Bulging in Bulgaria

From John:

Dobar dan!
Where were we? Romania? And tomorrow we will take a bus from Plovdiv to Erdine in Turkey. Almost out of Europe. The past month has flown by in a shoe-melting month of heat. We have dashed through Bulgaria - but this is a relative term. For some three weeks in Bulgaria is a long holiday and for others it's a long time full stop. For us it has been three weeks of very good food and sweltering heat with quite a bit of sight-seeing and one nice walk in the mountains.

In eager anticipation of meeting friends and making use of the time before they arrived, we left Brasov and took a night train to Bucovina in north east Romania. Our plan was to spend four days visiting some of the painted monasteries in the area. We found a room in a pension with a nice garden and a pool in a small town from where we reckoned we could walk or day-trip to the monasteries. The daytime temperatures were creeping up to the 35C mark on a regular basis, to the point where we were taking siestas in the middle of the day. Our very first afternoon Gayle met a Russian woman and a Bulgarian couple staying at the pension. The man, obviously desperate to get a break from his missus, offered to take us in his car to the nearest monastery. We piled into his Dacia (essentially an old Renault 12 built in Romania), and with Abba blaring from the tape deck, hurtled down the country lanes. Mamma Mia, the man could not drive. When we careered towards a haystack on a cart I thought it was our Waterloo. At one bend in the road we crossed the dotted white line and slid into the corner, which had Gayle contemplating sending out an S.O.S. The Name of the Game was basically to hang on. We soon arrived at the monastery and fell out of the car, and I minced my way to the entrance like a Dancing Queen. Okay, okay, I'm flogging the Abba gags. The monasteries are Orthodox Christian, and were built and painted at a time when the good time boys the Ottoman Turks were marauding northwards. Apparently the poor plebs who had to defend the villages were not allowed inside the churches, and so the exterior walls were decorated with scenes from the Bible, but with a topical flavour: at Voronets, the gory paintings of the saints being killed (plenty of these) depicted the baddies wearing turbans. Must have been Turks.
"Half an hour!" our volunteer driver had shouted as we entered the monastery. Ludmilla the Russian objected to this Japanese-style visit, but he was insistent and came to get us when our time was up. "Right, next one!" He then drove us to another monastery. "Half an hour!" Ludmilla muttered and grumbled, but for me it was plenty of time to look around. We then shot back to the pension broadcasting the best of Abba and in 90 minutes had completed two days of our itinerary. Never to miss an opportunity to do nothing, we did it. Our excuse of course was the extreme heat and the temptation of a quiet garden with a pool.

We returned to Brasov on a slow but wonderful train ride through picturesque landscape. The area was settled by Hungarians and the rural scene was almost perfect. Back in Brasov we discovered that one friend, Val, could not meet us, but that Lance was on his way. We had a small problem - good cheap accommodation was hard to come by, and our preferred place was booked up. It was run by a nice couple, and we rang the husband who spoke English to see if we could book for our friend. It turned out that they lived just along from our back-up hotel, and Ladislau suggested we call round in the evening to check with his wife. We did. Theresa was very friendly and offered us coffee and tea, and apologised that they were booked up but they were having a barbecue and would we like to stay to eat with them? Ladislau emerged from the garden shed with the barbecue and promptly lit it. It turned out to be a wonderful evening for us. In addition to the huge amounts of meat and red wine which we were offered and very politely consumed, we also had a good chat. We wanted to ask them about Romania and they wanted to ask about our journey along the Silk Road. Ladislau was half German half Hungarian and spoke good English. Theresa was Hungarian and spoke no English but did a good mime. It was like being with old friends. I could fill another page with our conversation, but it might bore you. To our question about life after Communism Ladislau quoted his father: "Before, everyone had a bit of money but there was nothing to buy. Now, you can buy anything, but only a few have got the money."

A couple of days later we were back in the Fagaras mountains walking with Lance. It was his first time walking with a full backpack and we all sweated buckets on the climb up to the ridge. It was a glorious sunny day, with a cooling wind on the top, and in the afternoon we found a decent spot to pitch with a spring not too far away. Over a a tasty tea of tortellini, pesto and parmesan we studied the map and route description of the ridge and plotted our next day's walk. What fools. We awoke to thick mist and then heavy rain. Visibility was down to 5 metres and we decided to wait it out. We waited all day. Disaster struck - the toilet roll we were all sharing got soaked. The emergency spare was a little bit small for a five day trek. The next day it was still cloudy but dry and we continued on our way. One tricky stretch involved an exposed traverse along an eroded path. I went first and Lance followed behind Gayle. He was very good at encouragment - sometimes I was too frightened to speak. Thankfully it was so cloudy we couldn't see the drop below us. Late afternoon saw us drop off the ridge (not literally) and out of the cloud to a tempting spot for pitching our tents. We awoke next day with the cloud still low and so after a bit of humming and hawing decided to walk out. The walk was long and up and over a couple of spur ridges, finally descending past a grotty cabana and down to the end of the road, where there was a restaurant. Here we tried to phone for a taxi to avoid a long slog along the road, but the waiter asked a family who were leaving in a pick-up truck to give us a lift, which they did. Wonderful. On our train back to Brasov we had the best views of the mountains - the clouds had disappeared completely, as always.............

We spent a couple of nights in Bucharest, which is probably two too many, although we all enjoyed The Museum of the Peasant - which turned out to be far better than it sounds! The highlights were a traditional wooden house, church and windmill. Our plan had been to stay at an original caravanserai (trading post/inn) which still stands in the centre of the city, but we persuaded Lance to stay near the train station which was more boring but far more convenient. As it turned out the caravanserai was being renovated - destined to become a five-star hotel. We also visited the People's Palace - an enormous white elephant of a building begun by the despot Ceaucescu. This monument to his ego was built with no expense spared and after the revolution the politicians decided to complete the project. It remains unfinished but is used as a parliament. And it still consumes vast amounts of money which could be better spent elsewhere. Donald Trump apparently offered 4bn US dollars and they stupidly turned it down. It is the world's second largest admistrative building in the world, after the Pentagon, and quite ugly really............

We bade Lance farewell and took a train across the border to Veliko Tarnovo in Bulgaria. The short journey began badly when I discovered that my seat number did not exist on the train! It took forever to get to and cross the border and we disembarked into a world of Cyrillic. Apart from this there was no immediately appreciable difference with Romania. But that was until we went to eat. As dedicated self-caterers we have had a holiday in Bulgaria and enjoyed excellent cheap food (salads! hooray!) and drink, probably fattening up a bit along the way. The choc-ices don't help either. And it has been soooo hot. We have been lucky with the sunshine on this journey but even we have blanched in Bulgaria at the temperatures. We have passed fields and fields of sunflowers with heads bowed - all hiding their faces from the fierce sun.

Our route has taken us through small traditional towns and to Orthodox monasteries which are visited as places of pilgrimage by the locals. (You must have heard of the ikon of three-handed Virgin? No? The religious paintings (ikons) are revered and kissed and the three-handed Virgin at Troyan monastery seemed to be particularly popular and well-known in Bulgaria. Anyway.......) The best monastery is at Rila - a large complex set high in a valley of pine trees just south of Sofia. We enjoyed the capital - it was not overbearing and we were treated to an international folk-dancing competition for two nights running in the central park (nothing on at the cinema!). Okay, not really our cup of tea, but the dreary proceedings were considerably enlivened by knife-throwing Georgian cossacks and the Venezuelans brought a huge band with them too.

