Sicily has a long history, and for most of that time the primary means of transport was foot or horse. Consequently the Sicilian towns are not great places to drive around, we didn’t hire a car for our trip. So we are missing out on all the fun of being stuck behind tractors, driving round hair-pin bends up mountains and trying to find a parking place in a hill-top village.
The buses are regular and reasonably priced, but they are a bit slow. I have a thick Stephen King novel to read, so I can spare the time rattling along congested highways.
Today we went to Noto, which is about an hour to the south of Siracusa on a hill. Its origins go back to the Greeks, and has subsequently been occupied by all the many invaders after that. For a while it was part of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, a short lived 19th century kingdom. At the time, bizarrely, the Kingdom of Naples was also called the Kingdom of Sicily. When it amalgamated with yer actual Sicily it became the Kingdom of Two Sicilies.
There is a local Twickenham connection to this area. The daughter of King Ferdinand of the Two Sicilies, Princess Amilie, married Phillipe the Duc D’Orleans and lived in Twickenham in Orleans House. He later became King of the French and she became the Queen.
Anyway I digress considerably. Noto was destroyed by an earthquake in 1693 and was rebuilt in the Baroque style, and is mostly intact. This is in contrast to other Sicilian cities which were badly damaged by bombing in WWII. It is a UNESCO Heritage site, so you can’t add Velux windows or bi-fold doors to your Baroque palazzo.
We arrived at the impressive entrance gate at the same time as about five million school kids moving like wilderbeest on the Serengeti. I’m sure Italians get lessons in how to talk over each other extremely loudly. Having a conversation appears to be a competitive event, and a sprint rather than a long distance race. The mass of kids were slowly ingested through the gate like a crocodile swallowing a herd of colourful squirrels.
Big gate with thousands of students
Once they had been swallowed we took a side street up from the main drag. The road was steep and lined with honey coloured houses with fancy balconies. I was convinced that there would be a spectacular view of the stunning countryside at the top. But there was just a big white concrete wall. What a bloody waste of energy.
They love a balcony in Noto
S0 we walked back down to the town centre on a footpath about two feet wide. When someone walked in the opposite direction with a dog it was a stare-off until I decided the dachshund looked vicious and stepped onto the road.
We stopped at a cafe and ordered a sandwich for me and a salad for Julie. Oh, and I had a Heineken, it’s my birthday still innit? I noticed that in the cafe opposite they had cones of fried seafood which smelled delicious, and I immediately got food envy. C’est la vie.
There was a kind of flower festival in the town, with displays made up of petals and coloured rice making pictures. That’s why there were so many school kids visiting. It is a well-known fact that kids adore floral displays.
Floral display- kids love ’em
I would imagine that the local pigeons and rats would make short work of the colourful displays, so maybe they mix the petals and rice with a hideous poison or guard them with marksmen on the rooftops.
I heard a car revving extremely hard and noisily in the street. There were lots of Carabiniere standing around in their tight trousers and side-arms, so I expected them to arrest the miscreants. Then I saw that it was a police Lamborghini that was making the racket, fucking show-off.
Flash bastard coppers
There were also some Carabiniere on horses letting people take selfies with them. I guess that would terrify any local Mafiosa thinking of selling cocaine amongst the floral displays.
Horse police for chasing down litter-bugs with sabres
The cathedral is very beautiful, and looks like it was built yesterday. Thats because quite a bit of it was built recently. The dome collapsed in 1996 due to unremidied structural weaknesses after an earthquake in 1990. Having seen how they build their houses in Siracusa, I’m not surprised.
Noto cathedral
Anyway it is very lovely now, and worth a visit. Inside it is relatively plain compared to other Catholic cathedrals, but the ceiling paintings are very good. I’m always at a loss to describe paintings, my vocabulary for that stuff is very limited, and i guess that’s why I never became an art critic.
Magnolia interior, it was on offer in Wickes
Noto has many many places to buy gelato, and today I had a piccolo-sized cone with chocolate and pistachio scoops. In fact I still have some tasty remnants in my beard I can enjoy for the rest of the evening.
The return bus to Siracusa was quicker than the outgoing and I slept for a while. The seats are designed for small people, and I am not. So I dozed bolt-upright with my head lolling about like a puppet with a broken head string.
We bought beers and went to our roof terrace to enjoy the rest of the afternoon and watch the swifts zipping about over the rooftops.
Julie is busy choosing a restaurant for dinner tonight, we didn’t eat out last night because we were full of salty snacks. I am, of course writing this wonderful blog for your entertainment.
Almost at the end of our trip and the sun is shining, it’s a sunny hot day! It was also our last chance to visit Vagueta, the oldest and most attractive part of the city. Las Palmas is scattered with sculptures and memorials in most of the small parks which is rather lovely. This guy, Dr Juan Negrin Lopez has been given some makeup, I’m not sure if the lipstick is the right shade for his green moustache.
CAAM is the Centro Atlantico de Art Moderno, the modern art museum. It is housed in a beautiful purpose built gallery close to Casa Colon. Like all modern art museums, the content is a mixed bag of genius and “what the hell is that!” The good far outweighed the indifferent, and there are some beautiful as well as challenging images in there.
I have called this one “a nod is as good as a wink”, which is also the name of an album by The Faces. Did I ever tell you that I saw the Faces once in 1972? They came of late and were as pissed as farts, as usual.
We spent a very pleasant couple of hours wandering around enjoying and trying to make sense of the pieces. Every picture and sculpture had a little description/explanation in Spanish and English, and every one was mystifying to me. The text below could be used for any of the pieces and make the same amount of sense.
In the British spirit of “bloody hell I could do better than that” I made a Work Of Art. I didn’t have a 5 year old with a packet of crayons to exploit, so this is a self-portrait. Its called “Parallel Lines:Not Blondie”. It expresses my alienation from the world of sport, and hope for the future of music through an appreciation of Deborah Harry. Possibly.
This is available from Eltimbola Enterprises as a colour photocopy for £399.99, and an extra 100 quid if you want it signed.
Spain is a lovely country in many ways. But it doesn’t have have the same level of basic amenities as in the UK. They don’t have cafes in museums, which is a horrifying omission. They miss out on an enormous revenue stream by not flogging overpriced cakes and crappacino to peckish visitors. The cafe at Kew Gardens covers several hectares and is designed to slow down the flow of customers as much as possible and sell cakes that cost as much as the hourly minimum wage. I think CAAM should convert one of the exhibition spaces into a cafe and sell coffee and carrot cake, the English tourists would pour millions of Euros into it to spend on more Art.
We took our good money elsewhere, and found a top cafe near the market. We shared a fabulous focaccia sandwich with Jamon Jamon in it, and a slice of almond cake. My lips they say “yes”, my waist he say “wibble wobble”.
After lunch we got on a number 12 up the coastal road to Parque de Santa Catalina. I wanted to take a look at the Elder Science Museum, which is housed in a big old warehouse once built by a British company called Elder. I looked through the window and could see that it was puny compared to the mighty Science Museum in Sarf Ken, so I kept my 6 Euros to spend on beer.
