here. It was a surprising piece of engineering, an elegant solution to enable people to walk (or run) beside this very attractive stretch of river. Bravo!

The bank transformed again into a conventional footpath sided by a scrubby bank. Quite a few butterflies were flitting about the various flowers. Amongst them, I spotted what I’d been thinking of as Moroccan Orange Tips (Anthocharis belia), which is what my older butterfly guide called them in Spain, fabulous creations like our Orange Tip (Anthocharis cardamines) but with a yellow ground colour instead of white. These characters rarely settle and I’d been wanting to snag one for a couple of years. Then the impossible happened; one settled on a yellow flower. I managed a few shots, not great shots but shots. Delight! I have now discovered that there has been a sort of reclassification: this creature in Spain is now classed as the Provence Orange Tip (Anthocharis euphenoides), having been split taxonomically from the Moroccan Orange Tip, of which it used to be thought a subspecies. OK, complex stuff but whatever it is, I’ve got one. 🙂

The path eventually crossed over a footbridge to rive gauche where we could continue our walk back towards town. Here, I found yet more of those curious damselflies but this time, in a better situation and I got a decent shot from the correct side of the light. Now I knew what I’d been looking at: Common Winter Damsel (Sympecma fusca). We’ve seen them in France on a couple of occasions but here they were, our first encounter in Spain, in large numbers, almost swarming, along quite a stretch of the river.

We returned to the town bridge where it definitely felt like beer o’clock. [More of which separately.]

After our foray into town, we returned to rive droit to see what the parkland beneath the arduous climb back to the parador might produce. More damsels: Azure Bluet/Damselfly (Coenagrion puella), another first in Spain, which surprised me a little on a large river, Large Red Damsel (Pyrrhosoma nymphula) and Common Bluetails (Ischnura elegans). I might have expected to see some Demoiselles flitting about but, no. Neither did I see a single dragonfly, though I was half expecting something of the river species, such as Blue Chaser (Libellula fulva) or maybe one of the various Clubtails.

We found a bar beside the river for some light refreshment prior to tackling the climb back to the parador.

Soria, lying about three hours drive south of Bilbao, was our stopover en route to our homebound ferry. It is described as being in north-central Spain in the region known as Castille y Léon. Francine had become fascinated by the area when, from the autopista, we saw snow-capped mountains in the distance off the starboard bow. 🙂 We had debated the length of our stay, one night or two, and chose two. Francine had trawled through booking.com and discovered that Soria has a Parador.

“What’s a Parador?”, I hear you ask. Good question. Well, a Parador is usually described as being a kind of luxury hotel, most often in a converted historic building such as a monastery or castle. The Paradores are state run. Parar is Spanish for to stop, halt or stay. The Parador in Soria is a little different from the norm, though, being a modern building with floor to ceiling glass, built atop a hill overlooking the valley in which Soria sits.

On a few journeys through Spain, we have stopped. halted or stayed in one very decent hotel (La Vid) on one occasion but our other stops, halts or stays have been, shall we say, on the more basic side. Once when travelling back alone, Francine having returned for the classic family emergency, I found myself scratching my head wondering how to gain entry to one such basic accommodation, just a stone’s throw from Bilbao. My dinner that night was the result of a raid on a Dia supermercado, which there is nothing particularly super about. It served a purpose but that’s about it. Other stops, halts or stays have been perfectly adequate but we fancied a little more of a treat. Besides, it would be Monday again (remember Monday restaurant difficulties) and the Parador would have a very decent restaurant. We pushed the boat out and booked in to stop, halt or stay in relative luxury for two nights. Spend the kids’ inheritance, why not? Wait a minute, we don’t have any kids to inherit. 😉

We arrived in Soria and, following strategically placed Parador signs, wound our way up a 12% [a.k.a. 1 in 8] hill, round a series of hairpin bends to reception. Part way up, Francine yelled “orchid”, which she’d spotted in the grass of the verge. I concentrated on the hairpins but I could guess where our first sortie on foot would be heading. After 5 or 6 hairpins, we arrived at the Parador.Joy: car parking spaces, park grounds with grass and trees plus the odd ruin or two, sun, cloudless skies, an open door, a welcoming young lady on reception. This was beginning to feel like the way to do it.

Time to try a bit more Spanish: “tenemos un reservación”, I ventured. Completely unnecessary, of course, Miss Delightful’s English was far better than our stilted and very limited Spanish is ever likely to be. Still, it showed a willingness to try, though, which, we know from extensive French travels, often helps. Relative luxury, Paradores may have but this one did not have a currently functioning key-card machine. Miss Delightful had to accompany Francine up to our room to let her in while I went to get our bags from the car. A replacement key-card machine was on its way.

