Alps Flower Photo Gallery

We have just completed 9 days of amazing hiking in the French Alps. David is working on the text for the blog covering this hike, but in the meantime I thought I'd publish some photos of the incredible array of wild flowers we encountered on the hike. Beautiful.

I've been to paradise, but I've never been to Buis (Note 1)

Nous adorons Buis les Baronnies, c’est encore notre village francais prefere (We adore Buis les Baronnies, it is still our favourite French village).

We have just spent another week in Buis les Baronnies, where we last visited in 2000. Ever since that time we have said that it is our favourite village in France and we even call our little Renault, ’Buis’.

Close up of Buis town Centre

It is therefore fair to say that we returned to Buis with high expectations but they were met, if not exceeded. This time we returned with Simone, Dallas, Jack and Matthew and all stayed in the Richards’ small cottage in Rue de 3 Chapons. The cottage dates back to the 12th century and has 4 rooms spread over 4 floors (plus a basement). It is in a small L shaped rue that is way too narrow to drive a car into. Jack and Matthew loved the experience of staying in a house that is so different to anything that we see in Australia. We adults also loved the cottage but our older bodies were tiring of all the running up and down stairs by the end of the week.

I think what makes Buis most special is the natural beauty of the surrounding country side, which is easily accessible by foot and bicycle. The town itself is also beautiful with its small winding streets and lovely plane tree lined boules courts in the Place Quinconnes. The town’s population is less than 3000 but it has all the amenities you need. I think this is because it is a popular holiday destination with people who enjoy an outdoor lifestyle in summer. Geoff and Kathy’s (Richards) neighbour also said that the town’s success is due to the fact that it is the main town in a small agricultural region. He said that many of the local farmers need to come into Buis for most of the necessities of modern living. The agriculture is centred on olives, apricots and grapes.

A Cigale (cicada), which features prominently in Provencale design

I think that’s enough of the boring justification about why we like Buis. We arrived late on Saturday afternoon and decided to eat out at a local creperie for dinner. Simone is still talking about her salmon crepe and moaning about why we wouldn’t let her go back. The funniest part of the evening was provided by me when I poured water into the glass containing a candle, mistaking it for a drinking glass. This was quite amusing as I’d been marvelling at the decision by the restaurant to give some people red drinking glasses and some people clear ones.

On Sunday Dale, Jack and I decided to participate in a fund raising walk. We filled out our French forms and departed on our 11 km walk. We were given a list of questions that we had to answer on the hike. The questions were in French and were about local matters of importance like which years the frost destroyed the olive crop (not apricot as first entered - thanks AH). We pointed out to one of the officials that we had no hope of answering these questions and she cheerfully encouraged us to cheat. The walk was challenging and covered some beautiful countryside. As we went along we found ourselves over taking all the other walkers. This turned out to be fantastic for our attempts at cheating because we arrived at the first checkpoint before anyone else and we were able to have a long chat with the nice young guy and girl (in French), who gave us most of the answers. In fact we got 6/10 right, which we were pretty rapt with. I should mention that at the same time there were people doing an 11 km run and a 32 km run over the same mountainous course. Shortly after we reached the half way point the runners started to hurtle downhill past us. When we arrived back in Place Quinconnes after about 2.5 hours we were feted as the first walkers to return. After a few minutes the local mayor, realising that we were Australian, asked us to come up onto the stage in front of 50 people and asked if we spoke any French. We said that we spoke a little and Dale then spent a few minutes being interviewed in French about visiting France, what he did for work and why we liked Buis les Baronnies. It was a wonderful experience for us all.

On the Sunday afternoon we went to a swimming place on the Ouveze River, a few kilometres outside Buis that we remembered from 2000. The water was cold and there wasn’t a whole lot of room to sit along the river but we joined a few other French families doing the same thing and had a swim and a small picnic in the shade.


