The Great Iberian Road Trip, Day 37: Who Would Have Thought It?

 

Last year at this time, I was supposed to be planning a big celebration for the beginning of September. It was a huge year for milestones – twentieth anniversary on 6 September, my half-century on 6 August, and Livia’s 6^th birthday on 29 August, and a chance to introduce all three of the kids to everyone we knew. The party was to take place at a venue on top of a hill overlooking the Saar valley. We would have organised food, drink, live music, games, and even a minibus to take people back to the town or station so they didn’t have to drive.

That was all thrown into disarray at the end of June, when Livia’s school board decided to refuse her for the coming year so that we could finish off the research on her personality traits and make a proper diagnosis, find the right help, and give her the boost she needed. The party was cancelled, as we had a huge amount of panicking to do, grasping at any leads we could find. The main issue was that Livia refused to speak anything but English. Despite calling every potential international school in Luxembourg (nine) and our region in Germany (zero), it became apparent that we had to move.

Bonny Bee and I wrote down the countries on separate lists that we would be prepared to move to, then compared them. Mine was a lot longer than hers. In the end, the only two countries we had in common were Ireland and Spain. Considering the real estate in Ireland is expensively awful, and awfully expensive, we settled on Spain, her choice. She got to pick the country, I got to pick the city. Looking around on the International Schools Database for English-speaking schools, I stumbled upon quite an interesting fact: Spain’s third city, Valencia, had more international schools than Luxembourg and our region of Germany combined.

I hastily arranged a fact-finding mission to the city, spending a weekend there in mid-July last year. The school I had visited for the purpose of understanding the possibilities was in a well-to-do area of the city. It was more like a training facility for a top football team than a school – it had everything. Every type of technology, huge grounds, tree-lined paths between different parts of the school, glass walls throughout so you could see what was going on in other classrooms, water sports facilities, a theatre and ballroom for several hundred people (I kid you not), and a trophy cabinet that would have made the Liverpool boardroom quit. And the fees were less than what we had been paying in Luxembourg for much, much less in every respect. I came away with a sense that yes, this was where we needed to go. Maybe not that school, as it was out of the way, but as the others were roughly the same tariff, I was persuaded to move.

We put the house up for sale along with the garden that I had spent so long developing. The plot of land had nothing on it when I bought it. Now, it had over thirty trees and was regularly visited by all types of living organisms, including the legendary hummingbird hawk-moth, the most graceful creature I have ever had the privilege of being next to.

But hey, we had to stop Livia from being sucked into the so-called “inclusive” education that they provide children with slightly different personalities in the Germanic countries of Middle Europe, where they basically cut you off from the rest of your peers and prepare you for a life of unfulfillment and obscurity.

So at the end of August, after an entire summer of packing up the belongings in the house and the most boringly long school holiday the kids had ever had, we set off by car for Valencia, with a couple of suitcases and some essentials. The rest was stored in the cellar and would join us once we were settled.

We had seen potential apartments come and go, and we were getting a little worried about not having a place to stay. After a few days in the Ardèche and a night in the Pyrenees, we spent a week in Peñíscola, a seaside town close to Valencia where we could arrange things before we arrived. We signed the contract for the apartment on the evening of the thirty-first of August 2024, just the day before we moved in. We could have signed at any time for a rather dark and drab flat in a noisy suburb, but I was holding out for some recompense for the ordeal we had all gone through: a beachside apartment in El Puig, only 12 kilometres up the coast from the city and just a 15-minute drive to the kids’ shiny new school in the centre of the city.

This was the place I had been holding out for until the very end. It was the least everyone deserved after being so badly treated. I’ll be honest with you: I went through some very dark times in the subsequent months. I saw a psychologist a couple of times because I was sure I was going through some mental breakdown. There were times I would think about going shopping in Auchan in Kirchberg or taking the family for a drive to Sierck in France or just for a walk along the Saar. Then I would suddenly wake up from this trance and realise I was in Valencia. Let’s face facts: where we had come from was unexciting, dull, monotonous, unadventurous, and cold for half the year. By contrast, we went out for Christmas dinner in Pinedo on 26 December and we sat at a beachside restaurant in brilliant sunshine. I have worn a coat once and that’s because it was raining.

