Cantabria - Day 2, Beaches & Mountains

Of course it wasn’t like that at all and when we woke in the morning and went downstairs the genial host was there to greet us and direct us towards our breakfast table. We were the only guests though and we had no explanation for the ghostly footsteps. We felt curiously in the way so we hastily finished breakfast and left the San Telmo for a drive along the coast.

Before we left the owner provided us with a map of Cantabria and made some recommendations about where to visit. He also gave us a weather forecast and suggested that if we were to stay dry then we should be heading west. Northern Spain has a temperate rather than a continental climate and with weather delivered directly from the Atlantic Ocean it has over one hundred days of rain a year and December is one of the wettest months. We agreed that his advice was almost certainly worth following and we did exactly as he suggested.

Although the forecast was poor the weather by contrast was very good and there was a clear blue sky with just a few wispy clouds and from the hotel car park it was possible to see the sea only a few hundred metres away. We drove out of the village on a road that climbed quickly and at the top we were overawed by a sight that we were not prepared for. At a distance of about fifty kilometres we could see the two thousand five hundred metre high peaks of the Picos de Europa which were snow capped and glistening white in the mid morning sun. There had been recent heavy snowfall in the mountains behind the narrow coastal strip of the Cantabria coastline and this morning it looked absolutely spectacular. This I simply did not expect and I began to think about all the things about Spain that I don’t know about, which would fill several volumes of an encyclopaedia.

We headed towards the coast road and enjoyed the dramatic contrast of the Atlantic Ocean to our left and the lush green meadows of the hills to the right with the snow-capped mountains in the near distance. We were heading for the town of Comillas but stopped several times to admire the power of the sea as great waves rolled in and battered the shore line. I had always thought of Spain as a Mediterranean country but closer inspection of the map shows that a third of the Country’s coastline is along the much more dramatic Atlantic Ocean.

In the summer Comillas is a busy seaside town but it is a lot quieter in December and there was plenty of room in the car park to park the car. We walked across the pristine blue flag beach washed scrupulously clean by the strong tides and then towards the little harbour with a handful of little fishing boats sheltering behind the strong granite walls. The tide was coming in quickly and as we watched the harbour began to fill with water the little boats sprang into life as the sea lifted them off of the mud. There was a little café next to the harbour so we stopped for refreshments and planned a route to continue west.

Before we left we drove into the old town where there were some fascinating buildings including an Antonio Gaudi mansion called El Capricho complete with a signature tile clad tower. There was a market in town today so we went to have a look but strangely it seemed to consist of stalls manned by gypsies and North Africans so we didn’t stay too long.

Before we could continue west we had to drive south away from the coast and towards the mountains and the national parks of Cantabria. It is an interesting fact that these mountains are the habitat of the Cantabrian Brown Bear, which is a relative of the European Brown Bear that used to be common all over the continent. Luckily they are timid creatures and shy away from human contact and needless to say we didn’t see one today. This was probably quite fortunate because these bears can reach weights of over two hundred kilograms and and it is best not to startle them because this can be quite dangerous. This reminded me of my visit to Yellowstone Park in the USA where there a lot of wild bears and the park’s advice on what to do was clear enough but only really useful if you have got nerves of steel.

If you stumble across one first you need to back away (This will probably be a bit undignified because due to involuntary bowel movements, you are sure to have filled your pants!)
and talk to the bear in a calm voice (Unfortunately there is no additional advice on the sort of things bears like to have a conversation about, I suggest Sugar Puffs or anything to do with honey)
Keep backing away and whatever you do not run (this is very good advice because these beasts can reach speeds of thirty five miles an hour and is sure to outrun you)
and try in any way to make yourself seem less threatening (being in a state of extreme terror with a backbone turned to crème caramel this shouldn’t be too difficult)
In the unfortunate event that the bear does charge, and you are not equipped with a sidearm, promptly drop to the ground stomach-first and cover your head and ears with your arms. In this situation fighting back will almost certainly intensify and prolong the attack. This is obvious really because humans are seriously ill equipped to fight bears and it would be foolish to even attempt it. Seriously I expect that this playing dead routine might be a bit difficult to carry through and realistically you are probably going to end up as the three bear’s supper!

When we reached the motorway we headed promptly west again and in a very short time we were in the fishing town of San Vincente De La Barquera, which was busier than Comillas and had a hint of vibrancy. The sky was blue and the sun was shining and despite my horrible cold this made me feel a whole lot better. There was an interesting castle and an old town that stretched from the headland to the church of Santa María de los Ángeles and which enjoyed magnificent views over a busy river estuary to the mountains beyond. And there was a good view of the Maza Bridge, with its twenty-eight arches, which was built on the orders of the Spanish Catholic Monarchs in the sixteenth century.

Even though most of the local people were dining indoors, for visitors from a few latitudes further north it was warm enough to sit out on the pavement and have some sea food dishes and a bottle of local white wine and we enjoyed paella and a generous portion of fresh sardines and sat in the sunshine and watched the boats in the harbour as the tide continued to rush in and make them dance about on the water.

Before we left San Vincente we drove down to the sea front where the waves were crashing in over the harbour walls with an intense force and we admired the power of the sea. This place was rather like Cornwall or South Wales with a lively Atlantic Ocean, a working fishing port and an intense blue sea fringed by verdant green fields. We were reluctant to leave but there were still thinks to see and we hadn’t visited the town of Santillana Del Mar yet, which is supposed to be one of the prettiest in Spain.



We drove east and as we did so the weather deteriorated and upon arrival in Santillana the sun had completely disappeared behind a curtain of grey sky. We parked the car and walked into the town and it turned out to be a real treasure. It was an unspoilt medieval town with a famous old church, cobbled piazzas and historic old buildings at every twist and turn in the streets. We visited the church, which wasn’t especially good value for money, and then we explored the town looking for dining opportunities for later on.

It was getting cool so we left the town and returned to Ubiarco but before we returned to the Posada San Telmo we drove past to see if there might be alternative restaurants in the other direction. We came across the beach of Santa Justa and even though it was getting dark we drove down and walked down to the sea. The tide was fully in and the boistrous waves were crashing over the shoreline and we were surprised to see the vulnerable Chapel of Santa Justa built directly into the rocks and taking the full force of the surf. Actually, it turns out that it has been there for four hundred years so presumably it is quite sturdy and quite able to stand up to the winter battering from the sea. We took a look at the nearby town of Suances but we saw nothing to take us back so we drove back to Ubiarco and after a rest we went back to Santillana for our evening meal.

The little town was really quite lively on account of this being the start of the nativity season and there was a firework display and a street party for the children, which made the place temporarily busy. We looked around and chose the lively Restaurant ‘Castilla’ for our evening meal and we enjoyed a substantial menu del dia and a couple of glasses of wine to finish the day. When we left, an hour or so later, it was cold but the sky was clear and we hoped for another unexpectedly good day tomorrow.

Molly at Christmas

Molly is twelve weeks old and, stating the obvious, this is her first Christmas. If anyone had suggested at this time last year that this year there would be a little addition to the family I would have immediately taken the bottle away from them for their own good, but there you go, life is full of little surprises and this one we are really pleased with!

She is completely oblivious to all this Christmas nonsense of course but despite my advice not to go mad with presents no one took any notice and by Christmas day there was a pile of presents the size of Westminster Abbey. I have stuck to my guns and my present is a monthly standing order payment to her new Children’s Trust Fund.

Being less than three months old Christmas morning was much like any other morning to Molly so there wasn’t the restless night and the impatient early morning start but that is almost certain to be a feature in the future because Sally was always especially bad about getting up way too early on Christmas morning and it is probably in the genes. I think one year she managed to sleep through to about half past four but most years we were up and opening presents at least half an hour before that. I can remember looking through the curtains and lamenting that we were the only house in the close where people were daft enough to get up that early. This always made Christmas day a very long one and by the time of the Queen’s speech it always felt like bedtime.

Molly has continued to grow and she is now almost three times her birth weight. The hair on the top of her head is starting to grow and it is very fair, but at the back of her head she has developed a bald patch so the darker hair she was born with has started to wear away. Perhaps she will be blond after all; I hope so. I am amazed by how much more alert she is and how she is adapting to her environment. She is beginning to gain total control over the household and the other people who live there and allowances and concessions are having to be made. She objected strongly to the removal of the Halloween spider mobile so that had to be put back in place because she is attracted to the sparkly tinsel and the flickering lights.

