Two On Tour

Three damp, chilly weeks in the heart of Spain.

Monday 12 January

By far our longest conversation with a Madeiran native is with our taxi driver, who whisks us to the airport on a balmy Monday morning. I come armed with far too many questions for a twenty-minute taxi ride, but she takes my impromptu sociological survey in her stride. Where do Madeirans take their holidays? (Porto Santo, mainland Portugal, Spain). Is there too much tourism on Madeira? Too little? (Perfect as it is, apparently). What do locals grumble about? (Healthcare, housing, and — as we zip past a line of commuters inching along the motorway — the traffic). She’s a pleasure to talk to and I learn just enough to feel almost half-informed about Madeira just as I’m leaving.

We land in a grey, wintry Madrid shortly before dusk. Semi-tropical Madeira already feels far off. Barely thirty minutes after stepping off the plane, we’re in our room at the cheerfully decorated Ibis Airport Hotel in Barajas, Madrid’s furthest-flung suburb. Think Hounslow with tapas bars.

There’s a Nepalese restaurant just around the corner. It’s only two minutes away, but we still wrap up as if we’re about to trek across miles of tundra. The place is almost empty on this cold Monday night in mid-January, but the decor is warm, the momos and biryani are excellent, and the husband-and-wife owners are lovely, offering us a free tipple before we slog the full two minutes back to our hotel at the end of a long travel day.

Tuesday 13 January

I start the day with a quick reccie of Barajas to locate the metro station we’ll use to reach the airport bus station. This functional suburb of Madrid looks not at all unlike London’s less glamorous corners: perfectly adequate and mildly drab. Far more unlike London, however, is the spacious new airport bus station, where we while away a couple of hours in unexpected comfort until our bus to Salamanca.

Once we’ve escaped the unlovely outskirts of Madrid, the winter landscape of central Spain closes in. It’s largely featureless: vast barren fields, and everything the same monotonous shade of brown. The land slowly flattens from gentle hills to pancake-flat semi-steppe as we approach Salamanca. The walk to our Airbnb takes us on foot through the historic centre, all cobblestones, cathedrals and university buildings. We could almost be in Oxford.

Our clean, modern fourth-floor flat is chilly and takes its time heating up, but it will do us just fine for the next two weeks. Outside, it’s started raining as we step out in the dark to buy groceries, looking forward to our first restaurant-free evening in ten days and the prospect of catching up with our regular YouTube channels.

Wednesday 14 January

It’s ten years since Dad passed. Bizarrely, while randomly shuffling thousands of songs on iTunes, Fatso’s final gig from distant 1986 pops up and I listen long enough to hear Dad belt out a rousing version of Dave Edmunds’ I Knew the Bride. Cheers, Dad.

We’re both exhausted after ten days of ricocheting from Granada to Malaga, Madeira, Madrid, and now Salamanca. The weather here is cold, damp and dreary, but in our current state we’re hardly in a position to judge it. Exploring can wait until another day.

Thursday 15 January

Judged by the evidence so far, Salamanca winters are much like British winters. An hour of promising morning sun fools us into thinking that we might explore in comfort, but the moment we gingerly step out after lunch it’s into a cold, inhospitable drizzle. On a fine day, this place must be glorious, with the ancient university dominating the old town like a sandstone Oxford or Cambridge. But today everything is in a deep sulk as we shuffle around under umbrellas like the damp but determined tourists that we are. After half an hour of this noble effort, we admit defeat and retreat to a small café on the Plaza Mayor to dry out and read our books.

Friday 16 January

Wikipedia claims Salamanca gets on average five days of rain in January. We’ve already had four of those as we squelch to the local Carrefour under umbrellas yet again. Wikipedia might be a little optimistic. Every afternoon, the bleak weather combines with the siesta to make Salamanca feel like a ill-judged remake of 28 Days Later starring two damp tourists. There’s almost no one on the streets, but if a café we duck into is any guide, the locals are indoors chatting over coffee. Sensible folk. They’re probably complaining about the weather too.

As we cross the Plaza Mayor (it’s briefly stopped raining, presumably by accident) a few people are out supporting the current uprising in Iran. They’re a tiny presence in the huge square, but it’s reassuring to see that Salamanca is, in fact, connected to the outside world. It’s felt far from anywhere since we arrived.

We’re currently watching a Spanish Netflix mini-series, a crime drama called The Crystal Cuckoo, which by chance was filmed, in winter, not far from Salamanca. It takes some unexpectedly dark turns tonight but I’m finding it useful for re-tuning my ears to Spanish after a week in Portugal.