This is the museum, a big shed with half an extension on the top. The tall palm trees are called Washingtonia and are from California, the small ones are Phoenix Canariensis, which are local.
The park is on the Isthmus, so we walked across to Canteras beach, which was looking fabulous in the hot sunshine. It was very busy with pale tourists gently roasting in the sun. I sat on a bench looking at the sea until I got too hot, and then found a bit of shade about 30cm wide under a palm tree and sat like Robinson Crusoe hiding from the sun. Because I’m a bit of a nerd, I observed that the shadow of the tree moved about 10 cm in 10 minutes. Consequently I had to keep moving round to stay in the shade so I didn’t shrivel like Gollum.
I read my Kindle, which is much better than a phone for reading in the sun. I’m reading Nuts and Bolts by Roma Agrawal. It’s all about the engineering of small things like the wheel, pumps, nails and nuts. I enjoyed it very much, but it wouldn’t suit everyone. Probably most people to be honest. I just like to know how things work, and how they came to be. Stories are quite good, but give a man a fact and he can bore people for life.
At about 4pm we met up with Jo and Dave and found a very good restaurant overlooking the beach, with seats in the shade; perfect. There we stayed for several hours drinking and eating, it was very good indeed. Super-good, one might say.
It started getting overcast and cool at about 6.30 and took the bus down to Jo and Dave’s hotel near San Telmo, and went to the bar to test the quality of the wine and beer. Extensive research brought us to the conclusion that on the Nice/Good/Super-good/Triffic scale, the booze came in at Good. I will publish the results in the European Journal of Booze Studies. This will probably get noted by the Daily Mail and published as a health story.
I went to bed at about 11 pm, full of joy and Vino Tinto. I awoke at 1 am with hydrochloric acid erupting in my stomach like a volcano, c’est las vie.
That was our last proper day on Gran Canaria. Thursday was all about waiting of various types; at bus stops, airports and on a plane. But until they figure out how the Tardis works, thats always going to happen at the end of a holiday.
I hope you have enjoyed my blog. If you did, send me some fan mail to timharness@timharnesstravels
I can then share some facts with you about nuts and bolts or the movement of the sun relative to a Canarian palm tree.
Today it was time to get outa Dodge and commune with nature at the Jardin Botanico. Before we left Julie was about to make some coffee, but there was no power. There were workmen at a bank over the road doing something, so I went to investigate. It could have been a massive heist by a major OCG, but Ray Winstone wasn’t there and there was no glamorous lady criminal mastermind in a tight skirt and stilettos. A bloke in overalls pointed at a notice tied to a lamp post, written in Spanish of course. Google Translate worked its magic and told me that the power would be off until 5.30 in the evening. So no coffee for me.
The bus went from San Telmo bus station, 5 minutes away from the flat. It only took about 15 minutes to get to the botanic gardens in the hills above the city. There was a wooden cabin at the entrance where a man told us we wouldn’t need a ticket. Maybe that’s his job, and he has a degree in telling people it’s free to get it. Our first stop was the rather nice restaurant to get a coffee and book for lunch later on.
The restaurant was at the top of a big hill, and most of the gardens were at the bottom, so we walked a short way down and then sat on a bench in the sunshine until it was lunchtime.
The restaurant is very nice, and definitely a step up from the Mexican last night. We had a great table in the window overlooking the gardens and the hills across the valley.
Do you want to know what we had? Steak and Kidney Pudding and Mushy Peas. Only kidding, we had crispy prawns to start followed by Hake and potatoes and fried peppers. I said to the waitress “can I see the drinks menu?”, she said “we don’t have a drinks menu”. Aha I thought, a cunning trick to make us buy a 30 Euro bottle of mediocre wine, so we had water (flat).
After lunch we walked down steps to reach the main part of the gardens. They are uneven stone steps, with a cliff on one side and a steep drop on the other. There are very few signs, and the wrong turn can lead to a dead end or really precipitous steps about 2 feet wide. So it took us 20 minutes of careful walking to get to the bottom of the cliff.
That’s Julie thinking about the Life Insurance policy I took out on her last week.
But it was worth it, since the gardens at the bottom are very lovely. It was much more Spanish (disorganised) than Kew, but it is extensive and relaxing. There are sections of pine forest, laura silva, coastal plants, succulents and cactuses. A murky pond was churning with fish and dragon flies hovered over it which were the size of Ornithopters.
Some of the cactuses are the size of trees, and have woody trunks with bark 60cm across. The laura silva woodland is a recreated remnant of a type forest which once covered much of the Canaries and Madiera. It was alive with birdsong, the most I have heard on the island. When we travelled to Costa Rica in 2022 we expected lots of birdsong in the rainforest, but all we heard was distant Howler Monkeys.
It is a great place to visit, but its a pity there are no bus stops at the bottom of the hill. On the other hand, climbing back up the stairs took only 11 minutes and we only had to wait 10 minutes for a bus. The bus dropped us in Vagueta and we saw some more lovely streets of old houses.
I’m sat next to the tiny balcony in the flat with the doors open listening to the chatter from the street below. I have a glass of iced Ron Miel and some salty nuts, so I’m happy as a pig in shit. The Jehovahs are down there witnessing all the people who won’t be going to heaven with them. What I’m thinking is that if heaven is full of that lot, it’s probably very boring and down stairs with all the sinners would be much more fun.
The sun was shining this morning from the beginning of the day, so we got out of the flat early…ish. There were pants and socks to wash, so in the event we got out at 11, which is early for a holiday.
The Jehovahs were out on the street trying to convert people by just standing there with their leaflet stand. Quite honestly they could just as well have several cardboard cut-outs of varous versions of Doctor Who and achieve the same number of converts.
We walked for about 5 minutes to get to San Telmo Park, and decided we needed a coffee, its the only way to start the day in Spain. The park is opposite Puerto de la Luz, one of the biggest ports in Spain. They service floating drilling rigs at the port, and there were several lined up ready to get their spark plugs changed and timing belt adjusted.
The park is close to the sea, but is overlooked by hills not far away. In Google Maps I looked up Mirador (viewpoint) and found Mirador de Schamann about 20 minutes walk away, so we headed up there. On the way we passed this interesting looking old building, which is the Canarian Naval Headquarters. I expect they are ready to vigorously fend off any English or Dutch pirates. But quite honestly the Spanish Navy hasn’t had much success since the Battle of Trafalgar.
The view from the mirador was excellent, and the hike up the hill will hopefully negate the effects of the alcohol I will drink tonight. Notice all the drilling rigs in the port. Also you can see that the houses are all little boxes made of ticky tacky and they all look just the same.
We had lunch at the flat (bread/sardines/hummous/tomatoes/sangria) and in the afternoon had another explore of Triana. There are so many interesting streets and a plethora of restaurants.
Have I used the word plethora before? I don’t think so. Like Ithmus, it has a TH in the middle. My initials are TH, surely there is a mystical connection.
Anyway I digress, we mouched about looking at nice places and taking note of restaurants for this evening.