In the middle of the country we stayed in a village called Koprovititsa
(bit of a tongue-twister and not sure of the spelling!). This was a touristy little place full of traditional wooden houses and it turned out to be the only unspoilt tourist spot we found. The other places we visited seemed to be over-developed. In Veliko Tarnovo every fourth shop was an estate agents, and in Bansko, a ski resort, a massive building programme was in full flow as developers look to cash in on British and German interest in holiday homes. It was quite sad really and made us think of the Spanish coast. On reflection, we think Romania was much nicer mainly because it seems to have avoided this trend, but for how long.............

Bansko is in the Pirin mountains and from here we escaped the heat and trekked for a couple of nights - it was all we could manage, but was well worth it. We climbed a couple of peaks and found lovely lakes to camp beside. And from there we came on a scenic bus journey to Plovdiv, a big city with an old centre full of tree-lined streets and a Roman amphitheatre. We will enjoy one more Bulgarian meal before departing for the land of kebabs............

ciao for now

When in Romania

Buna ziua!
Just after we arrived in Romania from Hungary I wrote to a friend that it was a bit like going from Didsbury to Wythenshawe (or from Oxton to Birkenhead for those on the Wirral). Despite the shabby towns, trains and environment and sometimes shabby inhabitants, all no doubt reflecting a poorer country but perhaps something else too, we have found that Romania has grown on us - like mould perhaps. Ironically, after just over a week here, I went to see quite a grim film shot in Glasgow called Red Road. (Gayle wisely preferred to stay and read in the botannical gardens.) When I left the cinema and walked through the city everything in comparison seemed to be in glorious 3-D technicolour with surround sound and scratch 'n' sniff thrown in for free. In fact, it really did me the world of good, because we were both wondering whether Romania was going to be just an expensive and unsatisfactory time-filler on our route. Now I know Glasgow can be incredibly drab and ugly, but when we talk to foreigners about Britain, we always say Scotland is the most beautiful part. We also know that sometimes it takes a while to explore a country and find the best parts. And so it has turned out to be. After a couple of treks in the mountains, and a couple more relaxed and pretty towns, we now find that half of June has passed and there is still lots more that Romania offers........

We arrived in Oradea, a non-touristy city full of Art Nouveau buildings in the centre. We were heading for one of them, the Black Vulture Hotel, a run-down backpacker's favourite, but found that it had been renovated and is now a four star hotel. Never mind. Instead we found another run down Art Nouveau hotel and took a huge room with a private bathroom and a bath with a plug. Joy unconfined. Even better, a buffet-style restaurant where we could point at what we wanted and paid for it by its weight. Perfect for those who haven't grasped the Romanian language. This is in fact very close to Latin. Unfortunately this was not an option for me at school and Gayle chose Geography instead, but we have mastered some essential phrases such as "Where can I buy cous-cous?" and "Does that come with vegetables?". We quickly learned from the big grumpy receptionist with a fake bun in her hair that, like Hungary, the older people speak German to us, but thankfully, the youngsters have learned English at school, and despite denying all knowledge of the language when asked directly "Do you speak English?", they can in fact understand us and answer most of our questions fluently.

We spent a couple of days getting to grips with the lack of tourist information and trying to find essential things like how to get to the bus station in the pouring rain. When there aren't thunderstorms in Romania it's baking hot in June. We also had some fun finding a supermarket where we could buy food for trekking. As dedicated self-caterers, we find that Romania is much like Italy - full of small grocery shops and a central market with fresh local produce, but when you want dehydrated meals, powdered milk and Jaffa cakes you've got to get to the edge of town supermarket. With our backpacks fully stocked we took a bus into the Apuseni mountains. It was Saturday, the bus station was a dusty deserted place, but a bus appeared right on time, driven by a friendly Ryan Giggs (for it was he - obviously got a summer job.) It took us to a market town with another dusty and deserted bus station where we learnt that there was no connection to our starting point. What to do? Well, when in Romania, do as the Romanians do - stand on the side of the road and hitch. We joined an old man and a mum with her child at a road junction and before we could stick our thumb out we were spotted by a farmer in a battered Dacia jeep pulling a trailer with two cows. "Stana de Vale? Get on in!" (or something like this), and along with the old man we squeezed in. The farmer hung his sausages over the handbrake and put his beer in the boot to make space, and we were off..........very slowly. It soon became apparent that we might be asphyxiated before we even reached our mountain destination as the exhaust fumes entered the cab from under the dashboard and our windows didn't open. We had a disjointed conversation with the farmer who seemed very jolly and kept saying Newcastle to us, and waved a horse brass off his dashboard at us. Over the next hour we climbed up a forest road into the misty mountains and passed herds of cows and families driving them up the road. It rained heavily and was still raining when we stepped down from the jeep, dizzy and gasping for air, at the saddest-looking andmost deserted campsite I've ever seen.

We checked our map, waited for the rain to stop and instead of staying set off along a track to find a better pitch. It rained again as we climbed through beech and pine forest but stopped when we reached the tree line. We pitched our tent on a flat grassy patch above a river, but not far from a sheepfold. This turned out to be a mistake because when the shepherds returned with their flock, they let their dogs loose. It didn't take them long to discover us, and after half an hour of barking, we decided to pack up and climb higher. This turned out to be a good move, and we ended up on a peaceful grassy saddle with views of our intended walk. The next three days was spent walking a horseshoe ridge covered in grass and juniper bushes, sheep dung and a million flies with nothing else to do but follow us. The views over the surrounding area were wonderful and we only had one heavy thunderstorm where we found shelter under a pine tree. The paths are waymarked here, but a couple of times we found no way through neglected forest, or lost the track on large grassy clearings. Each time, close to giving up, we finally located the path. Apart from shepherds, we also met locals cutting trees and herding cows and grazing horses. One afternoon we walked past some untended cart horses as big as houses, who feigned indifference to us, but then appeared on the track behind us when we stopped for a break. I think I might have broken into a trot at that point to put some distance between us and them, and had to climb over a "gate" of fallen trees that was obviously there to stop the horses wandering. This was the only fence we saw anywhere, except for the picket fences around the houses in the valley-bottoms. Our walk ended with a climb up to Vladeasa, an 1800m peak, and the next day we had a long walk out back to the train line. This was shortened when we hitched a ride off a local policeman who breathed alcohol and drove too fast, but who took us to the next town where there were more train connections back to Oradea.

After a hotel room laundry session and a long soak in the bath, we left Oradea and headed west to Cluj, Romania's second city. After a tiresome sweaty search for what turned out to be expensive accomodation we had a discussion about cities and their worth. We are rarely thrilled by a church or a museum, and only occassionally is there a film we may want to watch. (It was here I saw Red Road as part of the Transylvanian Film Festival. There was a buzz around the place, as a young Romanian director had just won the Palme D'Or at Cannes.) Without reaching a conclusion about the matter, we moved on to a small Saxon city called Sigisoara, in Transylvania. This part of Romania was settled by Germans around the 13th century and was annexed by Hungary in the 19th century. There are three names for every place (German, Hungarian and Romanian). Most of the towns have traditionally been run by Germans (all very neat and tidy as you can imagine), with Romanians being virtual serfs up to Transylvania joining Romania after the First World War. There are still many ethnic Hungarians living here, but apparently a large number of Germans left in the 90's to go to Germany.