Saturday 17 January

Finally: people. Salamanca does, in fact, contain human beings. All it apparently needed was a dry day, a Saturday, and for us to stay out after dark — three variables that had so far refused to align. With these fixes in place, the city feels like a completely different place.

We leave the flat as the siesta winds down with a vague plan to poke around until hunger intervenes. Not five minutes away we stumble upon the Dominican Monastery of San Esteban. Impressed with its dramatic façade, and frankly grateful to find something open, we part with the modest entrance fee and scuttle inside. For the first time, we’re not the only tourists in town, even if we can count the others with our fingers. The monastery is ornate without the preposterous bling of that ghastly basilica in Granada, and a perfectly respectable place to spend an hour pretending to be cultured.

We push on, crossing the fast-flowing, wintry River Tormes for postcard-perfect views of the cathedral rising above the city, then loop back via the pedestrians-only Roman bridge.

At dusk, we step into the local Irish pub, curious to see if it’s showing the late Premier League match (it does advertise EPL, after all). Perhaps unsurprisingly, it isn’t. Instead, a live La Liga match between Osasuna and bottom-of-the-table Oviedo is playing to the apparent zero interest of anyone present. But the pub is pleasantly busy, so we stay anyway and order tostas, chicken wings and mini-burgers—perfect for a Saturday night in front of a football match.

The pub isn’t far from the Plaza Mayor, so after a couple of drinks we wander over. The transformation is astonishing, and very welcome. The wet, desolate square we’ve trudged across all week has been replaced by hundreds of people out promenading despite the near‑freezing temperatures. The outdoor seating is empty, but indoors the bars and restaurants are doing a roaring Saturday‑night trade. And it’s not just the plaza:  the nearby streets that have been eerily empty all week are suddenly full of life. I’ve rarely been so glad to see my fellow human beings.  

Sunday 18 January

A Sunday afternoon walk takes us through Salamanca’s modest park, but it’s not a place to linger on a bitterly cold afternoon. Back in the centre, we return to what we already consider our regular café, where I embark on the final chapter of my current book, Giles Tremlett’s Ghosts of Spain – Travels Through a Country’s Hidden Past. The café fills up as we sip and nibble our treats, and by the time we leave we’re offering our seats to a couple hovering with a barely disguised longing for somewhere to sit.

Not much else to report today. Salamanca’s a fine town, but my thoughts are beginning to drift to Central America now—not least because I’m just not rubbing along with the dull, bitter weather here.  This coming week, we’ll revisit the groundwork we’ve laid for Costa Rica and try to recall how it feels to skulk around in a t-shirt and shorts.

Monday 19 January

A rather reflective birthday as I ruminate on reaching 57. How on earth did I ever get this…old? It feels like I was in my thirties only last week.

But…finally, Mr Blue Sky!

A frustrating moment in the supermarket. We’re at the self-checkout, and it looks as though the chocolate and razors aren’t getting the buy-two-get-50%-off-the-second deal. I call over an assistant and attempt to explain, but what emerges is a series of monosyllabic grunts punctuated by painful silences as I send my mind ahead to retrieve the Spanish words I need. It returns empty handed, shrugging, as if to say, “You’re on your own, pal”.

Somehow, the assistant understands me — no doubt aided by a photo I took of the discount sign. A helpful customer wanders over and shows me how the deduction appears at the end of the receipt. I swipe my card and the discount kicks in. I’ve saved money, but lost a fair amount of pride. I foolishly believed I’d reach some sort of basic competence in spoken Spanish after three months here. I’m managing predictable situations like ordering food and drinks, but otherwise I’m like a Bugs Bunny character who runs off a cliff, hangs in mid-air for a hopeful second, and then plummets.

For my birthday meal, we’re in a cosy bar on the Plaza Mayor sharing tapas. K laments — as if it matters in the slightest — that very few famous people share her birthday. She does, however, share hers with Agnes Chow, which leads to some poignant talk about the once universally-recognised names from the 2014 and 2019 movements who no longer spring immediately to mind now that they’re living in exile or sitting in jail.

On a brighter note, back at the flat we start watching YouTube videos about La Fortuna. It feels faintly unreal that in two weeks we’ll be in Costa Rica two, in t-shirts and shorts. The countdown has begun.

Tuesday 20 January

Our serviced apartment is due a service, so late morning we’re politely ejected onto the freezing streets of Salamanca. I go in search of a haircut, but I’m thwarted and have to settle for making an appointment for tomorrow.