The following day we visited the awesome Roman Amphitheatre in nearby Orange and then drove on to the imposing Pont du Gard aqueduct where we had a lovely swim in the Gard River while enjoying the spectacular views of the Pont. Matthew loved swimming in the rivers and when he couldn’t do so he kept pestering Dallas to take him up to the local swimming pool for a swim. Eventually Dallas relented, and without speaking any French, had to work his way around the bureaucracy of French swimming pools. This involved things like putting your clothes into a tray and handing them over to an attendant for safe keeping, putting your shoes in another spot, wearing a wrist band and walking through the obligatory pool of water to clean your feet before swimming. Dallas said that the pool attendants were very polite with him but were beginning to run out of a little patience by the end of the ordeal.

The tour party in front of the magnificent Pont du Gard

On the subject of Dallas’ French experiences, he made a big effort to say his bon jours and bon soirs so we began to help expand his vocabulary by teaching him bon matin (good morning), bon après-midi (good afternoon) and bon nuit (good night). Unfortunately this proved to be a little confusing, because one evening as he was outside our cottage one of the neighbours walked past and said bon soir, and Dallas responded with ‘’bon sweet’’, which resulted in him getting a very strange look. Of course it is also entirely possible that Dallas was thinking about eating sweets at the time as he was spending so much time visiting patisseries.

The local market is held in Buis on Wednesday mornings so we spent some hours wandering around buying cheese, fruit, veges, sausages and a succulent roast chicken for a picnic lunch. The market also has many stalls selling clothing, jewellery, haberdashery and leather goods.

This little piggy went to market (but to what end?)

Mmmmm......cheese

After lunch we packed our picnic lunch and drove up to the top of Mont Ventoux. We had thought that the second stage of the tour was going to go up Mont Ventoux and that we would be in Buis at the time. However we discovered that, since we had first done our research, the route had been changed and the tour is now going up on the second last stage. We were all pretty disappointed about this but we compensated by driving up to the top and imagining what it is going to be like for the riders on the second last stage. It didn’t take all that much imagination because a lot of people were in fact cycling up. Are they mad? It was freezing at the top. It was actually about 14 degrees but the wind chill factor made it feel like minus 10 (Ed – The wind is so strong here trees cannot grow). The views made it all worthwhile. On the way down the mountain we found a lovely spot for our picnic and we all pigged out on chicken, pork, olives, terrine, cheese and cherries.

Bald, windswept Mt Ventoux

We drove on to the town of Sault and to the villages of Roussillon and Gordes in the Luberon Valley. The lavender fields were in full bloom and they were a sight to behold, both close up and part of the overall panorama. When we visited the region 9 years ago we arrived a few weeks later and a lot of the fields had been harvested. This time we got to see the fields around the Abbey de Senanque, which were simply magnificent.

On our second last day we all set off on a hike to the top of Mt. St Julien, the rocky mountain outcrop overlooking Buis. Poor Simone had to turn back after about 25 minutes as she was feeling pretty unwell. What we didn’t know until we returned was that she was quite well enough to steal 4 apricots from some poor farmer’s apricot tree on the way back. She denies visiting the patisserie as well but we don’t entirely believe her. We shouldn’t stir her too much as she did manage to go out and get us all some supplies for lunch when we returned. Dale and Jack have already done quite enough stirring considering that they had a bet about how long it would take Simone to start complaining about how difficult the walk would be. It has been confidentially revealed that Jack won this bet with a spot on prediction of 20 minutes! Apparently Dale was much harsher on his sister, predicting 12 minutes.

Descending the crevases of Mt St Julien

The walk involves some fairly steep climbing right at the end and everyone acquitted themselves excellently, particularly Matthew, Jack and Dallas. Matthew made it all the way up despite his much smaller 8 year old legs and with some excellent help from Jack and Dallas. The views of Buis and the surrounding country side were superb. We also saw quite a number of circling vultures at quite close range during the walk. Dallas was very concerned that they might be after Simone.

Buis from Mt St Julien

A vulture circles above, but for whom?

