You can certainly have too much of a good thing. One of the benefits of moving to Spain, compared, say, to staying in England, is that you get a lot better weather. But you can even get too much of that.
Here in Valencia, July and August have a certain tendency towards excess, as warmth trends towards heat, and then on quite a bit further. We’re fine in the high twenties (that’s Celsius, American friends: it translates into Fahrenheit as pretty damn warm), the low to mid thirties start to get uncomfortable (that’s hot, guys) and the high thirties are frankly oppressive (that’s the same in Fahrenheit).
I can cope, having lived from my birth to my teens in Rome. But even I welcome a little relief. So I was happy to follow in the footsteps of many Valencians, up to the region between the cold Atlantic waters of the Bay of Biscay, and the Cantabrian mountains, a coastal strip known as ‘Green Spain’.
The contrast is striking. we drove through Aragon on the way, and that fine region is little short of parched in the summer. And Cantabria, that part of Green Spain where we ended up, is many things, but parched certainly isn’t one of them. I’m not going to describe the difference to you, I’ll just leave you to marvel at the photo.
Aragon, in the hinterland of Spain, and Cantabria, on the north coast |
That was admittedly at the top of a mountain pass, but even so, it was surprising for a Spanish summer. And it was curious that such a range of types of weather, sun or rain or fog, could appear within twenty-four hours of each other, and not more than 40 kilometres apart.
The sun, the water and the fog The many faces of Cantabria, within 24 hours and 40 km |
Danielle approaching the Guggenheim in perfectly characteristic Bilbao weather |
Sunrise by Adolfo Guiard, in the Guggenheim, Bilbao A local painter I found great fun |
Even greater, though, was Logroño where we stopped on the way home. This is the main city of the Rioja country, so as you’d expect there’s lots of wine everywhere. But the less well-known specialty of the place is their own selection of pinchos, and there’s a whole district around Laurel Street (in case you ever go looking for it) that’s full of restaurants serving them.
The street of Pincho restaurants in Logroño |
Me enjoying pinchos in Logroño in what turned out to be my all-weather hat |
The puente colgante in Portugalete, near Bilbao |
It would be fairer to describe our holiday as refreshing rather than refrigerated. Ainhoa and Aitzol certainly helped make it all the better. So much so, in fact, that they deserve their own blog post. I’ll soon be returning to them and their wonderful ‘Casona del Valle de Soba’, where they put us up royally and fed us superbly.
Watch this space.
2 comments:
Hi David, I hace enjoyed reading your article sparkled with your sense of humor.
I appreciate very much you and Danielle value and get the most of other regions of Spain, your Home ;)
Thanks, Marisa. We love being in Spain. Love the country, love the people.
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