Cantabria, short coastal walk

A Nevermore moment (see the black object on the top of the chapel? It is a raven, doing his thing)

This year on our holidays I wanted to do a bit of the Camino de Santiago, the Way of Saint James. As you can see from the Wikipedia map (if you didn't know it perfectly well already), there is not one path but many, all leading to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia.

I saw the scallop signs of the Camino on Santander's pavements last year and got curious, purely from the hiking point of view. A little research showed that the Santander route is not considered to be the "main" one, but that didn't deter me. What did though was the discovery that even the variation of the path that goes through Santander doesn't run along the coast. It is parallel, roughly, but not close.

So. What follows is not really a part of the Camino, it is just a possible way to go walk west from Santander. It (almost) links to the spectacular Costa Quebrada. Physically it links, you just carry on along the coast, it is just that I don't have the record for the linking bit. If you are looking for scenic, I reckon the coastal path is your best bet. And if you are intent on doing the "real" camino, it runs really close inland, so you can stamp your passport and  stay in pilgrims' refuges.

Las Fallas 2018

First published 27 March 2018 @ Listen, Learn, Read

According to my old Rough Guide to Spain (this book served me well but I left it to my flatmates three years ago), Las Fallas are one of the Spanish “Big Four”, together with Semana Santa, Feria de Abril and San Fermín. Strangely enough, the Carnival is not among them.

Now it so happened that I, quite intentionally, stopped in Valencia en route to Boston and back, being able to see some of the festival and even take some pictures of it. For the benefit of those who never heard of ​Las Fallas, I allow myself to explain what’s going on here.

La Falla Convent de Jerusalem-Matemàtic Marzal

Cantabria, Costa Quebrada

Los Urros de Liencres panorama

While Kirill had already lived and worked in Santander a couple of years ago, it was only this summer that me and Timur visited it for the first time. Santander itself, at least in summer, looks like a good place to be, but I was more interested in seeing the surroundings of it, the coast of Cantabria. It didn't disappoint.

Approaching Playa de Covachos

A week in Valencia

Infinitely impressive, if somewhat underused, City of Arts and Sciences

For New Year holidays we went to Valencia. We've never been before, and the only thing I knew before taking the trip is that they grow a lot of oranges there.

This post is just to show a few pics from this beautiful town.

They do grow a lot of oranges. And not only oranges. But orange trees were everywhere - on the small strips separating the lines on the streets, in front of the cathedral, at the bottom of the former river, and of course in the shops. 3 kilos for 1 euro! I like these prices, I do. The choice of things that grow on land and live in the waters was amazing - and I am saying this after we lived on the Canaries for a few years. It might well be that the choice of other foodstuff is equally impressive, but I didn't pay that much attention.

We left it a bit too late (as usual) with booking the stay, so we ended up in a apartment that was about 25 minutes walking distance from the old town. It was perfectly adequate and of course it gave us an excellent excuse to make the kids do their essential bit of daily walking. We were lucky with the weather, too. It was warm, just a bit under 20. We were told by the landlord that only the tourists were happy about the unseasonable warmth. The farmers complained about not having enough rain, the nearby skiing resorts about not having enough snow. Well, there is no pleasing some people. On this occasion we were the easy ones to please.

Las Palmas carnival 2015

I was looking forward to my first carnival at Las Palmas and was not disappointed. While perhaps not as spectacular as the carnival of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the Las Palmas Carnival nicely combined both the show and street party, with audience participation levels very high. It is also very accessible - if you want to, you can see all the events for free, get a good view of all the participants - including the carnival queen and dames, or even ride on one of the floats in the main parade - there are places for hire, I didn't realize it before.

first and last

My last week was full of "last" things - last zumba lesson with Luisa, last salsa with Nunchi and Udoka, last casual lunch in Saffron Walden, even last trip to its Library and recycling center, etc. Granted, apart from possibly last two items, the other things can still occur if I come over for a visit, but it felt sad all the same. I will miss all that, even the recycling center

Today it is a different story altogether - day of "firsts"

First litrona bottle shared in the patio

suspension bridge

I've already processed this bridge picture (from Fuengirola, Spain) a goodish while ago, but I tend to re-comd through my folders before removing them off my hard disk . I leave them on external back-up disk, of course. This time processing left me with more perfect silhouettes, and I am hoping that this time the pic will be accepted at picture agencies, since people on the bridge are now unrecognizable.

