Peelies travels

Waking up in the car park in Benasque was a nice experience, with the river rushing below that had provided some calming white noise through the night. There had been one disturbance of about fifteen minutes when, in the early hours, a car came into the single space between us and the next motorhome. Why they didn't stop in the mass of open space that wasn't marked for parking, no-one will ever know. What sounded like four people then got out the the car and had a loud but very amicable discussion over a cigarette or two. Unfortunately this isn't compatible with sleep, especially when the fly screen-covered windows were open. As they have insulation over them there's no visibility issues but the voices were clear enough. I had to be persuaded not to go out, an ungainly proposition anyway, emerging from the top half of a Defender rear door half naked. Happily they left with a mañana  to each other and the night sounds returned to the white noise from the white water. ...

We drank a beer but then our interest in La Pasarela wained and we went in search of the preparations for Tradicionales Falls de Sahunc. Wandering the tiny streets it was clear that someone is taking a lot of care over the restoration of the buildings and many are beautifully done with the stone walls either rebuilt or at least re-pointed. I’m appreciative of this sort of building work but find it confusing when differing types of stonework and painting are employed. This happens just as much at home in the Peak District National Park. Some buildings have had rubble walls re-pointed, flush-style, where the mortar is scraped back and rubbed if needed to provide a flush joint. Others have been re-built in the coarsed style of some old buildings, with occasional large pieces of stone and much thinner pieces used to in-fill. Such care has been taken over the selection of these stone pieces that it almost looks artificial. Some are then flush pointed but others have the mortar joints r...

We have had a little "multifunction" display in the Landy for a few years and it has turned out to be very useful. As well as showing the time (not useful) and the voltage (again not useful as other things show it too), it does show the internal and external temperature. If you are careful with sunlight, the external reading is very accurate. As the weather warms up outside, the Landy cab does too. We drive with the front flaps open which are extremely effective. It doesn't happen often but slow or stationary traffic does cause a major warm-up. Even so it sometimes gets too hot and this was the reading when we were moving at high speed. So we went into the Pyrenees which after all was the objective for the whole holiday until we arrived at cold and wet Bilbao three weeks ago. There was no time for any proper walking but we still intended to search out a suitable  Fallas del Pirineo.  An ancestral tradition celebrating the arrival of summer in different par...

Still wondering what the Mayor might do about some Land Rover overnighters down below his village, we slept and there was no noise and it was dark. The moon has only just got started on its new cycle and so we have had some great dark skies. Most nights I have gone outside to have a look and the Plough has been prominent but low and surprisingly Cassiopeia too has been visible from most places, not so low as I would have imagined, in the eastern sky. If we are in a position to catch the ‘early’ sun, which isn’t early anyway this far south, then the Landy warms up and we jump out of bed. Otherwise it is fairly chilly, especially at altitude. This morning wasn’t too bad and the view of the village was worth stirring for. It's Algarra, nearest town is Teruel, north west of Valencia There was a twist to the tale though as another vehicle drove down quite early and with my best Spanish I again explained that we had slept overnight. It turns out that this guy was more interested...

El Berro and  Camping Sierra Espuña  are nicely positioned for walking in these 'low' Sierras and of course the obligatory GR XYZ  long distance path crosses the village. The campsite people gave us a couple of short walk suggestions, written on A4 and translated by some English guy, Michael Ball. We waited until the end of the afternoon, so that the temperature was somewhat manageable and then picked one of the ~1 hour walks that start at the campsite. The walk is so simple that there's no description, just a small diagram that's well annotated with the type of path (wide main track / footpath), other markers (gate, incorrect route, fence). You can't go wrong, can you? Well the first part was easy. Follow the path out of the village, up a valley, through woodland, up and up. Then reach the ridge and the marked ring of stones. Don't turn right, carry on straight across. Then wander through a few trees and down to a dry riverbed, at which point you walk the (ve...

Flamenco had been advertised for 17:30, at the campsite restaurant. The campsite isn't busy yet as it isn't July or August, which seems to be the only time any quantity of Spaniards go on their holidays. The restaurant is commensurably quiet too but we thought we'd go and listen. I'd assumed that Flamenco is just guitar with some clapping but here we had a couple of guys, one who could play the guitar, properly and one who could sing, properly. The guitarist often played two different melodies simultaneously and without checking Google, I think that is Flamenco. I was expecting the other guy just to clap, Flamenco style but clapping was a mere sideline, as he could sing. It was no ordinary lament but a serious, sad almost haunting sound and I only wish that I understood the words. It was a very informal session. I should say that this clip isn't particularly representative of the Flamenco style that I think they were playing! A bigger draw however, was th...