I should point out that, whilst Soria may sit in a valley, the valley floor is at an altitude of roughly 1100m/3500ft – that’s higher than the top of Snowdon in North Wales, for any countrymen who fancy a handy yardstick –  hence the snow-capped peaks at some times of year. Francine read that Soria is known as one of the coldest places in Spain with 90 days of frost per year.

We were not now suffering frost; we were enjoying sun and warmth. Through the floor to ceiling glass of our greenhouse-like balcony, our view of the valley was splendid. We could clearly see the communications tower on the hill to the left of the valley, an array of four further towers atop the hill to the right, and the strategically placed factory blotting the landscape straight ahead of us at the end of the valley, the end from which we had approached. Still, modern necessities and the need to put industry on the flatter parts of Spain which may be in relatively short supply, I suppose. It wasn’t unpleasant but it did seem a shame. As we sat drinking our bottle of vino, five Griffon Vultures (Gyps fulvus) with wings like barn doors entertained us by drifting across the hill to our right and getting a bird’s eye view of the array of four towers. Whilst not being a proper panorama, this approximation  may give the idea.

What we didn’t know before we arrived was that Soria is on the Riu Duero. (That’s it, not lining up with itself in the bottom of the non-panorama above.) In fact, Soria is near the beginning of this lengthy river. It flows south, then turns west twisting its way towards neighbouring Portugal, where, as the Douro, it serves as the border between the two countries for ~100km before nipping west again and out into the Atlantic through Porto. Some river. It might have odonata. 😉

What we knew from griffon-vulture-eyed Francine’s observation on our way up, was that the hillside had at least one orchid. We set off to investigate, beginning in the park grounds. Francine soon spotted an orchid spike with white flowers growing beneath a tree: a Narrow-leaved Helleborine (Cephalanthera longifolia). This seemed to be a lone example; search as she might, she couldn’t find another.

We exited the hilltop park and began working our way downhill and round hairpins to roughly where Francine had yelled “orchid”. We were very impressed by the metal-framed and supported boardwalk which wound its way downhill alongside the road. What an effort of construction that had been. It kept the pedestrians out of the path of hairpin-negotiating cars, so was most welcome. Bravo, Spain! We did have to put ourselves in the path of cars, though, when we found the Francine-spotted Orchid. [Sorry, that was a bad orchid joke: Common-spotted/Francine-spotted.] Once we started looking, these were present in quite good numbers. Francine thinks this dark beauty is an Early Spider Orchid (Ophrys sphegodes); a new one for the collection so she was a very happy camper.

Continuing down the excellent boardwalk, we found two other species, both in quite good numbers: Barton’s Orchid (Dactylorhiza insularis) and White Helleborine (Cephalanthera damasonium). Barton’s Orchid was another addition to the catalogue – my happy camper was now a decidedly ecstatic camper.

Tearing ourselves away from the orchids eventually, we carried on down the boardwalk to arrive at the promenade fronting the river. It was early evening and the locals were out in force, enjoying the parkland beside the river banks Actually, some of the parkland was in the river, being on a small island. I did spot one damselfly, a Common Bluetail (Ischnura elegans), but I’ll leave that for later. Francine’s original thought had been to explore the surrounding area on the following day by car but we were both so impressed by what we’d now seen of the river at Soria, that we agreed it would be more relaxing just to explore locally on foot.

Walking back up the 12% boardwalk round five or six hairpin bends got the heart pumping, and our legs considerable practice for tomorrow.

On 28th April, 2016, we were making our way towards Jalón by car, having taken the ferry to Bilbao. We had stayed overnight at an intriguing old castle in Grisel, near Tarazona. On our second day, Francine’s cunning plan was to break our onward journey by calling in to Daroca, an apparently interesting little town not far off our intended route. However, as I wrote at the time in “Tarazona and Beyond”:

… the rain began again and, with temperatures topping out at 7°C, we bailed out and headed for the autopista towards Teruel.

Now we would be heading back towards Bilbao for our return ferry and the weather looked more favourably set, so Francine decided to resurrect her plan to visit Daroca, hoping to find a bite of lunch. We locked up Casa Libelule and hit the road in Jalón at ~08:00 and called into our regular coffee stop at Barracas – it’s the Lady Bar next door that does it – for a nature break and leg stretch, before arriving in a sunny Daroca at ~12:30. We found street parking and began to wander. The temperature was a blissful 24°C.

We’d read something describing the appeal of Daroca being in its whole, rather than in any one or two monuments in particular. Its centre is a medieval city enclosed by a three and a half kilometre long wall with, it is said, 114 towers. Given its 13th/14th century era, It sports a mixture of Muslim and Christian architectures. There is basically one long thoroughfare running through town bracketed between the two main original gates. We had parked outside one of these gates.