This is the Gabinete Literato, which is a cultural and scientific society a bit like our own Royal Society.
Inside it is equally lovely, and it has a restaurant that we might try out some time.
I took loads more pictures of pretty places, and have cleverly made them into a collage. Not only am I a master of unusual words with TH in them, but I also use collages in my work, I truly am a polymath (which also contains TH).
At 6.30 we met Dave and Jo in their hotel and walked them into Triana. We had a drink in one of the side streets running off Calle Triana, then went in search of a restaurant. They were either Inside Restaurants with no menu on the wall outside and linen table cloths (out of our league) or Outside Restaurants with affordable menus to peruse, but a bit drafty in the street.
Eventually our rumbling tummies overruled us and we found an Outside Restaurant near Plaza del Ranas (Frog Square). My chicken and wrinkled potatoes were very good, washed down with a hearty Rioja.
So far we have had an ‘amuse bouche’ of Gran Canaria, dipping into the old town in las Plamas and Canteras beach. Today we went for the Full Monty, a coach trip up to the mountainous centre of the island and south to Maspolomas. I booked the tour weeks ago, and was hoping that it would show us the interior without having to hire a car.
The bus picked us up at Plaza del Ranas, on the road that separates Triana from Vegueta. There were about 35 people on the bus, with an English speaking guide called Pavel, who is Czech, but has lived in Gran Canaria for a very long time. He was a ball of energy who barely stopped talking, but in a very good way.
It is an understatement to say that the road was windy, it was nothing but bends for hours on end. Luckily my stomach didn’t complain much. The first stop was at Bandama, to see a bloody great hole. Bandama crater is the remains of a volcano that exploded millions of years ago, and it takes an hour to walk around it. It was named after a Dutchman called Van Damme, who owned the land, and the locals mangled his name. At the bottom is a farm where a man called Augustin lived with his family during the Civil War. He never left the crater until he was 80, when he moved in with his sister in the next village. Pavel reckons he is still alive and in his mid 90’s!
This is a picture of a perennially cheerful Pavel telling us all about the ancient occupant of the crater.
We stopped briefly at Santa Brigida, a village named after Saint Brigid. There were at least two Saint Brigids, one was an Irish Virgin and the other was a Swedish do-gooder. Catholics love a nice virgin, and so does Sir Richard Branson, for completley different reasons.
The bus went up and up and twisty turny twisty turny until we reached the top of the island at Pico de las Nievas, the snowy peak. But not today fortunately, it was sunny and we had amazing views across lots of the island. Not far away was Roque Nublo, an eroded volcanic plug (like Arthurs Seat in Edinburgh) and the island’s most famous landmark. Behind it I could see Mount Teide on Tenerife, which I ascended a couple of years ago (by cable car).
This is me at the top. I seem to have aquired a giant hand, it must be the altitude of something.
It was all downhill after that, literally. Beyond the Pico we were in the rainshadow of the mountains, so the landscape changed from lush green to desert. The vegetation changed rapidly to cacti and agaves, and the landscape was like Arizona or Utah.
We stopped for lunch at an oasis village called Fagata, and ate at a restaurant that Pavel had phone ahead to give them our order. I had goat stew with fried potatoes and padron peppers, it was very tender and delicious. I washed it down with a glass of Tropical beer, the local brew made in Las Palmas.
This is what erosion does to a volcano after about 12 million years.
From Fagata it was only half an hour to Maspolomas, which is the main mass tourism resort in the sunnier southern half of the island. The weather is better, there are lots of sand dunes and bars, but no culture. When I travel I want to see authentic places with history and culture, not just hotels and beaches that could be anywhere.
We had 40 minutes wandering along the beach and admiring a fresh water lagoon which is a bird sanctuary. I think we will come down on the bus one day so we can visit it properly.
It took an hour to get back to Las Palmas on the motorway, so we celebrated our return with a glass of local wine in El Patio bar in Vagueta. It’s inside an old style courtyard, and definitly worth another visit.
It’s a big day tomorrow, our buddies Dave and Jo are joining us on our adventure!
We had a very languorous start to the day, mostly doing Sweet FA until about 11.30. We then ambled south along Calle Triana (Calle is pronounced Cayeh in Gran Canaria) and explored a few more of the side streets. There are some very beautiful old houses with wooden balconies, typical of the Canaries.
We crossed Calle Fuente to reach Vagueta, a major road that was once a river until the 20th century. The area we are staying in is called Triana which is 16th and 17th century, Vagueta is the original part of Las Palmas which was founded in 1473 by Castillian Juan Rejon. The Spanish fought the local people for five years before they were conquered by their better armed opponents. Guns, Germs and Steel win every time.
In Vaqueta we met Maria, a local guide who took us around the old town centre. She was an excellent guide and spoke ten to the dozen in a strong Spanish accent that I had to tune into. She loved the area and was enthused about the gorgeous old buildings. One of the first we saw was a little church where Christopher Columbus once prayed while one of his ships was being fixed on his first trip to China (that’s what he thought).
Next to the little church are some palm trees, not the original Las Palmas, but close to where they grew. Vagueta (which means a small piece of fertile ground) has several lovely museums and lots of cafes offering tempting pastries and cocktails (later in the day). Maria told us that Francis Drake had a go at Las Palmas in his usual piratical way, followed later by the Dutch having a pop. Gran Canaria is a very desirable location between Europe, Africa and America. The Canarians built narrow streets with tight corners, so they could pick off any invaders one by one.
The grandest building is the Cathedral of Santa Ana. Apparently Saint Anne was Jesus’s grandmother, and his grandfather was called Joaquin, like Phoenix. Who knew that?
This picture is the back of Santa Ana, with Maria in the corner.
There’s a fantastic market in Vagueta selling local food. Pushing the culinary boat out we invested in some Iberico ham. The pigs are fed only on acorns, and it costs 20 Euros for 100g, that’s 200 Euros a Kilo my friends. Fuck it, we’re on holiday! To go with it, we got some spelt bread, and ate it at lunch in the flat. Needless to say, it was bloody delicious.
After lunch we got the 17 bus to Canteras beach. Las Palmas is a very big city, and the north of is shaped like a lollipop. There is a big peninsular sticking out at the northern end, which is made up of old volcanoes. This area is called Isleta, and is connected to the rest of the city by an isthmus. Dear reader this is the first time I have ever used the word Isthmus, and I’m proud of it. On the western side of the isthmus is a beautiful beach called Canteras, allegedly the best urban beach in Europe.
Its very popular with surfers, most of whom are enthusiastic but crap at surfing. But its a lovely place to hang out in the afternoon sunshine.
Isleta is the lumpy bit at the end of the beach.
Las Palmas is a lovely place, and I’m looking forward to exploring it more. It’s wine time for me now.
I’m visiting Gran Canaria for the first time. I have developed a taste for the Canary archipeligo for several very good reasons.
They are the nearest warm place you can fly to in the Winter/early Spring which is in Europe (sort of). The islands all have their own character, and you can get culture if you want it, plus the booze is cheap and the food is good.