And yet… and yet…

Here I was, floundering, thrashing around in my own thoughts, trying to make sense of it all, barely able to enjoy the brightness, completely incapable of forcing myself to go to any of the multitude of events that only a huge city could offer. Because of everything that had changed in such a short time, I veered from anger to despair, bitterness to elation, bewilderment to despondency. I barely got through the autumn and winter of 23 and 24. But I knew I had to just let the process take care of itself and I would come out the other side. How I would be by the end was another matter.

By Easter time, I had overcome my dark thoughts and vanquished any remaining demons. This was achieved by the realisation that I had actually managed very well to integrate into my new environment. And several important factors contributed to this.

Firstly, the coworking space that we are members of is a strong international community of intelligent, competent and sociable professionals, eager to have as much fun outside of work as their lifestyle will allow. Every day I don’t go there is a day wasted. Back in January, I set up a monthly dinner club, where the idea is we eat something from somewhere else where we wouldn’t usually go. It’s this type of activity that has helped me through the other side.

Secondly, on one of these dinners, some of the participants had arrived late. They had been to an open mic event where one of them read something they had written. Upon greater inquiry, I found it was run by a charming lady from the UK and took place in quite a prestigious location in the centre. I decided to go the month after and maybe read one of my own works. The event itself is really well attended and along with the regulars, there are a lot of debutants and returners. I had such a huge sense of belonging from the first moment that I have written a new piece to deliver every month since, and it is a non-negotiable event in my calendar. It gives me an inspiration and a motivation to write that had been missing while I was squandering some important years of my life in a place where nobody listens to you.

And lastly, Valencia itself is so easy to immerse yourself into. It has everything a capital city has without being one. In fact, if it were a capital city, it would be the fourteenth largest in the European Economic Area, making it bigger than Amsterdam, Athens and Oslo. And that’s what has made me grateful to be alive again: being in a place where anything goes. I’m not yet too old to find it all too much, and I make the most of every moment I can.

That’s why this road trip has been so important – it has made me fully realise that Valencia is where we are supposed to be. Not just a stopgap before we move on, but well and truly the place where I want us to spend the coming years and whatever they throw at us. Although I draw the line at spending all of July and August there.

And this is the point I wish to make: back in mid-June 2023, I would never have imagined that I would have spent my fifty-first birthday in a Portuguese seaside town just over half way round the Iberian peninsula on a two-month road trip before heading back to Valencia on 2 September.

We drove from our house in Penacova, 50 kilometres inland, to Figueira da Foz, halfway between Lisbon and Oporto, where I enjoyed the company of my lovely children. We had lunch on the ramparts of a citadel that had been converted into a restaurant, then we went to the beach for a while. The water was colder than a meeting between a divorcee and his former in-laws, so I persuaded everyone to have a drink then go to the funfair next door where Portugal’s largest Ferris wheel had been erected for the summer.

We sped home before sunset and had some bread with cheese or chocolate spread together. It was the antidote to the year before where I spent my fiftieth birthday packing ornaments and throwing out unwanted objects we had accumulated over fifteen years in that house onto a container for landfill. We were ruthless in what we got rid of – it was impossible to save everything so we had to relinquish a lot of things that contained treasured memories. This was the most distressing aspect of having to leave our home in Germany.

But here in the warm climes of the Iberian Peninsula, a new life is gradually taking shape and with it three children are having so much more fun and experiencing far more than they ever would have had we remained where we were. So for that, I would like to take the opportunity to thank the board of governors of Livia’s school in Luxembourg for their obstinacy, their absence of vision, their fixation on the finances, and their ruthless aversion to sliding down the league tables. For without them being utter cretins, I would right now be sitting at home in the silence of a provincial German town, thumbing through TikTok videos or stacking my dishwasher for want of something else to do. Instead, I’m watching the sun set over a lush Portuguese river valley while planning our next adventure. In the past year, I have written more words than I had done in the previous half-century, and I’ve had the opportunity to meet some truly inspirational people that helped me get over the line.

Providence has a habit of claiming victims and then building them up again.