On our journey to Cuenca some weeks ago, we had taken a coffee break in a small town called Siete Aguas [Seven Waters] in which, over a trough, were seven water spouts. Just outside the town gate, Daroca went several better with what looked like a rather over the top 20 water spouts.

The temperature may have been perfect but it was Monday again. As a rule, it seems best to avoid searching Spanish towns for eateries on a Monday because many tend to close. Of course, finding one open isn’t impossible but the selection is more limited. We saw a very local looking bar but weren’t sure if it did food; It’s tables were also more or less in the main street. What appeared to be the main square looked little more promising and there was a workman using a noisy angle-grinder right opposite. Move on.

Having walked the length of the main street, more appealing and certainly quieter, was a courtyard within an hotel, the hotel of 100 balconies, complete with a cafe and menu. No traffic and no angle-grinders – we girded our loins and sat down.

Nothing happened immediately so I got up again and wandered into the cafe. Señor Barman was serving someone else. When he’d finished, I said “dos cañas”, in my best bar Spanish. The barman dutifully pulled two small draught beers. I followed up by muttering something about “para comer” [roughly, something to eat, at least I hoped so] before taking the beers to our table. Señor Barman came out with table settings and an assortment of menus, which we began to study.

We had tried and failed to order pulpo [octopus] at a previous establishment during our stay – “no tengo pulpo” [I don’t have octopus] – and here it was again, with potatoes. Being fans of octopus, we resolved to try again.

In the fullness of time señor Barman returned. “¿Tienes pulpo?” [do you have octopus?], I enquired, jauntily. “Si”, he replied, then immediately scraped up the menus and promptly disappeared back into the bar. I can only assume that my question had been interpreted as some kind of order. But, but, but … there’s two of us and we both wanted pulpo. I got up again and went back into the bar to clarify, “dos pulpos”, I said fluently. He nodded.

We drained our glasses whilst waiting so I returned to the bar again to get more drinks. Francine fancied wine this time. Because I’ve been well trained by a very polite mother, I took our empty glasses back into the bar with me. I plonked them on the counter and waited while he pulled another two beers, presumably for someone else.Wrong. Señor Barman turned and presented me with “dos cañas mas”. Señor Barman seemed to be good at jumping to conclusions without waiting for a specific order. Not only had he scuttled off making a still unknown assumption about the pulpo, now he’d assumed I just wanted refills of the same drinks. Curious. Attentive but curious. Fortunately the beers were small; Francine could manage it. I took her beer back to her, smirking an explanation.

Two plates of pulpo turned up. It was very good. Quite honestly, one plate between us would’ve sufficed. 😀

My legs felt as if they needed stretching and, it being a fine morning, we began the day by returning to the hill above Senija to see if we could see get some better Swallowtail activity. Activity was exactly what we did get. We’ve been up this hill to enjoy these magnificent butterflies (and spot a few orchids en route) on several occasions but I have never seen them in greater numbers or witnessed such frenzied activity as we did today.

The hill above Senija  is a favourite hill-topping site for two stunningly marked species, the Swallowtail (Papilio machaon) and the Iberian or Southern Scarce Swallowtail (Iphiclides feisthamelii). Hill-topping, collecting at the tops of hills, is said to be a mate location strategy. I can quite believe it because competition here today was fierce. No sooner had one settled than another came close causing a chase to ensue. On one occasion, I witnessed five Swallowtails chasing each other in what could only be described as an aerial dogfight. The speed at which such apparently delicate creatures can fly is quite astonishing. There was certainly in excess of a dozen of both species combined, and quite possibly a dozen of each; counting was impossible given the activity, speed and ground covered. I did eventually manage to snag one decent Swallowtail shot before the subject got displaced.

The Iberian Swallowtails, on the other hand, never did seem to settle in an advantageous position for long enough and this was the best I could manage. I’d never had such difficulty before. No matter, their display was very entertaining and a joy to watch. Pictures are not everything.

Our main event, today, though, was a rare trip out in the evening. (We are usually into the local vino at that stage of the day.) The draw, though, was a night time return visit to the City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia, which we’d visited during the daytime a little over a week ago. From that first trip and a little research prior to our visit, we new these stark white, artistically designed buildings could be stunning at darkness. Once again accompanied by our friend from our La Mancha trip, the three of us set off up the autopista at about 17:30, a journey of some 75 minutes, our plan being to park, find dinner, then begin clicking away.

The journey went well; I negotiated Valencia’s traffic and parked. I had one nagging worry: it had proved impossible to find an open restaurant in Alcazar de San Juan (La Mancha) prior to 21:00. Here we were looking in Valencia at about 19:00. There’s a strip of eateries opposite our target buildings which we began scanning. We first noted a Lebanese restaurant, the Beirut Restaurantes Ciencias, with an open door. That’d be interesting, a little “Beirut under siege by the Israelis” war cuisine, perhaps? We filed it under “useful” and looked further.