London is still damned chilly right now and the beer is a ridiculous price unless you go to Spoons, and as much as I love them, I don’t want to boost Tim Martin’s bank balance too much. I do appreciate that he is called Tim, there many talented Tims, such as Berners Lee, Vine and Peak. I’m the most popular Tim Harness, I asked my wife and she agreed with me.
Julie and I are staying in the capitol of Gran Canaria, Las Palmas, which is on the top right hand side of the roughly circular island. Its a big city, half an hour from the airport by bus.
Our apartment is in the old part of town called Triana, which is full of shops and restaurants. Julie cleverly chose a beautiful flat on Calle Triana, a pedestrianised shopping street which is very cool. The flat has a balcony about 30 cm wide, too narrow to sit on, but we can open the big windows and watch the passersby.
Since we arrived there has been a group of Jehovahs Witnesses with their little stand of leaflets doing nothing, just across the road. They don’t appear to talk to anyone, they just stand there looking hopeful that someone will approach them. I guess they think they are doing Gods Work, but it appears to me like a total waste of time when they could be in the pub or watching a Grand Prix on the telly.
We got settled in and walked around the locality to suss out where we can eat and drink. Like all touristy places in the Canaries there is an Ale Hop (ally op) which is a bit like Tiger and sells pretty things that you don’t really need but you buy anyway.
There is a Hyper Dino supermarket close to the flat, so we bought our essential supplies, including two bars of 70% chocolate, which I consider is one of life’s necessities.
Thus enriched with supplies we enjoyed an aperitivo by the balcony and made quiet rude comments about the innocent folk below. Jehovah would be very disappointed with me, but I’m sure he will forgive me.
Venturing out again (no more than 200 yards) we found Cafe Cristal and I had a pizza. It wasn’t just good, it was magnificent, with more topping than Bertram Mills Circus.
After loosening my belt, we walked down the Calle to San Telmo Park at the end, which is small but very very pretty. Take a look at this Art Deco cafe, isn’t it gorgeous?
Bloody hell it was cold at five fifteen this morning when I was scraping the ice off the Qashqai. Our flight from Gatport Airwick was at seven forty, so we had to get up at stupid-o-clock on the coldest day of the year.
The EasyJet flight was late taking off but made up the time with a tailwind and landed at the scheduled time. I sat next to a talkative man who loved telling me all about his wonderful life, preventing me from reading about even more about Brexit in my free copy of the Times.
Leaving frosty Gatwick
At Arrecife airport, we collected an Opel Corsa from Autoreisen, which was great once we found out how to start the car (you hold the accelerator to the floor before turning the ignition key).
Julie drove slowly and carefully while I wrangled the Google Maps. Normally I have a good relationship with Google, but today it behaved like a bitch. I think Google must have heard about my flirtation with Alexa and was annoyed with me. My phone kept telling me to follow signs for Aeroporto, but there were no signs for the sodding Aeroporto! We drove round in circles for a short while and I swore at the phone and figured out which way to go. But I am “Tim the Navigator” (self-appointed), and found the LZ2 road to Playa Blanca. Julie confidently drove us there following the instructions from an AI somewhere in Seattle.
Then I got us lost again in Playa Blanca. The instructions we had been sent on how to find the apartment were shit (IMHO) and I had to phone the AirBnB agent to get directions to the flat. Anyway, after a short tour of Papagayo, it all came good and we met Karen at the door and got moved into the flat. It was literally spitting distance from the beach with big French windows that open up and a great view of Fuerteventura in the distance.
Our flat, top left above Romantica
First things first, we had a lovely sleep for an hour, before walking along the prom to see what’s up in Playa Blanc. Lots of restaurants and shops, that’s what’s up. There is a harbour full of fishing boats and a quay where the Fred Olson Express ferry approached at substantial speed, swivels on its twin hulls and backs into the quay. Every time it does this the ferry generates big waves which wash the beach and alarms paddlers. It rapidly disgorges its load of lorries and cars, ready to fill up again and go back to Fuerteventura.
Our flat with the ferry on the sea
We stopped at the Superdino to buy some vital supplies of groceries and San Miguel, at roughly twice the price of our local Lidl back home. Julie was still feeling lousy, so we had a sandwich for dinner and watched some bad TV in the flat before an early night.
Day 2 Friday 25th January
When I woke up the sun was shining and the promenade was empty, so I got my running gear on and went for a run along the seafront. It was most enjoyable, compared to running around the cold streets of Twickenham.
Playa Blanc promenade and beach
Julie had done the washing up when I got back (ideal) and had the kettle on. As seasoned travellers, we know that having breakfast out means either a fry-up or pastries, neither of which fit in with our current healthy-eating , post-Christmas lifestyle. We are fat and don’t want to get any fatter. So we ate the Asda meusli we brought with us, with some yoghurt and fruit that was left in the fridge.
We walked east along the promenade to the marina. There is a strip of restaurants along the front with menus in several languages. They are interspersed with souvenir shops selling wind chimes, dream catchers and all sorts of other useless tat. Lanzarote (named after a Genoese bloke called Lancelot) is very volcanic, so there are few proper trees and no grass. The flower beds appear to be made up of crushed clinker and no proper soil. Cacti thrive, and there are poinsettias growing outside in thew black gravel. There are a few little Dunlins running around on the beach, but the only land wildlife I saw was this lizard.
Atlantic Lizard
At the end of the promenade is a big marina and more up-market hotels and cafes. Beyond that are several beaches, we’ll save those for another day.
Dorada Beach, Playa Blanca
We had a sandwich for lunch with some San Miguel, and then a nap because we could! The sun was shining in the afternoon, so we walked for about a minute to get to the beach outside the flat. I had a swim with my goggles on and saw loads of fish around the rocks in the cold clear water. I sat against the wall and read my paperback, Bruce Dickinson’s autobiography. I have never been an Iron Maiden fan, but I do like rock music and aeroplanes, like Bruce.
We had dinner La Romantica, which is right underneath our flat. It was recommended on TripAdvisor, and both the service and food was really good. The wine I chose was El Grifo, a local Malvesi white wine from central Lanzarote. It was good wine, but not outstanding.
Day 3 Saturday 26th January
After an uncomfortable sleep due to a stiff neck, I was woken by someone dragging furniture in the flat above, bastards!
But by Saturday I was properly oriented and ready to see some volcanos. Lanzarote is totally volcanic, and the greatest eruptions were between 1730 and 1736.
Lanzarote (thanks Google)
We set off before nine for Timanfaya National Park, which is about half an hour away by car up the LZ2 main road. The Park is entirely made up of extinct volcanos and lava fields, which are completely barren and in various shades of black and ochre, it looks like Mars. I kept expecting to see Matt Damon trudging aroiund in a spacesuit trying to find his way homeThe winding road leads up to what looks like the lair of a James Bond villain at the top of a mountain. You can’t walk or drive around the park on your own, you must take the coach tour which is included in the entry price (10€). The coach drove us on a winding narrow road across fields of lumpy black lava and red gravel which looks like it could have been thrown out from the volcanos last week.