We were persuaded by a polite young dude called Jan to stay in a room in his house at Sigisoara, which is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site in conjunction with a clutch of fortified churches in the area, built as a defence against the marauding Turks. Despite our declaration that we would not visit any more churches or castles, we found ourselves on a daytrip to Biertan, an old village, to visit a church fortified like a castle. We took a slow cattle-truck of a train to a stop in the middle of nowhere, got off and hiked along the road. After passing through one village we hitched a lift off two moustachioed men in an old VW camper van, with beer bottles rolling around in the back. They spoke no English, we spoke no Romanian. There was no conversation. When they dropped us at Biertan they declined the money one would normally offer for a ride. After refreshing ourselves with 2 litres of pop from the local shop, we climbed up the hill to the Lutheran church surrounded by three walls. Its bell tower was designed as a watch tower and the grounds were big enough for the whole village to seek shelter in, should any furniture-sellers from down south cold-call.
The village was a quiet place, virtually unchanged from medieval times (except for the cars, tractor, telephone box and satelite dishes etc. etc.) We watched as a collection of VW 4X4s drove into town on a promotional Off-Road race - wealthy Romanians from Bucharest - all very entertaining to us and the locals. We doubted any of them would have given us a lift. With this in mind, we set off on our return walk, through a wide valley full of corn fields. Along the way we passed families taking lunch and a rest in whatever shade they could find. One woman asked us for water. We reckon they would have been working the fields from very early in the morning - by 10 in the morning the sun is fierce and relentless. We passed people hoeing, men ploughing with a horse, scything huge fields of hay and stacking it onto carts - all of it back-breaking work. We stopped for another 2 litres of pop at the next village before catching another worn-out slow train.

The next day we strolled Sigisoara and stopped for beer at a little cafe tucked away down a side street. Not long after three posh English sat down at the next table. We earwigged a bit and then Gayle enjoined them in conversation. It turned out the ambassador of Moldova and his wife were on a weekend trip with his sister. They were very friendly and the ambassador quite funny. At first he just said he worked at the embassy, but when Gayle asked what he did, he admitted he was ambassador. "So not a lot then", was Gayle's immediate reply. He seemed a bit Graham Greeneish - his previous posting was Luxembourg, so he obviously couldn't take his job too seriously.

Next stop Sibiu, another nice Saxon city, overlooked by the mountains of Fagaras and Cindrel , part of the Carpathian chain. The city centre is small enough to walk around, with little traffic, and cobblestoned streets that lead down into the old town. This all looked a bit faded and crumbly next to the bright clean centre, and was full of second-hand clothes shops and "NON STOP" off-licences. We stayed here in a small pension with a bar in its patio, frequented by quiet elderly drinkers who would call in for a beer anytime between 9 am and 9pm. After a couple of days of culture (Sibiu is the European City of Culture 2007), and the obligatory supermarket trip, we headed for a trek into the Fagaras mountains.

We started with a slow train and a fast taxi ride to a village from where we walked into a forested valley. We walked past an old road sign that said NO FOREIGNERS. It rained heavily and we sought shelter in a sentry box outside some deserted buildings - I imagine some abandoned chemical weapons-testing facility or something of the sort. The rain eased off a little and we carried on along a forest track,meeting no-one but spotting four black and yellow salamanders. It was too wet to photograph them. After a long uphill slog we emerged from the forest to a clearing and a forester's cabin, with a view of a distant cirque and the mountain ridge in the distance above us. The cabin was closed and deserted, but everywhere around us signs of fires and litter. We came to a river that we had to wade, and feeling tired and still some way from the mountain ridge we decided to camp. Only then did it stop raining. It felt a little too quiet and spooky and we both thought of bears, but said nothing. In the morning we waded the river and climbed steeply for two hours, finally reaching the mountain ridge at 2100m. The ridge was grassy, and paths trailed off at all the compass points - not a road or a house to be seen. And not a single person. We walked until 2pm when a thunderstorm forced us to pitch our tent, near to a spring, on the ridge. After two hours the skies cleared and we got out to enjoy the views - ahead of us big scary mountains with snow on the upper slopes, below us deep narrow forested valleys. We stayed there for the night and the next day set off in glorious sunshine heading towards Moldeveanu, Romania's highest peak. The walking was wonderful, and fairly easy. We met a couple walking in the opposite direction. They had walked up from a cabana and said they were going to Moldeveanu. But they'd been going in the wrong direction for 2 and a half hours. We showed them on our map - they didn't have one. They immediately turned round and retreated. We passed them just before a tricky narrow arete that had me in a sweat. A chamois bounded down off the top and into the valley 500m below in seconds. The clouds gathered ominously and we quickened our step. We reached a pass with the path down to the cabana. Other walkers were heading down. We decided to carry on to the next pass, but the presence of sheep and sheepdogs put me off, and instead we camped on the top in between both passes. It rained in an Old Testament manner. The lightning lit up the tent and the we felt the thunder vibrate the mountains around us - so loud we could not talk. We lay on our Thermarest mats and ate our lunch. And then I started with an electric shock. The air was blue with electricity and expletives. Gayle smelt burning and leapt out of the tent to see what was on fire. My Thermarest deflated - a lightning bolt had run up my leg and left through my hand, putting three holes in it as it passed through. Miraculously that was the only damage. More foolishly, we stayed where we were, too confused and a little frightened to expose ourselves to the elements, but unknowingly still vulnerable where we were. (Gayle checked this later - lightning CAN strike twice in the same place.) We slept and after three hours of rain and thunder, it was good enough for us to pack up and descend to the valley below the pass. We had lost the heart to stay in the mountains with such a daily risk. After two hours of steep descent we reached some walkers heading to the Mountain Rescue hut, near to the cabana. We were invited in for tea and the man in charge said it was okay for us to stay. We ate our food and talked with the others staying there, a German translating for us. Our map was passed around and examined as if it was some sort of modern marvel. After the torment of earlier, it felt a little dreamlike and wonderful. The skies had cleared, the mountains were at peace, we went to sleep late, and it took us a while to get off. In the morning the barometer was at rock bottom, and we decided to descend to the train line. It rained and we felt vindicated of our decision to retreat. The tarmac road at the end of the forest disappeared through flat endless fields and we plodded along trying to hitch lifts off local daytrippers. Fortunately we got two lifts, and the second one, from an elderly couple saw us deposited at a train station with 10 minutes to spare before one of the rare trains.

We ate well and rested in Sibiu before moving along to Brasov, probably the most visited provincial town in the country. It's a big city with an old heart, and here we have pootled about whilst trying to arrange to meet two friends. Val, who has our car, is visiting Bucharest with work and we plan to meet her here on her free weekend. We asked Lance if he fancied walking some mountains, and we plan to return to the Fagaras with him next week. He's bringing a lightning rod with him.