She had a smart party frock for the big day and she does like to be included in what is going on around her and she objects if she is put down even for a moment and she feels neglected. She likes to sit with someone and participate. She has quite a thoughtful and serious expression and it is almost possible to see her concentrating on people and activity. She is very observant and she watches intently especially when being spoken to. It is at about this time that babies are learning about sounds and experimenting with little noises and developing little vowel sounds of their own. She especially watches the mouth of the person that is speaking to her and this is important because she is learning how to form different sounds that will eventually become words and sentences.

I have been thinking about how important these early interactions are because this is where she will learn to communicate and speak properly. I have always wondered why the French cannot say this or that and use zis and zat instead and I think I understand now, it is because they simply cannot get their mouth and tongue in the correct position because they could never work it out as babies or learn to say th because their parents cannot either.

She has developed her crying skills and she has been working hard on achieving the full range, starting with the whimper that means she would like some attention, through to the nagging little grizzle when the whimper doesn’t work, right up to the full sob and bottom lip tremble, which means she is either hungry or has a little pain. Generally she is really well behaved and it seems as though she has been around forever and we all look forward to many more Christmases to come.

Christmas

As for most people Christmas was best when I was young and still believed in Santa Claus. In those days we used to alternate between a Christmas at home one year and then at the grandparents the year after. I can remember two of these quite clearly.

My mum’s parents lived in London and they lived in a flat in Catford and when we stayed there I got to sleep in a small box room at the front of the house overlooking the street outside. One year, I was four years old, I had gone to bed on Christmas Eve and sometime during the night I woke up and because of the streetlights outside there was enough illumination for me to see at the foot of the bed that there was a sack overflowing with presents. Sticking out of the top of the sack was a rifle (not a real one of course) so I knew that I had got the cowboy suit that was top of my Christmas present list! It was still some time until morning but I am sure that I was able to sleep better after that secure in the confidence that Santa had been.

I used to like Christmas in London, the flat was a curious arrangement that was simply the top floor of a family house with only one front door but it was warm and homely and welcoming. For most of the year everything took place in the small back room but at Christmas we were allowed to go into the best front room for a couple of days. In the morning we would open the main presents and then at tea time there were gifts on the tree to be taken down and given out. Grandad was in charge of this operation until one year when instead of cutting a piece of string holding the present on the tree he cut the tree lights instead and nearly electrocuted himself in the process. After that he lost the job and my Nan took over the responsibility from thereon. There was always a stocking hanging on the fireplace that had the same things in it every year. This was a real stocking mind, not one of the modern pre-packed things that we get today. Grandad was a bus conductor before they went one man operated and every year he used to collect shiny new penny coins and each of us would get a cash bag full of the gleaming treasure. There was an apple and an orange and a few sweets, a dot-to-dot book and perhaps a matchbox car or two.

The other one that I remember was when I got my first train set. This was at my other grandparent’s house in Leicester; actually I think we might have lived there at the time. Christmas morning in the front room there was a square metre of sapele board and a simple circle of track, an engine a tender and two coaches in British Rail burgundy livery. There was a level crossing, a station and a bridge made out of an old shoe box that dad had cut out and made himself. He was good at making things for Christmas presents and at about the same time I had a fort with some US cavalry soldiers that was made out of an old office filing box that he had constructed into a pretty good scale copy of Fort Laramie or wherever, later I had a replacement fort, this time from the toy shop but it was never as good as the cardboard box.

For many years after that there were new additions to the train set until I had quite an extensive network of track and a good collection of engines and rolling stock. But something bad happened to the train set in about 1972 when all of the engines mysteriously stopped functioning. The reason for this was quickly discovered. Brother Richard who has always been more gifted than me with a screwdriver had dismantled them all as part of his engineering education. Unfortunately at this time his skills were not sufficiently developed to be able to put them back together again with quite the same level of expertise and consequently that was the end of model railways in our house.

Christmas was never quite the same of course after you found out the truth about Santa when you were about eight or nine years old. Some spoilsport at school with an older brother or sister would spill the beans on the myth of Christmas and this would be confirmed in the December when you found presents, that were supposed to be still at Santa’s factory at the North Pole, on top of or at the back of your parents wardrobe. I remember when this happened and I discovered the gifts wrapped in mid-December and I sneaked them into the bathroom, locked the door and carefully unwrapped the paper to see if this was true. It was quite a shock to find some new additions to the model railway and quite difficult to wrap them back up again to cover up my snooping. Even more difficult of course to pretend to be surprised when I opened them again a fortnight later on Christmas morning! Richard of course is nearly eight years younger than me so we had to continue to pretend about Santa in our house until I was about fifteen, although I am sure I told my sister straight away!

Snow at Christmas is deep-seated in British culture, and most of us (except bookmakers) look forward expectantly to Christmas Day with scenes depicted on traditional Christmas cards and in works like Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol', but the truth is of course that Christmas is rarely ever white any more. The myth of snowy Christmases has its origins in the colder climate of the period 1550 to1850 when Britain was in the grip of a 'Little Ice Age' and therefore could be confident of snow at Christmas. Winters were particularly persistent and severe but it is now nearly two hundred years since a frost fair was last held on a frozen River Thames in 1813. The trouble is that for most parts of the UK, Christmas comes at the beginning of the season for snow and wintry weather is more likely early in the deepening cold of January. White Christmases were more frequent in the 18th and 19th centuries, even more so before the change of calendar in 1752, which effectively brought Christmas day back by twelve days. There have only been six white Christmases since I was born in 1954. I can remember it snowing on Christmas Eve 1970 because I was walking to Midnight Mass at Hillmorton Church and according the Met Office the last white Christmas was in 2004, when snow was widespread across Northern Ireland, Scotland, parts of Wales, the Midlands, north-east and far south-west England. I can’t remember that!

Cantabria - Day 1, The Twilight Zone

Less than two weeks after returning from Andalusia in the south of the county we were returning to Spain but this time to Cantabria in the north. The lure of £10 return flights had tempted us to travel again even though it really was far too soon after our last journey but I have to say that I find it almost impossible to let these bargain flight opportunities pass by.

My man flu had got worse during the week so on the day of travel I was feeling pretty wretched but I was sure that foreign travel would cheer me up. At the airport I began to feel really awful and I think I even wondered if it was wise to leave the country especially when the medication that I had requested only arrived after a lengthy detour around the duty free shop! Actually nothing was really going to change my plans but once on the plane I went to sleep even before the safety lecture was completed. I thought that this was important because I was embarrassed about coughing and sneezing and spreading germs and calculated that if I were at least sleeping I wouldn’t be irritating anyone. It was only a short flight of just over an hour and a half and I only started to wake when the plane started to come down and the cabin pressure started to drop and the cracking in my sinuses made my face feel like crazy paving. It was an agonising landing and I was most pleased when the plane hit the tarmac.

We picked up a hire car at the Sol-Mar desk and after completing the formalities found the car and headed west on the Autovia to the tourist town of Santillana de Mar and the nearby village of Ubiarco where our accommodation was booked.

It was an odd thing about the accommodation but when I checked the web site a few days before I couldn’t find the hotel again and I had worried that perhaps my booking had been cancelled or the place might be closed for the winter. Eventually I found it through my booking reference number and everything seemed to be in order so I stopped worrying. I was perplexed however that when I entered alternative dates just to check, there was never any availability and there were no more rooms available for this weekend either. I convinced myself that the place must surely be full of people all enjoying £10 flights just like us, but there was another strange thing because there were no customer reviews posted to the site, which has to be a little bit unusual.

It took only about thirty minutes to get to the village and most unusually for me, we found the place almost immediately and drew into the car park. There was only one other car there and the place was in almost complete darkness except for a creepy light seeping through the cracks in the curtains at a downstairs window. It was locked but when we knocked on the door a kindly elderly couple invited us in and explained that they had been waiting all day for us to arrive and I was surprised by this because I was certain that I had advised my late arrival time when I had booked. It was immediately obvious that there were no other guests and the man took us to our room on the first floor. We asked about restaurants and bars but he told us there were none close by and as it was about half past nine we weren’t in the mood for driving any more so we decided to settle in, have a bottle of wine and play cards in the lounge.