The only thing growing is lichens which can survive on the bare rock, and one valley with some tussocks of hardy grass. The scenery is amazing, and it was well worth arriving early to avoid the later crowds.
Timanfya National Park
At the end of the forty-minute tour, the coach takes us back to the visitors centre. A park ranger puts some dead brash into a hole in the ground and it caught on fire immediately. Then he chucked half a bucket of water down a pipe in the ground and it exploded into a geyser of hot steam and made everyone jump!
Looking for Matt Damon
Inside the visitor’s centre, there is a twenty foot deep well exuding hot air, which bakes potatoes that sit on a grill over the hole.
Spuds baking over volcanic heat
Getting ahead of the crowd we dashed into the cafe for cafe con leche and a tortilla, which was bloody lovely. A nice man from Broadstairs sat next to us, who had paid more to hire his scooter for the week than we paid for our car! Schadenfreude is a wonderful thing.
After lava-land we went to the south west coast of the island to see the sites. First, we stopped at the Salinas de Janubio, photogenic salt pans which were good for a ten-minute viewing. A local travel blogger described it as one of the most beautiful places in the world, I think her world didn’t extend far.
Salinas and me
Then a bit further north is Los Hervidoros, a scenic part of the coast where the lava flows meet the sea. The sea beats against basalt cliffs and has carved out caves in the rocks. There are man-made viewing positions right over holes in the roofs of the caves, where you can look down into the swirling sea.
Sea cave at Los Hervidos
Back on the road again we went north to El Golfo, a pretty village full of seafood restaurants, and no golf courses!. Beer beckoned, so I had just a small one in a cafe next to the beach and watched the rollers bashing onto the beach – bliss.
The beach at El Golfo
It only took half an hour to drive back, the whole island is only thirty-six miles long. I had another swim to freshen up and saw plenty of fish around the submerged rocks. Our restaurant this evening was one the talkative man on the plane described to me, Typico Espanol. I had sardines and very substantial beef stroganoff, a proper belt-buster.
Day 4 Sunday 27th January
Last night I had horrible neck ache again. I writhed around in bed but the best thing for it was to swear and then find a comfortable position. In the morning Julie administered Ibruprofen and massages my neck, which made me feel better.
Karen, who had let us into the flat, suggested the market at Teguise as a Sunday destination. The drive from Yaisa through La Geria is very scenic and strange. It is the main Lanzarote wine district, which is like no other in the world. There is hardly any proper soil on the island, so the plant grow in volcanic gravel. Grape vines are planted in an individual pit in the black gravel, with a low stone semi-circular wall that protects it from the wind. Dew forms on the gravel and trickles to the bottom of the pit to feed the vine. Consequently, there is a low density of vines, but the wine they produce is very good.
Grapevine pits in La Geria
Teguise is the former capital of the island and is in the middle well away from the pirates and slavers that plagued Lanzarote for hundreds of years. There are four hundred stalls at the market, all of them selling stuff I don’t want. But it is a pretty town, and lively with the market and swarms of tourists who do want to buy tat. In a large square a row of caravans sold junk food to eager buyers, the sort of shit they sell outside of sports stadiums, Type Diabetes 2 on a plate.
Flamenco dance in the plaza in Teguise
Against all expectations, I actually bought something, a pocket-sized set of binoculars, from a nice African gentleman. I can now examine the ferry close up from the flat when arrives and departs several times a day. Yes I am a nerd, but I blame reading “Look and Learn” in the school library and watching “How” on TV.
The town is high on a hillside with excellent views of the surrounding countryside, and a small castle up on a hill. It appears to be one of the few places on the island with historic buildings.
Me Julie
After lunch, we drove back past the vineyards and avoided mocking any cyclists off their bikes. There were several recumbent cyclists pedaling using their arms lying flat on their machine. What a fucking stupid way to ride a bike!
The landscape is very weird and interesting, some parts look like a desert, other parts look like the world biggest fly-tipping site
The strange volcanic landscape
Back in Playa Blanca I read more of Bruce Dickinson’s life story in the sunshine and then went for a swim in the sea. It’s about as warm as the sea at Lyme Regis in the summer, i.e. freezing cold. But the water is beautifully clear and there are a few fish to see around the rocks; Turkish Wrasse, Sole and very pretty Bluefin Damselfish
Dinner tonight was at La Rustica, about two hundred yards from our flat. The pizzas were exceptionally good, and the waiter was attentive without being subservient. Dear Reader, I implore you to eat at La Rustica.
La Rustica, a restaurant with three walls
Day 5 Monday 29th January
Julie is learning to run using the “Couch to 5K” method, which is a combination of walking and running while listening to encouragement on an app. She usually goes out with her mate Rowena, but had to settle for me today. We walked and jogged to the marina and back, and then had scrambled eggs for breakfast.
The promenade and running route
It felt like a good idea to see another seaside resort, so we drove to Puerto Del Carmen half an hour east. It was my turn to drive the hired Corsa and I was fine with it. We parked in the hilly back streets and walked past the harbour and along the seafront. It’s much bigger than Playa Blanca, and has an unfeasible number of restaurants and tat shops. By the way, tat is stuff I’m not interested in buying, which is most stuff. There are several big beaches, and we came across a big group of people having a Scandinavian horseshoe tossing contest. Man, it was riveting.
Heart attack on a plate in Puerto del Carmen
For lunch, we had Chinese food, which made a change. Then we found a bench in the sunshine and read our books, we know how to have a wild time.
A pretty part of Puerto del Carmen
After we returned to Playa Blanca I went for a proper run along the prom to build up an appetite for another dinner at La Rustica. I had chicken and chips (with token salad) and it was bloody lovely.
Julie wouldn’t come with me into the Irish bar next door to our flat. Live music doesn’t really interest her, but I just love it! The singer was Gerry Cassidy, a really nice Irish guy in his fifties who can sing and play beautifully, as long as you like songs from the 60s and 70s. He actually sang Matchstalk Men and Dogs, a catchy song but hardly a rock classic. The song was perfect for his audience of mostly men with white hair and no hair at all, I am somewhere in between the two. He sang with enthusiasm and love for the songs, and of course, I started singing along. Julie would have hated it.
He then sang “A Horse With No Name” by America, which has really daft lyrics (the first thing I met was a fly with a buzz) but a great melody and Gerry sang it so well “Oive been true the desert on a horse with no name..”.
Day 6 Tuesday 30th January
The north of Lanzarote beckons for further adventure. There is a cluster of interesting places to visit right up in the north of the island, about an hours drive away. Julie drove us up to Yaiza and then through La Geria where all the vineyards are, which is also the most popular route with cyclists. Lanzarote is very popular with cyclists since most of it can be reached in a day and the mountains aren’t enormous. The road wasn’t wide, so she had to slow down to get past them. After that a rubbish truck trundled along at 40 kph causing more baaad language from my driver.