The Great Iberian Road Trip, Day 36: Coimbra And A Little Something

Remembering the maxim “Less Is More”, the weekend was spent just relaxing in this splendidly comfortable apartment and going to the river beach down the hill. We always eat big in the afternoon and light in the evening, so I made roast potatoes and turkey drumsticks for dinner and then we went late for a dessert and a swim at about 5 or 6. Bonny Bee stayed at home to do her work – she has an admirable work ethic and sets an example to us all.

But on Monday 5 August, after a dinner of rice with secreto ibérico, Bonny Bee had met enough targets to give her a break. I drove us all to Coimbra, seat of one of Europe’s ancient universities and a gem of a city.

Coimbra reminded me of some of the places in Poland and Slovakia except with a maritime climate. A combination of Bratislava and Poznan with a hint of the Provence, it had a restrained but lively atmosphere. Full of boutique shops, cafés and art installations, it was an appealing and enjoyable walk, even up to the top where the museum and old university was. The kids only really started complaining when we got towards the very top, a rare sign they were actually enjoying this walk…

We stopped at a café on the side of the hill on the way to the top. It reminded me of Montmartre a little. It had a pretty wide selection of desserts, including the fabulous pasteis de nata, so we settled down for a while under shade of the parasols. I not only had one pastel de nata, I also tried the rice pudding. Milda and Livia settled for the chocolate mousse and Dainoris had the rice too.

Sitting there under the parasol, with a stomach full from excellent desserts and coffees, we all had a really good mood. It was the right moment to attempt to climb to the top of the hill to see the old university and take a look at the panorama. Half way up, the moans began, but nobody suggested turning around. In fact, Dainoris actually relished the climb. Milda needed her mum to carry her, so I held Livia’s hand and up we went to the top, stopping a couple of times for the walking children to get their breath.

And at the top, we were immediately confronted by some Graeco-Roman pseudo bombast architecture (obviously built during a particular twentieth-century regime). Feeling disappointed by this rather ugly sight, I noticed a lot of tourists spilling out of a small gate in the wall. And that’s where the reward for climbing the hill was hiding. A majestic courtyard surrounded on three sides by some exquisite architecture known as the Palace of Schools, and on the fourth side by a mirador overlooking the River Mondego and the lower city, albeit over some rather awkwardly high modern buildings that blocked a direct view.

We looked inside the palace for a little, and concluded that it needed a little bit of work to modernise it. Going down to the main town again, we reached the principal thoroughfare that made the city such a tremendous place – pedestrianised, full of quality places to eat and drink without losing a packet of cash, and crammed full of handsome façades. Some were covered in the most ornate tiling, others were in Art Deco. Some took on a Haussmanian effect, and a couple gave off pastel-coloured Havana vibes.

In any case, this was the very first large urban area we had visited that the infantile band of scoundrels hadn’t complained about. San Sebastian? Too cold and wet. Gijon? Boring, steep, and full of dogs. A Coruña? Not enough playgrounds. Santiago? Too hot. Braga? Too sunny. Yet here in Coimbra, it was nearly 30 degrees and sunny, there were no playgrounds, plus it had a pretty big hill, and they mainly enjoyed it. Kids are bizarre creatures.

When we went through this street the first time earlier on, we came across a shop selling all types of material. We hadn’t yet bought any souvenirs from anywhere, so we settled on some dishcloths for the kitchen, a table cloth and some bathroom towels, all in the flamboyant colours of this florid country. On the way past there had been some buskers within a short distance of each other near some cafés. I would have gladly sat there for a drink but one was howling “Yesterday” by the Beatles. All I could think was that John Lennon had already suffered a brutal enough demise without being murdered for a second time… and so that place was losing a lot of custom with potential visitors trying to avoid having to sit through the pain of listening to Rocket Man being pulled through a meat grinder.

As we moved away from that area, the fading music in the distance sounding more like an inflatable raft being run over by an electric car, we were almost at the end of the main street. But just as we got there, we found a really good-looking pâtisserie with some excellent cakes. A man on an accordion was playing some proper tunes with real talent, and the guy serving our table was very efficient. We bought some cakes to take with us, and took a slow walk to a shopping centre to buy some underwear for the kids.