We didn’t see the lady again but the man was downstairs and he seemed to know instinctively when we needed something from his bar. First we ordered beer and later a bottle of wine and he was always available when we needed him but at this stage I didn’t find that especially strange. The wine said 1974 and I hoped it wouldn’t be expensive, on the coffee table were a pile of very old magazines and the television programme was an episode of something like Dallas dubbed in Spanish and the place began to feel more and more unusual and curious the later it became.

We finished the wine and went to bed and I went to say goodnight but the place was deserted except for us so we went straight to our room via the creaky staircase and settled down. After a minute or two we heard soft footsteps in the corridor and whoever it was stopped outside our door for a second or two and then moved on. I felt a shiver dart down by spine but I told myself that it was just the owner making sure we were all right and I thought that was a nice touch and that I should be sure to mention it in my hotel review. I had a restless night because of my cold and at some point I heard the footsteps for a second time but I had no idea what time it was. The room was pitch black and although we were on the village main road there wasn’t a single sound to punctuate the total silence that lay on us like a thick blanket. Wild thoughts raced through my brain, I thought about the web site, why were there no guest reviews? Why was no one else staying here? Why did the room go cold and the lights dim when the man bought us the wine? And then I heard the footsteps again so pulled the sheets over my head and tried to go back to sleep.

It was the longest night of my life and I grew weary from straining to listen for strange noises but eventually it was morning and when we looked outside there was a promising clear sky and an unexpected view of the sea. We made a cup of tea and then went downstairs for breakfast but were surprised to find the place deserted and all of the furniture draped in dust covers. It was cold and eerie and no one responded to our holas!

I didn’t like it at all so we went outside and down the street there was a lively little café that was full of customers so we went inside. I asked for the breakfast menu and told the owner that we were staying at the Posada San Telmo next door. He turned pale and gave me an odd stare and when I looked surprised he said ‘Senor, you must be mistaken, no one has stayed at the San Telmo for thirty years, the hotel has been abandoned since 1976’. My blood froze and the hairs on the back of my neck stood to attention and I suddenly understood about the empty web site and the ghostly footsteps and I couldn’t wait to get away so we drank our tea and left rather quickly…




Our Spooky Room......

Bird Watch, Christmas & The Robin

Because it is Christmas I have been looking out for the Robin in the garden and even bought some special (overpriced) food to attract him in. I was rewarded this morning when I saw him strutting around the garden in his distinctly pugnacious way and I thought that it would be nice to find out some more about this favourite British bird.

In 1960 the Robin had a landslide victory in a national poll in the conducted by the Times newspaper in which millions of people voted, and as a result it was suggested as Britain's national bird. The Government did not however respond to the concept and Britain remains therefore without an official avian symbol. As a sort of consolation the Robin was used as a symbol of a Bird Protection Society, but only for a few years before because this was discontinued after a short while.

Unlike most other woodland and garden birds, the robin rarely migrates abroad and is probably for this reason that we associate them with Christmas, taking a starring role as they do on thousands of Christmas cards. The Robin has also appeared on a complete set of Christmas postage stamps in 1995 and before that in 1966 in a birds of Britain set.

The robin's red breast is often assumed to play a role in courtship but in fact it is purely used in defence because despite their distinctly cute appearance Robins are territorial and will defend their territory to the death. An old English folk tale seeks to explain the Robin's distinctive red breast and legend has it that when Jesus was dying on the cross, the Robin, then simply brown in colour, flew to his side and sang into his ear in order to comfort him in his pain. The blood from his wounds stained the Robin's breast, and after that all Robins got the mark of Christ's blood upon them.

In the birds of Shakespeare the Robin (or the Ruddock) gets three mentions, in Cymberline, The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Henry IV part 1.

Because their home colours are red at least eight English football clubs are nicknamed ‘The Robins’. Only one other bird is the nickname of more than one club and that is the Magpie, so the Robin is rather over represented in this respect. Here is my list, but there are probably some more:

West Bromich Albion are the Throstles (Song Thrush), Norwich City the Canaries, Newcastle United and Notts County are the Magpies and Kidderminster Town are the Harriers. In Yorkshire Leeds United are the Peacocks and Sheffield Wednesday the Owls. Crystal Palace are grandly known as the Eagles, Cardiff City are the Bluebirds and further down the M4 Swansea City are predictably the Swans. Back in England Torquay United are the Gulls and Brighton & Hove are the Seagulls. When it comes to Robins there is Chetenham Town, Swindon Town, Bristol City, Wrexham, Altrincham, Ilkeston Town, Bracknell Town and Selby Town. Interestingly not Manchester United but then as nicknames go the 'Robins' isn't nearly so intimidating as the 'Red Devils!'

None of these nicknames though are as interesting orr as amusing as my favourite. Hartlepool are known as the Monkeyhangers because during the Napoleonic wars the residents of the town allegedly mistook a monkey for a Frenchman and strung it up from the town gallows. According to local folklore a French ship was wrecked off the coast of the town and the only survivor was a monkey, wearing a French uniform. On discovering the monkey, some locals decided to hold an impromptu trial on the beach and since the unfortunate animal was unable to answer their questions (and many locals were unaware of what a Frenchman may look like) they concluded that the monkey was in fact a French spy and had it put to death.

In the list of nicknames there are no Great Tits I notice, although it is almost certain that most clubs, or their players, will be referred to as such at some time during a season. In the world of Rugby League Hull Kingston Rovers are called the Robins and so is the Swindon speedway team.

Other famous Robins are the Boy Wonder in the Batman comics, the Robin Reliant car and of course our most famous hero of Sherwood Forest, Robin Hood! There is a story that in the DC comic ‘Batman’ the name ‘Robin the Boy Wonder’ was inspired by the Errol Flynn movie ‘The Adventures of Robin Hood’ but other theories about Robin's origin have instead often said the name comes from the bird, which neatly explains the red tunic.

Spain 2008, Benidorm

Because we like to watch the TV comedy series Benidorm we all agreed that being only a hundred kilometres away was an excellent opportunity to visit the notorious place and see it for ourselves. Actually I have to confess to having been to Benidorm before because I spent a fortnight there in 1977 at the Don Juan Hotel, which has been renamed now but was somewhere along the Avenida del Mediterráneo at the back of the Levante beach. Two weeks in Benidorm was a very long time as I remember so I was happy that this time it was going to be restricted to a couple of hours or so.

We set off early after breakfast on what started out in the best morning weather of the whole week and we travelled the sixty kilometres to Alicante under big blue skies. This part of the journey took a bit longer than was strictly necessary because we were determined to by-pass the motorway tolls and early on in the trip we got snagged up in market day traffic in the nearby town of Saint Miguel, the very same place that we had encountered road work chaos the year before. Once safely past the tolls we picked up speed and motored effortlessly along the A7 Autopista del Mediterráneo travelling north-east through what has to be said is not the best part of Spain in respect of scenery. The land is flat and unattractive with hectares of dusty and barren scrubby land running down to the coast and disappearing into massive salt lakes that obviously aren’t terribly conducive to supporting fertile arable fields. Around about Alicante as the motorway sweeps past the city the landscape changes dramatically however almost as soon as soon as it passes from the Province of Murcia to Valencia and the scrub gives way to large dark grey deep fissured mountains that rise dramatically from the flat plains. Sadly we discovered that there is a price to pay for better scenery and there was no way of avoiding a toll that appeared from nowhere and cost us €5.15 for the second leg of the journey to Benidorm. We were annoyed about that but on reflection it was much easier than using the congested old coast road.

As we passed Villajoysa on the coast and the one thousand four hundred metre high Puig Campana Mountain to the west we suddenly got our first view of Benidorm and the unique skyline formed by its numerous tall hotels and apartment buildings, which is quite unlike anything else on the Costa Blanca, to such an extent that it is sometimes referred to as the ‘Manhattan of Spain’ or ‘Beniyork’ and I have to confess to being struck by the first sight of Benidorm which was quite a surprise. I didn’t remember it like this and one moment we were driving through brown barren hills when suddenly there it was looking like Kuala Lumpur or Monaco on the Costa Blanca with columns of concrete and glass all shining bright and looking impressive in the strong sunshine.