To avoid the cold, we while away a pleasant hour or two at a decorative arts museum housed in a striking old Art Deco mansion with a glass roof. Afterwards, we bask in its cosy café for a simple lunch of tortilla bocadillos.

After a walk along the river in the sunshine, we return home to a spotless flat and spend the rest of the afternoon at home — a topsy-turvy day for us, though it doesn’t take much to overturn our routine these days. Still, a welcome change.

Wednesday 21 January

Unusually, we’re out and about before lunch for the second day in a row — practically a lifestyle change for us. I have a haircut appointment, and K wants to stock up on all manner of creams, gels and potions.

After crashing and burning in the supermarket on my birthday, today I manage the longest Spanish conversation I’ve yet had, with the barber. He runs a one-man business in a cosy den tucked into the outer wall of the Plaza Mayor. He’s nattily dressed in a waistcoat and an upturned shirt collar, and sports the obligatory beard of anyone under 40, but he mercifully lacks the bro vibes of the barber I visited in Estepona.

I’m in and out in under 15 minutes, but in that time I somehow manage to explain that I’m English, I’ve spent most of my adult life in Hong Kong, I’m travelling while working part-time online, and — in contrast to his slick appearance — I haven’t had a haircut in nearly three months. As well as establishing that he’s born and bred in Salamanca and considers it a good place to live, I even manage to complain about the weather. It’s a surprisingly productive exchange.

“Did you tell him that you had a hair transplant last year?” asks K afterwards. Absolutely not. I have no idea how I’d cope with the follow-up questions he might ask. But I’ll notch this encounter up as a win.

Later, we enjoy another successful encounter — this time in English — with our waiter at a Sichuan restaurant that we drop into for dinner. He turns out to have a master’s degree in English and has been in Spain for six years, though he still considers it a stepping stone to somewhere else. He’s just not sure where yet. We avoid touching directly on politics, but it’s clear he wanted to get as far away from China as possible, and he immediately understands why we left Hong Kong. He’s a lovely chap and we could happily talk for hours. Before we leave, we insist on having our photo taken with him. He calls the chef in from the kitchen for the photo, and we all chat a little longer before reluctantly stepping back out into the wintry night.

Thursday 22 January

Indoors, it’s a second day of digging deep into Costa Rica — reading blogs, learning what we’ll eat, how much it will cost, and how to get around. There’s a definite hint of “feeding ducks in the park and wishing you were far away” as a freezing wind rattles the window panes of our Airbnb.

Outdoors, we brave a chilly visit to Salamanca’s twin cathedrals. The Renaissance-era New Cathedral leaves me cold in more ways than one. Its vast interior is an architectural wonder, but it has all the human warmth of an aircraft hangar. By comparison, the adjoining Old Cathedral is a Romanesque delight, even for this committed atheist. Churches should preferably be small, ancient and free of draughts.

The wind chill keeps the feels-like temperature below zero all day. After the cathedral we shiver our way to our regular café, then return home under umbrellas with the final batch of groceries we’ll need in Salamanca.

Friday 23 January

I’ll be working on a PolyU editing project for the next four days. The timing couldn’t be better: we’ve seen most of Salamanca’s sights, and the weather is colder and wetter than ever. Ideal conditions for sitting in front of my laptop and earning a few pennies while the weather howls outside.

Mid-afternoon, the rain briefly turns to snow, sparking much excitement from K. It lasts all of five minutes before downgrading itself, first to sleet, and then to good old freezing rain.

Knowing tomorrow will be an identical working day, shortly before dusk I decide to get out for a walk while it’s not actively precipitating. This week I’ve rediscovered Bobby Wratten’s latest project, Lightning in a Twilight Hour — “evanescent atmospheres, crystalline and delayed guitars, sweet voices, minimalism and of course, Pop songs”, as Discogs neatly puts it. He’s working with Anne-Mari again on vocals, and I’ve somehow missed two albums in recent years.

So it is that I bundle up in a thick jacket, beanie and gloves, and slip out to wander the darkening streets of Salamanaca listening to 2022’s Overwintering, the album that we’ve had whispering away as background music all week, but which hasn’t yet had my full attention.Tonight, it does. It’s perfect for a freezing, bleak evening wandering the town alone in clouds of my own breath. But with Bobby and Anne-Mari in my earbuds, it’s like being joined by two old friends.