On our last day Dale and I drove up into the hills about 20 kms out of Buis to visit the place where a couple of women weave scarves and shawls and make pottery. They have a shop in Buis that we loved and they warned us that the location of their home/workshop was ‘’tres sauvage’’ but we didn’t appreciate that this meant driving up steep hills through tiny villages with narrow streets and then on to dirt roads for some kilometres before reaching the house, which was the only one for miles around (Ed – I should point out that because there are 6 of us we are driving a tank sized Peugeot 807). After waking ‘’madame’’ up from her ‘’sieste’’ we had a look at her loom and bought a couple of little things. It was also a good opportunity for a little more French practice. We had been wickedly encouraging Simone to buy something made by these people because the items are unique and exquisite. When we got back, Simone had a look at what we had bought and decided to go back to the shop in Buis for one more look. We sent Dallas around with her to provide a second opinion and she returned with a stunning shawl.

At night after dinner we had fun playing Bananagrams (thanks AT) and a great card game that Dale got as a send off gift from his work colleagues called Guillotine (appropriately centred around the French Revolution).

On our final night, Jack stayed in the cottage with Matthew while Dale, Simone, Dallas and I went around for a lovely dinner at a fancyish sort of restaurant. We had four courses, the food was delicious and we enjoyed sitting outside under a covered archway in front of the restaurant as the light faded away on our visit to Buis.

We are currently in another of the Richards' cottages in the Tarn, with Julia. We are having a pretty relaxing week, psyching ourselves up for the next 3 weeks of hiking in the French Alps and Corsica. Our next blog entry may therefore be some weeks away. Au revoir until then.

Note 1. The title of this blog is dedicated to a dear friend who detests this song and whom we have just discovered upon arriving at the Tarn cottage was the principal protagonist in “Gasbottlegate”

Happy Families in Paris

We spent last week in Paris with Simone, Dallas, Jack and Matthew.

We arrived in Paris last Saturday and it was the day of the Paris Gay Pride march. We waited for an eternity at the Place de la Bastille where the march was due to end. It was extremely hot and a bunch of university students around us were becoming progressively more drunk and generally off their faces which was all very entertaining but after an hour and a half we decided to move on down the march route in order to try to locate the march. We eventually met at the Seine. It seemed more like the Melbourne Pride march – multiplied by 10 - than Sydney’s Mardi Gras. It was very colourful and amusing, more community than spangle.

Gay Pride Paris Style

Simone and family arrived in Paris on Sunday afternoon and we embarked on a feast of sightseeing. In 6 days we managed to fit in the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Arc de Triomphe, an evening boat tour along the Seine, the Musee de l’Armee, the Paris sewers, Versailles, the Musee D’Orsay and finally a trip to Disneyland. This mostly represented the David and Dale Paris highlights tour. It was conducted at break neck speed and has involved a bit of walking. Now Dale and I walk A LOT. Even though we tried to adjust to having 8 year old Matthew with us we nevertheless walked everyone off their feet but to their credit they did a marvellous job of keeping up, particularly Matthew. He ran up nearly the entire 2 first stages of the Eiffel Tower and would have run up the entire way if it hadn’t been for Dallas making him stop occasionally so that the rest of us could catch up.

Climbing the Eiffel Tower

Lunch in the Tuileries Gardens

Climbing the Arc de Triomphe

Lunching at Verseille

Jack has acquitted himself with aplomb in the French speaking stakes. Since about day 3 he has been confidently asking questions and placing orders in French. About this time Jack and Dallas started spending a suspicious amount of time visiting Paris patisseries. Matthew has also become very interested in speaking French and we fear that we have created a monster. He particularly likes the fact that mere, pere and frère rhyme and that pere sounds like pear, which means that he has been telling his father that he is tasty.