According to the 2004 census Benidorm has a permanent population of sixty-five thousand inhabitants but the population grows almost ten times to half a million in the summer and it therefore needs a lot of hotel rooms to cater for all the additional people because it is one of the most important holiday resorts in all of Spain. One million three hundred thousand holidaymakers annually visit Benidorm from Britain alone. The city enjoys a unique geographical position on the east coast of Spain because it faces due south and has two stunningly beautiful beaches on the Mediterranean Sea that stretch for about four kilometres either side of the old town, on the east the Levante, or sunrise, and to the west the Poniente, the sunset, and it enjoys glorious sunshine all day long. In 1954, the Mayor, Pedro Zaragoza Orts saw the potential of the place and created the Plan General de Ordenación, or city building plan to you and me, that ensured that every building would have an area of leisure land, guaranteeing a future free of the excesses of cramped construction seen in other areas of Spain and it is the only city in the country that still adheres to this rigid rule. This vision for the future sparked the building boom that followed and the flying start that Benidorm achieved in the package tour boom of the 1960’s and 70s.

Until the tourist industry began in the 1960s, Benidorm was a small fishing village that had been unchanged for hundreds of years. In the early 1960s my grandparents visited Benidorm several times in the first days of package holidays and came home with exotic stories and suitcases full of unusual souvenirs, flamenco dancing girls, matadors and velour covered bulls that decorated their living room and collected dust for the next twenty years or so. I bet they would have found Benidorm a totally different place to what it is today.

We left the motorway and found a free parking place with ridiculous ease and with the anticipation of culture shock rising steadily we made straight for the western end of the Poniente beach. Almost immediately it was a huge disappointment. We had been expecting tat shops and British pubs, the distinctive smell of Hawaiian tropic, fat bellied lager louts with tattoos and peroxide Essex blondes with big sunglasses but there was none of that sort of thing at all. Instead the beach was a very civilised affair with predominantly elderly Spanish people sedately enjoying the sun and a few British left overs from the winter Saga tours where the length of stay could be measured directly in degrees of orange tan, and there were some very carroty people here indeed! One man had so much tanning oil on his body as he laid out in the sun that if we had had a few rashers of bacon and some eggs then we could have cooked ourselves a full English.

I have to say that Benidorm was nothing like what I was anticipating at all but was really quite pleasant and the beaches were immense and spectacular with beautiful clean sand and blue flags flapping proudly in the breeze. It is an interesting fact that Spain has more blue flag beaches than any other participating country with four hundred and ninety nine in five thousand kilometres of coastline, the United Kingdom by comparison, has only one hundred and forty-four in nearly eighteen thousand kilometres. Greece has the second most blue flags at four hundred and thirty and France is third with two hundred and thirty-eight. Clearly the United Kingdom needs to get cleaning up!

We walked the entire two-kilometre length of the Poniente and by the time we reached the old town harbour and elevated promontory we had pretty much given up on finding anything to snigger about. In the old town itself there were more Spanish tapas bars than British pubs and there was a notable absence of those awful bars with tacky pictures of the food on the menu. I really hate that! I know what bacon and eggs looks like and I know what spaghetti Bolognese looks like (or what it should look like) and what I also know is that these pictures generally bear absolutely no resemblance to what you are likely to get if you are demented enough to order it. There was not a bit of it and after wandering around the old town searching unsuccessfully for cheap souvenir shops we had to finally admit defeat and sit in a bar on the seafront and have the first beer of the day. Richard surprised us all by announcing that he was drinking water today, which he did, but he followed it up immediately with the first beer.

If Benidorm is a surprisingly nice place then the old town is an especially nice place with a blue domed church, reminiscent of those in the Greek islands, and a pedestrianised area that was positively delightful. I remembered this from my visit thirty years ago but not much else I have to say and with refreshment time over we walked a short way along the Levante in search of what we were sure was the real Benidorm from the TV series but without success we called a halt to the expedition and retraced our steps back to the car. Although we were disappointed not to see what we had come for it was a pleasant surprise and we left with the confirmation that despite the tourists that flock in every summer that this is a very real Spanish town, with Spanish culture and a Spanish history of tuna fishermen and merchant sailors that was actually quite plain to see. I wished that I had grasped that in 1977 because if I had then I am sure that I would have enjoyed it more then.

All along the sea front there was a programme of environmental improvements that when completed will make Benidorm a place worth visiting and I might even consider it myself in the future in my Saga years. Back at the car we drove back to the motorway, paid the toll and left the mountains of Valencia and motored south back to the scrub of Murcia. We tried to be a bit clever on the way back and see if we could get closer to home before leaving the motorway close to the toll but this went spectacularly wrong when we ran out of exits and ended up paying another €3.70 in road tolls which may not sound a lot but to put things into perspective was the equivilent of about ten bottles of San Miguel at the Mercadona!

Andalusia - Day 5, Carmona & Seville

It was going to be a long day today because it was a late flight home thanks to Ryanair changing the schedules and cancelling the lunch time flight home so we agreed to have a later start than usual and we didn’t meet in San Fernando Square until ten o’clock. Like the previous days the sun was out and already there were groups of men beginning to gather and sit in the sunshine in the square and in the pavement cafés around the perimeter. Because we hadn’t seen all there was to see in Carmona yesterday we decided to split the day in two and complete the sight seeing in the town before driving back to Seville to see some more of the city that we had missed on our first visit on Saturday.

First of all we walked to the town’s market place and I was distressed to find scruffy dog following us again. Christine had been fussing it again and it must have considered itself welcome to tag along. I tried to get rid of it, Kim tried to get rid of it, but we both failed. I’m not sure just what Micky did but he took it around the corner to get rid of it and we didn’t see it again for the rest of the morning. Micky has an understanding with dogs it would seem!

We went to the fortress and fished around in our pockets for the admission fee only to be told that today the entrance was free, so how glad we were that we hadn’t visited yesterday. It wasn’t a big castle but it was a good place to visit with commanding views in all directions across the Andalusian plain. This place had been chosen well as a castle of strategic importance. It had been restored and modernised of course, some time in the 1970s, but that didn’t spoil it one little bit. The sky was blue and it was warmer today so we had a good time climbing the towers and taking in the breathtaking views.

It was late morning and we had missed breakfast earlier so we walked into the new part of the town and to a cake shop that we had found yesterday. Inside it was pure bedlam, all of the tables were occupied and there was a babble of noisy activity that made me fear for attracting service attention. We found a table and ordered our food and struggled to make ourselves heard over the incessant racket of animated and theatrical conversation. And suddenly it cleared and everyone left and I was more than impressed to get the right bill because I have no idea how they manage to keep a correct account of things in all that pandemonium – it must be a special skill that they possess.

We walked back around the southern perimeter road to take advantage of the warm sunshine. We passed the law courts that were in full session today and the local riff-raff were hanging around the entrance with their solicitors waiting for their case number to come up; just like Spalding on a Tuesday. Then we returned to San Fernando Square where the sun was trapped between the surrounding buildings and everywhere had warmed through nicely. It was so good that we stopped at the café next to the hotel for a final drink in Carmona before booking out of the hotel and leaving for Seville. It was lovely sitting here in the sun and even the dog joining us didn’t spoil the moment. Micky and I were the first out of the hotel and as we walked to the car I was astounded to find the mutt following the pair of us. This was astonishing because out of all of us we were the two who disliked it the most and had made that very clear indeed. As we sat on a bench it sat down with us and to be honest I couldn’t help admire him a bit, it was almost like a final defiant gesture on his part as though to say, you people come and go all of the time but this is my territory permanently! After Christine had fussed it for one last time we loaded the car with our bags and set off for the city.

The roads were busier today and my plan was simple – to follow the same route into the city and park the car in exactly the same place. There were alternative scenarios available but this seemed to be the safest. Feeling a bit more familiar with the place to day I have to say that my driving and the search for a parking spot were much less frantic today.