We don’t know what happened, but all their underwear has disappeared. So when I located a shopping centre close by, we walked up past some more lovely buildings only to discover it was the city’s covered market. Another few minutes’ walk was another shopping centre, but I had a better idea – let’s find a small boutique and give our money to someone who runs a shop. We found one just a hundred metres from our car. The lady who ran this children’s clothes shop had remained open a few minutes beyond closing time, unlike all the others in the street – and there were four or five other similar shops – and so was rewarded by us buying 18 sets of underwear, 6 for each child. It’s amazing what happens when you aren’t in a hurry to close…

We walked to the car park and drove back to Penacova. The children were all getting antsy and tired, so now was the right moment to go, but they had done well today: better than their track record would have forecast, anyhow. And now it’s time to get ready for my birthday – some mouthwatering food and an afternoon on the beach.

EXTRA PHOTOS:

The Great Iberian Road Trip, Days 34 To 35: A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Penacova

We woke up in Sardiñeiro in Galicia fairly early after a rough night’s sleep. That bed had been both a sweat pit and a dream killer. The weather outside was beautiful; despite being only 9 in the morning, it was way above 20 in the sun. I packed the car in a pair of shorts as I would have just ruined any shirt with sweat. This was becoming a routine now: each time we have left a place, the lovely weather has made it harder to leave.

I drove to the bakery to hand in the keys and say goodbye, then we sped off southwards towards Santiago, then Vigo and Braga. The scenery on the way to Santiago was once again breathtaking, the roads winding, providing a combination of slow, cumbersome agricultural vehicles in front and tailgating thugs behind, not always at the same time.

On the motorway, the farmers disappeared but the thugs multiplied. There is nothing more satisfying than annoying a speed freak, especially when I’m going at the national speed limit and they come at me really fast flashing their lights and gesticulating. So on the two-lane sections where the traffic can get heavy, I make their lives a misery. You can see them virtually foaming at the mouth.

On the other side, I really, REALLY hate slow drivers, more than fast ones. You know, the type of self-unaware twit who drives dangerously slowly while dithering and equivocating, causing a tailback of several vehicles. There are some real geniuses out there looking for a particular building or taking a phone call; showing a passenger something or fiddling with the dashboard gadgets. If you can’t handle it, pull over! But then there are people who really shouldn’t be driving: the type who are driving manuals but can’t multitask. They can’t look both ways at a junction and manoeuvre the car into the next road at the same time. They can’t simultaneously control the gearstick and the pedals. Either buy a manual, or give in your licence.

So our journey to the frontier was mainly me trying to keep up with the very fast-moving traffic while looking at the stunning views. When we crossed into Portugal, we experienced a totally new phenomenon: crossing a time zone on land. We have done this by sea on the way to and from the UK and France, or under the water in the Eurostar, but never while self-propelling. It was quite a moment, but just like the changing of the date at New Year, a fairly underwhelming experience that didn’t really live up to its billing.

But that was not all.

About 5 minutes inside Portugal, I pulled over to get my bearings and think about what to do. Should we go to Porto or to Braga on the way? All depends on how much time we’ll have. I had told the owner of the next property that we would be there at around five or six, but it was already 12:30 and a three-hour drive awaited us. Oh no, wait… it was 11:30, we’ve gained an hour! Oh well then, that’s fine – we’ll go to Braga and have a spot of lunch and a walk around.

Unfortunately, it was at this point that Google Maps told me it wasn’t working any more. And nor was anything else on my phone. We got the phones and the contract in the winter and this was the first time we had left the country. As we all know, mobile phone companies have a habit of making it difficult to travel, even if you’re just inside the European Union. So I would have to make it to our next place by the old 20th century method of guesswork, which I wasn’t prepared to do.

Braga was 30 kilometres away, so I decided to head there as we had that magical hour to spare. From there, I would find a place with Wi-Fi and call the phone company. Arriving in Braga was quite easy, but the first obstacle soon became apparent: the city had not invested in decent parking meters and only accepted coins. I had 50 cents to tide me over while I figured out how to procure some metal money.

Stepping out onto Portuguese soil, or rather stone, for the first time was the accomplishment of another milestone – my eighteenth country, and the children’s ninth already. They are getting used to the concept of countries and languages spoken. I don’t really think too much about the number of countries visited, I prefer to record what I did there and make sure I leave without any regrets. The same will go for Portugal.