The road wound up a big hill to a cafe at Los Helechos, with a fantastic view about 1700 feet down to the coast. We had cafe con leche and a big wee, which is always nice to do.
At Los Helechos with the coast and Haria behind
Then there was a zigzag road down the hill to Haria to visit the Cesar Manrique house and museum. Cesar is quite a geezer in Lanzarote, an overwhelming cultural figure on the island whose mark is everywhere across the island. He was an artist and architect who fought keep hi-rise hotels, which have blighted much of the Spanish coast, away from Lanzarote. He mostly succeeded, and buildings are mostly one or two stories and painted white. Little white boxes mostly (made of ticky tacky), which I find quite dull. His museum is the house he lived in until he was killed in his Jaguar in 1992 aged seventy-three.
His museum was OK, it was his house just as he left it. The art in the place is mostly other people’s rather than his own, I wasn’t inspired. But it’s about the only Culture on the entire island and as a member of the Metropolitan Elite (and possibly the Chattering Classes as well), I felt obliged to appreciate it.
A painting by Cesar Manrique
Lanzarote is entirely volcanic, and one of the features of that landscape are lava tubes. These are natural tunnels where liquid lava once flowed and emptied out, leaving a void. The Cuervo de Los Verdes is a seven-kilometre lava tube, that is partially open to tourists to explore. We were taken on a guided tour of the long cave by a guide who had won the first prize in All Spain Fast Talking Competition. She had a script to get through, and not quite enough time to do it. I love a good cave, but this didn’t have all the stalagmites and stalagmites that there are in limestone caves, and it was mostly dry and warm which was a novelty.
The cave has a low roof in some places, waiting to catch out tall tourists taking photos and not paying attention. That wasn’t me by the way. There is a surprise – and it’s a good one – in the cave, but I won’t spoil it by describing it here.
Los Cuervos de Verdes. This photo may be upside down, who can tell
Day 7 Wednesday 31st January
I had a short run/walk with Julie this morning and then had proper run between the harbour and marina and back home. After a shower and cuppa, we walked up the Montana Roja, our friendly local volcano behind the town. It’s 194 metres high, so it’s only a hill really, but it is a proper volcano with a crater. It takes about twenty-five minutes to walk up it, and there are wonderful views of Playa Blanca, Fuertaventura and up the coast to El Golfo. It’s also very windy at the top, so I was careful not to walk too close to the edge while I walked around the top of the crater.
Up the Montana Roya
The volcano is popular with local dog walkers, who allow their dogs to poop in the nature reserve and then leave it behind. That made me just a tiny tiny bit pro-Brexit.
The area of Playa Blanca is rapidly being expanded, and it’s all small white boxes on sale for between €200,000 and €500,000. Some are quite pretty with cactus gardens and a sea view, others are crammed together with just small patios and several miles from the town centre.
Lego houses on the outskirts of Playa Blanca
After all that exercise, we decided to have lunch on the seafront. I had a “large” San Miguel (400 ml, about ⅔ of a pint) and a tortilla (Spanish potato omelette). Because they cater to the English market, it came with chips!
After lunch, I started reading a book I found in the flat, “The Fox” by Frederick Forsyth. It’s an excellent thriller about spying and cybersecurity, very topical. After a bit of a rest, I went for my final swim in the cold Atlantic.
In Conclusion..
I had a great holiday for a week, I think I could have managed ten days in Lanzarote. The weather was good and the accommodation and restaurants were great as well. As winter holidays go, it was better than Hurghada in Egypt, but not as good a tropical destinations like Mirissa in Sri Lanka.
But Lanzarote is very light on beautiful old buildings, museums, art galleries, street life and the other things that make European destinations so worthwhile.
As an escape from nasty British weather for a week to eat pizza and drink beer it’s totally spot on!
The best times were spent in our flat with the doors open looking at the sea with a cold beer and olives (stuffed with anchovies) to hand.
My old mate Tony Marshall asked if Julie and I could look after their cats while they went to Tuscany for their summer holiday: out of the English frying pan and into the Italian fire. At the time it was thirty degrees in London and about thirty-five degrees in Italy.
Julie feeding one of the cats with our left-over Vindaloo
Tony and I both worked as IT Trainers for a small company called Prince in the early Nineties. We taught people how to use Microsoft Office in the days when Microsoft ruled the (software) world and some people got genuinely excited about spreadsheets.
His house is in Martock in south Somerset and is exceptionally lovely. It’s a sturdy Ham stone residence with walls two feet thick that is at least three hundred years old. Martock itself is a pretty little town close to the A303 and both close to – and a world away – from Yeovil. All the villages around here are very old and very petty, the Roman Fosse Way ran close to Martock, and many of the villages have quaint names like Huish Episcopi, Shepton Beauchamp and Norton Sub Hamdon.
Tony’s house in Martock
Julie and I drove down to Martock on Saturday evening when the A303 was quiet, it only took two hours and we didn’t have to queue at Stonehenge.
Sunday 29th July
Montacute and Ham Hill
Half of June and all of July had been stupidly hot, but the weather broke on Friday night in London, just in time to cloud over completely for the much-heralded Blood Moon. That’s nothing to do with vampires and werewolves, but an eclipse of the moon when it turns red.
The weather on Sunday in Martock was drizzly, so we decided not to travel far and go indoors. Montacute House is about ten minutes drive away and is a late Elizabethan mansion built by Sir Edward Phelips, who was the Master of the Rolls to Elizabeth I. So to clarify, he didn’t actually get his hands dirty with the building, he wasn’t no brickie. Also, he didn’t work in Greggs and make Rolls, he was a top lawyer to Queen Elizabeth. Since it’s practically built on Ham Hill, it is built of Ham stone, a lovely fossiliferous limestone that’s been used since Roman times.
Montacute House
Montacute is a large and well-furnished house with lovely formal gardens. The Long Gallery has been converted into an art gallery, with many pictures borrowed from the National Gallery. I was particularly impressed with the portrait of Prince Rupert, the very epitome of a dashing cavalier. He was very good looking with his frilly shirt and long wavy hair, and wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Blitz Club with Spandau Ballet. I thought he looked remarkably like the actor playing Louis XIV in the TV series Versailles.
Prince Rupert, a good looking fella, and didn’t he know it
You can only admire so many portraits and settees, so we retired back to Martock for a cup of tea and a snooze on the squeaky leather armchairs. Thus refreshed we sallied forth again to Ham Hill, which has a big Country Park and fabulous views of the Somerset countryside. At the war memorial, there are great views to over Somerset, with the A303 rumbling at the bottom beneath the hill. Ham Hill was an ancient Iron Age hill fort and later a Roman fort. It also has a stone circle, but that was built in the 21st century by machines. We heard rock music close by and followed it to the Prince of Wales pub. In a marquee in the garden, a band called Powercuts were playing “classic” rock very loudly and not particularly well, but I enjoyed them long enough to drink a pint of Tribute.