Fooled by the warm sunshine in Carmona and the heat of the sun through the car windscreen we were foolish enough to make alterations to our clothing arrangements before we left the car park but once outside on the street this seemed a less than sensible thing to do because it was much cooler here, especially in the shade of the buildings and there were patches of thick cloud beginning to smear across the sky as well.

We walked along one of the city’s main roads, the Calle de Menendez Pelayo until at its southern end we arrived at the University and an area of green parks and gardens. We stopped for a drink outside but to be fair it was getting cooler so this wasn’t too successful and then walked to the Plaza de España, which is one of Seville's most easily recognised buildings and represents the Moorish Revival in Spanish architecture. In 1929 Seville hosted the Spanish-American Exhibition and numerous buildings were constructed for the exhibition in Maria Luisa Park, among them the Plaza. The Plaza is a huge half-circle with buildings continually running around the edge accessible over a moat by numerous beautiful bridges and in the centre is a large fountain. It was a beautiful building but we didn’t see it at its best because it was chilly, the fountain wasn’t turned on and the canal had been drained down for the winter.

We left the Plaza and walked to the river but everyone had had enough by now and we were all sorry about the cancelled midday flight. Micky still had his man flu and the girls were clod and their feet were aching because to be fair we had done an awful lot of walking. We all decided that it was a good time to look for somewhere to eat so we found the eating part of the city close to the Cathedral at the Plaza de San Fransisco but were disappointed by the choice of restaurants and menus. Finally had to concede that it was one of these places or nowhere and we choose a retaurant with a moderately priced menu del dia. It wasn’t very special but it was edible and it passed an hour of the afternoon in our long wait before going back to the airport. At half past five we were asked to leave because the place was closing so we decided to go back to the airport a little earlier than originally planned.

I liked Seville but on reflection I have to say that I am very glad that we didn’t stay there because this was a typical city with little time for tourists and in comparison with next door Carmona with very little trouble taken to make us feel really welcome. I think in future I shall avoid the cities and seek out smaller places where the pace of life is slower and it is possible to enjoy the sights and sounds of the real country and the company of local people.

It seemed a long walk back to the car park and it was getting even colder. It has to be said that this weather did rather catch us all by surprise because it wasn’t just that we assumed that southern Spain would still be warm in November, the BBC weather web site had suggested that it was going to be about 20° but in all four days it barely struggled beyond 12°, even in the sunshine. There was a few spots of rain in the air as well by now so for the last few hundred metres we were in a bit of a mad rush to get back before the heavens opened. We made it and left the car park and made for the airport with the accompaniment of a chorus of cries from the back seat, ‘Put the heater on…’

We arrived back at the airport with plenty of time to spare and as we waited for the flight to be called we had plenty of time to reflect on four exceptionally good days in Andalusia. The cities of Seville and Córdoba had been excellent, even though we hadn’t seen Córdoba at its best, but best of all had been the complete surprise of the lovely town of Carmona and the Hotel San Fernando, the friendly people of the town, the good food and the convivial bars and restaurants, and now, after it is all over, even that horrible scruffy dog!

Andalusia - Day 4, Historic Town and Roman Ruins

Once again it rained heavily in the night but by morning it had cleared when I went out into the street to check the weather. There were blue skies again and there was a church bell ringing and calling people to service and as I wandered aimlessly about checking the breakfast options a crowd of nuns waddled across San Fernando Square on their way to the cathedral a bit like a flock of penguins.

The only place open was the Plaza so we returned there for the fourth time and had the same breakfast as the previous day except that we ordered too much ham and ended up with far more than we really needed and a bigger bill than we expected. The bad news was that Micky had gone down with a nasty little case of man flu and he wasn’t feeling very good at all. This was the strain that affects the sense of humour and sociability and after breakfast Mick invited us to go out without him. Naturally we said we would do no such thing and then he demanded that we should go out without him and we took the hint.

We were planning to go for another drive out, possibly to the town of Ronda but this didn’t seem fair so the rest of us decided instead to stay and explore Carmona instead. We weren’t sure that there would be enough to do to keep us amused all day so we walked very slowly from the hotel towards the eastern gate of the old town, the Puerto de Córdoba which is of part Roman construction and because Carmona is built on an elevated ridge overlooking the central plain of Andalusia opens to a glorious view of the surrounding countryside. The warmth of the sun was in contrast to the chilly shade of the street and we stayed a while and admired the view and warmed ourselves up before going back through the gate and climbing steadily towards the Alcázar Del Rey Don Pedro, which is an old castle at the top of the town that has been converted to a luxury Parador hotel. We went inside and admired the lounges and the restaurant and the stunning view from the balcony but it didn’t seem that they particularly welcomed non-paying guests so we left and carried on.

We walked around the southern rim of the town and there were more good views over the plain and we sat for a while and soaked up more weak sunshine that was struggling to get up to full late morning temperature. Our route took us now to the Alcázar de la Puerto de Sevilla, which was the western gate protecting the entrance to the old town and then we walked for a little way into the new town because I wanted to take the girls shopping but sadly on account of this being Sunday they were mostly closed and I was disappointed about that as you can probably imagine.
There seemed to be strange goings on in the main town square because it was full of men just standing around and chatting in groups of ten or so and making an enormous din as they competed with each other to be heard about the great issues of the day. This was obviously a Sunday morning ritual and I imagine that it goes something like this:

‘I’m just popping down to the square for a chat with my mates and I’ll be back in time for dinner, so make sure it's ready on time’
‘Do you have to go there every Sunday?’
‘Yes, we have important matters to discuss’
‘You know, Sometimes I think your mates are more important to you than I am!’




Back at the Puerto de Sevilla there was a sunny pavement with café tables so we stopped for a drink before going back to the hotel to see if there was any sign of Micky. While Christine and Sue looked for him Kim found a small shop that was open and we bought wine at 70c a litre and some cheap beer for later on. Micky wasn’t there but the scruffy dog was and Christine started to play with the thing and this unfortunately encouraged it to then join us as we continued our walk around the town, this time back to the Roman ruins about a kilometre away back in the same direction that we had just returned from.

Much to my annoyance it followed us nearly all the way and even thwarted our several attempts to lose it by going in different directions and even hiding in a shop doorway for a while. We couldn’t get rid of it and this caused a bit of tension between us because Christine rather liked it trotting along beside us. Eventually Kim was successful in shooing it away and we were able to continue our walk without the unwanted canine company.

I have seen Roman ruins advertised before and sometimes they can be quite disappointing so I didn’t have high expectations of those in Carmona but they turned out to be a real surprise. It wasn’t the Colosseum or Pompeii of course but there were extensive excavations and a museum with an informative film about the Romans in Andalusia and the significance of this place. It was principally an ancient Roman burial site or necropolis near the Seville road that was discovered in 1881 and there was also the site of what had been a rather large amphitheatre. The best part of all was that there was free admission and we spent well over an hour to look around the site.

It seemed that we had underestimated Carmona and there was a great deal more to do here than we had originally thought.

We walked back to the fortress gate and to a little bodega that we had picked out earlier for lunch. The Abacería L’Antiqua was full to overflowing and heaving with activity and just as we pondering whether or not to stay a table became available and we made ourselves comfortable. The food looked good and the bar was doing brisk trade so we selected some items from the tapas menu and waited for our food to arrive. All around the bar there were barrels of sherry and this is something else than Andalusia is famous for. Sherry is a fortified wine made from white grapes that are grown near the town of Jerez on the coast. In Spanish, it is called Vino de Jerez and according to Spanish law, sherry must come from the small triangular area of the province of Cádiz between Jerez, Sanlúcar de Barrameda, and El Puerto de Santa María. After fermentation is complete, sherry is fortified with brandy and because the fortification takes place after fermentation, most sherries are initially dry, with any sweetness being added later. In contrast, port wine is fortified halfway through its fermentation, which stops the process so that not all of the sugar is turned into alcohol. So now you know!

The food arrived quickly and it was delicious and we enjoyed it so much that we ordered second plates of our favourites and more drinks. The bodega was a vibrant and effervescent place with people of all age groups and whole families enjoying their Sunday lunchtime gathering and we enjoyed the garrulous atmosphere and just being a part of it all.

