Thoughts from Charleville-Mezieure: 15.10.18

Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.

- Christopher Howse: A Pilgrim in Spain. 

If you've arrived here because of an interest in Galicia or Pontevedra, see my web page here. Garish but informative.

Travel Odds and Sods

• Polling through North East France yesterday at 80-130kph was about as enjoyable as modern driving can get. Beautiful weather, magnificent countryside, picturesque villages and car-free secondary roads. Quite delightful.
• I hadn't realised we'd be passing through champagne country, where I noted far more names than I was familiar with. But, then, I don't particularly like the stuff.
• Two names brought a bit of a sombre note for a while – The Marne and Ardennes.
• Yesterday's lunch was in a roadside restaurant, where the Menu of the Day seemed high at €18, and that was before I knew it didn't include a glass of the house red wine at at €5 a shot! There seemed to be a disco being prepared in an adjacent room, by a man practising on - of course - an accordion. This turned out to be for a Thé Danse, which started while we were eating and would've cost us €25 a head (but including lunch) if we'd participated in it. By the time we left, there were at least 20 local oldsters shuffling around the room, and even attempting a sort of jive at times. I reconciled myself to the high cost of this meal by regarding all this as entertainment. Of a sort. 
• France boasts several 'cheap' hotel chains, where the price of a night's stay varies between 35 and 60 euros, though (as I've said) the notional prices can be 3 times this. They are all brilliantly designed and managed, to keep costs rock bottom. The one we stayed in last night had a bathroom clearly designed by whoever did the tiny ones on the Brittany Ferries boats. The hotel was one of the Premiere Class chain, a misnomer if ever there was one.
• My (preliminary) verdict on French drivers:-

- Not as bad at tailgating as they used to be.

- Worse even than the Spanish as zebra crossings – The pedestrians I stopped for seemed exceptionally grateful.

- Better than the Spanish at courteous hand-signals of appreciation. Which wouldn't be hard,

• It's taking some time to get used to coffee at €3 a cup, against €0.70-1.20 in Portugal and Spain. I wonder what it'll be in Cologne tonight.

Matters Spanish

• As I've said more than once, the go-to insult for people who disagree with you in Spain is Fascista!. Here's a book that folk really should read before they try to stick that label on anyone.
• A hurricane smashed into the Iberian coast on Friday, the first to cross the Atlantic in 176 years. Hitting poor Portugal first, it then headed into Spain. Figueira da Foz was said to have looked as if it were in a state of war with cars smashed by fallen trees. In contrast, our weather since we left Oporto nearly 2 weeks ago has been little short of perfect. What an October!
• Yet more corruption down in Andalucia, or is it the old stuff re-surfacing? From ABC: Opaque cards in black hole of €50 million and 8,844 irregular contracts – in the Junta de Andalucía. The payment for prostitutes from the Employment Foundation during the era of Chaves and Griñán are the tip of the iceberg in the Faffe case. Easy-to-get-and-divert EU funds, I suspect.

© [David] Colin Davies: 15.10.18