We stayed in a somewhat tatty but large, bright and airy 2 bedroom apartment in the middle of the Marais. It was on the 3rd floor and a lovely cross-breeze flowed through the apartment at all times of the day and night. The weather was very hot for the whole week so it was fabulous to return to the apartment and throw all the windows open at the end of each day. Naturally the return to the apartment was accompanied by olives, Dale’s somewhat homemade sundried tomatoes, cheese and wine or beer. Wicked uncle Dale even forced a beer on Jack, who is 15 (Ed – Who’s heard of a 15 year old who hasn’t had a beer?). His mother was not happy and Dallas and Matthew started in with the wise cracks about Jack’s road to ruin.



Lovely, calme aspect from the apartment

Jack is carrying a football with him but we weren’t able to find anywhere for him to kick it. Parisiens seem to ban everything in their parks including all ball games and sitting on the grass. For $E2.60 kids can however play in a wonderful playground in the Jardins du Luxembourg. On the subject of money Simone and Dallas visited London before joining us and they said that they found everything there very cheap so get yourselves to the UK (as well as Spain) asap. In contrast they have found Paris very expensive. The worst example was buying four 500 ml bottles of soft drink on the Champs Elysee and paying $E16, which is the equivalent of $A29. I was with Simone and thought the shop attendant had said 6 not 16 and blithely walked out of the shop leaving Simone to pay. Even allowing for being on the Champs Elysee, this was pretty steep. I made sure that I savoured my drink and thanked God that Simone had paid, not me. On the other hand Dallas did manage to find a particularly attractive little Eiffel Tower statue for the mantel piece at home and only paid $E4. He is very proud of this bargain and we think he is going to create a shrine around it at home. Dale and I are conditioned to French prices so found things pretty much the same as in the past. Eating out was on the expensive side but the quality was good.

Dale and I did some shopping with Simone which was, at times, humorous. In one shop Simone wanted to try a blouse on and in the absence of any shop assistant was unsure about which changing cubicle to go into. As Dale isn’t unsure about anything he just ripped a curtain open and told Simone to use it. In the middle of Simone trying on the blouse a shop assistant then pulled back the curtain and started blathering on about how she had reserved that cubicle, while poor Simone had no idea what was going on. Then she had difficulty removing the blouse at which point Dale entered to cubicle to help her. This seemed to go for an eternity while I started rehearsing how to explain that Simone just needed some help and that Dale is her brother. However, I began to wonder whether the comment about being siblings was actually going to help or make things worse. Everyone can take comfort however. The blouse was removed (although not bought) before anyone in the shop appeared to notice. In the end Simone’s favourite purchase was at Gare du Lyon only minutes before getting on the TGV to go down to Avignon. She bought a fabulous pair of aubergine coloured shoes at the excellent price of $E25.

In terms of the sightseeing, Dale and I really loved re-visiting the Musee D’Orsay and are even thinking that we might go again when we return to Paris in September. Continuing my line in art criticism I think art, furniture and architecture in the period 1840 to 1940 is fabulous and precisely ma tasse du the. The art nouveau furniture in the Musee D’Orsay is every bit as good an attraction as the room of Van Gogh paintings and the rooms and rooms of Monet paintings. The most amusing part of the visit was Matthew spying a particularly graphic painting of a vagina and managing to take a photo immediately while laughing uproariously. The second funniest incident was spying on a young woman standing in front of paintings while gyrating with one arm out stretched as though she was painting or sculpting the work of art through dance. I was entranced by this and immediately made sure I told Dale about it. While I was in another room, all the others then saw her really go for it in front of a massive sculpture where she had a lot of space to move. They all stood watching aghast when she then fell flat on her backside and everyone tried to hide their laughter. Did I say that slapstick isn’t funny?

The evening boat tour along the Seine was recommended by Dallas’ mother Lyn and was an excellent outing. The night lights of Paris were wonderful and it was also most entertaining to see the Paris jeunesse out celebrating the end of the academic year along the banks of the Seine, particularly around les isles de cite, on a balmy summer evening. The only disappointment was that the light show on the Eiffel Tower started just as we rounded the isles de cite and we lost the view for just as long as the light show lasted.

