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  • Arturo Pérez-Reverte: build shit, attract shit

    APR is one of Spain’s best-known novelists, and a blustering columnist to boot. Here, translated by Lenox Napier, is a tourism rant of his which is getting a lot of attention at the moment:

    We forget that for decades we have been clamoring for this exact kind of tourism and how we were prepared to trash our coastal villages to benefit from their miserable crumbs, building endless outdoor bars, welcoming anything without the least aesthetic appearance or good taste, scrapping traditional business, turning our children into snack bar waiters to lick the shoes of the drunkest and most worthless tourists in Europe.

    And so on.

    Blaming Johnny Foreigner is all very well – APR’s anti-nationalism is only skin-deep – but the wanton, comprehensive destruction of the Mediterranean littoral also served perceptions of domestic demand. In January 2005 I cycled south from Barcelona to Valencia, and then cross-country to Cádiz for Carnival. Even then, before the final, mad surge of the construction boom, the journey along the coast through the provinces of Barcelona, Tarragona, Castellón and Valencia recalled the obliterating, levelling, stultifying megalomania of Ceausescu’s architectural project for Bucharest and Romania, but the hoardings for the rabbit hutches in construction were in Spanish, not English or German. The Spanish are also incredibly fond of cheap seaside apartments and are increasingly ferocious drinkers and brawlers, but perhaps APR decided they wouldn’t retweet that information.

    I suppose comfort may be sought in the fact that the rest of the Mediterranean is rapidly catching up in terms of the destruction of cultural environments – Russian ribbon development along the Ancient Greeks’ beloved coast of Pontus is said to be quite spectacularly … Russian – and so the relative economic disadvantage may be minor. So perhaps we should just stay away for a decade – for all the human curiosities encountered, I wouldn’t repeat that journey – and wait for Al Gore’s new Zanclean Deluge to sweep it all away. Al? Al?! Where’s a man when you need him?

  • Walking unsteadily from Granada Airport to Granada through the Vega

    As far as I know the first famous traveller recorded as having used ***this route*** was Rodrigo Tellez de Girón, Master of the bloodthirsty Order of Calatrava. He died aged 26 fighting the Moors at Loja a decade before the capitulation of Granada, and was rewarded for his youth, his exploits, his practice of changing sides, with a considerable quantity of praise poetry describing his heroism and non-sectarian gallantry. I know of half a dozen ballads recounting his duels with various Moorish champions. In Juan de Timoneda‘s 1573 Rosa de romances one of these opens with the tremendous image of a black horse walking across the vale of Granada – depopulated during the wars between the Catholic Kings and Boabdil in the 1480s – carrying a chevalier saddled à la genette, his shield on his arm, his lance bloody from the Moors he has killed before coming to the Vega:

    Por la vega de Granada
    Un caballero pasea
    En un caballo morcillo
    Ensillado a la gineta:
    Adarga trae embrazada,
    La lanza traía sangrienta
    De los moros que había muerto
    Antes de entrar en la Vega.

    He rides up to the Alhambra and asks the Nasrid queen if any Moorish champion is prepared to expel him from the Vega. Barbarín accepts his challenge and promises to return with the Master’s head. But the Moor is wounded and then killed as he flees, and the Master cuts off his head and sends it to the Queen, saying that if the Moor will not serve her then he is prepared to take his place.

    The romance is in Agustín Duran (1789-1862)’s splendid Romancero general, which exerted a powerful influence on several generations of writers, including two of Spain’s best-known poets, Antonio Machado and Federico García Lorca. Lorca was born just over the river from Chauchina in Fuente Vaqueros, part of estates rewarded to Wellington for liberating Spain. Although his language may recall that of the romances, I often find his meaning difficult to grasp. Here he is necrologising the Master of Calatrava or someone similar:

    Honda ribera del río,
    Cuerda enorme cuyo acento
    Dice el viento, y la noche
    Su silencio…
    Álamos blancos del prado
    Con pústulas de oro viejo.
    Vivas columnas de carne,
    Arcas de mil hormigueros.
    Entre vosotros mi sombra,
    Cubierta por negros velos,
    Camina llena de gracia
    Rumiando su sufrimiento
    ¡Verde ribera del río,
    Llévame con tu secreto!