We took a look at the old city of Braga – much smaller than Santiago, but a very pretty place. It reminded me of Roskilde in Denmark, or Tunbridge Wells in the UK. There were many independent shops and a great number of cafés and restaurants. I saw a café specialising in pasteis de nata, the Portuguese equivalent of the custard tart, and decided that if there was anything I was going to do to initiate my arrival here, it was to eat one of these fabled pastries. In Luxembourg they sell them everywhere, as there is a high Portuguese population, but eating them in their native land brings a certain extra level of tastiness that is hard to replicate abroad – and that goes for most things.

I settled the rest in the café and went off to firstly get some coins. I took 80 euro out of the cash machine – trick here: if you need a smaller denomination banknote, never ask for 50 or 100. Always a number between that. Then I went to a shop and bought some water, asking the cashier to break up my note into something smaller. I got a new ticket and headed back to sort out the connection issue. The guy running this tart and coffee establishment, who could have been only in his early twenties, had only opened the place the day before. He was the son of the owner. Luckily he had Wi-Fi set up. Calling the phone company, they gave me the secret to configuring the phone and we were set.

We carried on our walk round the city and decided to stop at a charming restaurant for lunch. It had a small but attractive menu and they seemed to be happy to greet three little kids, so we braved it. Bonny Bee settled for the pasta dish – maybe the Portuguese would do it better than the Spanish – and I went for a beef Wellington-type dish with a vegetable medley. The kids all had chicken, chips and rice (rice with chips…? Seemed strange to me, but everywhere does it) and we all settled for cold drinks.

The woman serving us spoke to us in French as she had spent 20 years working in western Switzerland. The girl serving the drinks opted for English. I am trying to live up to my own expectations of using the local language wherever possible, but I’ll need a few days to get into it. Anyhow, it was really the first time that the kids actually behaved themselves for a whole visit to a restaurant. And I have to say, my boeuf en croute was phenomenal – I could have eaten it with a spoon, it was that tender. And the vegetables that accompanied it were perfect; I could have eaten a full plate of them alone. Bonny Bee’s pasta was very filling, and she could barely finish it.

I took a photo of the food at another table - I know, I'm incorrigible...

We had an excellent cup of coffee and went back to the car, as we still had a good couple of hours’ driving ahead of us. After one stop at a fuel station about 45 minutes from our destination where Livia decided to take her mother’s bag where she keeps the receipts and let them fly all over the windy terrace outside, I put my foot on the pedal in anger and desperation to get this journey over with.

We arrived at our destination in the town of Penacova, about half an hour east of Coimbra, a few minutes before six in the evening. It had been quite a brutal journey, but the welcome we received from the owner of our next place of residence more than made up for it. Susana and we had a lot in common: she and her parents had lived for many years on the border of Luxembourg too, but on the Belgian side. She had lived in this place until a year or so ago, but her burgeoning family meant she needed to move out, so she converted the place into a guest residence. Her parents still live above and came to introduce themselves in French.

The place itself is by far the best apartment we have stayed in. Down one flight of stairs from the road, you enter the main room with adjoining kitchen and sitting room, with a terracotta tiled floor throughout. The kitchen is ultra-modern with an induction cooker (my personal favourite) and a good selection of condiments, utensils, gadgets, cutlery and plates. The bathroom is also high-tech, and the master bedroom has innovative sensory lights that detect when someone is in there. But the highlight is the terrace, which overlooks the sweeping river valley and part of the town. You can hear people having conversations, dogs barking, cats fighting, people splashing in the river several hundred metres away below. Compared to all the rest, this is head and shoulders above.

Susana showed us the place, then left us to get on with our lives. I unpacked the car for the fifth time and brought all the gear inside. It was also much easier to handle because of the spacious layout of the apartment. The children asked for some TV time, and I wasn’t going to deny them that. However, the TV was one of those so-called “smart” ones that had more channels than the Nile Delta and so many settings it was virtually impossible to find anything. In the end I managed to get it on a kids’ TV channel in English, but not after having caused all three to take it in turns to complain about it taking so long…

With them settled there, I decided it was time to go shopping, if only to get away from everyone for a while. Susana had told me about the two main supermarkets in the town: Lidl and Auchan. I’m not a fan of Lidl as every time I go there it looks like a few badly-run market stalls masquerading as a shop under bright lighting. You know what I mean. You show up to buy some milk and a razor and end up finding the former stacked high in the corner next to a corral of dubious toolkits, garden hose nozzles and wellington boots fresh from their factory at least six hours’ flight away, and the razors are called a knocked-off name like Giflette or Willinson Sworb and will perforate your skin so much you may as well have used the potato peeler.