One morning we climbed one of the wooded hills overlooking Brasov, up an old path. There is a cable car to the top, but we thought we needed to stretch our legs. At one point, looking up through a space in the trees, we saw a baby bear. There were three other tourists above us on the path and they started to retreat. We then saw Mummy Bear crashing through the trees, but thankfully not towards us. She was leading her cub away from us. Needless to say we have no photos of this episode - it all happened too quickly and we were just too excited. Bears!!! Eventually we all carried on up the path, with me jumping at every snapped twig or rustle of leaves in the undergrowth. The bears are known to wander into the town in the winter to scavenge for food, so in this patch they are obviously used to humans, but they are not tame. Wow, Bears!!!!!

Now this is far too long, so I'll sign off,
La revedere,

The Spars of Hungary

from John:

(Due to personal reasons, i.e. I have been very lazy, this posting is now two weeks out of date - but what's two weeks between friends and family?)

Jo napot!
Greetings from Debrecen, Hungary's second but dullest city. This is our stepping point to cross the border into Romania, and we have decided for a change only to stop the one night. Our hotel is a big old run-down communist-era hotel run by very nice people. It's totally empty. The town's saving grace is a Kashmiri Indian restaurant - so we'll be dining out tonight. Hurrah!

We arrived in Hungary just over three weeks ago. Our train journey from Sarajevo started badly - with the conductor explaining to us in German why we had to get off the train in Croatia, before we crossed the border into Hungary. He was very nice about it, but we spoke no Bosnian(/Croatian/Serbian) and he spoke no English, and I was indignant in the knowledge that I held a ticket for the journey all the way to Pécs in Hungary. The conductor smiled and with a "No problem" look, left me fuming in my seat. Gayle meanwhile had a look in the other compartments and found a young Hungarian woman who was able to explain in English that there were track repairs, and so there would be a short transfer by bus. The young woman was called Nora, and she had studied architecture for two years in Edinburgh, and spoke good English. In fact, she didn't shut up for the rest of the journey. She was friendly and helpful and a little excitable, but left us stony-faced when she made a subtle reference to "the Jews" who charge for entry to the big synagogue in Budapest. We got off at Pecs in a rainstorm feeling quite depressed.

It was Saturday afternoon and the town was deserted - the rain had driven everyone indoors. Our cheap hotel in the centre was closed up - but with the aid of my O level German we spotted a sign next door for "Rooms" (in fact we saw "Zimmer Frei" all over Hungary). It turned out to be a great find - a room with private kitchen and bathroom in a lovely old house with a patio (although the dogs put me off using the latter). Did I mention the dogs? A little terrier like Tintin's Snowy, a dreadlocked small Hungarian sheepdog, so shaggy you didn't know if it was coming or going, and something the size of a small pony. The owner was very nice and thankfully her daughter spoke English and we stayed five nights. Pecs is full of museums and galleries and lovely fairy cake buildings and the centre was green, quiet and pedestrianised which made it even better for wandering around. Our days here were spent working on our Hungarian phrases - hard work because even small words seemed to have about four syllables. ("Which platform does the train leave from?" when translated takes about five minutes to ask in Hungarian.) However, Gayle had only to learn "Do you speak English?", which everyone under thirty seemed to, and she was away. As determined self-caterers we were also delighted to find a plentiful supply of supermarkets, including Spar, and even Tesco's - the latter being an out of town affair, too far even for us to wander to in search of Jaffa cakes. We were also delighted to find that the Tourist Office was very helpful and a useful point of enquiry.

Whilst wandering around Pecs we came across an old 'arthouse' cinema - we searched their programme for anything in English and saw they had a season of Indian films. We went in and checked whether a film had English subtitles, and then went back at tea time to watch "1942 - A Love Story". As it turned out, it was as bad as it sounds. We double-checked the subtitles were in English and then tried to buy our tickets. This took about 15 minutes as the young man had to type in all the details - film title, director, category of film etc. into his computer to produce the tickets. Fortunately for him, there only four punters, us and two students who sat next to us in the little cinema. It was all kind of homely, with some reclaimed armchairs along the front row. We all sat and munched sandwiches and cake during the three hour song and dance epic about the insurgency to defeat the imperial British. It began with a Romeo and Juliet storyline and ended with a polite request to stand for the (Indian) National Anthem. Brian Glover starred as the brutal and savage British General. I don't think the phrase "War on Terror" was used (the film was made in 1994), but there were some remarkably topical coincidences, in between the cheesy bits. The Indian Himalayas were the real star - serving as the picturesque backdrop to the comedy, romance, action, dancing and horror - oh, it had it all!!

From Pecs we travelled straight to Budapest, which warranted half the pages in our guidebook. We camped in an expensive and dump of a campground, which thankfully was very quiet. One night we had two separate visits from the resident hedgehog. Or were there two? Made me jump in the dark, either way. The weather has been very hot, with occasional brief rainstorms clearing the air and we tried to not overdo it in the Big City. But the public transport system was efficient and easy to get around and the streets seemed remarkably uncrowded in the centre. We met up with Isabell and Bill here and stayed in a spacious appartment overlooking the Danube. There was a handy Spar in the basement of the building. What more did we need?

Budapest offers plenty of sights and we sampled a few - the Holocaust Memorial Centre unsurprisingly being the most memorable. In a detailed and fascinating exhibition it describes the lives of Jews and Roma in Hungary before and during the war, and the frighteningly efficient removal of 440,00 to Aushwitz in the space of 3 months in 1944. The combination of personal stories and the enormity of the statistics is horrifying. It made clear that the Germans could not have achieved this crime without the assistance of thousands of Hungarian officials and transport workers. In fact, Hungary's post First World War history has remarkable similarities with Germany's. The peace treaty removed huge areas of their territory and in 1919 there was a Communist takeover (Bela Lugosi was Minister of Culture), followed quickly by a right-wing backlash and a de facto dictatorship, which led to the Hungarians joining the Axis powers. There are some Jews still living in Hungary, and Budapest has the second largest synagogue in the world, but its the Roma who still live here in large numbers and appear to have become second-class citizens, lacking education, missing out on employment, living in poverty, victimised and ostracisied, a depressing vicious circle. The Roma are thought to have originated in India, and there were several occasions when we did a double-take, thinking we had seen an Indian family on the streets of Budapest (for a large European city, it is remarkably uncosmopolitan). Isabell and Bill's visit seemed to pass very quickly, and we think we tired them out with a busy schedule.

After they returned to Blighty, we headed west to Lake Balaton, the largest fresh water lake in Europe and with possibly the largest mosquitoes too (think Black & Decker drill with wings). We camped here and met two very friendly Americans, Lyn and Jeannie, travelling the world in 6 months, with whom we passed a couple of pleasant evenings. Here we also visited the thermal baths of Heviz. Hungary is famous for its spas - thanks to a geological fault and those pesky Turks there are hot baths and swimming pools everywhere - you really have to look where you're going. Heviz is a huge natural open air pool where you can float around on rubber rings or just hang off rails and let the hot mineral waters do their stuff. Apparently people come from all over to seek cures to various ailments - but I confess they did nothing for my piles. We spent a few more lazy days by the lake before coming east to Eger.