Boating on the Seine at dusk

We visited the Paris Sewers for the first time, which was interesting if smelly. Well actually I didn’t mind it too much but those with sensitive noses were gagging as we walked along a sewer carrying all the effluent from a nearby Paris street. We all wish that John (Dale and Simone’s father) had been with us to explain all the sewerage niceties to us, given his experience building sewerage treatment plants, and to keep the wimps down there a little longer.

On Friday we went to Disneyland. We all started the day with a ride on the Thunder Mountain roller coaster, which was great fun but parted company after that. Dale, Simone and Jack did the scary adult rides while Dallas and I accompanied Matthew on the slightly less scary rides. Naturally Matthew really wanted to go on the adult scary rides but Dallas and I were perfectly happy with the slightly less scary ones. Dale, Simone and Jack loved Space Mountain, Matthew and Dallas loved Thunder Mountain while I really enjoyed the Stars Wars simulator space ride. As it was the last day of school before the summer holidays it was packed and the queues for the popular rides were very long (Ed - this con firmed my long held view that Disneyland is the Unhappiest place on earth if you measure it by groans, moans and frustration).

(Ed - To make me feel better, I ripped this photo off of us on the Thunder Mountain Rollercoaster instead of paying Disney A$30 for a copy. Satisfaction. (Apologies to AT the Copyright Fairy))

Tapas your troubles away

Madrid continued to be fun. We had low expectations of Madrid and they were easily exceeded.
We visited the royal palace in Madrid. WOW! Now I know where all the proceeds from those South American colonies went. There was room after room of astonishingly decorated ceilings, sculptures and paintings.

We made a day trip out to Toledo, which was a really interesting place to visit. It was the day before Corpus Christi. Even though I’m a collapsed catholic I’ve got no idea what Corpus Christi is about beyond its obvious literal meaning. I can’t even be bothered googling it. Note that Microsoft Word has obviously not caught up with the verb to google. In any event the streets of Toledo were extravagantly decorated with flags and flowers for the celebration.

At this point I want to share some of my beloved Dale’s wonderful words of wisdom as we have travelled around. It is clear that you no longer need a classical education in order to have a broad general knowledge and cultural insight. What you need is exposure to a lot of musical theatre and television. Whilst wandering around Toledo Dale suddenly exclaimed ‘’now I understand why Clinger kept saying Holy Toledo in Mash’’ (Ed – Note how David can’t even spell Klinger properly). For those not as well educated as Dale, Clinger was from Toledo, Ohio. Dale’s sudden ‘’aha’’ moment was brought on by learning that Toledo was the centre for the Catholic Church in Spain for centuries and that it has a phenomenal number of churches. A little later on the same day he turned to me and said ‘’Do you know how I knew that El Greco was a painter?’’ I naturally said no, whereupon he explained that there is a line in a song sung by Bernadette Peters in the musical ‘’Dames at Sea’’ that refers to an El Greco painting. Impressive. But wait, about a week later Dale was on the phone to his brother in law telling him that we were about to go to Seville, at which point there were guffaws of laughter from both ends of the phone because Dallas asked whether we would be having haircuts. This was then followed by both of them admitting that they only knew of the Barber of Seville because they watched Bugs Bunny cartoons. Parents get thy children into musical theatre and sit them in front of the television for as many hours as you possibly can.

In Toledo we also experienced for the first time the awnings that are draped along the main streets in some Spanish towns to provide shelter from the hot weather. We saw them used again in Seville and Granada. The other Spanish invention for cooling down is to spray watery mist from hoses strung out above restaurant tables. Intriguing, yet environmentally suspect in water starved southern Spain.

