Our most abiding impression of this trip so far is bird song. There are just flocks of them, everywhere. Some people have pottery swifts fastened to their walls – if I could see where to buy one, I would, because it would be such a souvenir. There are loads of birds of prey; I’m not even excited to see them any more. I can identify the kites – loads of those, but there are some bigger ones I’m not at all sure what they are. The storks are fascinating – they build all over church towers and such, huge untidy masses of sticks and stuff, and I’m sure I saw one bringing its chicks (if you can call such hulking youngsters “chicks”) a rat to eat. They’re also pretty noisy with their loudly clacking beaks. I don’t think I could be so tolerant as people are here.
We’re somewhat stunned at how quiet the roads and hotels are. I know we’re early in the season, but this is like driving in the U.S. Not complaining, though.
The goat’s cheese we’ve just had for a picnic lunch. Jolly good.
The little walled towns and castles in the mountains. There’s obviously a lot of civic pride and they are very nicely kept. The walking looks good, so we may return. Today we went to Penedondo, where the castle would look just right in a Disney movie.
Because our itinerary is based on the Peninsula War, we’ve stayed in a wide variety of hotels. But last night’s was the strangest – a big modern hotel, with great views of a valley, our own balcony, a very large sun balcony, swimming pools and sun terrace, a large restaurant and conference facilities, in which we were apparently the only guests. The whole thing seemed to be run by an elderly lady, with a younger one to help. We counted three dogs and at least eight cats, all apparently living in harmony. Phil stood on one of the dogs, apologised to it, and it fell in love with him, and spent breakfast sitting on his feet. For breakfast we had the lady’s home made fig compote, and a long conversation in French – we think she was lonely. Apparently a sick cat arrived and then had kittens, and so on until now she’s a great great grandmother, but as the lady said, what can you do? Our French doesn’t include the right vocabulary to explain.
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