Very smooth trip from Pontevedra to Asturias/Cantabria last night, assisted by the opening of some new bits of the excellent A8 autovia along the Cantabrian coast. I have to admit I find the Asturian and Cantabrian countryside and architecture even prettier than those of Galicia.

Stopped overnight at a little town called Villaviciosa. Delightful place but it didn't remotely live up to its name. Very disappointing.

If I hadn't known I was in Asturias, I might have guessed it from the 9 pages in this morning's local paper on the local hero and his success in yesterday's Formula 1 race in China. Before this, he had been complaining that he didn't trust his engineers and had effectively accused them of sabotage. After it, he was all smiles. The headline on one paper read "Miracles can happen" but, to my surprise, it turned out not to be about Alonso's decision to stop moaning and whingeing. As I've said before, I do hope he wins the championship and all the nonsense can stop.

It continues to amaze me just how some readers can take an innocuous remark about Arabian culture being one of the many influences on modern Spain and distort it into a 'racist' remark that all Spaniards are Arabs and a view that Africa begins at the Pyrenees. This, of course, is independent of the accuracy or otherwise - and it seems to be otherwise - of my comment about domes. Very sad really. And it surely says something about the sensitivity of some people. And, of course, about their attitudes to Arabs and Muslims. I wonder just how many of them have any experience at all of life outside Spain. Or even outside their village.