In Toledo we just wandered around enjoying the narrow winding streets and the Moorish influence on architecture and design. There were plenty of the dreaded El Greco paintings in Toledo, where he lived for much of his life, although I relented and reluctantly admitted that there were a couple that probably indicated some talent. In one museum there was a room full of El Greco paintings of the 12 apostles and the Nazarene (in the words of Gore Vidal) and we were entertained by the 3 Indian women who oohed and aahed about the way El Greco had depicted their loving, thoughtful, graceful expressions and so on!
On our final night in Madrid we went out for dinner and had a great meal but the most fantastic part of the meal was (re) discovering Mateuse Rose. I had forgotten that this stuff even existed. I don’t think that I’ve seen a bottle since I was a child – presumably the last time I drank any. We’ve since shared some more Mateuse with Julia and Dom, and Julia’s parents Barrie and Jan, and we are beginning to think that it may even be an alternative to sparkling red being slightly aerated and all. Perhaps an exploratory committee can be formed by the sparkling red group to consider this possibility in more detail.

Next stop was Cordoba and 2 days in a row of 40 degree heat. We arrived on Friday afternoon and headed over the road from our hotel to the Mezquita (Mosque) which we think is the most stunning site we’ve visited in Spain. Thanks to Barbra and Rob for suggesting that we visit Cordoba as we hadn’t had any intention of doing so. Cordoba was the capital of Muslim Spain until mid way through the 13th century and, as a result, the mosque is magnificent in size and splendour. After the Christian reconquest of Andalucia a cathedral was built right in the middle of the mosque. The mosque could hold 40,000 people for prayers and has nearly 1000 beautiful arched pillars. It was spacious and cool in 40 degrees. It reminded us of the mosques we visited in India in 2005 which are wonderful public spaces precisely because they are so open and spacious.

We also visited the Alcazar gardens, which is pretty much the only other thing to do in Cordoba.

We ventured out late on the second day for a walk and a pre-dinner drinky poo before going just around the corner for tapas at a tiny bar. This bar is apparently quite famous for its tortilla and we certainly loved it. We had to eat standing at the bar and in addition to the tortilla we had the usual jamon (who remembers which variation), chorizo sausage and olives washed down by the lovely house sangria. We’ve since made our own sangria, with Jan’s recipe, but more of that later.


Next it was on to Seville where we met up with Dominie, Julia, Jan and Barry. It has been fantastic to be with our friends as we have been starting to miss everyone. So much of the time in Seville and Granada was spent enjoying long breakfasts, evening drinks and convivial dinners. Dominie arrived in Seville from France saying that she had eaten way too much jamon (ham) in France but proceeded to continue to lead the jamon tapas charge. Aside from talking, eating and some shopping our tourist activities were visiting the cathedral, the Alcazar and seeing a Flamenco show. The less said about the cathedral the better. It is apparently the largest in the world (by volume) according to the Guinness Book of Records Certificate, and it contains (some of) the remains of Christopher Columbus. It also has great views from the towers that were originally minarets for the mosque on the same site. Perhaps what was most interesting was the miners' occupation protest happening inside. Thanks to some expert googling by Dom we discovered that they have been laid off from their jobs and they do not believe that they’ve been paid their correct entitlements. They used the Corpus Christi celebrations to move into the cathedral and the church has allowed them to stay.


The Alcazar was very impressive. Room after room has marvellous intact tiles arranged in stunning designs. The gardens are also a wonderful oasis of greenery. We couldn’t understand why more isn’t made of this palace. We think that it is at least the equal of the Alhambra in Granada. I preferred the Alhambra because the Seville Alcazar is a hotch potch of add ons utilising different architectural styles but there is no doubt that the tiles are more intact and stunning and some of the others preferred the Alcazar to the Alhambra.