Monday 30th July
Glastonbury and Wells
Glastonbury is most famous these days for hosting the music festival. I am (as you all know) a hip and happening guy, and went to “Glasto” in 1983 to see UB40 and the Fun Boy Three. I just turned up at the gate and bought a ticket. I believe it’s more tricky to get in these days. The town itself is attractive in a different way, in that it feels like a Seventies theme park. There are many (too many) shops dedicated to “alternative” lifestyles. Basically, hippy shops that died out everywhere else during the Eighties. If you like crystals, tie-dyes, yoga and incense, then Glastonbury is the place for you. Also, there is no shortage of over-priced fudge, biscuits and cider; but this is the West Country after all. There was even a street vendor flogging wands, unfortunately, they had no guarantees of effectiveness.
Spinning a Tibetan prayer wheel. Not unusual in Glastonbury
The best thing about Glastonbury is the walk up to the top of the Tor. It is a hill that rises out of the Somerset Levels (the local swamp) which is topped by a church tower dedicated to St Michael, the patron saint of socks and underpants. It was breezy at the top, but there are fabulous views of the Quantocks, the Mendips and much of the Levels. The town below was once called Avalon, named after an album ancient hippy band called Roxy Music.
The path up the Tor (and down again – obviously)
Glastonbury Tor
We ate our tuna rolls for lunch in the car park in the town centre near the Abbey. As we ate our fish delights, Mr Liam Kinseley (NVQ in Plastering Level 2) scraped our car down the side while parking. He left his business card under the windscreen wipers with an apologetic note on it, which was nice. But he will be receiving a bill for the paint job.
UPDATE – It cost £180 to fix by a nice man called Jason from Chips Away.
Thanks Liam (for leaving a note)
Wells is about five miles from Glastonbury and is a very different type of place. It is the smallest city in England because it has a beautiful cathedral and a population of about ten thousand people. You can tell it’s quite posh because of the up-market clothes shops and distinct lack of McDonalds or Poundland. The cathedral is beautiful, but then again have you ever seen an ugly cathedral? It has a wonderful arch inside which look like it was built yesterday but is eight hundred years old. A choir from Albuquerque were rehearsing, apparently, there is a different choir every week taking advantage of the acoustics.
Inside Wells Cathedral
In the High Street, we had our first Cream Tea of the week. It’s high in carbs, fat and sugar and that’s why it tastes so good. Wells looks familiar because it where Hot Fuzz was made, starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (who now lives in Twickenham and I see him in the White Swan)
The city is quiet and old and a lovely place to spend a few hours pottering around the shops and seeing the historic sites. There is a big moated Bishop’s Palace, which looked interesting, but we were too mean to pay to get in. We have National Trust cards that get us into a lot of old houses for the price of our membership, so we are reluctant to pay to go into others.
As you’ve probably worked out from my earlier mention of tuna rolls in the car park, I’m careful with my money, possibly even stingy. But money saved on cheap lunches comes back as extra money on the pub.
Tuesday 31st July
Knackered in Cheddar
When our kids were small children we had a holiday at Butlins in Minehead, and had a day trip to Cheddar to see the famous gorge and caves. So on Tuesday, we drove back to Wells and then just beyond it into the Mendips to revisit them. Google Maps took us a very weird route across the Levels but delivered us safely to that cheesy paradise.
FACT – in the USA in 2015, 3.4 billion pounds of cheddar cheese was produced. That is an unbelievable amount of cheese, but then Yanks eat cheese with everything. They even put it into an aerosol.
We parked up and bought our extortionately priced tickets for the Cheddar attractions from the Marquis of Bath, whose ancestors stole it off the locals not long after 1066. The mean bastards don’t even do a reduction for poor pensioners like me. I can barely afford to buy a decent Malbec these days! The first attraction is Dream Weavers, which weren’t nothin’ to do with dreamin’ or weavin’! It was a trail through caves with projections on the walls explaining about the people who live in the cave during the Neolithic Period. So that was quite good but a bit too poetic and magical bollocksy for my tastes. A little further up the Gorge are the main caves, known as Gough’s Caves after the man who opened them up. Mr Gough and his sons dug out lots of mud to clear the caves and put in floors and lighting to make them accessible to a public attraction. As soon as his lease ran out, the good old Marquis of Bath got them back and has been milking it for the last hundred years.
Cheddar Gorge
Goughs Cave is very impressive with several different chambers, stalagmites, stalactites and reflecting pools, all the stuff you expect from a cave. I’m pleased that they didn’t do that thing where they try to make you believe a rock looks like a witch or a rabbit or a VW Golf or something. I can never see those things like I could never see those Magic Eye pictures.
After emerging into the daylight I fancied a stomp around some hills. So we walked up Jacob’s Ladder about two hundred steps to the beginning of the Mendips. It isn’t a ladder, it’s a very long staircase, but you are cream-crackered at the top! Geddit! Jacobs! Cream-crackered! Oh, suit yer selves.
View from the top of the Gorge
From there it’s a three-mile walk around the top of Cheddar Gorge, quite a strenuous three miles, not a stroll. It’s all up or down, with very little along. That up and down is mostly over rocks, tree roots or nasty loose soil. There are some amazing views, but on balance it isn’t worth it. Julie threw a wobbly a couple of times, but there was no way back to the start apart from walking. It was March or Die. At the end of our death march we visited the very lovely Gorge Cafe and had another Cream Tea, which made everything better for as long as we were eating.
On our way home we stopped at the Lime Kiln Inn at Long Sutton for a pint, very nice and well deserved. The beer was instantly soaked up by the cream and carbs and sugar to make a very flatulent mixture, bang goes the ozone layer.
Wednesday 1st August
Dipping into Dorset
Having made two consecutive journeys up to the north of Somerset, on Wednesday we stayed local (ish) and went to a manor house called Lytes Cary, which is a short drive up the A303. Lytes Cary is a medieval manor house which was restored in the 20th century and given to the National Trust. It’s a small house compared to many NT properties but it has lovely gardens and a good cafe. In my mind “National Trust “and “Nice Cafe” are unbreakably linked, like Tony the Tiger and “they’re grrreat”.
I did start to suffer from old house burn-out having been to a glut of NT places. I could no longer get interested in Jacobean oak panelling or Flemish tapestries of men in camp Roman outfits. In days of old they seem to like showing ladies with one breast out, but never show men with a single bollock dangling beneath their togas.
Lytes Cary House
There is always charming elderly middle-class folk guarding the rooms and giving helpful information. I like to test them with awkward questions like “Is that the second or third Duke, and is it painted by Kneller or Lely?” which makes them rapidly leaf through their folders of useful information to find the right answer. They must have enormous patience standing in rooms all day waiting for some child to touch a Chippendale chair so they can tell them off.
Julie, in relaxed mode
Having exhausted the delights of Lytes we drove on to Sherborne. When I say “we”, I mean Julie since we can’t both drive the car at the same time, obviously. I’m better at navigating and like looking out the window for interesting birds and passing celebrities. I spotted Mark Ellen, former editor of Q magazine, putting out his bins in Teddington yesterday. Julie had never heard of him, but she never watched Whistle Test religiously like I did.