Saturday 24 January

Work today. That’s fine as there’s nothing outside but rain, wind and wintry misery. There’s a brief, absurd shopping trip to stock up on insect repellent for next week — I bet they’re not shifting a lot of that in Salamanca at the moment. Later, we end up at another of the city’s Irish Bars, this time The Holy Cross. It’s packed. With young people. Our combined age must be at least twice that of any other random pair in the room. And we must surely be the only customers who remember when bars were smoky. There’s a great Saturday night buzz and a giant screen is showing Bournemouth vs Liverpool, which Bournemouth win 3–2 with the last kick of the game. The menu is strictly pub grub, so we order chicken wings and nachos, and eat with our fingers.

After finishing the food and two drinks, K persuades me to stay for one more. I agree on condition that she goes to the bar for it. Meanwhile, a new match kicks off: Villareal vs Real Madrid. I didn’t know this, but Villareal are known as El Submari Amarillo — the Yellow Submarine — and with their blue trimming, they’re basically wearing Basingstoke Town’s colours. I’ve never paid much attention to La Liga, but tonight I decide I’m a Villareal fan henceforth. It’s 0–0 at half time when we climb the stairs out of the basement bar. To my surprise, on this freezing night, dozens of youngsters are enjoying their drinks at the outside tables, only some of which have heaters. Young people: a mystery I no longer pretend to understand.

Sunday 25 January

A day without rain. A miracle. Unfortunately, I’m in the middle of an editing project, so the mostly sunny day is wasted on me. Still, it’s a novelty to be gradually chased around my circular worktable by bright sunshine as I struggle to see my laptop screen.

Come late afternoon, I repeat Friday’s walk to stretch my legs and get some air: down to the river, along the far bank and back across the Roman bridge. There’s a bitter wind blowing and I’m grateful that I ditched my earbuds today for a study pair of ear-warming headphones. I opt for a twenty-year reappraisal of Belle and Sebastian’s The Life Pursuit. Verdict: as infuriatingly patchy as it was in 2006. Half the songs I can’t even get to the end of without pressing the ‘next’ button.

One more day of editing tomorrow, then we’re off to Madrid. This time next week will be our first day in Costa Rica. It feels far off right now but mentally I’m already there, shorn of four layers of clothing and thermal headgear.

Monday 26 January

Our final day in Salamanca, like most others, is largely lived indoors. I wrap up four days of intensive work (given the relentless meteorological assault, this project arrived at the perfect moment) and, like previous days, take myself out for a short walk. It’s as grey and damp as ever, but it’s noticeably warmer. After a few minutes, like a man flirting with danger, I even — gasp — remove my scarf.

We spend the evening watching YouTube videos about Costa Rica: documentaries, travel guides, what to be mindful of… By the time I head to bed, I feel fully immersed. We’ve booked a couple of day trips next week and, apart from getting hold of some US dollars, we’re as ready as we can be.

I’ve no regrets about coming to Salamanca. After the family week in Madeira, we needed to be within striking distance of Madrid for our upcoming flight to San José. The weather appears to be equally miserable across the whole of Spain, so choosing somewhere else wouldn’t have changed anything. It’s a handsome city, no question. After two and a half years on the road, we were bound to run into a protracted bout of poor weather sooner or later. And we did. It’s OK.

We’re off to Madrid tomorrow. The forecast is more of the same, so we’re treating it as little more than a pitstop en route to Costa Rica and the return of sunshine and colour.

Tuesday 27 January

It rains all the way to Madrid. Our bus tickets were cheaper than for the outward journey to Salamanca, and before long the reason becomes clear as we pull into the first of several dreary, unlovely towns scattered across the plain. This is not a direct bus. One or two stoic passengers join or leave at each stop. Still, it’s warm and dry inside, and I doze for much of the journey with headphones clamped on.

Navigating the Madrid metro is simple enough and within 30 minutes of stepping off the bus at Moncloa, we emerge in Lavapiés, our neighbourhood for the rest of this week. Miraculously, the rain has stopped. (Briefly, it turns out.)

Our Airbnb is in an old walk-up and it’s a struggle lugging our suitcases up the steep, narrow stairs to the second floor. It doesn’t help that an electrician is balanced on a ladder on one of the tiny landings. I mumble my apologies as he descends, folds his ladder, and stands back against the wall as I wrestle our bags past him.

Inside, the flat is smaller than it looked in the photos. They usually are. This one is the smallest we’ve seen since we were in Hong Kong last April (and more expensive). To pee, I have to contort myself so that my shoulders are pressed firmly against the bathroom wall. The bedroom is so small I can’t turn my feet perpendicular to the bed. But the living area and kitchen are good enough, and there’s a big Mercadona supermarket around the corner. It’ll do for four nights.