There were a distressing amount of children around a couple of burger joints. We debated returning to the Italian restaurant, at the opposite end of the strip, one we’d used for lunch on our first visit, but then decided on the adventurous Lebanese/Beirut option. Hell, you only live once – battle bowlers on, chaps. We retraced our steps back down the strip to Beirut. Closed. Bugger! Shades of Alcazar de San Juan loomed.

Nearby was a corner Spanish bar offering paella with a drink for 8€. My two companions seemed up for it so we grabbed a table and sat with initial drinks to peruse their menu. The paella and a drink sounded good, though probably wouldn’t be a large portion so we chose a couple of tapas to begin with. The tapas came out together with a plate mounded with paella. Sure enough, The paella wasn’t huge but it would keep our three sets of worms at bay. We all began tucking in. Two further equally mounded plates of paella came out. Strewth! The first plate had been just one portion. None of us could finish a plate of paella and the tapas were completely superfluous, save for the variety.

On the opposite corner was one of those dreaded burger bars swarming with those dreaded rugrats making their normal dreaded racket. One rugrat was making an abnormal dreaded racket kicking a football backwards and forwards over the paving slabs with his father who, judging by his girth, also clearly enjoyed the odd truckload of burgers. Maybe he could finish our paella collection? At least it would stop that incessant bounce, bounce, bounce of the football. Then a couple of uncontrolled kids began using the tables as an obstacle race course. Fortunately, one of them finally crashed into a chair and fell over; there’s some justice after all. All I needed now was a dog barking. Ah, there’s one. Relaxing it wasn’t.

We paid and began wandering back to the target buildings. Oh, look, the Beirut Restaurantes Ciencias is open now and doing a good trade. [Sigh]

Night was falling nicely and lights were coming on. It was a little breezy, though, and the water surface was rippling. Still, some longer exposures aided by neutral density filters would smooth that out. We began studying angles and setting up tripods.

Francine headed for the one shot she knew she really wanted, the Hemisféric IMAX cinema. With a complete reflection in the water fronting it, this building looks like a huge eyeball. It does make for a visually stunning image. As Francine was setting up, I tried lining up and quickly discovered that my lens choice, the 18-300mm Sigma “travel” lens, was not adequate on my 1.6 factor cropped sensor camera – I needed something wider. My super-wide lens, 10-22mm, was still in the UK. I had not been expecting to be forced to be quite as close to the buildings; I thought the space around would be larger. Mistake. I went in search of an alternative subject. Besides, there was really no need to duplicate what Francine was doing and would do better. Here’s the sort of thing Francine was coming up with.

I found I could stand at the corner of the reflecting pool and get a partially reasonable line up on the opera house and performing arts building, the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, with it’s staggeringly supported roof. I say partially reasonable; I found I needed to avoid the line of floodlights along the left edge of the pool and that cropping out the edge of the IMAX Hemisféric on the right meant losing space. Still, it’s something to do. It maybe better to go wide and include both. Oh, and there’s quite a bit of furniture in the water, too, but that can be cloned out. 😉

Evening wore on and we kept wandering and clicking, coming often to the conclusion that there quite a few problems with disadvantageously placed lights. Here, for example, is El Museu de les Ciències Príncipe Felipe, the science museum. However, this is rather spoiled by the diagonal grey effect caused by the glaring lights from the road bridge behind the viewpoint. [I may try sliding the black point right to see if things improve.]

With the advancing night, the wind dropped and the water smoothed. At about 23:00, after playing for a couple of hours, Francine returned to the Hemisféric to repeat her earlier exercise with smoother water and darker conditions. It really is all about conditions and timing. Now you can really could see the eyeball effect. This is how it really should be done.

Brava Francine!

Jealous? Me? No, of course not. Well, not much, anyway. Perhaps just a little …

Francine and I are not primarily birders; we do not go out twitching or listing. We are interested, however, and we do like to know what we are looking at or listening to when a bird happens by. Spain, being in southern Europe and on the migration routes from Africa, has opened up a whole new set of confusing possibilities.

About two years ago we noticed a bird call that we were unfamiliar with. Once heard, we began to notice it everywhere. We went to a shopping centre and heard it on rough waste ground beside it. We heard it in the fields below us. We would frequently hear it through the open windows of the car as we drove past places. It was a very simple call, a single “note”, short sound, repeated monotonously at approximately one second intervals. Other than distant birds in flight which may have been the culprit – these appeared to be the classic LBJ – we hadn’t seen it. The rhythmic noise resembled, to us, the noise made by someone bouncing on a trampoline. Our unknown frustration became tagged Trampoline Bird.