Sherborne is just into Dorset and is a very pretty town with a big abbey church and a posh public school. Consequently, there are lots of teenagers around who look like they might be from Singapore or Leningrad. Actually, I made up the bit about Leningrad, I don’t know what they would look like. It’s a perfect place for a slow mooch around overpriced galleries and gift shops. Our house does not have much shelf space for accumulating knick knacks, so we don’t have many. Having said that, I’m a bugger for a nice fridge magnet, and our LG fridge freezer is covered with them. If I feel the need to hide from spies, I will get into the fridge and bamboozle them with the intense magnetic field.
The best way to re-energise in Dorset after window shopping is to have yet another Cream Tea, good for the stomach and good for the soul, but bad for the digestion and waistline.
My natural environment
Thursday 2nd August
Over the hill and back to the pub
My friend Andy lives in Blandford, which is about an hour’s drive from Martock, so he drove over to see us with his partner Amanda and their little dog. I’m not a “dog person”, so I can’t remember its name, but do remember that it was a yappy Jack Russell. We met them at the Prince of Wales on Ham Hill, and the weather was fine and sunny and ideal for a hike around the park. Some of the country park is uppy downy old quarry workings, but most of it is huge open fields with grand views of Somerset spread out below.
Dog owners always think that their dogs can understand English and have conversations with them like “come on Boris we have to get home for daddy’s tea”. I have also noticed that they refer to dogs as girls or boys, which is an anthropomorphic step too far for me. It would be much more entertaining if owners spoke like Ripley in Alien 2, “Stay away from her you bitch!”
After a healthy yomp around the park, we returned the Prince of Wales pub for some lunch in the garden. As I was eating my sandwich, two people rode their horses into the garden like it was a normal thing to do. They dismounted and took the saddles off, while the horses walked around the garden benches grazing. Andy’s little bitch didn’t like the horses and barked at them, so she had to be removed in case an annoyed horse stepped on it. The horse riders were dressed in jeans and tee shirts and behaved as though grazing their beasts in the pub garden was perfectly normal, maybe it is normal for Somerset.
Our friends departed and we drove to yet another historic property, Muchelney Abbey. Most of the abbey was destroyed by Thomas Cromwell’s henchmen during the dissolution of the monasteries, but the Abbot’s house remains. The house is well restored but mostly empty apart from the English Heritage shop where samples of mead were available, something for nothing is always welcome.
In the village of Mulchelney I had a look in the pottery which was featured in a leaflet I picked up in Wells. The pots were brown, heavy, and looked like the monks would have used then five hundred years ago. I looked at the price sticker and decided that my Tescos stoneware was perfectly adequate and actually more attractive. At such a time the only sensible course of action is to have another cream tea, so School Farm got the benefit of our custom and I stuffed my face with more heart-attack-on-a-plate. Roddas Clotted Cream has probably taken years off my life expectancy.
Yet another cream tea
Friday 3rd August
Watchet you Dunster!
I fancied going to the seaside for my annual dip in the chilly waters around our fair isle. The Dorset coast is closest, but we visited that extensively in 2016, so the next closest was North Somerset, the Costa Del Butlins! The last time we visited north Somerset was 1994, when we took Tommy aged four and Josie aged two to Butlins at Minehead. Even back then we were fully paid-up members of the Guardian-reading metropolitan elite, so going to Butlins was an unusual choice that would cause tongues to wag at our NCT group. We had a marvellous time, and Josie enjoyed herself so much she projectile-vomited over our chalet. I still have happy memories of the variety shows and the distinctive (and very reasonably priced) Butlins Bitter.
It’s a long and windy drive through Taunton to get to the north coast, but well worthwhile. Our first destination was Dunster Castle, a few miles from Minehead. It is beautifully located on a hill surrounded by lovely gardens and woodland, and it made me grateful for the punitive Death Duties that forced the aristocratic former occupiers to give it to the National Trust. The actual Norman castle was knocked down by the forces of Oliver Cromwell, and what remains is the mansion that the Tudor lords built in the grounds. Having seen a few old houses already this week, we toured the house quite quickly. Lovely paintings and furniture and all that, but boy did those nobles have an inflated sense of their own self-importance! My favourite bit was the watermill, but I do love any sort of moving machinery. I bought some muesli from the shop, but quite honestly it wasn’t as tasty as Alpen.
Dunster Castle Mill
Just outside the gates of the castle is Dunster village, which is very pretty and suitable for a Disney film location. In the past, it was probably occupied by milkmaids and the bastard sons and daughters of the lords, but today is entirely souvenir and gift shops.
Dunster Village and Castle
We made a very brief visit to Dunster beach, about thirty seconds is enough time there and continued on to Minehead.
We had tea in the cafe at the West Somerset Railway, a steam heritage railway with twenty miles of track between Bishops Lydeard and Minehead. Julie looked at her phone while I watched the engineers fix an engine boiler to a chassis with a big crane. I do like a good steam engine, and the WSR has some beauties.
The Ancient Mariner (on the right) at Watchet Harbour
On our way back to Martock we stopped at Watchet a few miles along the coast from Minehead. Its impressive harbour was once used for shipping ironstone excavated from the Brendon Hills to Ebbw Vale steelworks across the Bristol Channel, it is now a marina. The village has a few pretty streets and a characterful cider pub called the Pebbles Tavern. You won’t get Kopperberg dancing-around-your-handbag fruity ciders, but you will get some excellent local brews that should be consumed with caution.
Pebbles Tavern
Saturday 4th August
Tint’n’ull swings
By the end of our week in Somerset it felt like we had seen every site on historical interest within forty miles. That wasn’t true, but we had got a bellyful of old houses and dead aristocrats posing with their guns and dogs. Still, it’s a lot better than Italy when most of the pictures in galleries or houses are either:
Jesus
Mary, or
Mary and Jesus
We had enough curiosity left for one last National Trust blow-out, Tintinhull Gardens. The main reason we went was that it was very close, and no doubt would have a nice caff. Tintinhull is a very pretty village built of Ham stone which looks very prosperous. The big house is a lovely 17th-century mansion with some well-maintained gardens originally set out by a gardener called Phyllis Reiss. It’s certainly a lovely place to spend a couple of hours sniffing roses and trying to steal raspberries without being spotted. There is a small wood with a swing suspended from a tree. I sat carefully on the swing and it didn’t immediately collapse, so I went back and forth a few times. I then felt a bit queasy, so I think my swinging days are over (in more ways than one). Tintinhull is quite a mouthful, and I’m told the locals sensibly call the village Tintnul. I
looked on the map for CaptainHaddockhull and Snowhull, but they don’t exist.
Swinging at Tintinhull
In the afternoon I cooked a veggie curry and tidied up the house ready for the return of Tony, Sarah, Lucy and Alice back from Italy. When they returned we ate dinner in the garden and Lucy entertained us on the piano.
Somerset is a lovely county and is well worth visiting, rather than just driving through it on the way to Cornwall. It has a massive advantage in that it’s only two hours from London and it doesn’t rain as much as Cornwall.
timharnesstravels 