Eger is famed for Bull's Blood red wine and (but probably only in Hungary) a defiant resistance against those aggressive furniture salesmen from Turkey in 1552. The story is the stuff of legends: 2,000 locals stuck in the fortress and fighting off 50,000 infidels, women pouring pitchers of boiling oil over the walls, the men fighting with all their courage and skill. And they won, improbably. The Ottoman Turks retreated but came back forty years later and tonked them. And now the Kebab is King. There are some gaps in this history of Eger, but judging from the guff produced by the local Tourist Board I guess you would not be that interested.........

We were lucky to find a nice appartment to stay in the old centre with its fairy cake buildings. On the Pentecost holiday we headed into the forested hills along with half of Hungary for a walk. We followed waymarkers up through thick woods and left the crowds behind, to reach the highest summit in the range, about 950m. After a tough sweaty climb we were rewarded with fantastic views of, er, more trees. We met someone with a map and took digital photos of it, so we could navigate another way down - quite a bizarre way to walk. The next day was spent relaxing at the thermal baths and swimming pools along with, I am convinced of this, half of Hungary - again.

On reflection we have found Hungary rather dull - despite the best efforts of our guidebook authors to convince us that there is plenty to see - Budapest is definitely the highlight for me. However, it has also been one of the easiest countries to visit because the public transport has been excellent and it's easy to get information about things. Once again, we have been helped by a well-educated population, many of whom speak English. Phew. Oh, and such marvellous weather!

Viszontlatasra for now!

From West to East

From John:

Dobar dan!
I'm just recovering from the shock of losing an hour's typing because the server in Sarajevo has crashed. Is this symbolic of the shaky hold Bosnia has on the Western World? I had been waxing ( waning?) lyrical on the joys of studying the Balkans for my History mock O level and how a close friend, who shall remain nameless, had obtained a sneak preview of this particular question. And so it was that the map of the nations before the First World War was subjected to intense scrutiny. However, following this latest war, the borders and boundaries seem even more confusing for Bosnia in particular. After close anlysis of the dotted lines we can see that Bosnia and Hercegovina is divided up into two parts: the Federation of Bosnia and Hercegovina, which is mainly Muslim and Croat, and the Republic of Srpska, which is mainly Serb. The dividing line runs through the suburbs of Sarajevo, but before the war the dividing lines were not so clear cut. In the centre there are mosques and Catholic and Orthodox churches, and a synagogue, but it is a predominantly Muslim city and reminds Gayle of Istanbul...............

We had left Korcula on the Marko Polo ferry to Dubrovnik, where we took a room at Mirjana's villa. It was a lovely old house and whilst Mirjana, a devout Catholic, went to Mass each evening, we would religiously cook pasta and sample the local vino in her leafy back garden. The old town there is a well-preserved tourist honey-pot of a UNESCO World Heritage site. As a compulsory stop for Mediterranean cruise ships, and all Croatian tour buses, we had to elbow aside plenty of the grey and wrinkly types just to get an ice cream. As for the superlatives, here goes: the best preserved medieval city walls (a good 3 hour walk with great views over the red-tiled roofs), the second oldest synagogue in Europe and the third oldest pharmacy (run by Franciscan monks). There was also an exhibition about the Serbian bombing of the city during the war.

Despite Mirjana's warning that Kotor, in Montenegro, was little more than a miniature version of Dubrovnik, we still went on an overnight trip. The bus took us the long and picturesque route around to the head of the deepest fjord in southern Europe. At the bus station we were greeted by lots of locals offering rooms. After looking at one sad place we were persuaded by an old woman in Widow's Weeds to take the fold-down beds offered in her living room. I guess we should have been more discerning, but were attracted by the green terrace at the front of the house. When we closed the windows we realised why they'd been open - smokey and beery, what did she get up to each night? - and it was a shock to find the only sink to be in the front garden. The contrast in living standards with Croatia could not have been greater. Mirjana was right, Kotor did feel like a mini-Dubrovnik, right down to the trendy cafes and bars full of Beautiful People. On a warm overcast day we climbed steps to the Fort of Sveti Ivan (Saint John) on the hill above the town. It was a sveti John that reached the top to get impressive views over the mountains and along the fjord. We descended down to a small chapel where I disturbed a sunbathing snake. After 30 seconds of hysterics and running with my hands in the air I was able to compose myself and accompany Gayle the rest of the way back.

After returning to Dubrovnik and spending one last day by the sea, we said goodbye to it and bussed it inland to Mostar. The bus fell quiet as we drove into the town along what had been the frontline of the war, when the Croats and Muslims turned on each other. There are plenty of bombed-out and shot-up buildings that still stand in this part, either as reminders or lack of money to replace, we're not sure. However, there are signs of recovery - the souvenir tourist stalls that clog the cobbled streets of the old town, and the rebuilt Old Bridge teeming with tourists (it was May Day Holidays) watching members of Mostar Diving Club jumping into the river below. The bridge, between the east and west banks of the river running through Mostar, is a symbol of the join of East and West, and now of Croat and Muslim. From what we understand this labelling of people only occurred with the war and did not exist before. Walking around you come across small crowded cemeteries with headstones bearing the same date, and you can see a larger cemetery stretching up the hillside above the town, the headstones all new and white. It is terribly sad.

Inspired by a local tourist brochure that was poorly translated, we decided to set out into the countryside and discover some of the "unavoidable touristic potential domain", in particularly with the hope of meeting "the traditional hostility of the rural people". We visited the Turkish village of Blagaj. Turkish? Well, of course, for it was those purveyors of fine settees, the Ottoman Turks, that brought Islam up through the Balkans. There were plenty of nationals visiting - it felt like Edale on a Bank Holiday - and a busload of young German Turks. There were a couple of traditional houses to visit, a large river emerging straight out of the limestone hillside, and several restaurants where you could quench your thirst and appetite and seek shade under an awning. We escaped the milling throng and climbed up to the old fort guarding the village and then hung around with lots of other locals who seemed to be as unsure as us when the return bus would come. Eventually it did, and it soon filled up. A blind Roma woman and her son got on and sat down behind two boys. Their father told them to move. Then a group of teenagers got on, the boys crowding the aisle. We soon realised that they had started to make comments to the Roma - the little boy was answering back - and there was a lot of laughter with a bullying undertone. We sat in silence. Everyone could hear it and others turned around to look, but no-one told the lads to stop. The Roma woman and boy got off at our stop, and as we stood to get off there was lots of shouting after them, and then once, in English, for our benefit "Dirty stinking gypsies!" At this we both turned in anger and Gayle shouted back at them. The teenagers seemed surprised we didn't share the joke, and it depressed us to think that after all the fighting and ethnic cleansing of the war, the youth here are growing up with the same prejudices as their parents - and we assume the Roma are the lowest in the Pecking Order.