Julia, David, Dom and Dale - Choreography by Franzie

But the best experience was the Flamenco show. It was hysterical but I have to admit upfront that it isn’t my cup of tea, or as the French would say ‘’ma tasse du the’’. I haven’t had so much fun in years. The first performer pulled faces that would make a constipated drag queen proud and which it would be impossible for anyone else to replicate despite repeated attempts by Dale and I. It appears that Flamenco is a very serious dancing style and in its pure form the songs are more important than the dancing. The result is that all the women attempt to look as severe as they possibly can and almost no one smiles. I find the dancing very energetic but staccato and lacking in fluidity although, to their credit, a couple of the dancers did manage to effect some elegance notwithstanding the nature of the music and the singing. The most important person in Flamenco performances appears to be the ‘’lead’’ singer who sings, and issues challenges and questions, to the dancer who then responds in dance. I should explain that there were only 2 singers and a guitarist performing with one dancer at any one time. The main lead singer was an older guy who was fantastic because he was engaging with both the dancer and the audience but the other singers looked supremely bored all evening. The singers and the guitarist are supposed to say ‘’ole’’ from time to time to encourage the dancer but the ‘’oles’’ these guys let out just made everyone want to go to sleep. At one point one of the secondary singers had a solo and was really going for it when he lost the notes which resulted in everyone cracking up with laughter including the dancer. The one saving grace was that the first male dancer was very easy on the eye. Perhaps Julia or Dominie - or anyone else who feels so inclined - might like to defend the artistic intgrity of Flamenco dancing.


We then moved on to Granada, which I think was my favourite town in Spain. Manuela had told us that she thinks it is the Spanish equivalent of Aix-en-Provence and I can see why. The two towns have about the same population, including very large student populations, and were historically capitals of their regions and the centres of cultural renaissances. Like Aix, Granada is obviously affluent and has beautiful street scapes that include all the big brand name stores.


We visited a Hammam while in Granada which I think has been the best experience we’ve had while in Spain. A Hammam is a spa and massage complex and the one we visited in Granada was divinely cool and relaxing. It was beautifully decorated with tiles and Moorish patterns. They had a cool pool, a lukewarm pool and a hot pool as well as a steam room and we all had massages. At any time you could also go and have some refreshingly sweet Turkish tea. We spent about an hour and a half in the Hammam in the middle of the day and it revived us all wonderfully.


In the afternoon we visited the Alhambra which is quite an ordeal. Dominie booked tickets for us months in advance. It is so famous that they only let people into the Nazaries Palace in half hour intervals. As a result it is incredibly crowded which detracts from the enjoyment of the visit. I liked the palace because of its wonderful layout although I also think that it pales in comparison with the similar Mughal palaces you see in India. Nevertheless you can wander between interestingly tiled and sculpted rooms, tiled courtyards and cool garden courtyards. The newer Generaliffe (take insurance jokes as read) gardens above the Nazaries Palace are wonderful to stroll through, particularly as the day cools. We spent about an hour and a half in the gardens between 5.30 and 7 in the evening.

We rounded off our visit to Granada – and Dom’s last evening in Spain - by going to a tapas bar and eating lots more jamon. We specifically picked a place with over 200 legs of jamon hanging from the ceiling – each with a miniature bucket beneath it to collect the melting fat. It was a great evening. Food was perfect, service was perfect and most importantly jug after jug of sangria was perfect.


The following day Barrie collected Dale, Julia and I from Granada and drove us north to Bolnuevo, where he and Jan live permanently. Bolnuevo is on the Costa Calida (Hot Coast) just south of Cartagena and Murcia. The drive north east from Granada takes a few hours although we took a little longer by taking the scenic route along the coast and stopping along the way for a beachside lunch and afternoon coffee break. The Spanish coast line is quite dramatic because the land rises very quickly. Spain apparently has the second highest average altitude in Europe and can be likened to one huge plateau. Whilst eating lunch on a bright sunny day we saw a mist appear: very odd.

Barrie and Jan very generously allowed us to stay in their holiday rental apartment in Bolnuevo, which we can highly recommend. On our first evening we had a barbecue at their place and got stuck into Jan’s (special recipe) sangria. We now have the recipe and, while it is no substitute for sparkling red, we can see lots of this being drunk when we return home.

Dinner with Jan, Barrie and Julia

Bolnuevo is on the coast and has great beaches so we’ve tried to spend as much time as we can on the beach and in the sea. We are spending the next 5 weeks away from the Mediterranean so we decided this was the best thing to do. The beaches are actually sandy and the water is cool but not cold. Barrie and Jan also loaned us their bicycles so we were able to cycle south along an unmade road that runs alongside cliffs and overlooks some truly spectacular swimming beaches where we were able to stop and swim.


