A Spanish Sunday
Oct. 2nd, 2011 09:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustThis post brought to you by the department of being careful what you wish for: over lunch in the main square Haro yesterday -
- we had both ordered the 'ensalada especial Obarenes' (Obarenes being the name of the café). This turned out to be the usual bed of crisp leaves (some frisée, some radicchio) scattered with prawns, walnuts, chicken pieces, canned pineapple and currants, dowsed in a creamy dressing (mm...could that be blue cheese?) topped with a generous helping of elvers. I don't think I've ever eaten elvers before. Call me conservative, but I could have done without the pineapple -
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durham_rambler remarked that although he was enjoying his holiday, he felt we were passing through Spain without really making contact in the way he particularly enjoys in France. We agreed that not speaking Spanish probably has something to do with this, and forgot about it.
But this morning, as we drove away from our hotel in the old centre of Santo Domingo de la Calzada, we reached the bollards which limit vehicle access to its narrow streets, waited until the bollard straight ahead of us had sunk into the ground and drove confidently into its companion below our line of sight on the right, which had not descended. We can't have been moving at any speed, but the impact has still left the bumper hanging off on the front right. crumpled the fog light, and made it impossible to open the driver's door.
That's the injury. The insult, as anyone familiar with Durham will have spotted, is that access to the Peninsula was until recently controlled by a rising bollard which was removed because so many tourists managed to impale their cars on it. We ought, as residents, to be used to these devices.
We have insurance and Britannia Rescue and telephone access to them, but Sunday in Spain is absolute. They found a mechanic to take our car to his garage, but the Toyota garage won't open until tomorrow. There is no car to be hired closer than the airports of Bilbao and Madrid (again, one will be available tomorrow), so eventually they found a taxi to bring us just short of a hundred miles to tonight's hotel.
Which is why we crossed out of La Rioja into Castilla y León in the back seat of a taxi, gazing through the tinted windows across the sweeping fields of tawny stubble at the pilgrims toiling along the old road in the heat (and not envying them).
PS. Tonight's hotel, which is quite charming, gives its rooms uplifting names. we are in 'Paz Intrinseca' which I could certainly do with.
- we had both ordered the 'ensalada especial Obarenes' (Obarenes being the name of the café). This turned out to be the usual bed of crisp leaves (some frisée, some radicchio) scattered with prawns, walnuts, chicken pieces, canned pineapple and currants, dowsed in a creamy dressing (mm...could that be blue cheese?) topped with a generous helping of elvers. I don't think I've ever eaten elvers before. Call me conservative, but I could have done without the pineapple -
-
durham_rambler remarked that although he was enjoying his holiday, he felt we were passing through Spain without really making contact in the way he particularly enjoys in France. We agreed that not speaking Spanish probably has something to do with this, and forgot about it.But this morning, as we drove away from our hotel in the old centre of Santo Domingo de la Calzada, we reached the bollards which limit vehicle access to its narrow streets, waited until the bollard straight ahead of us had sunk into the ground and drove confidently into its companion below our line of sight on the right, which had not descended. We can't have been moving at any speed, but the impact has still left the bumper hanging off on the front right. crumpled the fog light, and made it impossible to open the driver's door.
That's the injury. The insult, as anyone familiar with Durham will have spotted, is that access to the Peninsula was until recently controlled by a rising bollard which was removed because so many tourists managed to impale their cars on it. We ought, as residents, to be used to these devices.
We have insurance and Britannia Rescue and telephone access to them, but Sunday in Spain is absolute. They found a mechanic to take our car to his garage, but the Toyota garage won't open until tomorrow. There is no car to be hired closer than the airports of Bilbao and Madrid (again, one will be available tomorrow), so eventually they found a taxi to bring us just short of a hundred miles to tonight's hotel.
Which is why we crossed out of La Rioja into Castilla y León in the back seat of a taxi, gazing through the tinted windows across the sweeping fields of tawny stubble at the pilgrims toiling along the old road in the heat (and not envying them).
PS. Tonight's hotel, which is quite charming, gives its rooms uplifting names. we are in 'Paz Intrinseca' which I could certainly do with.
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no subject
Date: 2011-10-02 08:19 pm (UTC)Oh, wait. Never mind.
Sorry about the car. That's one of my nightmares, getting in a car wreck in a country where I don't speak the language. Ugh. I hope it gets all resolved nicely.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-03 05:15 pm (UTC)We managed to burst the tyre on a hired car in a car park on Cape Cod, and had to phone - Hertz, I think it was, and tell them we'd had a flat in a rented auto in a parking lot.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-03 06:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-02 08:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-03 05:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-03 11:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-03 05:34 pm (UTC)As for the hotel (Hotel Doña Mayor, Fromista (http://www.hoteldonamayor.com/)), judge for yourself:
no subject
Date: 2020-06-09 11:29 am (UTC)