    So, on the “broad bank of the river, a great cord, its accent spoken by the wind, its silence by the night… White poplars of the meadow with pustules of old gold [the falling leaves?], live columns of flesh, coffers of a thousand ant colonies”, twixt which his shadow wanders, veiled in black etc etc, suggesting to this confused brain a wish to be interred in the swamp along with the glorious mouldering past.

    Anyway, more of that kind of stuff if there’s public demand. Although cheap money enabled by West Germany has permitted the locals to convert particularly the last stretch into a sorry parody of pre-Wende East Germany, it’s still a remarkable patch of land.

  • Travelling to Bournemouth Airport from Southampton? Go via Christchurch and walk if you can

    A sizeable proportion of Bournemouth airport’s traffic comes from the Southampton conurbation, and a sizeable proportion of them make the costly mistake of travelling to Bournemouth by train and taking the shuttle or a taxi. In fact, Christchurch is always quicker (the Bournemouth shuttle leaves on the hour, which is when 1/3 fast trains arrive – duh) and almost always cheaper. The ice cream and scenery is also far superior. Here’s the chart (BM = Bournemouth, CC = Christchurch, “CC taxi Hurn”: ask for village stores buy a sarnie and walk the last couple of hundred metres):

    So, unless you’re single and non-ambulant, give Bournemouth a miss and travel via Christchurch.

    If you fancy a walk, check out the page on walking to Bournemouth Airport from Christchurch for details on how to save most while enjoying a brief tour of Christchurch’s northern fringe.

    [
    The data:

    ]

  • Border security at Girona airport

    I’m flying Ryanair Girona-Bristol tomorrow to get a bit of rain, and like everyone entering to the UK I have in mind the possible impact of strike action on the UK Border Agency. This time I suspect it will be non-white workers of the world who will suffer most, but I’m always been slightly wary of this service following a number of problems with them some years ago.

    Having made the error of electing to be born in Belfast, I later compounded it by playing terrible gigs at British bases down the Rhine at a time when they were under more serious attack from the IRA. Whichever branch of the UK government it was that dealt with such things came to the wrong conclusion. And so, flying in every Christmas, on the first two occasions I was hauled out of the line by a scrawny old git who took me into a room and strip-searched me. The third time around I thought I’d struck lucky: a rather attractive girl called me over, took me into the room, suggested I remove my clothes and get comfortable, and then left … and in came the scrawny old git.

    The one airport where I’ve never had the slightest problem with border security is Girona. The reason is straightforward enough: Ryanair, effectively the sole operator, has made it clear that any inconvenience to it or its passengers will result in the dole for everyone except the Guardia Civil, who may be exiled to Guipúzcoa. The communiqué issued for the June 15 strike is a delicious example of the O’Leary negotiating style:

    Ryanair calls on the agitators from [whichever union was trying to muscle in on the airport, which is de facto deunionised] to stop bothering Girona airport staff and to get in their buses and leave. Ryanair … has asked the Guardia Civil to guarantee that airport handling staff can get to their jobs free from the harassment and intimidation caused by this clowns union, none of whom works at Girona Airport.

    My favourite breach at Girona was a couple of years ago, with myself and the girlfriend determined to take a leg of serrano and a ham stand in hand luggage to fog-bound relatives. My scanner saw the ham, cracked up, and let me through, but the GF went through the other aisle with the stand, and on her unprepared scanner’s screen appeared something resembling a really vicious medieval garotte, equipped with a massive screw and spike capable of wreaking havoc on flesh and fuselage. He started jumping up and down, but protest was registered, and over came the Guardia Civil to adjudicate. “No problem,” he said, “Muslim fanatics don’t eat ham.”