We tried to describe the sound to birding friends but to no avail. Someone suggested a Serin but from our experience they produce a very rapid, long, complex set of notes, referred to by another friend as “spraying it about”. (They do tend to turn their heads as they are singing and send it in different directions.)

Today we went to check out the Parque Natural del Hondo, primarily to see what dragonflies were about. As we approached the entrance from the car park, Francine spotted a bird perched at the top of a tree making our trampoline noise. We kept snapping as we got nearer. Eventually it flew, continuing to trampoline as it did so. We’d got some shots that should help, though.

Despite the record nature of the picture, you can see that it is, indeed, an LBJ. We did notice a slightly decurved beak, the striped tail and very pale breast and throat. Francine trawled our Collins Bird Guide. After a few minutes, sudden excitement. It’s a Zitting Cisticola (Cisticola juncidis). A WHAT!? A Zitting Cisticola. Yikes! Of course we were excited, even if nothing could possibly be called that, our longstanding avian mystery was finally solved; Trampoline Bird has a proper name … and what a name. Its call is called “zitting”.

We continued our walk, snagging dragonflies as the opportunity arose. Being at a different time of year to our first visit, we racked up a couple of new species for the site. Then, towards the end of our circuit, I spotted a very strikingly marked bird, a small group of three, actually, sitting on a mud bank. I snapped it. A black mark descending from its eye reminded me of the markings of a Chinstrap Penguin, which this clearly wasn’t. 😀 There was a distinctive red blotch on the bill, too.

My turn to leaf through Collins Bird Guide. The bird’s flight, with long, pointed, elegant wings, reminded me of a Tern, not that it really looked like one. I knew there was a so-called Whiskered Tern and I wanted to eliminate that. No, of course it isn’t. Continuing to page, I stumbled across the distinctive culprit, rejoicing in another unlikely name – Collared Pratincole (Glareola pratincola). A WHAT!? A Collared Pratincole. Curiously, though not quite as curious as the name, this relatively short-legged bird is considered a wader.

Accepting that I’m not a twitcher, I don’t often bump into names that I’ve never even heard of but here I was with two utterly unfamiliar bird names in one day, both of which sound as if they were made of letters picked at random from a Scrabble bag.

Isn’t education wonderful?

Francine has had the Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias [the City of Arts and Sciences] in Valencia on her hit list for some time. We’ve formerly braved the Spanish trains and travelled in to the city centre but the Arts and Sciences complex lies a little further out on the city’s eastern edge. A cab ride after the train would be possible but our pal who went to La Mancha with us was also up for a visit and offered to drive. There’s a big covered car park on site. Nice one, Jim.

What is the site? Built in an old riverbed (the river was drained and rerouted after a bad flood), it s a collection of six imaginatively and futuristically architected buildings, mostly brilliant white, housing arts centres and a science museum. Five of the buildings are brilliant white. The sixth and last to be built (in 2009), the so-called Agora, is, for some unaccountable reason a rather jarring [personal opinion] dark blue. It also seems to have fallen into disuse and currently stands empty, though works appear to be in progress.

Here’s a shot showing most of the site. immediately over the bridge is L’Hemisfèric (1998), including an IMAX cinema, planetarium and laserium. Behind that is El Museu de les Ciències Príncipe Felipe (2000), the science museum, followed by El Pont de l’Assut de l’Or (2008), a cable-stayed bridge which mercifully somewhat softens L’Àgora (2009). Whoever decided to destroy the otherwise harmonious integrity of the complex should be shot, IMHO. All L’Àgora needs is a coat of Dulux brilliant white. 😀 Just sneaking in on the right of the picture is L’Umbracle (2001), a sort of open, glassless greenhouse structure topping the multi-storey car park and housing palm trees and other plants.

As you see from the above, the buildings are largely surrounded by water which can make for some impressive reflections, given the right conditions, i.e. no wind causing ripples. Regrettably, from a wildlife enthusiast’s viewpoint, all the water is utterly sterile – lifeless. Well, except for the team of men in waders vacuuming the pools clean.

The site itself is freely open to the public but the buildings have entrance fees. We chose to go into the science museum [left of picture] – echoes of childhood visits to London, I suppose. Frankly, I was underwhelmed, though maybe I’d be underwhelmed by the science museum in London, these days. I’m not a great museum fan at the best of times. The exhibits in here seemed to be designed to entertain the younger minds rather than necessarily to educate, though some education would be likely to rub off. There also seemed to be an awful lot of empty space being put to no use whatsoever.