Pottery in Haria

We drove to Haria, which I think the guide described as "the prettiest village on Lanzarote", via road from Teguise. That experience (driving that is) I don't recommend to anybody - there are a few hairpin bends on the way down to the village, with very very limited visibility, and the road is narrow. Fortunately, there is another, much gentler road, coming from eastern side of the island, so you do have a choice.
The village is quite pretty and relatively green, but it's not as pretty as I somehow expected. What I really liked there was the pottery workshop, belonging to Aquilino A. Rodríguez Santana - would be cool to find him on facebook, but he's not there, apparently.




Those little pots are rather charming. We bought a couple of small ones (keeping in mind the luggage restrictions). I would like a bigger one, but maybe I will have a chance to buy when we move to the Canaries.




That's the owner of the workshop. The black inclusions in the clay he uses are particles of volcanic sand, as far as I understood (between his not very fluent english and my extremely limited spanish)





some of his sculptural work. I like the female figure the best.




While we were there, a young woman, his friend and colleague, walked in. She was not from Lanzarote, but from mainland Spain, on holidays, and she was also very curious to look around, pick things up and examine them

This ant helmet-mask she is wearing is made of papier-mache. It's quite scary. He tried to explain to us what it is for, and as far as I understood (see note of language barrier above) it goes as follows : he wears it when he stage protests against their beautiful island being taken over by hotels, which encroach on the land as ants.



Lanzarote pics on shutterstock

kids on Fuerteventura

since we had one whole week to spare, one of those extra days we went to Fuerteventura on a sea ferry. It was not cheap - with discount that car rental company* gave us, return for a car and four passengers was over hundred euro. Apparently, passengers cost quite a lot - return for a passenger only and no discount was 33 euro.

anyway, it was worth it. Fuerteventura may be not as cozy as Lanzarote, but the white sand beaches there are absolutely beautiful.


* - btw, unbelievably cheap car rental from cabrera medina, 20 euros per day for Opel Meriva, fully insured, no excess. That was a special offer, but it'll be still cheap without. I am sure that I would not find anything cheaper if I looked for car rental via web beforehand, but I am too lazy to go and check now. Hiring while there is easy, just have your license with you (I forgot mine last time!)

house number ten

we found this old house in El Golfo - village where you come to eat seafood. I am not sure if anybody ever lived in it, or it was abandoned at the construction stage, but it looked very picturesque, what will grungy walls and blue sky and bindweed flowers below it

Village itself is very small - one main street with a few cul-de-sacs off it. Its restaurants (apparently raison d'être) were nicely positioned and served good food, but charged more than elsewhere - specifically for the location, I guess.

The road to the village is in good condition, but quite curvy as it follows the coast. There is a picture of the road here, so you can see fr yourself.

Apart from the restaurants and black volcanic sand beaches there is one more sight to see there, but having seen it I am not sure it was worth it - Charco de los Clicos. What you see if you follow the link is exactly what it is - a shallow strangely colored pond on black volcanic sand. If you do want to see it, I would advise to go to the village itself, park in the first carpark on the left, and walk about 100-150 meters. You will get a good view of it from a high-up point. If you follow the sign on the road instead, you will come to it on the same level and will get a worse view. It appears you can't come right up to the pond itself anyway - there is some sort of barrier, just about visible in the picture.

left behind

as far as I know, the scooters don't belong to the pair walking up the steps. but the accidental color-coordination created this impression of two pets* left behind when the owners went for a walk

* - (dogs, I guess, cats don't do that "look mournfully after" act as good

nice doggy

we only had two full days on Mallorca, and we spent the first one in Palma. It is now out of season, and the cathedral-old town area is perfectly pleasant - not crowded narrow streets, little pretty graden with citrus trees and goldfish we stumbled upon, etc. Overall atmosphere is kind of generic Mediterranean. Once out of old town area, which is not very big, again, it reminds of many other places at once - Agherro and Malaga especially, at least for me, but obviously I haven't been everywhere.

Unexpected success with our kids was museum of modern arts, and that with us even not going inside it - they have some abstract sculptures outside. you also get a good view over the rooftops from what I think was city walls and now house some of the collection.

