SATURDAY 9th JUNE 2012

SPAIN

Bit of an issue this morning as three people had their cases broken into last night as we were having dinner! Because we were late in the porters just put the cases outside the room and they were unattended for a couple of hours! Apparently the porters were not hotel employees, but contractors and were very dodgy! No locks on the cases was rather foolish too, some toiletries, a phone and some bits and pieces being taken!
So on the road again and heading for Pamplona, we travelled on lovely freeways - all toll ways - through some pine forests and rather barren country for a while, not seeing all that many vineyards! Maybe they are in a different region!
There was no markings for the border when we crossed into Spain, so it went by unnoticed!
Our lunch stop was the coastal town of Barritza which a very pretty spot, with steeps cliffs and a little bay the town is built on! Great surf a little way out with many people riding the good sized waves! We got some photos and had a walk around the town - home to the rich and famous apparently - before having a lovely sandwich and a jug of Sangria to share! We all reckoned that this was the life - wonder what the rest of the world is doing???
From Barritza it was only a shortish drive into Pamplona - arrived about 3pm - and to our excellent hotel! This was a four star place, only wish that we get this standard everywhere, only negative being that free wifi was only available in the lobby, eight or so euros for a few hours room access! This has been the case in most places - bloody annoying - so no photo uploads AGAIN!!!!
Some of the others did a tour of the old centre of Pamplona but we decided to just get a lift there and please ourselves! It was siesta time when we arrived and the place was deserted so we wandered about leisurely and saw where the bulls run and looked at all the narrow cobbled streets etc.
Spaniards have the same attitude to life as the French! Apparently a typical day is: arise at about seven and have a very long shower, go to a cafe and get a coffee (no one ever cooks breakfast or eats at home), rush to work and do very little for two hours (still waking up!), have a thirty minute lunch break to have a proper meal, have a three hour siesta (at home or on a mattress at work), then wake up at 4.30pm and go to work until 8pm! Then it is time for a drink and tapas, then wander off for a meal and chat, getting to bed at midnight! Weird huh???? No bloody productivity at all! Then scream to the European Community for a bail out!!!!! Lazy sods! And knocking the hell out of our stock market in the process! Grrrrr!
We saw the famous Hemingway cafe and then stopped in the Plaza del Castillo to have a couple of pitchers of Sangria! Very addictive stuff, but it is so nice and light and cold!
From there we walked about three kilometres back to our hotel for a rest and a shower before dinner in the hotel!
Rohan, one of the many Vics on the tour is a bit of a card, and in Paris he bought a beret and copped a lot of teasing, so I bought a little black fedora to better him! Contest on!!!! Today he came back with a hat with bulls horns on it, saying to the others that it stuff up the West Aussies!!!! Lucky for Den and I we saw him with it in the city and so we dragged out our secret weapon - the tartan hats (complete with fake red hair) we bought in Edinburgh!!!!! When Rohan turned up with his hat we whipped on ours!!!! Score = WA 2, Vic 1!
Interestingly during the day Victor had given us a long list of optional tours we could take - at extra cost - to further explore the cities we visit! We had seen them before we left and were quite prepared for the additional cost, but some others hadn't and were a little surprised! If you take them all it fills each day with activities and you have very little spare time to relax! So while we were scoffing Sangria in the Plaza, we went right through the list and picked out most but not all the excursions! That way we will have a few spare afternoons and not be flat out all the time! Just be warned - do your homework and read all the info!!!!