Hidden by L’Àgora is L’Oceanogràfic (2003), an open air oceanographic park, which is more expensive to get into. I now suspect that would be more satisfying, so maybe on another visit.

Behind the viewpoint on that general picture is El Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia (2005), an opera house and performing arts centre.The roof of this structure absolutely amazed me. The building reminded me of a humpback whale porpoising. Seen from one side [front?], the roof, which had the appearance of the whale’s top jaw, seems to hang magically in mid-air, “just the way bricks don’t” [to quote the late, great Douglas Adams],with no visible means of support. When we walked around the other end of the building [back?], the support structure is seen but it is still quite incredible, a single angled anchor point bearing the weight of the entire curved roof structure. Quite staggering; just imagine the cantilever forces acting on that single support point.

Architecturally, we thought the complex very impressive, Not bad for a self-confessed art numbskull, such as myself. One word of warning to would be visitors, though: beware of being run down by the many bicycles as you gawp at the buildings. 😉

We need to go back for some night shots, now we know how to get there.

Prior to becoming somewhat familiar with Spain, we used to say that the Austrians would have a fest [festival] at the drop of hat. On our journey back from camping in Italy many years ago, we crossed the Dolomites into Austria, pitched up and stumbled, somewhat literally because of drink, into their local waldfest [forest festival]. Headaches and falling off bicycles aside, it was jolly good fun.

In a similar fashion, the Spanish are well known for being particular fond of a damn good fiesta. Last year, we suffered at the hands of our neighbouring village, Alcalalí, which chose to end its fiesta on the night before our 800km/500ml drive back to France. Fun though a fiesta might be, the problem with the Spanish approach to the celebrations is that a rock concert tends to wind up the proceedings, typically kicking off shortly before midnight. This one finally finished at 05:00. Most civilized nations would have noise-abatement laws kicking in just as the Spanish are getting warmed up to keep you awake all night and deprive you of the sleep required to do anything constructive on the following day. Well, given that it is now well past midnight, of course, it isn’t actually the following day, it’s today.

This weekend is filled with Xalónia, 2017, Xaló being the Valenciana name of our local Spanish town, Jalón.. I’m not sure whether Xalónia is regarded as a fiesta, as such, but it’s a local town celebration that shares much with fiestas, particularly a late night/early morning concert. The concert was last night. We were “treated” to an evening filled with what I think were sound checks, less than rehearsals, prior to the event proper finally kicking off.The speakers were all aimed at our hillside. Fed up with tuneless practice drums, amplification and  and mic checks, Francine and I wandered down at 21:30 to have a squint. The town streets were absolutely heaving. Not wanting any more food or drink in a crush of people, we wandered back and waited for the aural assault to commence.

Commence it did at about 23:45. We tried our anti-Spanish-fiesta earplugs, specially purchased after last year’s Alcalalí experience, for the first time. Almost completely useless, I’d say; I could still hear our almost silent ceiling fan turning languidly above our heads. Furthermore, the ear[lugs are not the most comfortable contraption invented. This didn’t stop Francine who was soon in the land of nod. I unplugged myself. Actually, the concert was not so bad, certainly less intrusive than the closing concert of Alcalalí had been, and I did sleep.

Today we wandered down to take a more active part in day #2 of the festivities. Again, the town was very busy so we must award this event a high success rating. Approaching midday, many were taking advantage of the various local bodegas offering wine, a local butcher with enormous BBQs set up, vendors grilling squid, octopus and cuttlefish, others selling slices tortillas … you name it. Like the parting of the Red Sea, the throngs had to divide to allow a band through.

Whilst the food and drink was very welcome, what had really interested us was a demonstration of Muixeranga. We’d seen this on telly, as practised in Catalonia. This was the Valencian version and we were keen to witness it first hand. The most interesting component, maybe the main component, is groups of people building human pyramids or towers. A bunch of beefy folk form the base of the pyramid, then others climb up to form a second layer, and so on. I think the tallest we saw today was five layers.

It seems to be largely a family affair. Smaller children are used to top off the pyramid; sometimes these children are very small. Crash helmets on the smaller children give a nod to health and safety, though the ground beneath them is very hard should they not land on the human cushion provided by their base layer. The several teams moved around the town, starting in the main town square, where the towers seemed to be kept to a modest three layers.

The teams moved to an area at the end of food and drink alley where they began getting more adventurous and going up to five layers.

Francine was snapping away as I watched. Something very unusual happened, where children are concerned: I was moved to tears as a tiny little girl began climbing up to top off a 5-layer tower when, about half-way up, it all got too much for her and she bottled out and climbed back down. I felt so sorry for her. At least mum consoled her with a cuddle. Doubtless, the stress of several public performances before large crowds became too much for the poor little mite.

