Back in the UK, kind of

We'd left ourselves a nice gentle drive from Haro to Santander, ready to catch the 6pmish ferry. Only the weather really didn't want it to be that easy. The day before looked a lot like this:

with even bigger waves off the Irish coast. Our ship, the Salamanca, stayed cuddled up in Rosslare until things calmed down a bit then left to bring some Irish travellers over to Spain. This delay meant our departure time was changed from late afternoon to 1am the following morning. Not an ideal time really. So, we did the short drive to Santander, filled up with cheaper than the UK fuel, went to the nice bay at the north-east of the town and had a walk then a very good dinner (which should have been on board the ferry of course). Still, it gave us the chance to test the Maremondo restaurant which was way better than the 4.0 rating on Google would suggest. We then had the fun of several hours in the port waiting on the arrival of the ferry:

We were very happy to see it arrive, we kept propping our eyeballs open and luckily it wasn't too cold to simply sit in the car, tinker on the internet, listen to music and think kindly of the weather gods and how they can change plans so easily. After boarding, we just retired to the cabin and tried to sleep through the many and varied announcements that have to be made rather loudly before departure.

The trip was a bit bumpy and as the passenger load was light anyway, the Club lounge was very very quiet. We rather liked that I must admit. 

Our arrival time at Pompey was a tad tricky too - instead of late evening, it was early morning, just in time for us to clock the horrid traffic that has to fight through the never ending roadworks on the M27 as we head towards Southampton. Why go that way - well, we had said that we would take Mrs Toddler to the hospital for her eyeball checks that afternoon. In desperation, we hid in a Costa store to let the worst of the M27 mayhem subside and then braved the motorway madness.

A few days later we returned to the poor ignored boat and we discovered that Netflix had sent a slightly worrying email:

They obviously know something we don't.

As well as reclaiming the boat, taking the little Brompton bikes out for some exercise and remembering how all the systems on board work, we did a little maintenance too.

The battery to battery charger that keeps the bow thruster / windlass AGM battery bank charged up from the new domestic lithium bank had failed ages ago. This was the second one of the new generation high capacity Victron devices to go pop in that location. There were a few wild guesses from various technical folks as to why but nothing concrete, apart from the obvious "they are not very good". However, the one doing the same job for the stern thruster battery bank had been fine. The Maricom guys had provided the new charger and two new fuse holders. These were duly fitted:

together with the little black on/off switch you can see in the image. This lets us turn the device off when we might be using the thrusters or windlass in case some strange back feeds are upsetting the rather delicate device. Again, the aft one has been fine and we've not used the windlass since the original charger was fitted. A mystery.

The Xmas season loomed so work on maintenance things was suspended and we lapsed into hedonistic mood again. Such a tough life.

Teruel, Logrono and Haro

Heading back "up country" from Altea we took advantage of our experiences from last year and stayed in Teruel at the Parador there. We'd visited during a rainy day (not atypical for the place) but this time things were dry if chilly. It is over 900 m above sea level after all. The central square and buildings are pretty ornate:

and the Parador itself isn't too shabby either:

We had a couple of nights there, allowing one full day in the city where the crew found a rather nice little clothes shop and a few tempting items. It also gave us two chances to sample the good food on offer in the Parador. Our next move was to Logrono and we are so glad that we visited. The capital of the Rioja region, tucked on the banks of a river and on the pilgrims route (the Camino de Santiago) it had history and culture in spades.

We'd rented an apartment for 3 nights and could have happily stayed for longer. The apartment had undercover parking in a garage but the bays and turning area were rather tight. Luckily for us, one neighbouring car had clearly not moved in ages and was not capable of doing so, allowing us to cuddle up rather close and personal with it. We don't think the rather decaying BMW 3 series minded too much.

In Logrono there were the expected series of lovely buildings:

and on our first night we did something very out of character - went to a pizza place in Spain. It had rave reviews and they were spot on. Run by a German couple who hailed from the former East Berlin they served up some great flavours. As you can see, the quantity was ample too so the crusts were sacrificed after a while:

Kind of a waste but we didn't want to explode on the walk back. Va Bene was great, good food and a chance to speak some German too and learn a little about life in the old east of Berlin before the wall came down. 

Logrono had a really good museum covering the history of the Rioja region. We were unsure about wandering round but many exhibits had English translations and it was so well done. We spent way longer in there than we expected to and learned a lot (which, due to our age, we've probably already forgotten). At the end of the exhibition was some more modern stuff which we struggled with. Being total Philistines, things that are described like this rather felt like the Kings / Emperors new Clothes:

It is not Google translate that makes the original unintelligible to us by the way. The Spanish folks felt the same. 

Our next port of call (really that should be wine of call as it is also in the Rioja region) was Haro. We'd stopped briefly last year and met up with Norman, Julie and the hounds at a campsite they were staying on. This time we had a couple of nights in a hotel to see the town properly. A little failure on our part to thoroughly research Spanish public holidays meant we arrived on the Feast of the Immaculate conception. How could we not have known that?? 

This meant that pretty every place in town was shut - especially the better coffee spots. We walked around the town and finally found one café bar open. We just went in. As you would. Here is the Google review score and one comment for you to enjoy:

You probably enjoyed that more than the captain enjoyed his grim Café con Leche. Fortunately, they could not mess up a bottle of still water for the crew and the chunk of cake we shared was, well, at some time in its' history, cake. The place had a collection of "older gents" who were clearly regulars inside. We think it opened as a man creche as they would have had nowhere to go otherwise.

Things perked up the following day and a good wander and lunch out made for a good day. The town hall type building:

houses a few barrels showing the range of local Bodegas in the immediate area:

We wanted to do a tour around the Muga operation but the only tour on offer before we had to leave was a Spanish speaking one. We had to save that pleasure for another visit. One pleasure we did enjoy was lunch at Sabair. Excellent food, attentive service and not much more expensive than the Altea set menus at lunchtime. Nice website too - have a look at their offerings Sabair website link .