So I went to Auchan. Now… in Luxembourg, Auchan is massive. So big, in fact, that the two stores are commonly used to orient visitors to the country. “The National Library is next to Auchan on Kirchberg”, or “The European Union’s translation headquarters is situated a block away from Auchan Cloche D’Or” are fairly unsurprising sentences to find, that’s how big they are. Here in Penacova, it was situated 5 minutes out of town in a crumbling roadside warehouse converted into a supermarket with a very dodgy one-way system through the underground car park.

More than anything, I needed muesli and milk, so considering Lidl was German, I should have gone there. Auchan was disappointing, although it did have a great butcher section. I bought some minced beef, tomato passata, grated cheese, onions, garlic, mafaldine pasta and herbs. If you can’t guess what I was going to make, you should seek help. I also got some mortadella and a few other things, but I decided I needed to breach the gates of Lidl if I were to find some decent muesli.

It was also much closer to the centre of town, and had a proper car park. Susana had told me it wasn’t like Lidl in northern Europe, and I should have listened. It had not only proper muesli, but unlike the other place, it also had several kinds.

Lesson learned.

First impressions of Portugal: the food is phenomenal, the landscape is sublime. The people are friendly, but I would say the Spanish are a little more helpful and practical. Despite the Big Country Syndrome in Spain, I think they’re more modest and critical about their homeland than people give them credit for. In Portugal, the driving is mental, especially compared to Galicia, and the roads are in severe need of reparation, despite paying vast amounts of toll money. Where does it all go? Who’s pocketing it all? Someone somewhere is making a pretty packet, courtesy of the Portuguese car driver.

That evening, I sat on the terrace overlooking the town and the river valley and watched the sun setting and the house and street lights coming on. Saturday would be another new experience. After sleeping in pretty small rooms with beds narrower than a Brexit voter’s mind, it was a huge relief to finally spend the night in a much larger bed with proper air in the room. Due to that, I didn’t get out of bed until well after 10 – I obviously needed the rest.

After a leisurely breakfast, it became apparent that the kids were also not really in the mood for much, so they just spent the first part of the day resting up and watching TV. I made the pasta ragout and afterwards they started getting a little obnoxious, so I decided to give Bonny Bee some quiet time to work and took all three to the local beach on the river.

It was down a long, scary slope but it was an excellent facility: a kind of golf-style club house with a canteen/café upstairs, and on the ground floor some changing rooms and washing facilities. Down a stone slope between the grass, you reached a beach that had those parasols made out of straight wooden sticks, two lifeguard stations, a floating barrier to seal off the shallow water for kids, and a long wooden bridge for testosterone-fuelled diving. There were people on inflatable rafts and kayaks, and plenty of space for beach volleyball and five-a-side football.

We spent a couple of fun hours in there. We started off in the café having a coffee and a cake in my case and ice cream with juice for the kids. I got them changed downstairs and then we headed to the water. Dainoris is really starting to get into swimming – he can go quite far with his arm bands on, which is an excellent development. Milda likes to stay close to shore and mainly play on the sand. Livia does her own thing, usually trying to infiltrate some other group’s activities and take it over. Some find it funny, others get a little offended, but it’s her way. Once I explain her personality traits, everyone (usually) calms down and treats her nicely.

After a while, the water was getting a bit cold, so I decided to get out and go to the café. Dainoris was furious, but the two girls were ready for it. After another round of drinks, I dropped them at the apartment and went to Lidl to buy a few days’ worth of shopping. Reaching our place of abode for the week, I settled in for a peaceful night.

This coming week: we need to find something to do for my birthday on Tuesday, and I should tempt Bonny Bee to drop her work for a day or two in order to enjoy the country.

The Great Iberian Road Trip, Days 32 to 33: Halfway Round In Santiago

At the half-way point of our road trip, we can honestly say that Galicia has been a revelation. From the majestic sweeping slopes down to spectacular wide sandy spaces at the shore, to the charming fishing villages with their alluring restaurants; from the tiny coves with their secluded beaches and rocky outcrops, to the endless forests and valleys leading to the rivers that nourish this precious landscape, Galicia is a region overlooked in favour of the lowest common denominator, such as the Costa Del Sol or Mallorca.