The costumes for the beefy support folks included a sort of cummerbund, a lengthy chunk of woven material wrapped firmly around their middles. This, I imagine, is the direct equivalent of the leather belts worn by weightlifters, worn for precisely the same reason, namely to give additional core strength [very Strictly] and to stop your kidneys popping out under the pressure.

Music accompanies the building of the towers. Groups of musicians playing drums, I think called tabals, and wind instruments called dolçainas, fire up. The latter resembles a short oboe, in that it is a twin-reed instrument sounding akin to a the noise that might be made by a ruptured mallard. I remember such a description from schooldays being associated with an oboe when one of the two reeds split. Yes, I flirted (badly) with an orchestra, many years ago.

It was all very congenial rather than competitive, with teams helping each other out as necessary. Quite a spectacle.

Last year, on our car trip over to Spain through Bilbao, on our return journey we chose to stop overnight at Miranda de Ebro. Our chosen hotel was a converted convent or monastery (too many bottles of wine ago) and was within easy walking distance of the main downtown area. After checking in and freshening up, we wandered down in the evening in search of food. Echoing around our heads was a phrase from a neighbour along the lines of, wherever you are in Spain, you can find a decent local establishment selling nosh. It was about 19:00.

We set off and soon crossed the Ebro river into the main town area. We found a pedestrian street, the way I imagine Las Ramblas in Barcelona to be (I’ve not actually been there), where there were lots of other local people promenading. We found several bars with outside tables selling drinks, glasses of wine were typically 1€ each. We lashed out and indulged. What we did not notice were any restaurants of any description. We indulged again.

Wandering further we continued not to find anything resembling a restaurant. Time wore on and after 20:30-ish we began getting concerned – dinner began to appear to be an impossibility. Eventually, noticing a supermarket still trading, we went on a raid and bought a bagful of supplies that could serve as a picnic in our hotel room.

We were at a loss. Mranda de Ebro was a sizable, lively town; there were many people on the streets. There were surely eating establishments here but could we find one? No.

Now, here we were in Alcazar de San Juan. Having been cheapskates on our first evening here, so as to make an evening visit to a windmill installation possible, for our second evening, we thought we’d push the boat out on a proper restaurant meal. The town centre was only about a kilometre away so the three of us  set off on foot in search of a likely looking restaurant.

We hit town at about 19:30. Our first area was quiet but we did notice some sort of establishment … firmly closed. Nothing else being obvious, Jim resorted once again to 3G technology. We followed directions and ended up in what was clearly the main town square. Spotting the supposed restaurant we had been seeking proved difficult. One establishment looked like more of a wine bar full of bright young things, another looked like a real restaurant but was, yes, closed. Further exploration revealed little. We decided to head further out of the centre to a restaurant which Jim had found earlier and which had good reviews.

We passed another apparent restaurant (shut) and, after 15 minutes or so, found the 3G establishment. It was by now 20:30. This establishment appeared to be shut but a man was carrying seats out from the building to the pavement area. We questioned him as to whether it was open. “At 21:00”, was his jaunty reply. Actually, at first he said 22:00 but amended it to 21:00. Either he had made a genuine mistake or he saw a desperate look on our faces and took pity on us, changing his response to 21:00.

Either way, “Screw this”, we thought, collectively.

First of all, we’d have to kill another 30 minutes with no bar in sight. Then, once the place had deigned to open, we wouldn’t be ordering until almost 21:30. By the time we’d finished eating it’d be pressing 23:00 and then we’d have a 20-30 minute walk back to our hotel. We’d be collapsing into bed at 23:30-ish.

We couldn’t be arsed. We jointly decided to return to our trusty, excellent value hotel for another 9.50€ three course meal with wine and coffee included. At least it wasn’t just us; now we’d more or less repeated our Miranda de Ebro experience with someone who lives full time in Spain. Gracias a 3G, we may now have known more, though.

Here, in Alcazar de San Juan, was a restaurant just beginning to show signs of life at almost 21:00. Maybe in Miranda de Ebro last year, Francine and I had simply been looking for signs of restaurant life too early. I know the Spanish have a reputation for eating late but in Jalón, restaurants do at least open their doors for business earlier than that. Both Miranda de Ebro and Alcazar de San Juan, though, are real back-roads Spain, not towns filled with expats from other European countries. Here, they do things the Spanish way. The fact is, though, that we simply don’t want to be starting to eat as late as 22:00. 22:00 is my bed time. 😀

How different the world is. Many years ago, in New England, Francine and I had just managed to get into an American restaurant that was looking to lock its doors to any further customers at 19:30. That surprised us, too.

No wonder I like eating at home in the evening.