    [
    If anyone else is on the flight and fancies a free stroll and a beer, we’re planning to cheat the taxi and shuttle mafia by walking from the airport over to Keynsham and then take the train to Bath.
    ]

  • Walking from Barcelona to Madrid

    Some of Barcelona‘s Plaza de Cataluña 15M indignados have set out on foot for Madrid, accompanied by Walter and his version of the Rinky-Dink Mobile Bicycle-Powered Sound System. Their aim is to arrive at the Puerta del Sol in time for a demonstration on July 23, and their route plan suggests that they’re planning to achieve this by walking 545 km in 29 days. Google Maps says it’s rather more, at 614 km, but whether their daily average is 18.79 or 21.17 km, with no days off there’ll be some sore heads and feet on those unshaded roads now that temperatures are projected to reach 40ºC.

    The Puerta del Sol is of course the traditional lair of the Spanish postal dragon, whence official routes were imagined in 1720 and distances officially measured starting in 1857. All these radial marches converging on it have done nothing to calm the Bourbonoias of Catalan nationalists, who already saw the predominance of Spanish, Barcelona’s lingua franca, in the Barcelona protest as evidence of a centralist plot, forgetting that Catalan only prevails in what they like to call “civil society” because participation is contingent on subsidies and subsidies are contingent on linguistic practice.

    These fears should (but probably won’t) be mollified by the fact that, rather than following the imperial post routes, which averted encounters with highwaymen, hunger and the nastier bits of nature, the marchers are taking a short cut across Lower Aragon. 200 years ago, according to Bernardo Espinalt y García’s Dirección general de cartas en forma de diccionario: para escribir a todas las ciudades… de toda España para mayor facilidad del comercio, y correspondencia pública de sus naturales y estrangeros (1835), their return journey would have looked like this:

    to…

    		Spanish leagues
    Torrejón de Ardoz

    		4.0
    Venta de Meco

    		3.5
    Guadalajara

    		3.5
    Torija

    		3.0
    Gajanejos

    		3.0
    Almadrones

    		2.5
    Torremocha

    		3.0
    Bujarrabal

    		2.5
    Lodares

    		2.5
    Arcos de Jalón

    		2.5
    Monreal de Ariza

    		3.0
    Cetina

    		2.0
    Bubierca

    		2.0
    Ateca

    		2.0
    Calatayud

    		2.0
    El Frasno

    		3.0
    La Almunia de Doña Godina

    		3.0
    La Romera

    		3.0
    Muela

    		2.0
    Garrapinillos

    		2.0
    Zaragoza

    		2.0
    La Puebla de Alfindén

    		3.0
    Osera de Ebro

    		3.0
    Venta de Santa Lucia

    		3.0
    Bujaraloz

    		3.0
    Candasnos

    		3.0
    Venta de Banrs (?)

    		2.0
    Fraga

    		2.0
    Alcarràs

    		3.0
    Lleida

    		2.0
    Bell-Lloc d’Urgell

    		2.5
    Golmés

    		2.5
    Vilagrassa

    		2.5
    Cervera

    		2.5
    La Panadella

    		2.5
    Gancho (? Ganxo/Gantxo)

    		2.5
    Igualada

    		2.0
    Castellolí

    		2.5
    Collbató

    		2.5
    Martorell

    		2.0
    Sant Feliu de Llobregat

    		3.0
    Barcelona

    		2.0
    total

    		109.0

    Such routes are of course far older than Philip V or postmen – see for example Pedro Juan Villuga’s 1546 compilation, where the centre of gravity is Toledo, the old capital. Assuming we’re measuring using the legua real (Spanish metrology was quite chaotic until quite recently), Espinalt y García’s version would have taken a whopping 728.88 km, but his long and cranky predecessor of the modern, straightened motorway would at least have given marchers the opportunity to attempt to proselytise a doubting public in bars along the way – wasn’t that what the Jarrow Crusade was all about? Instead, rather like modern politicians in need of democratic renewal, they will travel with a support team through the arenous wastes of Teruel and Guadalajara, and we will have to learn of their progress and pronouncements from TV and internet broadcasts.

    That rather lonely set-up worries me: could it be that what they have in mind is the mythologised unifying function of Mao’s not-so Long March into desolation in the creation of the Chineses dictatorship, or some other foreign folly, rather than great Spanish pilgrimages of our somewhat over-extended late-medieval age? Ah! for the march from Málaga to Madrid in 1982 of 30 blind lottery ticket vendors unhappy with their contractual arrangements, all of whom survived, or the departure in June 1533 for Montserrat of more than 2,000 citizens of Barcelona, many forswearing footwear, by which they hoped to cure the wife of Charles I of Spain of a dreadful case of toothache.