The train ride to Sarajevo was spectacular - following a river through green snow-capped mountains and eventually through a series of switchbacks and tunnels, climbing over a high pass, and on to the capital. The city is spread out east to west along a valley with a "new town" of communist apartment blocks at one end and the old centre with it's narrow streets spreading up the hillside. The restoration after the war seems to have progressed further here, although the grand National Library building still stands boarded up and gutted beside the river. We found the bridge where old Archduke Franz Ferdinand (and his wife, Gayle reminds me) was shot by an anarchist (was he from the Black Hand Gang or the Red Hand Gang? I get it mixed up with a children's TV programme.....), thus triggering the events that led to the First World War. It's not so touristy here, but there were a few backpackers passing through. We declined to go on an Olympics Tour or a War Tour ("THREE wars in ONE century!"). Instead, we sampled the typical Bosnian food, including Burek, which to me has the taste and texture of Scotch pies. Now, I have a poor history with Scotch pies, so I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised when I fell ill. While I lay in bed groaning and running back and forth to the toilet, Gayle explored the town and the possibility of walking in the countryside. ( In the end we didn't - you are advised to take a guide to make sure you don't wander into landmines......). As with all capital cities, accommodation is expensive here, and we struggled to find somewhere half-decent, so we took a quarter-decent room in a house instead. Again, there is a sharp contrast with the economic success of neighbouring Croatia - little wonder the Croats were keen to strike out for independence.

Once I was fully recovered - a state of mind, in Gayle's opinion - we bought our train ticket north to Pecs in Hungary. Armed with our Eastern European phrasebook and currency ready reckoner we venture into pastures new ( or széfely nagy cõrk as they say in Hungary ..........)

Through the keyhole.....

From John:

Dobar dan!
Greetings from the sunny Republic of Hrvatska! Never heard of it? Neither had we until we got here. Check out Google Earth or your Times World Atlas now. Or take a look through the keyhole with John & Gayle:
It's a lovely country, with a rocky tree-covered coastline ,hundreds of islands and limestone mountains. Many of the natives speak Italian as well as their own language, and their neighbours speak exactly the same language but use Cyrillic script and give it a different name. Marco Polo allegedly was born on one of the islands. It's a popular tourist spot for Germans and Italians and anyone who wants to go on a sailing holiday, and in April the average weather conditions are sunny with an average temperature of 20°C. They are so good at football that they make up half the Australian national team too. Well, okay, not so great, but they're better than England. Er....oh well, you know what I mean. Have you guessed where we are yet? If so, please put your answers on a postcard and send it to us Poste Restante, Dubrovnik, Croatia.

I can't believe it's over a month since I last wrote. We were waiting for cheaper internet rates, but it costs 4 ice creams an hour here (in Italy the rate was 2 ice creams an hour). In one place the rate was 12 ice creams. As you will appreciate the life of the World Traveller is often full of compromises, decisions about whether to travel lavishly for a short time or economically for a longer time, so when it came to ice creams or internet the old World Wide Web got the heave ho. We have come across a strange paradox here in that we can keep within our notional budget, provided we don't actually travel anywhere - buses are as pricey as England. What to do? We sat on the beach and thought about that one for a few days.

I last wrote in Florence from where we visited the Tuscan towns of Lucca, Siena and, our favourite, San Gimignano. Our attempts to see some of Florence's world famous renaissance artworks were thwarted by long queues of Italian schoolchildren, Americans, and Japanese. However, I did go to a Cezanne exhibition, and we both visited a joint exhibition of Chagall and Miró. We camped at a peaceful campsite overlooking Florence and enjoyed good weather until it snowed. The snow dusted the surrounding hills and left us a little damp, but didn't prevent the daily trip to the Gelateria. We found a wonderful ice cream shop frequented by locals - 36 flavours to choose from and the stuff paddled into the cornet as it should be. Also met an English couple campervanning who wined us and dined us in their mobile home - all rather pleasant and civilised. Not many tents around - mostly campervans from Germany, Netherlands and France plus the odd Briton.

From Florence we headed out to Ravenna on the coast south of Venice. Ravenna was at some point part of the Byzantine empire, after the Romans fumbled the ball and lost out to the Barbarians. Their lasting legacy is a series of church buildings full of wonderful mosaics - apparently the best byzantium mosaics outside of Istanbul. All very impressive, but we had to compete again with bus loads of bored-looking schoolchildren. Don't they ever stay in the classroom? We couldn't get into the one cheap hotel and had to move up market - which meant cooking our tea in the room with the TV on (`Chi vuore millianario? ' was on, as always.....). Ahh, the thrills, and when I'm cooking, the spills!

Italy still has a comprehensive rail network, and despite being taught the words for delayed and cancelled by our friend in Monza, the trains were very reliable. We took a 3-train journey all the way around the coast to Trieste, which sits on the border with Slovenia. It's not really an Italian town - it was Austria's main port for 3 centuries or more up until the end of the First World War, when Italy were given control. After WWII the Allies hung around until 1954 and gave it back to Italy simply so that communist Yugoslavia couldn't have it. The city is full of tall Austrian buildings, beer halls and brockwurst, and when we arrived it also had an Austrian climate. The Bora was in full flow. We stayed here with Roberto, an Italian we contacted through The Hospitality Club. The club exists to encourage people to meet others by hosting them or showing them around. Roberto did both, at short notice, and was extremely kind.

From here we took a little bus to The Sunny Republic of Hrvatska, and the Istrian peninsular. We arrived at the end of the day and had to slog our way out to a great campsite on the edge of Rovinj, a small pretty town. The campsite was virtually empty, the weather was wonderful, the azure water cristal clear, and to our relief everyone understood our pidgeon Croatian. In fact, although all the locals speak Italian and German, they also speak English well - of course, their main business is tourism. Because it was early April the tourist season is only beginning to crank up and this suits us fine. Everywhere there are renovations and building work going on in anticipation of the crowds in July. Croatia's tourist industry is well-developed and the standard of services is very high. The weather has been perfect and we are beginning to doubt that it could ever rain here. We have slowly worked our way down the coast, taking the ferries whenever possible, and limited our stops to a few places in order to cut down on the travelling costs - it took us a week in Rovinj to work that one out. In the end, this has made it more relaxing for us, and we've had to be selective about where we stay.
From Rovinj we went to the island of Cres where we camped at another large green and peaceful site with wonderful facilities right on the coast, along from Cres town. We've enjoyed great sunsets and a full moonrise that looked like a giant cheesecake floating in the night sky. Our stargazing has also brought us two shooting stars. The campsites are shaded with tall pines and stunted olive and fig trees and they're full of birds. The only drawback is the ground is rock hard!
Over Easter we visited Valun, a small fishing port three hour's walk from Cres. We walked through the dusty dry olive terraces on a scorching hot day, and were tempted off the high path by a signpost to a tiny swimming cove. After a long break we climbed back up and continued along the track. The sun took it's toll and I struggled to keep up with Gayle. I only manged to move quickly when we heard a lizard beside the path and both turned to see it was in fact a metre long snake. From then on I flinched everytime there was a rustle along the way. The afternoon wore on and we seemed no nearer to Valun, I felt weary and parched and we had almost run out of water. A group of boys flew past us on mountain bikes oblivious to the heat. And just as my vision was getting hazy, and my steps were faltering there appeared the Miracle of the Water. There, in the middle of the track was a Coke bottle filled with water, refracting the sunlight and glinting like a precious stone. I laughed aloud and fell upon it like a crazed man. The water was cold! We drank it in two gulps and finally reached Valun, a five hour walk from Cres, at the day's end.
We took a room in a house, which is one of the cheapest way to stay in Croatia. The owners let us cook on the terrace with our camping stove, and here we met an Austrian couple - a jolly friendly man whom we nicknamed Frasier (for it was he) and his miserable and silent girlfriend. The room was very comfortable and the bed was so soft. We showered and rested and listened to the mass held in the village church next door. It was Good Friday, and during the service the congregation left the church and followed the priest, singing, as he bore the cross around the small harbour front. It was dark, but the whole front was lit with flares - a wonderful sight. The next day Frasier showed us a great walk down old country lanes to another village, Lubiniče, built high on cliffs. Below it was a picturesque shale beach where we spent the day before walking back in the twilight. This was a perfect day and afterwards we realised we had taken as many photographs on this day as we had during our stay in Venice.