It might not always be sunny here, but that’s all part of the charm – we don’t come here to just lie all day on beaches or beside pools and get slowly marinated in sangria, gin or beer. Nothing fills me with horror more than ending up in a concrete jungle like Torremolinos or Benidorm surrounded by the very people I’ve come here to avoid. I like entering restaurants where I am confronted by unfamiliarity; I like walking through streets where I can smell someone’s meal being cooked; I enjoy learning about local features from people I meet; I love sitting on benches or in cafés watching the denizens go about their daily routines; but most of all, I crave new experiences – I live for them, really.

So on Wednesday 31 July 2024, we set off for Santiago de Compostela. You hear about people who have walked the entire northern coast of Spain to reach this fabled city. So at the end of it, you expect to find a welcoming and peaceful place which will have made the whole walk worthwhile. And I have to say, on the whole, if I were a pilgrim having reached Santiago, I would immediately feel an overwhelming sense of relief.

Santiago de Compostela has the same vibe as other cities catering to the long-distance traveller: Zakopane, Innsbruck, Bad Tölz, Fort William, but as a centre of pilgrimage, is not as creepy as other religious destinations, such as Częstochowa, Rome or Lourdes. Especially Lourdes. My word, that place gave me the frissons. The ancient narrow streets made me think of Canterbury or York, the small squares took me to Como or Metz.

There were overhanging vines and trees shading courtyards with some incredibly attractive cafés or leisure areas. It radiated a welcoming air of tranquillity. But what stood out the most is, unlike those other religious destinations, none of the hostelries I passed wanted to rip off their visitors. In fact, quite the opposite – the workers in the three establishments we visited were all incredibly hospitable. I understood that they were aware the vast majority of those coming to their city were not of the richer sort that had the money to pay for top-notch accommodation. These were walkers who would always conglomerate in the least pretentious-looking inn and enjoy the company of like-minded strangers.

On the other hand, it’s not a city to spend a long time in. There is a limit to the number of narrow streets you can walk along without circling back on yourself. In the four or five hours we were there, I passed the same Danish family three times; they were just going in the other direction. However, there was a certain symmetry to the city that I enjoyed, and I would have loved to have spent more time there, but unfortunately, the children were becoming annoying.

I had parked in an underground facility about two minutes from the cathedral itself, and upon stepping out into the light, which had been sorely missing back at the murky, misty coast, we started our walk on a positive note. But as time went on, Dainoris and Milda slipped into their usual Tom & Jerry routine, much to the chagrin of Livia and us parents. But still, I managed to block out their constant chasing long enough to identify a decent place for lunch.

It's a sign of the type of city you are in when the senior serving staff begin by asking which language you wish to be addressed in. As a good innkeeper, he started in English, but I insisted on speaking to him in Spanish until he gave up. This is all part of Being Somewhere Else: I don’t think you can fully immerse yourself wherever you are until you are able to at least understand some of the written language, but preferably also the spoken. I don’t mean you need to be fully conversant, but what’s the point in going to a place if you can’t recognise the items on a menu or you can’t read signposts? Of course, I’ve known Spanish since I was 13, but he wasn’t to know that. He was doing his job, making me feel welcome.

While we perused the menu, the usual pandemonium broke out, resulting in the breaking of a bottle of juice and the spilling of their mother’s coffee. I more or less roasted Dainoris alive, although he felt quite ashamed without my reaction. Anyway, Bonny Bee ordered an elaborate chicken sandwich, the kids had some egg and chips. The menu was quite sophisticated and attractive, but in all the distractions I hadn’t had the opportunity to properly choose something and I asked for a large chorizo roll. When it came, that’s all it was – two dry pieces of bread and some chorizo slices inside. I was bitterly disappointed in my own lack of focus, and I didn’t blame anyone but myself. Some people like that type of food, but I personally prefer some lubrication with it: butter, remoulade or mayonnaise, some salad, tomatoes, maybe vinaigrette… but no, not this time. Hopefully better luck when we found a café for dessert.