The cedar-cone structure behind Timur was outside too. I immediately (and wrongly) thought it was by Andy Goldsworthy, but no, it was by a different author - don't remember the name.

Little doggy was hanging around the cone, and wanted to make friends with Timur (as many dogs do). Timur got somewhat worried if the nice doggy was a stray, but with not one, but two collar on it, I guess it was very much owned by someone

Parakeets

there were quite a lot of those loud birds in the little pine grove by the beach in Santa Ponsa. The built complicated-looking nests in the branches, and were easily outnumbering ubiquitous pigeons. there was at least one restaurant named after them (restaurante papagayo), and local-looking people were feeding them - something different from what they fed pigeons, since each feeder attracted either pigeons or parrots, but not both together.

they were obviously not native to balearics, so I made a quick search just now. they are monk parakeets apparently, native to subtropics of Argentina. wikipedia article doesn't list balearics as a home to feral flocks. maybe I should go and correct it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monk_Parakeet

PS: I just did, but am not sure if the change will stay since I have no source of information that wikipedia would consider appropriate. reference to blog will probably be considered as spam

last glow

photographing sunsets is something that everybody does, and it's extremely difficult to produce something even close original in this area. so I didn't even try.

But - I just developed an instant theory why the sunset-y photographs are almost frowned upon by photographers - well, you know, they are generally landscapes, and landscapes are supposed* to have "an interest in the foreground", right? and what sort of foreground can you have in a picture where the main subject is sunset? - well, you can have a silhouette (human, dog, horse, bird, building, boat, standing still, moving whatever), but if foreground subjects are too big or you drag them out of pure outline with a flash, sunset is not a main subject any more. So it's somewhat difficult. Still, it's even more difficult to refrain from snapping away.

Anyway. Matter of fact, there was foreground interest in the original frame, but I choose to cut it off. It's (surprise, surprise) a photographer squatting on the water edge



* - I dunno why, one on these rules.

yes, it's smoke on the water

while collecting our stuff for Lanzarote, I forgot to take the tripod (I also forgot to take my driving licence, and a few other bits and bobs) So to make long-exposure shots, almost an essential seaside activity (well, yes, I might be a bit obsessive about it), I had to make do with some friendly stones, my backpack and my jumper for support

While waiting for one of the fames to expose, I heard a small noise behind me. I don't know whether it was a general feeling of being safe there, or my overall mindset, but I didn't think "mugger", I thought "another photographer". I was right, of course.

Timanfaya

we went to TimanfayaNational Park on Christmas day. It was open, but the day was overcast. I am told we've missed a lot because the light didn't allow to appreciate the colors in volcanoes. True, most of the photos turned up in different shades of black (almost like in the land of Death on Terry Pratchett's books). Some of them do show some of the true colors, and this is one of them. Fantastic place.

check out the geyser demo here http://www.flickr.com/photos/k1r111/4226397586/
they also demonstrated "burning bush" effect - throwing a bundle of sticks into a shallow hole in the ground - it starts burning after a while, because of a magma camber relatively close to the surface. Alas, no video for this one.

Lanzarote sunset

I don't expect that any of the stocks will take this type of sunset image, reason for rejection being "over-filtered". It's true that it didn't come like that out of the camera. However, I strongly suspect that the almost untouched version, if accepted and sold, will eventually appear in about this state, i.e. overprocessing will be done by the designers. Well, never mind

sunset dip

the sunset on our very last day on Lanzarote was not as spectacular as the others - there were practically no clouds. but we happened to be in the right place to catch the palm trees against the glow. the bathing couple was a definite bonus. It looked very romantic, although I must say, it probably wasn't all the warm at this time of the evening. on the other hand, maybe those guys were scandinavians, used to jumping into ice-cold lakes.

Lanzarote seemed to be quite popular with northern eauropeans. and I can't blame them, when we came back to just-above-freezing-point UK, I couldn't help thinking "we should have stayed there". It must feel a lot worse coming to below-freezing temperatures.

true colors : photovandalism

almost monochrome image of narrow street in Fuengirola. Was too boring in original shape, so played with it in photoshop and quite like the results :)

perching

Spain, Fuengirola beach. Well, you can't see where it is, you have to take my word for is

full frame at lori