But we couldn’t stay all afternoon because there were still things to see. The admission charge to the fortress was €2 but the place was closed now so that would have to wait until tomorrow and instead we walked back into the network of tiny streets. I especially wanted to retrace our car journey of the first evening and we found the very narrow street and wondered just how we had managed to negotiate it without adding to the cars dents and scratches. Practically every car in the town had some form of damage either from scraping past walls or from other cars squeezing past and a very high proportion of them had had their wing mirrors ripped off and were now only kept in place with duct tape. This wasn’t the sort of place to live if you are at all fussy about the appearance of your car.

We found Micky in San Fernando Square sitting on a bench in the sunshine with a red nose and flu weary eyes and feeling a bit sorry for himself. The man from Bar Plaza saw us and told us he had prepared paella for this evening but unfortunately for him we were determined to return to the Abacería L’Antiqua and so he had missed his opportunity. It was late afternoon so we made arrangements to meet later and then went to our rooms. We sampled the 70c wine in a cardboard box and although it wasn’t going to win any awards it actually wasn’t too bad.

We went first to the Forum Bar, which was busy and then walked to the Bodega, which was empty. The contrast from the lunchtime bustle made the place almost unrecognisable and although other diners began to drift in the place never achieved the sociable levels of lunchtime. We ordered some repeat dishes and experimented with some different ones and the food was equally as good and we stayed all evening before going back to the hotel for our final night at the San Fernando.

Andalusia - Day 3, Palaces & Bullrings

It rained very heavily in the night and the hotel’s internal courtyard was awash with water but by breakfast time the sky had cleared and the sky was blue so it looked as though we may be in for a better day. The Goya was closed this morning so we had exactly the same breakfast at the Bar Plaza instead and debated our itinerary for the day and agreed that today on account of the unpredictable weather that we should drive to the capital of Andalusia and see Seville. The city of Seville is the fourth largest in Spain after Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia, it is the city of Carmen, Don Juan and Figaro with a reputation for romance and theatricality and therefore we set out with very high expectations.

It was only a short drive along the Autovia and as this was Saturday the traffic on the streets was quite light. And this surprised me, but the Spanish drivers were generally well behaved, patient and polite which made motoring a very pleasant experience. Whilst driving was fine parking wasn’t nearly so easy and all of the on-street spaces were taken and we really struggled to find signs to a visitors car park. This seemed ridiculous, big city, lots of visitors, nowhere to park the car and after fifteen minutes I was beginning to run out of patience. I had almost reached the point of saying that if I have gone to all this trouble to visit Seville but Seville couldn’t bother to organise a parking space for me then I’ll just drive straight back out again, when we spotted a sign for an underground car park and we pulled in and finally we had our car parking spot and a crisis was avoided.

It was quite a long walk to the old town but at least the sun was shining. We walked along a couple of busy main roads and then following a route to the centre of the city we turned off into a tangled web of narrow streets and alleys that criss-crossed and dog legged in a most confusing way and made following the street map with any degree of certainty almost impossible. And you certainly had to keep your wits about you because these streets were not designed for vehicles and pedestrians to use at the same time and the narrow pavements were dangerously close to the traffic. We were in the district of Santa Cruz, which is a maze of whitewashed buildings and alleyways all leading eventually to the centre and La Giralda and the Cathedral that is built on the site of a former Moorish mosque. The Cathedral is the largest in Spain and the third largest in the world, after San Peter’s in Rome and Saint Paul’s in London.

Some disappointing grey cloud had swept in rather quickly so we were tempted to go inside but there was a long queue so we investigated the Palace Real Alcázar opposite but there was a long queue for that as well so we abandoned both options for the time being and walked down to the river through the district of El Arenal. The Guadalquivir is the only great navigable river in Spain and currently it is possible to go from the sea up as far as Seville, but in Roman times it was navigable to Córdoba. We walked along the embankment and as quickly as it had arrived the grey cloud disappeared again.

After Madrid, Seville is the second most important centre for the national sport of bullfighting and after a few hundred metres we left the river and came up outside the Plaza de Toros de la Maestranza, which is the oldest bull ring in Spain. The origin of modern day bullfighting on foot (rather than horseback) can be traced back to here and Ronda, also in Andalusia. It is one of the most charming bullrings in the country and although its capacity is only fourteen thousand spectators, which makes it rather small (the bullring in Madrid has a capacity of twenty-five thousand), it attracts the country’s finest bullfighters.

All of us except Christine, because she loves animals, paid for and joined an informative and entertaining thirty-minute tour of the arena and the museum. We learned that bulls from an ancient bloodline are specially bred to fight and Spain is now the only country in the world to preserve this particular species of “toro bravo”.

Normally six of these noble fighting bulls are slain in an afternoon or evening fight and the event involves three matadors with their band of attendants, the picador horsemen who lance the bulls and the banderillos who stab them with barbed spikes. The final act of the three-part corrida involves a series of intricate moves and daredevil passes by the matador before he makes his final lethal thrust between the bull’s shoulder blades. If the spectators approve of the matador’s performance they wave white handkerchiefs to signal to the fight’s president that he should reward him with a trophy, one or both of the bull’s ears and/or its tail. It is called a fight but it is far from fair and the statistics show that in two hundred and fifty years only three matadors have died at the Seville bullring but they have dispatched almost two hundred and fifty bulls a year to the abbatoir, so I can’t imagine that a lot of money changes hands betting on the outcome of the competition.

We walked back towards the Cathedral along cobbled streets with balconies and flowers and full of the sights and sounds of Spain and it was lunch time now so we found a traditional bodega serving sherry and tapas and went inside for lunch.

According to legend, the tapas tradition began when the King of Castille, Alfonso the Wise, visited a tavern in the town of Ventorillo del Chato in the province of Cádiz, and ordered a glass of sherry. There was a gusty wind, so the innkeeper served him his glass of sherry covered by a slice of ham to prevent the drink from getting dirty. The King liked it, and when he asked for a second glass, he requested another tapa or ‘cover’ just like the first. This evolved into the practice of using slices of bread or meat as a practical measure meant to prevent fruit flies from hovering over the drink. The meat used to cover the sherry was normally ham or chorizo, which are both very salty and activate thirst and because of this, bartenders and restaurant owners began creating a variety of snacks to serve with sherry, thus increasing their alcohol sales.

In the Bodega the menu was entirely in Spanish and that made it exciting,; ordering items from the menu with little or no idea what they might be. Thankfully we didn’t get any shocks and a couple of the dishes were so good that we ordered seconds. It was a great place and it felt as though we were eating in a traditional way and not in a place created for tourists.

We returned to the Cathedral Square, the Plaza del Triunfo, and had to make a choice between visiting the Cathedral or the Palace and because of Micky’s aversion to churches we chose the Palace. It was a good choice because the fourteenth century building was a jewel box of patios, halls and gardens. It has been the home of the Spanish Monarchy for seven hundred years and the upper floors are still used by the royal family today as its official Seville residence.

When we paid the entrance fee it was still overcast but by the time we had been around the interior the sun was out again and we had a very enjoyable hour walking around the extensive gardens and the wall top walks. When we had finished we left and walked back to the Cathedral and then back into the network of narrow streets to make our way back to the car park. The map was a little confusing and I managed to take us the wrong way, which could have been a problem because we strayed into an area of shoe shops by mistake and only just made it through before credit cards were drawn and used in a shopping frenzy.

We wanted to stop for a drink but the bars were all full to overflowing and it was only when we were out of the centre that we found an unattractive back street sort of place where Christine used the men’s toilet by mistake and Micky had a short conversation with a young girl trying to cadge a cigarette. He dismissed her brilliantly with the one liner ‘I don’t know what you are talking about, I don’t even speak Spanish’

Back in Carmona we rested and changed and went for a pre dinner drink in a lively family bar called the Forum and joined the residents of the town out for an evening and noisily watching a football match on a big screen TV. Later we returned to the Bar Plaza and ordered paella but there was none so instead we had a very similar meal to the previous evening. We were the only customers in the place and the owner must have been glad of the company. Actually the Plaza was the only place open and we worked it out that because it was out of season the owners were probably operating a cooperative rota system and we thought that was clever.

