Posts Tagged ‘Spain’

We are in no position to laugh at people’s difficulties with a foreign language; we have travelled three months in Spain with little language and in times of stress any one of the six languages we have used over the past ten months may emerge. That said, we do like to have a bit of a giggle over some of the translations into English we have seen.

Campsite toilet facilities are often a good place to find these mis-translations; ‘Please not to place the roles in the WC’, is not correct, but we all know what they mean. ‘The breach will be a lack of serious motive’, is less self-explanatory.

The rules and regulations for campsites are another opportunity for making less sense than you intended; ‘The campsite reserves the right of rectifying the material registered always when detect in-corrections in your registration,’ still has us baffled, we may or may not have breached that one, with or without a serious motive.

In Portugal we bought bread called Pao da Sogra. This seemed to be translated into English on the wrapping with the words ‘bread of the mother in paw’ and went on, ‘stew in oven of firewood’. Was this a cooking instruction, or a description of how it was made? All that is clear to us is that the bread in Portugal is fantastic and we’ve no idea how we will cope with Warburtons White Sliced when we return.

You don’t have to be in Spain very long to see that they take every opportunity to use tiles; there are tiled floors, tiles on the sides of buildings, on balconies and on benches. The tiles are often colourful, beautiful and decorative and they are certainly very practical in this climate.

In Sevilla the tiling has been taken to new extremes; the Plaza de Espana, built in 1929, is an artistic celebration of the different cities and regions of Spain in brightly coloured tiles along a crescent (see photograph). In Sevilla we also found signs for shops and bars and advertising in tiling; the photograph of the charming black cat was in the doorway of a lottery shop.

The Alcazar combines Moorish and Spanish styles and plenty of colourful tiles are in evidence in this pleasing palace and its adjoining gardens. Our English neighbours on the campsite said they were disappointed with Sevilla, but then their expectations had been very high. We enjoyed its relaxed environment on a fine Sunday; noted the new trams and cycle routes, treated ourselves to a glass of sherry or two before lunch and dawdled in a vast cafe with smart, bustling waiters serving hordes of groups of middle-aged Spaniards, eating cake and drinking coffee with brandy chasers; we ate cakes with a high calorific content and had another glass of sherry.

Donana National Park is the largest area in Europe without roads and other infrastructure; used as a royal hunting ground since the 13^th century, this protected landscape includes wetland, salt marsh, beaches and dunes and pine forest. It is designated a National Park, in Spain this is the highest level of environmental protection and little development is allowed beyond some sustainable honey production, collection of pine nuts, horse grazing and charcoal burning and public access is limited to guided tours. Around the National Park is the Donana Natural Park, acting as a buffer zone for the National Park, here some activities are allowed with licences, such as fishing, salt extraction and hunting.

Donana has always been on our list of must visit places and the boat trip from Sanlucar de Barrameda seemed an excellent way to visit the southerly parts of the area. The boat, the Real Fernando, was under-going its annual maintenance during January and we had to stay in El Puerto de Santa Maria a few days more than planned to take the first trip of the year on 6 February. The day dawned foggy, weather that certainly hampers bird watching! However, because of the weather, the boat delayed departure by half an hour and the sun managed to shine on our trip.

The three hour trip includes time on land as well as sailing up the River Guadalquiver. We managed to spot both red deer and fallow deer, wild boar rooting in the mud, a black stork, avocets and other waders and a Marsh Harrier. We have seen a few swallows making their way north, so can confirm that spring is on its way!

Cadiz has water on three sides; to the west and north the Atlantic waves roll against the walls and to the east is the huge sheltered bay, in this city you are never very far from the sea. This means it is a city that will disappear as soon as sea levels start to rise, so it seemed worth spending a couple of days visiting it while it is still possible.