Atlantic Thread

Good morning all! Please excuse my silence,  am a little behind on blogging, thank goodness I have a lovely notebook, so I know what I'm writing about...this will be the first of three entries about wonderful Portugal, and though I'm in the south now, am casting my mind back a week or so to when I was in the north, where I was in three towns/cities, which although close together seemed to be startlingly different from each other... I didn't actually get to see much of my first stop here, Viana do Castelo; it seemed a little austere, perhaps just the contrast from Spain. We arrived very late, with rather frazzled nerves after the very long wait in Vigo...it's a funny thing about travelling, and have been able to see the difference as most of it has been alone....when you travel with somebody, the good bits are better, having someone to share it with, but the bad bits are worse, for the same reason. It's also a little hard when you are on a particular per

Good evening all, I hope this finds you well. Am writing today from Vigo station, nearing the end of a 6 hour wait and a confounding morning at the bus station, served by a dozen different bus companies, where each person gave different information...it was just easier to wait all day and get the evening train...it is surprisingly hard to travel the 35 miles to Viana do Castelo from here...but it is across a border...and I cannot complain as the time in beautiful Galicia has been like a dream. My first impression was how similar to Brittany it looked, in terms of the houses and the landscape...it is another nation of sailors, worldwide emigration, a huge coastline of inlets and outlets, and its own language, much as it is seen as part of a larger neighbour. Apparently the Galician kings of old found it better to align themselves with nearby Castile rather than with Portugal, since the language being so similar, a union with Portugal would have meant absorption, rather than being p

Good morning all! I hope this finds you well and happy. I'm writing from the beautiful little fishing port of Tapia de Casariego- it turns out it was well worth embroidering such a long name after all! This is just at the edge of Asturias, before the border with Galicia. I arrived in Spain at the huge port of Santander...a very impressive variety of architecture with a backdrop of enormous mountains. It's perhaps not super friendly...but it's easy to see why that might be...I couldn't say many good things about my fellow passengers....I felt for the French staff, who were clearly apprehensive about whether someone was going to kick off....a huge party of 500 people; loud, pissed and entitled, wearing the fancy dress of those who rarely wear fancy dress (nuff said), and a few fairly obvious drug/tobacco/money smugglers. If I lived in Santander and I heard an English accent, I doubt I'd be inclined to greet them with that much warmth either. Many people come on a