Letter from Espargal: 20 of 2011

Tuesday 24 May: as we start our descent into Brussels airport, the flight manager, carrying a long sheaf of paper, bends over our seats to inform us that our connections to Copenhagen have been cancelled – the volcano, he indicates! He doesn’t need to explain. Go to the airport Service Centre, he advises us helpfully before moving on to share this news with other passengers.

We ponder the options. Maybe we can we fly to Germany and take a train! Are we insured, Jones wonders. (We are – but whether against belching volcanoes I’ve no idea.) We discuss the alternatives.

At Brussels airport a fresh-faced airline representative awaits disconcerted passengers at the aircraft door. We crowd around him. Our flight’s on schedule, he assures us; it’s the next flight that’s been cancelled. Jones is dubious; she thinks him too young to trust. But it’s true. We emerge at gate 43, walk across the corridor to Gate 44 and board our flight to Copenhagen. Things are looking up.

At Copenhagen airport we join the queue for train tickets into town. The railway clerks speak fluent English. All Danes speak English. (“We start learning it in 4th grade, a coffee shop manager informs me. “Third grade,” his assistant corrects him. “In my time it was 4th grade,” he insists. Whatever the case, they all speak English.)

It’s a quick ride to Copenhagen’s central station, where we pause over a map on the pavement to get our bearings. It’s hard to see the street names. Our hotel is barely five minutes away, opposite the Lady Love sex club. It’s a lovely little hotel, if expensive - like everything else in this city. But the location is great, so are the free buffet breakfasts and suppers.

Wednesday 25: The tourist information office is just around the corner from the station, with the “Hop On - Hop Off” bus stop right outside. 90 minutes later we’ve seen the little mermaid and have a much better idea of the city layout. Next on foot to the Fine Art Museum where the new wing, cunningly melded to the old, is a work of art in itself.

Then via the Rosenborg palace gardens to the Ecco shop where, wincing at the price, I invest in new boots. They’re a perfect fit and my much- mended old pair is coming apart. I walk back to the hotel in them, dodging the cyclists in the pedestrianized shopping streets.

Copenhagen is flat; the bicycle rules supreme. Although cyclists have dedicated lanes, they and their bicycles are everywhere. They dodge in and out of people and cars, talking nonchalantly on their mobile phones as they pass by. Parked bicycles, many toppled over, clog the pavements. Helmeted children are ferried around on their parents’ cycles – up to 4 - either in a carrier up front or in a trailer behind.

Back to the hotel for a snooze and supper; we decline the waiter’s offer of a bottle of wine that costs as much as case back home; then to the Tivoli Gardens 5 minutes away. Not that the Tivoli Gardens are exactly gardens. They're not exactly anything. At one end crowds watch open air ballet.



At the other kids shriek themselves silly on a host of scare-yourself-to-death machines. (The most amazing of these is a ring of suspended chair-harnesses that, once their riders are secured, rise high into the sky to whirl dizzily around a tower.)

THOSE ARE PEOPLE FLYING

Inbetween are ponds, fountains, flower gardens, restaurants, shows and you name it. It’s Disneyworld, the Chelsea Flower Show, the Berlin Philharmonic and Sadlers Wells wrapped up together. The seagulls are well-trained. As our book says, indefinable but magic.

Thurs 26: To the national museum. The displays of tools, weapons and ornaments – plus the remains of an ancient Viking boat – are as good as anything I’ve seen, and that’s just one wing.

11.30 Fetch our luggage from the hotel and walk up to the No 26 bus stop, as advised by the tourist office. The bus driver is sympathetic to tourists with suitcases. A family of Mexicans scramble on board with their baggage and are grateful for our assistance. They’re coming on the same cruise, we learn.

At the quay we join the line for the boat, the Norwegian Sun. It’s a huge operation, methodically conducted by dozens of staff in a spacious hangar. Our suitcases, tagged with our cabin numbers, are taken to be x-rayed. We undergo airport style security ourselves – frisked, photographed, issued with passenger IDs, and finally boarded. No food or drink is allowed – especially no alcohol. That’s widely available on the ship - at cruise line prices. It’s going to be a sober voyage.