Ryanair - Moaning Minnies & Top 10 Tips

Like most travellers I was horrified this week by the occupation of Stansted Airport runway by a bunch of mindless protestors and the disruption this caused to flight schedules. I have no sympathy at all with these people and think that the authorities should have shot a couple of them on the spot just to make others think twice in the future.

I do however have a lot of sympathy with passengers whose itineraries were disrupted by this action but what I found most bizarre was that many of them did the popular thing and started to blame it all on Ryanair. I understand what they were saying; just delay every flight instead of canceling until everything catches up and everyone might be late but at least they all get where they are going. Eventually! I am not an expert in scheduling flights or in running an airline but it must be obvious to anyone that it just cannot be that simple. We enjoy cheap flights because Ryanair run a tight ship and their aircraft make multiple trips a day. Just think how difficult it would be to rearrange flight times, air traffic control slots, pilot’s flying hours and crew resourcing. Whilst some of the popular criticism of Ryanair is justified this was so unfair.

Despite the fact that over forty million people fly with Ryanair every year, in a survey in October 2006 it was voted the world's most disliked airline, and in November 2006 it was revealed as the subject of more complaints than any other airline in the EU. The BBC has reported that 56% of respondents said Ryanair caused "the biggest headaches" for air travelers and in 2003 60% of all complaints to Ireland's Commission for Aviation Regulation were about Ryanair. This is so unfair! If people want a flight for 1p what realistically do they expect. I read somewhere that the airline works on a profit margin of £5 per passenger so of course there has to be some additional charges for passengers.

One of the biggest complaints is about hidden extras and let’s be fair outrageous sharp practices in an endeavour to massage the cost of a service would be castigated in any other service industry (rather like a restaurant adding washing up, cleaning the floor and the cost of electricity to a meal bill) and Ryanair must have an office full of staff dreaming up the next scam but they are not alone because all low cost airlines do exactly the same thing. Outwitting the scammers is all part of the fun of booking a Ryanair flight and here are my top ten tips:

1 Find the cheapest flight in the first place. The best way to do this is to set an evening aside to search the web site for the very best deals. This takes some time because Ryanair don’t make this easy; there is no site facility for prompting the cheapest flights so you just have to keep speculating with dates and destinations until you find something interesting. And unless you really do want somewhere specific then be prepared to go anywhere because this is where some of the real bargains are. In 2006 I went to Pula in Croatia for £15 return and then to Friedrichshafen in Germany for £13, both times including all the taxes and fees. I had never heard of these places before I flew but they were both excellent places to visit. Later this week I am going to Santander in Spain for £10 and in February next year I have achieved my cheapest ever deal for £8.02 return to Baden-Baden in Germany (and that includes £8.00 credit card booking fee!)

2 Don’t take hold luggage. This saves £24 on a return flight and with 10 kilograms allowed free as cabin baggage this is a much more sensible option. Let’s face it most of us take far too much luggage with us when we go away for a couple of days anyway, I know I have taken clothes with me that I have never worn and I have been working hard to make sure that I now only take what I know I will need rather than a bag full of contingency items.

3 Don’t check in for the flight at the check in desk. This saves £6 on a return flight but can only be achieved if you take my advice and restrict yourself to hand luggage, but assuming that you have this one is a complete no-brainer because what sane person would pay £6 to spend an hour in a queue when they could be in the bar instead?

4 Don’t buy a Priority Boarding Pass. This is a complete con and saves another £6 on the return flight. Think about it sensibly for a moment, there is a seat for everyone on board anyway, have you ever seen anyone standing on an airline flight? No of course not. All of the seats are exactly the same and an average flight is about 2 hours. How can it possibly matter where you sit?

5 Don’t buy travel insurance from Ryanair. I am not suggesting that you don’t buy travel insurance at all just shop around a bit because there are much better deals available elsewhere.

6 There is no number 6 anymore. This used to be about paying by debit rather than credit card because it was cheaper but now they are exactly the same. I don’t like this £4 per flight charge because unlike all of the others there is no way of avoiding it so there is no fun in playing the game any more on payment options.

7 Don’t exceed your baggage allowance. If you really must book in hold luggage you need to be really careful about this because going overweight is a real dumb thing to do and the penalty is an extortionate £12 per kilo and they are really, really strict on this because it is a fantastically good earner. If when your bags are weighed and the allowance is exceeded my advice is to take some clothes out of the bag and wear them instead. This might be a bit uncomfortable for a few minutes and make you look fat but it’s worth remembering that you don’t pay excess baggage charges for being obese!

8 Don’t buy food and drink on board. Have a good breakfast at home before you set off and have a drink in the duty free bar before flying. I agree that this one might be a bit more difficult but bear in mind that Ryanair now charges £2.15 for a cup of tea! That’s a ¼ of a litre of lukewarm water and a cheap tea bag. You can probably get about 200 tea bags for £2.15 at a Supermarket, more if you go to Aldi!

9 Don’t queue up too early and rush to go through the departure gate. This one doesn’t save you any money but it can really piss people off because this is about getting the first seat on the plane, even those you have rashly purchased priority boarding con cards. While everyone pushes and shoves about in the queue it is much less stressful to hang about at the back and go through the gate last, now, admittedly this only really works when there is a bus transfer to the plane, but get on the bus last and stand by the door and then purposefully get off first when the doors are opened and without looking left or right at the moaning minnies on either side be one of the first on board the aircraft. This really gets people complaining I can tell you especially when they have been standing on that bus for 5 or 10 minutes or so.

Once on board try and get a seat in the first available row because this does have a bit more legroom. If the plane isn’t full it is normal practice to stop passengers sitting in the first few rows to balance up the weight in the plane but still take the first available row because once the aircraft is airborne it is possible to move into these bigger leg room seats for the duration of the flight. This is guaranteed to get people really worked up!

Always sit down in an aisle seat, spread yourself out and don’t make eye contact with other passengers looking for a seat because this deters them from climbing over you to get to the window seat. If the plane isn’t full there is a good chance that you will have an empty seat next to you and a lot more personal space. This one works especially well when there are two of you because it makes it doubly difficult for people to push past.

Whatever you do, do not sit next to children. I realise that you cannot prevent them sitting close by if they get on after you but by looking as child unfriendly as possible this can deter parents from sitting next to you with their loved ones. The problem is that there is nothing for them to do you see so they quickly become bored and a pain in the ass to fellow travellers. If you fly with a full price airline kids get fun packs and crayons and when they get fed up with that there are cartoons on the in flight TV to amuse them but with Ryanair all there is to read is the emergency evacuation procedure stuck on the back of the seat in front and that doesn’t keep a child amused for very long.

10 Keep an eye out for lost loose change. Because the seats are so cramped a lot of people spill coins from their trouser pockets when they buy food and drink and they are quite unaware of it. When you leave the plane look carefully on the floor and at the backs of the seats and you will be surprised just how often you find money. I once paid £20 for a return flight to Riga and I found £2, that’s a 10% discount on the fare.

I guarantee that these few simple tips will make flying with Ryanair a lot more rewarding and might help reduce the unjustified number of complaints that are made. I hope so.

Molly - 10 Weeks

My man flu continued to afflict me for the best part of two weeks through November so I was unable to visit little Molly for fear of spreading germs and making her poorly. Then last week I was away in Andalusia so I hadn’t seen her for nearly four weeks. I planned to put that right this week and took a days leave from work to go and see her. Well, would you believe it? Two days before the planned visit I went down with another bout of winter woes. Luckily this time it wasn’t the death strain that I had gallantly fought off two weeks before but was more of a girly cold so after consultation with Sally we agreed to go ahead.

When you are a father and around your children every day just after they are born you don’t really notice the rapid changes and the pace of development. Molly is now two and a half times her birth weight and very different indeed. The first obvious thing is that she has far more developed neck and shoulder muscles, which means she has more control over her head and she can hold it still and move to look around the room and when she is put on her tummy on the floor she strains to lift it and continue to take an interest in what is going on around her. In this position she also makes attempts at what will one day soon be crawling movements but that is going to take at least another three months or so before we get any forward motion.