On our first day we headed down to the main beach at Bolnuevo in the late afternoon, where we were entertained by a group of approximately 10 friends who were having a good time at the beach. At some point they decided that they would all go in for a swim and a few minutes later one of the guys was on the beach waving around one pair of board shorts and another pair of female swimming ‘’bottoms’’ (perhaps this is the reverse monokini). Much much hilarity ensued as the bathers were thrown up the beach and the pair were encouraged to fetch them. To her credit the woman calmly came out of the water and grabbed her bathers – and no I didn’t take a photo before anyone asks. However she then grabbed a camera and started taunting the guy – who we think was her partner – to come out and get his bathers. Most of the beach was watching with amusement while he dithered and made a couple of hilarious attempts to get out of the water while covering his private parts. These attempts ended in failure because he had to walk over some stones just before getting on to dry land which, between these and the waves, meant he kept falling over. Finally after about 15 minutes – and everyone losing interest – he decided to drag himself out of the water and up the beach along his stomach probably for 10 meters. It was very funny. His girlfriend was snapping photos all the way and a couple of the guys attempted to turn him over but he ingeniously scooped sand up in their faces before they could get close to him. It’s easy to have fun at the beach isn’t it.


Aside from amusing ourselves on the beach the other highlight of Bolnuevo was visiting the Paso Azul and Paso Blanco museums in nearby Lorca. These museums exhibit the magnificent semana santa (Holy Week) costumes made by their 'schools'. During Easter processions are held in Lorca that are very colourful and mix pagan Roman stories as well as stories from the old and new testaments. Naturally the theme is all about the triumph of Christianity. A number of different ‘’schools’’ or ‘’brotherhhoods’’ try to out do one another with better costumes and floats. The two biggest are Paso Azul and Paso Blanco. We saw some video highlights of this year’s procession that Barrie and Janet actually attended and it was visual feast of costumes, floats, chariots and horseback acrobatics. Tickets cost about 50 Euro per person but you get to watch the procession over 2 nights. If it rains the procession is cancelled and you don’t get your money back. This happened to Janet and Barrie a couple of years ago.


The highlight are the cloaks that are all hand embroidered. Paso Blanco had the best exhibits of these cloaks but at Paso Azul you can see some that are over 100 years old and you actually get to go into their workshop to watch people working on the cloaks for next year’s procession. In fact when we went in they told us that they had already spent a year working on one major cloak for next year’s possession. There was a little bit of an unhappy murmer around the room when Dale took a photo of part of the cloak that was being worked on. We eventually worked out that they were very worried about Paso Blanco finding out about their design by the photo being sold or posted on the internet. When they worked out that we were from Australia they said it was ok to keep taking photos as long as they weren’t being posted on the internet but Dale thought it best to not take any more. There were nine people (all women) working when we were there, they are apparently employed full time and one lady has been working there for 25 years (shades of the dedication at MTC wardrob dept). I don’t want to give too much away lest the Paso Blanco people are surfing around the internet but 6 of the women were hand sowing a very intricate picture in a multitude of colours while 3 others were sowing gold coilied thread as part of the general cape background. Each gold coiled thread was cut to a length of a few millimetres before the needle was placed inside it and then sewn into the cloak. No wonder they take 2 years to make. The women said they are passionate about embroidery and I think you would have to be to do this work. There must be an amazing sense of achievement however when your cloak is finally revealed to the crowd. Apparently the Azul people stand on one side with blue kerchiefs, screaming and shouting, while the Blanco people stand on the other side doing their same with their white kerchiefs.

We finished a lovely 5 days in the south and headed back to Barcelona before taking a sleeper train to Paris. Adieu to Julia for 2 weeks whilst we spend time with Dale’s family in Paris and Haute Provence.