BJ ON OUR BALCONY AT WARNEMUNDE

14.00 Our cabins are ready. We trek 200 metres down the 8th floor starboard corridor to cabin 8270. We’re impressed. The queen sized bed is a delight; there’s a divan, a desk, SAT TV and wifi (at a price) and our own private balcony. We could hardly ask for more.

Dining is informal – freestyle – in any of a dozen restaurants and bars. Speciality restaurants charge a set price for entry. Otherwise, the food is included in the fare, as much as you can eat (and some people do). Most of the restaurants are on the 11th and 12th decks; Jones insists that we take the stairs; the shops, offices, gymnasiums are on the 5th and 6th decks.

The ship is huge, a floating city, nearly 80 thousand tons (although 150 thousand tonner is on the way). She is full – close to 2,000 passengers and 800 crew. We hear about cases of the dreaded novovirus on the previous voyage. Hand disinfectant dispensers are much in evidence; staff with disinfectant sprays wait outside bars and restaurants.

Friday 27: 0700: we slide gently into the German port of (Rostock) Warnemunde. Berthed beside us is an even bigger cruise liner, the Emerald Princess (113,000 tons). From her innards and from ours hundreds of passengers pour out, heading for coaches and trains bound for Berlin.

We have opted for a relaxed day in Warnemunde instead. It’s a pretty seaside resort. It would be even prettier if the day were sunnier and less windy. But the German holiday makers shrug off the showers and we do the same. The streets are lined with clothes shops and coffee shops. We find one serving mohnkuchen and order two slices. Sign language suffices. The Germans, unlike the Danes, do not all speak English.

Half a dozen pleasure boats vie to take visitors on harbour tours. I am lured on board. Jones prefers to go for a walk instead. Rostock harbour is huge and fascinating. A new ship is taking shape in a shipyard. The biggest metal pipes I’ve ever seen are being loaded on to a flat-decked boat.

That evening a swing band performs on the rear deck. It’s cold and windy.We have brought enough warm clothes but only just. The band members outnumber the audience, who prefer to remain snug inside. Entertainment is a big feature of life on board, although not much of it is to our taste. Mind you we did enjoy a performance by a group of German folk dancers.

At sunset the Emerald Princess eases away from the quay and performs a slow 180* turn in the channel. She looks like a floating tower block. We follow soon after. There is barely 30 metres between our stern and the bank as we swivel around. Beyond the harbour we watch the pilot boat speed alongside our leviathan and the pilot simply step aboard. Tried to take a picture but it was hopeless in the dark.

Letter from Espargal: 19 of 2011

STORM AT ESTRELA

Tuesday 17 May: There are many times and places where this letter might commence but it’s starting at dawn in a houseboat securely tied to the quay at the tiny village of Estrela on the Alqueva dam. The skies are grey with the heavy showers that splatter against the windows and pepper the waters.

This morning the waters have lost their angry white crests; we had the very devil of a time trying to berth yesterday (we failed to tie up stern-first as advised) in the teeth of a fierce wind that sprang up as we approached the village. The assistance of a Czech couple who had tied up a few minutes before us was gratefully received.


THE SKIPPER

This is our first experience of houseboating and likely our last. Jones, who was nervous about the venture from the first, was driven to tears by the difficult berth (forgive any pun) and made it plain that further boating would be superfluous to her happiness. Given her feelings and the bleak weather outlook we may well return the boat early and write off the investment to experience.

CORDOBA ROMAN BRIDGE

Ironically, until this point, the weather has been superb. We set out a week ago for the Spanish city of Cordoba. Although the car is approaching its second birthday, this was its first serious road trip. I blessed the clever cruise ontrol (which keeps one at a sensible distance from the vehicle in front) for I found it hard to stay within the modest speed limits on the fine Spanish roads.

BLOODY DEEP WELL

As we later gathered from Henk, the Dutchman who runs a B&B in the suburbs of Cordoba, the Spanish government had recently lowered the limits in the interests of conserving fuel. The surprisingly disciplined behaviour of the Spanish drivers he ascribed to the heavy fines that speeding motorists were required to pay on the spot. Henk served us breakfast at a table in the garden each morning, together with three Dutch guests with whom we struck up an easy relationship.