The ambience of these villages reminds us of Scotland's islands, but with great weather - I guess like most Mediterranean islands. There are boats everywhere, men pottering about with them, repairing, fishing, pootling about at all times of day and night.We sailed from Mali Lošinj on the tip of Cres to the port of Zadar, our first big town. Two nights was enough before we took the coastal bus down to Trogir, a small town outside Split, where we took a room. Trogir and Split old town are both UNESCO World Heritage sites, and fairly touristy as a result. They both form atmospheric and decorative backdrops to stylish and trendy bars and cafes, and are essential stops for the tour buses. But come evening, Trogir was a quiet sleepy little place. We took another ferry from Split to Korčula island and camped on the mainland opposite for a few days before taking a room here in Korčula old town. The town is an old walled town on a hilly peninsular and the locals claim that Marco Polo was born here before he went to Venice. Of course there is no proof for this, although the town was under Venetian control for years, but it's a great story for us dilly-dallying before we embark on the Silk Road. By chance, the room we are staying in backs on to the alleged house of Polo, which is currently being renovated as a museum. Perfect. Today we sail for Dubrovnik, our last stop in Croatia before we head north though Bosnia to Hungary. We're both looking forward to meeting Isabell and Bill in Budapest in 3 weeks time, and looking forward to eating something other than the ubiquitous pizza and pasta. However, we are going to miss the sea................

Bog! (as they say here)

From FresCo's to frescoes

from John:

Buon Giorgno,
Greetings from Florence, where we have dragged ourselves away from our sunny and leafy hillside campsite to get some food, catch up on e-mails and, er, oh yes, see some of the sights. We're not quite in Room With A View mode yet. Gayle wants to take me to some offices (Uffizi in Italian - I'm learning fast) later to look at the painting by some local geezers, although why she thinks I want to look at some 13th century painting and decorating I'm not quite sure. One of the reasons I'm here is to escape offices...........

So where did it all go wrong? There we were in Granada, on schedule to visit Valencia, Tarragona, Girona, Cadaqués and Barcelona before taking the boat to Genova. So far so very good. We had lovely weather, and liked each place except for touristy Barcelona. Much taken by Valencia, which felt green and spacious and pleasant to walk around. We also found the little cinema showing films subtitled in Spanish and managed to catch The Last King of Scotland, The Queen and Woody Allen's Scoop, all with references to Blighty that were probably lost on the locals. And it seems sometimes you just can't translate Woody Allen. It was here we also discovered FresCo's - a chain of vegetarian eat-all-you-can buffet restaurants brimming with fresh salads, pasta and fruit and all the espresso coffee you can guzzle.
Tarragona has a selection of Roman remains and a very quiet beach at this time of year. I have to confess that although the ruins are on the UNESCO World Heritage list, they are slightly disappointing to the ruin-weary international traveller. Girona features an outsized cathedral and well-preserved medieval streets and city walls, and one of the best travel bookshops we've ever seen - to compete with a Catalan one in Barcelona. And we will have happy memories of Cadaqués and its rocky coastline and tiny coves. All in all, we felt rather spoilt and flabby after our three weeks in Spain.

So, we took an overnight ferry with a thousand Italian teenagers to Genova - our seats were on level 9 - it felt like a floating and out of season hotel (the casino was shut and the swimming pool dry) but there was some excitement in the Piano Bar (no pianist) as Valencia versus Inter Milan turned into a punch-up. Some of the Italian truck drivers started to look a bit rowdy, but calmed down when Dukes Of Hazard came on afterwards. There were only a handful of us in the Rossini suite, riding the 18 hour journey out in the cheap seats. We talked to an old Italian man who spoke Spanish, and chatted a while. The next morning Enrico invited us to stay at his house in Monza, near Milan. We accepted. He seemed a charming and witty man. It was only later when I chatted with him on deck that I discovered he was a naturist and had just spent 3 weeks at a nudist colony in Spain. I broke it gently to Gayle, and she took it well. He seemed a kind and helpful man, and we decided to still go with him.

It was raining in Genova. Enrico, as economical as us, was happy to walk and we straggled along to the train station. We arrived in Monza at about 8pm, tired and hungry. But there was a problem. The bus ticket office was closed and Enrico only had one ticket. You can't buy them on the bus. What to do? We walked to the bus stop and Enrico engaged in conversation with everyone gathered there. The last bus was at 9pm. Everyone said to get on without a ticket. So we did. Enrico validated his ticket in the machine on the bus. No-one else bothered. It was then that we realised no-one else had a ticket either.

The house was cold and dusty, very dusty and the kitchen smelt of wood smoke, it breathed wood smoke. Enrico pointed to bunk beds next to the kitchen table and asked us if we'd be happy sleeping there. Too polite to say no, we said yes. We could hardly touch anything for dust, and slept fitfully. Gayle had developed a cough on the boat and gave it a thorough run out in the night. I dreamt of barking seals. It was with relief to see Enrico fully-clothed in the morning - we had not been sure what his home habits were. I went for a wash and sat in the bath under the shower because there was no shower curtain. Enrico appeared in the bathroom twice to check if I needed a razor or shampoo. Is this what is meant when one is advised not to speak to strangers? Watch out or you too could find yourself at a disadvantage whilst bathing in said stranger's bathroom.......... Afterwards Gayle laughed merrily about this.

Enrico fed us and showed us the sights of Monza and Milan. We walked miles and Gayle was suffering by the end of the day. The highlight might have been seeing the Italian crown on display in Monza's cathedral. Fairly small and unassuming, gold and some chunky stones, it features in the story of Napoleon's coronation as Emperor of Italy, in Milan's cathedral. Without waiting for the crown to be placed on his head, he took it up and put it on himself. We admired the fairy-cake church façades and colourful frescoes inside, we marvelled at Monza's park - the largest walled park in Europe, and laughed as Enrico explained that there is always something under restoration in Italy. In fact that day, he took us to three buildings covered in scaffolding. The joke has since continued. Everywhere we go in Italy there is scaffolding, scaffolding.

Venice was a delight to visit. Just to wander around not dodging traffic was a relief, but combined with the labyrinth of streets, bridges and canals, and the hushed voices of everyone as they looked around, made it a real pleasure. We revelled in the luxury of our hotel, and amazed ourselves at finding it at the end of the day. We laughed at the scaffolding, cried at the menu prices, and enjoyed the modern art in the Guggenheim collection. Gayle coughed day and night. We met up with Gayle's old friend Vikki and her husband, Steve. Gayle and Vikki had been here 20 years earlier. Vikki wondered if we were going to visit any other places in Italy. And then we found an abandoned guidebook to Italy. We said goodbye to Vikki and Steve, and then goodbye to Venice. And hello to Florence.........
Time to check out the painting and decorating.