Her eyes are still very dark blue and even though there is still time to change we are all optimistic that they will stay this way. They are open a lot now and she is very alert and although her eyesight isn’t fully developed she follows movement and is attracted to mobile type toys and things that glitter and sparkle, so it is a good job it is Christmas. Her cheeks have filled out and her distinctive little chin dimple is even more prominent and the only thing that hasn’t changed so much is that she hasn’t grown much more hair yet. One thing for certain is that she won’t be as blonde as Sally but she has the most beautiful auburn hair that is going to look lovely. She has learnt to smile and every now and again we are rewarded with a drop of the jaw and a nice smile radiating around her mouth and Jonathan has taught her how to stick her tongue out and she seems to think that that is amusing.

We took her to the pub again and I am proud to say that she behaved impeccably even when the staff and the customers were cooing over her and lugging her about the restaurant. Actually she slept most of the time, which was nice because Sally was able to enjoy her meal with us undisturbed. The waitress asked if Jonathan was the father so I am not sure what she would have thought about that but I can say for sure that he wasn’t amused.


So now I have to decide what to buy her for Christmas. She already has everything that she could possibly want because Sally is a perfect and generous mother so I am wondering what to do? Sally has just received the Government’s £250 Child Trust Fund Voucher and I am tempted to think about the future rather than today. I can open an account and make a monthly savings deposit that will be there when she is eighteen and hopefully wants to go to University, or perhaps a gap year and a trip round Europe, that’s what I would do! I have been studying the web sites that give advice on what to do and where to put the money but I have always been a spender rather than a saver myself so I am in very unfamiliar territory. There have been reports recently that because of the economic downturn that these funds are not performing all that well but I suppose 2026 is a long way off and I am sure that gives the markets the chance to fully recover. I think that this is what I will do but I will probably buy her something for the day as well of course especially if I am lucky enough to win the £1,000 prize for entering a customer survey at the Rose and Crown that I have just filled in and completed.

Andalusia - Day 2, Castles & Mosques

It was a glorious morning and although it was slightly chilly there wasn’t a cloud to be seen in the perfect blue sky and we interpreted this as a really promising sign and dressed appropriately in linens and short-sleeved shirts.

Together with a lot of local people we had a traditional breakfast at the Goya and this made a nice change from the usual hotel buffet arrangement that we usually have. It was a simple affair with a choice of toasted bread drizzled with olive oil and a thin tomato puree and topped off with thin slices of cured ham or alternatively toast and marmalade made from finest Seville oranges.

After breakfast we prepared for a drive to the city of Córdoba about a hundred and twenty kilometres to the east along the River Guadalquivir. Córdoba is a moderately sized place today but once it was the largest Roman city in Spain and later became the thriving capital of the Caliphate of Córdoba that once governed almost all of the Iberian Peninsula. It has been estimated that in the tenth century it was the largest city in Western Europe and, perhaps, in the world with up to half a million inhabitants.

We didn’t take the direct motorway route because we thought the alternative may be more scenic and anyway we were worried about paying unnecessary tolls. This proved to be unnecessary on both counts because it wasn’t especially picturesque and there weren’t any tolls either. First we drove to the town of Lora Del Rio along a road that took us through an agricultural landscape with fields all freshly ploughed and waiting for next years grain crops. Although the highest mountains on the Spanish mainland are in Andalusia most of the Province, which stretches from the deserts of Almeria in the east to the Portuguese border in the west is a flat plain in the valley of the Guadalquivir, which at six hundred and fifty-seven kilometers is the fifth longest river in Spain and is one of the country’s most significant because it irrigates a fertile valley, thus creating a rich agricultural area.

Lora del Rio was an unexceptional working town and there was nothing to stop for so we continued along the road through the similar towns of Palma del Rio and Posadas. On our left, to the north, was the Sierra Morena mountain range that separates Andalusia from the central plain of Castilla-La-Mancha and there were some worrying accumulations of cloud that looked a little to close for comfort. Eventually we came to Almodóvar del Rio where a large castle was perched strategically on the top of a hill and this looked well worth stopping for.

The Castillo de Almodóvar is a grandiose caliphal fortress erected on a high mound along the Guadalquivir. Square towers flank its towering walls and the entire castle is surrounded by a large moat. During the years of occupation it was a Moorish stronghold and after the reconquest it became the medieval home for members of the Spanish nobility. It gradually fell into disrepair and much of it was plundered for building material by the people of the town but the Count of Torralba rebuilt it a hundred years ago restoring the external appearance of the original Arab fortification.

At its elevated position there was a spectacular view of the plains to the south and the mountains to the north and although the sun was shining it was getting cold and the clouds were getting closer. We visited the castle in the company of a children’s school outing who were enjoying an interactive history lesson which must have been highly entertaining judging by all of the laughter and giggles. It was a good castle and well worth the €5 entrance fee and we climbed the towers and walked the ramparts and when we had seen all there was to see we left and continued the drive to Córdoba.

Although the road was swinging to the south it couldn’t keep us ahead of the cloud and by the time we reached the city it was beginning to overtake us. It was still patchy as we parked the car but by the time we had set off for the centro historico its advance was relentless and it became quite gloomy, overcast and cold and we were all beginning to regret the lightweight clothing option that we had selected earlier. It was lunchtime so we looked for somewhere warm to stop and eat and came across a restaurant with a reasonable menu del dai at only €10 and we enjoyed a pleasant if not an especially spectacular lunch.

Outside the weather had not improved and we were disappointed to find that one of the two principal attractions the Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos was closed for the afternoon so we had to make do with the external views and move on to Córdoba’s Great Mosque, the Mezquita. As well as being the second largest mosque in the world at the time this was the grandest and most beautiful mosque constructed by the Moors in Spain and it is situated amongst a lattice work of narrow streets, patios and plazas in the city’s old Jewish quarter. After the Spanish Reconquest, it was transformed into a church, and some of the Islamic columns and arches were replaced by a basilica and today it is a Roman Catholic Cathedral and the main church of the diocese of Córdoba.

It was getting colder and there was a spot of rain or two so we were pleased to buy admission tickets and go inside in the warm for a while. That was all of us except Micky who ‘doesn’t do churches’ so he stayed outside and sheltered from the rain in a doorway. He should have come inside because it was really spectacular with nearly a thousand columns of granite, jasper and marble supporting the roof and creating a dazzling visual effect. When the Cathedral was constructed in the sixteenth century some of these pillars were removed which I suppose might be described as an act of vandalism but in actual fact the Baroque structure didn’t seem to be entirely out of place.

It took some time to walk through the Mezquita and see all of the highlights and when we left and returned to the courtyard it had thankfully stopped raining and the temperature had risen a degree or two but it was still quite cold. We walked for a while down by the river and crossed half way on the Puente Romano, which is an elaborate bridge that still sits on Roman foundations. Because of the weather we didn’t really see Córdoba at its best and the grey skies took the edge of the visit and because of that we walked back to the car stopping briefly for a drink and a warm in a café and then we drove back to Carmona.

Once in the car there was a continual chorus from the back seat of ‘Put the heater on’ and I had to agree that it was a bit chilly. We took the direct route back along the Autovia which confirmed that there were no tolls and as we drove west the weather started to improve and by the time we arrived back at our hotel the sun was breaking through again. We found a parking space; this time even further away from the hotel and when we got back Christine was pleased to see the scruffy dog was waiting for her.

I don’t like dogs and there was no reason for me to make an exception in this case but I did have to agree that this was a canny beast. It was a street dog and it obviously knew how to look after itself and being a con-dog it could clearly assess the situation quite expertly and pick out the soft one in the group who was going to be taken in by its put on forlorn, down-trodden appearance that was all a bit of a clever act. In our case this was Christine!

Across the square was a café bar called the Bar Plaza and later that evening, even though we hadn’t intended going inside, the owner spotted us in the street and sheperded us in through the doorway in a much practiced customer gathering round-up routine and before we had time to make our own decision he had taken drinks orders and provided us with menus and there seemed to be a sort of commitment to dine there. Actually it was rather good and we ordered a range of dishes and shared them between us. The menu had made an attempt at some English translations and we especially liked the Revuelto de la Casa that had been translated as ‘In a Mess (untidy) of the House’.

When we left the Bar Plaza it was raining again so went straight back to the hotel where we had a last drink in the lounge and a hand or two of cards before going to bed at about midnight feeling a bit uneasy about the weather prospects for the next day.