We paid and continued our walk around the historical part of the city, which was actually larger than I expected, until Dainoris became unbearable: screaming, laughing, using me and his mother as obstacles to prevent Milda from catching him, and other obnoxious mischief. I wasn’t going to stand for it any longer – sometimes, the little scoundrels need to know you mean it when you dangle the Veiled Threat at them. Having told him numerous times that he wouldn’t get a dessert if he carried on, when we arrived at an enchanting café in a courtyard, we ordered for us and the two girls. Dainoris sat there and watched everything.

Now… when I say he wasn’t happy, this is not even scratching the surface of his fury. His face was so red, he could have stopped the traffic on a busy road. He was making noises that sounded like a muezzin’s call to prayer, but which attracted the attention of more people. But once the acceptance kicked in, he just let it happen and became extraordinarily contrite. Since then, he has calmed down somewhat, but the whole incident kind of put a dampener on the visit. Bonny Bee and I were virtually ready to curtail the trip and just go back to thrust them in front of the TV.

But instead, we found a playground for them to let a little steam off. I think it was for the best – get a lot of the bad energy out. After a while, we headed to the car park, and drove home in relative silence. Everyone was asleep, except the driver… We passed some really beautiful villages, hills and valleys, forests, bays and harbours on the way back.

Dropping them at the apartment, I decided to head to the bakery where we picked up the keys, as they have some excellent bread. Rocio was there, and she was glad to see me. I asked for one of their ring loaves and noticed some of the tempting homemade cakes. This place was not the usual pâtisserie in that it was very unpretentious and down-to-earth both in service and in the wares. I asked for five of their square crème patissière pastries and she added another five tubular ones plus some orange sponge cake and a shorter and wider baguette-type loaf, all on the house. And when I came to pay, she said they only took cash, but I was three euro short.

“No problem, I’m sure we’ll get by!” came her cheery response. I will never get used to such pure-hearted selflessness, and here was just the same. While I was in there, a man walked in who addressed me in English. He seemed to know who I was – I think he was in the café the other day, but I can’t be sure. It turned out he was from Valencia too, and we frequented some of the same places. How weird was that?!

The first day of August crept up on us so suddenly. It signified the halfway point of our circumnavigation of the Iberian Peninsula. We have been to four of the nine locations I have lined up for us, and we will be heading south to Portugal, a country I have never visited but have heard lots of good things.

For our last day, we spent most of it relaxing in the apartment. The weather was cloudy most of the day but by about 5, the sun peeked out and we took one last trip to Fisterra to visit Batidor, the Hungarian café with the exquisite cakes. And my goodness, what an array of fineness there was. Livia took a pure chocolate cake; Milda had a crème patissière with a biscuit pastry topping; Bonny Bee and Dainoris shared a chocolate sponge roll, and I decided to have three medium- and small-sized cakes, including a cherry filo roll that will remain long in the memory, a baked plum tart, and a tarta de Santiago, all of which were paradigms of first-class bakery.

These days I don’t usually gorge myself on food like I used to – in fact, I am 10 kilograms lighter than this time last year. And in the last month, I shed three of those kilograms, so this was a reward for my perseverance. My night swimming in the sea, the daily walking, the heaving of heavy bags every few days, and my own reduced appetite, have all left me getting nicely slimmer.

Later that evening, I packed the car with most of our larger belongings, and took a last walk to the beach for a night swim. It felt a little creepier than usual, I don’t know why. I just had the feeling there was another presence in the cove. The tide was out and I decided not to swim as the sea was shallow for quite a long way, so I went for a walk to the other end on the main beach. With the tide so low, I could reach it from the cove without going back to the road. The night before there had been several fishers lined up along the water’s edge, but not tonight. There was the square root of nobody.

When I returned to the cove (which I shouldn’t have done – I should have left via the main exit on the larger beach), access to the road is via a short but steep incline to a path between a hedge and a stone wall, just wide enough for two people. It was at this point that whatever was there made itself known. I heard a thumping from behind me on the beach. I hurried up the path pointing my torch down behind me to make sure nobody (or nothing) was following me. I am very experienced in making a connection to the spirits, who are often benevolent and harmless, but this was a different feeling altogether.

And now on our road trip, we make our way southwards.

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