You really cannot move in La Mancha without being confronted by Don Quixote and his faithful servant, Sancho Panza: every wall of every hotel is adorned with Quixotic images; entrance ways feature statues; fountains in town squares are covered in ceramic representations; we even visited a cafe with curtains depicting the Don. That really is all there is.

With a passing irreverent thought, my mind drew a parallel between La Mancha and Belgium: it struck me that both places’ claim to fame is entirely fictitious. This, of course, is unfair to Belgium which did, at least, produce the extraordinarily successful cyclist, Eddy Merckx. However, to resume …

We enjoyed a much more adequate and cheaper breakfast than that provided by our Cuenca hotel – very edible croissants – before heading for our second dose of windmills at Consuegra. As we approached the windmill-topped hill, we could see that a couple of coaches had also headed there and a third was winding its way up the road. Here, there are 12 windmills with a photogenic castle roughly in the centre. That is, it would be photogenic were it not for the almost inevitable crane adorning it. At least now there was only a single crane; Google Earth had shown two when I was getting a sneak preview prior to our trip. We parked and studied the potential line-ups.

There was a biting wind, again. Our first job was to wait ~30 minutes for one of the busloads of tourists to clear our favoured scene. Being Japanese, they were all intent on having their pictures taken adopting strange poses slap bang in front of the windmills. One strange pose involved a skirt flying over a head in the wind, Marilyn Monroe fashion. Selfie stick [arghh!] after selfie stick [I hate the narcissistic contraptions] wandered slowly back to the bus, together with the occasional real camera, slightly down hill. Just as busload #1 was almost clear, busload #2 swarmed across the windmills with their chosen digital technology. Eventually patience paid off and we got our chance. Click, click, click!

Our friend Jim, armed with his on the road 3G, discovered that the Japanese are keen on the chivalrous Don Quixote because they think of him as a samurai. Go figure!

We wandered around looking for alternative angles. At the end of the run looking north, the castle could be made small enough to have the crane effectively removed. Digital darkroom rules, OK!

La Mancha is actually one large plain sitting at an elevation of 610m/2000ft. It is the largest plain in Spain. Presumably, this is the very plain upon which most of the rain in Spain stays. You get a good view of the plain from any of the windmill topped hills. Remembering the main importance of Wales in the world as a size comparand – you know the sort of thing: an area of jungle the size of Wales is felled in the Amazon basin every year – we dug out the size from the Rough Guide, in useless square kilometre units, and calculated that the plain of La Mancha is 10 times the size of Wales. Much more understandable; all was well. This kept us amused as we drove past an ironing board flat countryside filled largely with grapevines.

After two days tilting, La Mancha may have had us Don Qixoted and windmilled out but it did prove very hospitable. All our drink stops were accompanied by substantial tapas given gratis, just with your drink. Order three drinks (~1.50€ each) and you get a couple of tapas to accompany each. At a selection of establishments, we had been presented with pork scratchings, roast potatoes, wedges of tortilla, bread topped with ham and manchego cheese (from La Mancha), hard-boiled eggs topped with sardines, croquettes of various flavours … and so on. It felt as though we could actually have skipped ordering meals entirely and just kept drinking, which would also have filled our stomachs. We’re not used to this back in Jalón, where we’re lucky to get a bowl of peanuts, and that comes with or after the third round. I prefer the La Mancha approach, though not necessarily the pan-flat land.

After the windmills, we did drop into a wetland area, Las Tablas de Daimiel, which proved a pleasant walk, though a little slow on the entertainment front – too early at this altitude, I think. Most interesting here was several busloads of small Spanish schoolchildren who were both well controlled by their teachers and very polite, muttering “hola” or “buenos días”  to us as we came across them. Now there’s something that would never happen in the UK. They were walking along perfectly calmly in groups of three linked by their hands.Take note, Britain: it IS possible to transform your rugrats into pleasant children despite doing so being unfashionable currently. What a delight to see.

We called into another bar (there’s a surprise) in Daimiel itself for refreshment before returning to the hotel: two beers and a red wine. The waiter eventually returned with two beers and a whole unopened bottle of wine. He was at pains to explain the label to Francine, waxing lyrically in Spanish about how good this local La Mancha, ecological wine was. He then went through a delightful piece of theatre uncorking the bottle, turning aside and giving the withdrawn cork a darn good sniff, a look of intense concentration on his face. Apparently all was well. Satisfied that the wine was drinkable, he poured Francine a glass. I began wondering, firstly, if we’d be buying the whole bottle, and secondly, how much this apparently very special bottle might cost. Mr Waiter shortly returned with “un tapito” [a little tapa – new word for us] consisting of a plate of hand-carved jamon. It was excellent ham, too. More euro signs rolled around. Ching!

My fears were groundless, la cuenta [the bill] for three of us came to 5.10€. Ya gotta love it.