  • Eastward, cross-country pub-crawl to Bristol airport

    Here. I’ll be posting more of these, my basic criteria being that they must

    • Be cheaper and nicer than airport shuttles and taxis. Travelling to airports by the conventional means is generally a humiliating rip-off.
    • Pass beautiful or interesting things.
    • Include at least one excellent drinking hole.

  • Prices down

    Mr Wu has written an integrated booking system which considerably reduces admin for most clients, who will benefit from this saving. In addition, prices have been rebalanced to make most walks cheaper for most people. Depending on how things go this summer, we may implement an automated tool to let people register provisionally for walks that will only go ahead if enough people sign up – at the moment all private bookings are for self-formed groups.

  • Heron City, Meridiana, Barcelona to Cerdanyola on foot

    Since someone asked, here’s what I can remember. Walking time probably 2.5 hours. Your money back if you die of hunger or are eaten by wolves.

    Head to Roquetes more or less via Via Julia metro (couple of excellent bars in the pedestrian street leading up to it), walk to the top of the shantytown and then up over open ground (there are a couple of paths and staircases) to the junction of Carretera Alta de Roquetes and Carrer Lliçà (tower of Torre Baró and ugly mirador to your right).

    If you want to take a detour to the high part of the shanties of Torre Baró with a couple of interesting bars and curious folk with the occasional pig and chicken, walk about 80m down Lliçà and there’s a break in the crash barrier with a path leading through the pine forest.

    Otherwise to continue Cerdanyola-wards take the stone path that bisects Lliçà and Alta de Roquetes heading uphill. I think you then take the 2nd path on the left, which takes you in about 10 minutes up to the summit with splendid views over Barcelona and the Maresma. You then follow the ridge for about 5 minutes, passing on the right an old iron mineshaft on the right and a path back to an old research station on the summit. [Walk tour that includes this bit.]

    In a clearing with a couple of Italian stone pines a path to the right (I think it’s signposted Can Cuyas or perhaps Sta Maria de Moncada) takes you down from the ridge. You’ll pass the cemetery on your left and then I think you arrive at a bridge over the motorway with the industrial zone of Can Cuyas on your right.

    Don’t cross the bridge unless you want to go via Sta Maria, but drop down into the valley on your left with allotments and a compound containing the flock used to graze that end of the forest. Walking parallel to the motorway along a winding dirt track you get to the cemetery access road. Turn left on that and then I seem to recall a path (lots of paths) through the woods to get to Cerdanyola.

    Here’s an approximation to the first part:


    View Larger Map

  • Located, the fifth fanny / Encontrado, el quinto coño

    “El quinto coño” refers, for reasons unclear even to connoisseurs of Jamesian multivulvular theory, to an almost impossibly far-away place. There’s a meme going round at the moment which places it in an undetermined locality in Murcia. Murcia is not far away from anywhere, so this is presumably Valencian slander.

    Restaurante el Quinto Coño is actually in a small village called La Codosera in Los Baldíos de Alburquerque in the Extremaduran province of Badajoz, a mile or so away from Portugal. The local administration’s guide to the zone lists it with phone number 924 404 014, while an extract of the Chamber of Commerce register says it can be reached on 924 404 390 and that it does a menu for the exceptionally attractive price of 7€. It seems to be on the southern outskirts of the village, and I can’t think of that many places I’d prefer to be at the moment than having a pre-prandial something on the terrace:


    View Larger Map

    (For all I know the “el quinto pino“, the fifth pine, may be in Murcia. Still quite a lot of pine in Murcia.)

  • Church of Sant Pau at Montmany about to fall down?

    That’s the claim here, although I have to say it doesn’t seem to have got much worse in the years I’ve been basing a route around it. Partial collapse, leaving accessible Gothic-ish ruins, might even be preferable, but if it disappeared completely and the mad, mad farm next door were to be civilised then the walk would lose much of its eccentric charm.