BREAKFAST

While in Cordoba we chose to leave the car at the B&B and take a 20-minute bus ride into town. The old city is not a good place to park. Its warren of streets sprawls over a couple of square kilometres on the banks of the sluggish Guadalquivir river, whose waters have provided access to trading and invading nations for thousands of years. This history is written large in the crooked lanes that the visitor has to share with ubiquitous motor scooters and occasional motorists trying to squeeze a way through the crowds.

Cordoba’s glory is the mesquita, its mosque-cathedral. This stadium of a building simply swallows up the thousands of visitors who enter it each day. The Islamic arches coexist happily with the main altar, which along with its pews for Christian worshippers, is barely a footnote. Scores of chapels honour dusty, mainly long-forgotten saints.

Second on our hit parade was the archaeological museum, which is set over the remains of the city’s Roman theatre. Video displays (with helpful English subtitles) reconstruct the ancient scenes for the visitor. The theatre was huge – the stage some 50 metres wide – and the audience was seated according to rank, senators at the front, the merchant class in the middle, commoners and women at the back. Great drains beneath the theatre served to divert a stream as well as flushing the Roman loos. Those Romans were serious builders.

MEDINA AZAHARA

So in their turn were the Arabs. On the hills overlooking Cordoba are the remains of Medina Azahara, a city that Abdul Rahman III set about constructing in the 10th century in order to secure his credentials as the 3rd caliph of Islam. (I hope I’ve got this right.) Barely 10 per cent of this city has been excavated. The rest lies under the lower green slopes across which we watched whooping cowboys chasing cattle.

That so little remains of Medina Azahara is largely due to the stripping of stone blocks from its fine buildings in subsequent centuries for re-use in expanding Cordoba. Even so, what’s left leaves one in no doubt of the magnificence of the original city, carefully laid out for both administrative and ceremonial purposes under the supreme guidance of the caliph.

FLOWER PATIO

Back in old Cordoba, May is the month when citizens throw open their gates to allow evening visitors (on so called patio tours) to admire their flower-filled courtyards. Houses are built around a small courtyard, scented with flowers and cooled with water that splashes from a fountain.

Shade is provided in high summer by canvas drapes drawn across the top. The horticultural wonders wrought by the owners of these houses have to be seen to be believed. Entire walls disappear behind multi-coloured curtains of flowers and creepers.

VIANA PALACE

Jones was hooked by the gardens. She ambled lovingly around the multiple courtyards of the Palace of Viana, fascinated by the way that each separate garden beckoned the visitor into the next. I was more fascinated by the depth of the well. How on earth did they dig down that far?

ROYAL PALACE GARDENS

Even more impressive were the formal gardens that framed great rectangular ponds in the grounds of Cordoba’s royal palace. Of the palace itself, little remains but the gardens are glorious still. We joined hundreds of visitors of every colour and nation in wandering along the garden paths and seeking relief from the heat under the trees.

One evening we came across a procession of school children clutching flowers and candles straggling up through the streets of the old city. Sections would pause every so often for those behind or in front to catch up or move on. Towards the back came a band of enthusiastic young drummers, leading a statue borne aloft on a litter.

Beneath the drapes of the litter could be glimpsed the legs of half a dozen bearers. These fellows emerged red-faced and perspiring in front of us to take a breather, while another group took their place. In whose honour this was I’m not sure although most such events seemed to be in the name of the Virgin of something or other.

ROMERIA

More striking still was a procession that brought us to a halt in a valley towards the end of a long, meandering drive dictated by Hermione the GPS oracle. All of a sudden we were faced by a great crowd of people – on foot, in carriages, in cars, on horseback, pushing babies – many dressed up in their skirt-swirling flamenco finery.


The event was a “romeria”, a kind of picnic pilgrimage that each area celebrates on a chosen day. We watched in awe for 15 minutes as the procession trooped past us.