Ciao

in which we attempt a winter ascent of Mulhacen

from John:

¡Holá! Buenos dias,
We are currently making the most of being almost fluent in the local language - delighting in the joys of shopping at the market, finding the toilets at the bus station, joking with the drunks in the park, and discussing post-modernist architecture and its effect on Spanish society over a copa or two in a crowded smoky student bar with earnest intellectual types that talk through their beards and over the loud thrash metal music. Well, sort of.................

After some warm-up walks up and down the heavily-graffitied streets of Granada (it must be a degree course here), and stoking up on chocolate, we headed off to Las Alpujarras - the southern foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. The mountains form a picturesque backdrop to the Big Al in Granada at this time of year. There´s a dusting of snow across the tops and we´d read that there´s lots of good walking to be had in the foothills at this time of year. So off we trotted.

The bus journey led us through many small towns and villages. An Englishman, Chris Stewart, has written a couple of books about coming to live here as a sheepfarmer ("Driving Over Parrots", I think is the better known.) In rather an ironic way, several English have followed sheep-like to the area to live. On the journey I got to thinking of the British who died in these mountains last year in the snow. A little while later Gayle mentioned it. We camped in Trevelez, at around 1400m, the second-highest village in Spain, and immediately got chatting to the campsite owner. She asked if we were going to go up the mountains - perfect weather, not too much snow etc. We asked about the British family that were caught out by the weather. Her and her husband were friends - they had left the campsite and gone for 5 days. Unfortunately only the son got down alive after a white-out in a sudden snowstorm. Despite this, and perhaps because of the forecast of sunshine and blue skies, we decided that instead of some low-level walks between villages, that we´d go upwards instead.

The very next day we took a path up to The Seven Lakes, just below Mulhacén, which is the highest mountain in mainland Spain. It was a lovely walk following a well-made farmers´path and then climbing up to and following an aquifer running across the hillside. This area is famous for its Berber-style villages and irrigation and terraces built by the Moors before they were finally ejected from Spain. Much of it remains, and the aquifers run for miles the length of the valleys to distribute water across as much cultivable land as possible. Eventually, we climbed through some stunted pines to reach a high pasture, now snow-covered. We followed someone´s footprints across the snow. They had been wearing crampons and eventually we reached a point where the path crossed a steep valley side covered in snow and ice. On the other side, the snow had melted, but frustratingly, we couldn´t reach it and nor could we cross the side we were on. After a bit of toing and froing and plenty of tentative steps we gave up and could only follow the footprints with our eyes up to the top of the ridge. We enjoyed the return walk.
The next day we awoke to snow. "Just like a schoolteacher", Gayle said, when I shook my head and predicted it wouldn´t stick. The day stayed cloudy and cold and we rested our weary legs and chatted to the only other camper - a fella from Bath who had just walked the Cotswold Way, and who was preparing to walk the Pyrenees. Richard had walked to the campsite through some of the lower villages, and camped wild a couple of nights. He´d been gazing at stars the second night and not spotted the fox wander into his tent. The fox´s scream was louder. Richard was travelling on the cheap - made us look like Alan Whicker and Judith Chalmers - and was full of plans for his fortnight in the hills. He too had been caught up in the possibilities of climbing some of the bigger mountains and talked about all the options. Meanwhile, I had come down with a cold and spent the day snivelling and coughing in a self-pitying manner. There was good reason for this - as Gayle had no sympathy for me whatsoever. Rigorously determined not to have plans deferred by my hyperchondriac tendencies, she suggested we still go ahead with our idea of climbing up with our tent to a 2700 metre ridge to "see what it´s like for camping" the next day. I agreed, between racking coughs, but only because there is a refuge 200 metres lower on the other side of the ridge. If all went well, we might even try to bob up to the top. Richard wanted to come too - keen to try several of the peaks.

The next day was sunny, bright and cold as we struck camp. We waited a while to see if the sun would melt the ice on the tent. It didn´t. The path climbed steeply and for a while there wasn´t a zig or a zag to be found. Super-fit Richard led the way and we puffed up behind him. It took us a couple of hours to get near the top of the ridge and then we hit a frozen snowfield which none of us wanted to cross. We decided to backtrack and walk through the rough. The wind was strong and cold. We had put on our rain jackets and gloves, and it was with some relief that we found some shelter for lunch, just below the top of the ridge. We could see the sea, and those with good eyes the ships too. After a quick lunch, and feeling like soldiers climbing out of a trench into the unknown, we set off. The wind had got stronger and we were having to walk into it. We reached the broad exposed ridge and a wide track running along it and disappearing under snow. Ahead of us lay Mulhacén and a long rocky ridge to Veleta. But the wind was too strong for us to stop and admire the scene, despite the sunshine and blue sky. Sometimes it felt we were going to be blown over with our packs. We staggered, crab-like, unable to speak to one another, the snot freezing on my face and my fingers turning numb, wooden and useless almost immediately. We spread out, and stumbled onwards, thoughts turning to finding the refuge that we knew was not far over the other side. We passed a bus stop. A bus stop? Ricardo at the campsite had told us that in the summer tourists could take the "Mulhacén Express" to this point, 2700 metres (about twice the height of Ben Nevis) and walk to the top in their espadrilles. He dismissed it with a sorry shake of the head "It´s not walking". This passed through my mind as we walked - feeling like an astronaut in an alien world - along with plenty of other thoughts: we're dressed for a summer´s day in the Lake District; I have a kilo of dried figs in my rucksack; is this what it feels like on the South Col?; Richard seems a long way away; why can´t we see the refuge?; glad I´ve got my wind-proof underpants on; does the bus never come up here in the winter?; I should have had another biscuit at lunch;my fingers don´t work - I´ve got frostbite; is this what Gayle means by a "walk in the foothills"?; don´t fancy cooking pasta in this wind................We had begun to descend along a broad track, but couldn´t see the refuge until we climbed over a small ridge. For a minute we were sheltered and could speak again. The red roof of the refuge drew nearer, and after an hour walking in the strongest wind I´ve ever known, we finally arrived. The place was almost empty, and it felt almost colder inside then out, but a log was burning in the dining room and the sun shone directly into the entrance porch which was completely still. Everything was quiet and normal again. My fingers stung as they thawed. Richard contemplated carrying on to a higher refuge, but changed his mind. We shared our tea with him and had hot drinks and sat by the fire with three uncommunicative Spanish walkers who were all planning to ascend Mulhacén the next day. Richard was going to follow them, whilst we decided the sensible option for us was to descend another valley to one of the other villages. After toasting ourselves by the fire we slept well that night.The morning was peaceful and sunny and the refuge surrounded by ibex. With some relief, mixed with a little disappointment, we took a path that descended down another valley with lovely views of the mountains behind us. The day was far more relaxing than the one before. From another white village we caught a bus returning to Granada. The next couple of days we could hardly see the mountains for the weather, and we left wondering how Richard had got on.