Time and again on the Spanish highways we came across vast armies of solar arrays, computer controlled to follow the sun around the sky. These, along with the farms of gigantic wind turbines, attest to the country’s efforts to generate pollution free energy. I approve.

It’s an easy five-hour drive from Cordoba to Zafra, another ancient Spanish town and the mid-point on our journey to our next destination, the Alqueva dam. In Zafra, guided by Tripadvisor, we had booked ourselves into a lovely old hotel on the old town square. The owner insisted on showing us around, all the while relating the history of the building and of its noble owners.

ZAFRA SQUARE

We dined with hundreds of others, on the patio bordering the square (from which cars were banned over the weekend). The Spanish take their dining seriously. Shops close for four hours at 13.30 and for the day at 20.30. Dining doesn’t start until at least 9, and while we were there fresh parties of diners were still arriving at 11, children in tow.

ZAFRA PARTY

The following night we spent in Portel, back in Portugal, close to the Amieira Marina where we were to rent a house-boat for three days. To our disappointment, the nearby Roman ruins were closed. We had to satisfy ourselves with a glimpse of a substantial fort behind the wall.

ROMAN FORT

At the marina we reported promptly for the induction course that Liliana conducted with the assistance of some strangely-spelled slides. (The management has accepted my offer to improve the standard of English on its website.) With us was the Czech couple who later proved so helpful in securing our boat.

AMIEIRA MARINA

The theoretical instruction over, we were passed on to Vitor, who introduced us to our vessels. Suffice it to say that Vitor contrived to perform effortlessly manoeuvres that later tied us in nautical knots. (The only really hard bit is parking stern-first, especially in the wind.)

Our instruction pack included a map, a guide to lake-side villages and a how-to-drive-a-boat booklet. The boats themselves (for 2 to 12 people) are equipped with a GPS and sonar. The dam is large but shaped like a slender V. It takes about 12 hours to motor down the course of one leg and up the other, with lots of stopping/overnighting points along the way.


AMIEIRA TOWN BLISS

Tuesday has proved as perfect a day as anyone might hope for. After exiting Estrela without difficulty, albeit in moderate winds, we laid up over lunch in a tiny creek in Alqueva, the land-end of whose small pier had vanished into the rising water.

ALQUEVA QUAY

After lunch and a snooze, we chugged (10 kph) northwards to the village of Amieira (about an hour's sailing north of the marina) where we managed to moor the boat in a nearly professional manner before walking a kilometre into town for some conversation with the locals and welcome refreshments.

The evening provided us with a sunset long to remember. We lolled back on the boat’s upper deck like yachting tycoons, sipping baggies, watching anglers and revelling in the sheer brilliance of the sunset sky.

Briefly we were masters of our own serene, untroubled, universe. For this experience alone, the rental has been worth it. Even Jones is starting to recognise that there is something to be said for boating. Maybe we shall have another outing after all.

Wednesday we shall return early to the marina to berth overnight as the weather forecast is foul and we don’t want to get caught in another storm. (We did, anyhow, and were grateful for the assistance of a marina employee when we berthed - our house sitters report that Espargal has recorded two inches of rain in as many days.)

Thursday 19 May: Amieira is behind us. We have travelled south west to Pedralva, where we are to spend the next three days before returning to Espargal to gather ourselves and some fresh clothing ahead of our Baltic cruise.

Pedralva is a tiny village in the bottom tip of Portugal. It was dying until several partners bought up most of its ruined cottages and restored them for the use of guests. Our cottage gazes out on rain-drenched green hills. Some of the properties remain in the hands of the original owners.


Sunday 22 May: The first half of our holiday draws to an end. We have just completed breakfast on our patio and are preparing to make our departure. Coyote, the delightful dog who joined us for a barbecue one night, was scragged off by his owner for being AWOL and gated.

For ourselves we have visited two of the wonderful west coast beaches, where Jones added to her collection of stones. We explored Lagos, peered into the old slave market (closed), inspected the museum (where the loo, like many of the exhibits, hails from the neolithic era)and generally lazed around. Strange that as nice as it is to sleep in, the real pleasure comes only in sleeping in when one is obliged to get up.