We pick a local bar, Bar La Miguelusa, for dinner. The walls are covered in old record sleeves — mostly Spanish artists, but also Sandie Shaw, Five Star (qué?), and…er…Jason Donovan. There’s also a large, framed Nick Cave poster in the style of a Ray Lichtenstein illustration. The owner is a lovely chap who overlooks my stuttering Spanish with good grace. My only grumble is the wait: the final plate, a mash of fresh salmon and guacamole, takes over an hour to arrive, by which time we’ve had one more drink than people our age should rightly be having on a Tuesday night. It’s 10.30 by the time we shuffle out — not yet mid-evening by local standards, but practically the small hours by ours.

Wednesday 28 January

After several days of work and a day of travel, it’s a relief to fritter away our first morning in Madrid at a leisurely pace in the flat. After all, it’s snowing outside. What else are we going to do?

The snow doesn’t last for long. When we finally leave the flat, the focus is on practicalities. Getting hold of some US dollars to help us steer through our first few days in Costa Rica is simple enough; finding a dual-voltage hairdryer for K less so. (Our first Airbnb has a hairdryer; we’ll just have to buy a local-voltage one after we arrive.) After coming up empty in two stores, AI, trying too hard to be helpful, guides us to another ‘electronics’ store that turns out to be equal parts audio equipment, record shop, and bookstore. There’s no chance of a finding a hairdryer, but we spend a happy few minutes inspecting the massed rows of vinyl. No matter how hard Britian tries to fritter away its international reputation, its musical legacy seems as intact as ever. (I’m reminded of 13-year me standing in front of a shop window in Barcelona during my first trip abroad, gasping in astonishment at the sight of Madness and Depeche Mode albums on display.)

It’s already late afternoon, so after a short detour to the Plaza Mayor we wander back to our flat in Lavapiés, where we spend the evening watching Pedro Almodóvar’s marvellous Talk to Her, a film I thought I’d seen before, but – given just how memorable it is – clearly hadn’t.

Thursday 29 January

We build Day 2 in Madrid around a visit to the Prado. A pre-lunch attempt to wander the vast El Retiro is thwarted when we arrive to find the entire park closed to assess damage caused to the recent ghastly weather. This is perhaps a blessing in disguise: as we stand peering through the imposing entrance gate at what might have been, it starts raining. Under umbrellas once again, we drift back into the city centre to pick up a couple of personal care items that are cheap and easily available in Spain before retreating to a café for lunch.

It’s only a short walk from the café to the Prado, but by now the rain is sloshing down. Pedestrian crossings are obstacle courses, with fast-flowing water gushing along the kerb. K can’t jump far enough and ends up with her left shoe almost ankle-deep in rainwater – even less amusing than when a rogue wave got the better of my own foot in far milder Marbella a couple of months ago. We squelch the rest of the way to the museum entrance.

Most of what the Prado has to offer isn’t my bag at all: Jesus nailed to a cross, John the Baptist being decapitated, St Sebastian full of arrows. Perhaps I’m oversensitive, but European art’s obsession with brutal executions quickly wears thin on me.

But there’s enough to admire as well: works by Goya, Bosch, El Greco, Caravaggio and, in particular, Bruegel the Elder’s obsessively intense The Triumph of Death (death again) are among the highlights. By the time we leave three and a half hours later, I’ve seen enough art to keep me going for months. But, of course, we have more lined up for Friday.  

Friday 30 January

Our last day in Europe begins with a second attempt to visit El Retiro. We approach from a different side, one that isn’t fenced off behind wrought-iron railings, but the park is still closed, police tape strung between the perimeter trees.  We could slip under it, and some do, but we decide to behave. Besides, we have timed tickets for the Reina Sofía.

With its interwar focus, the Reina Sofía is far more consistently appealing to me than the stuffy Prado. Like everyone, we’re here to see Guernica. But when we reach it, in its own vast hall, I’m a little underwhelmed. I can admire it, but admiration isn’t the same as feeling anything. Clearly, I’m the Philistine here. I seem to specialise in missing the point of great art.

There’s plenty more to admire, however, and by the time we leave nearly three hours later, I’m exhausted for a second day running. I even have a new hat printed with a Jackson Pollock painting. Not my usual style, but perhaps it will distract from the rest of me.

K has a wish for churros and dipping chocolate before we say goodbye to Spain, but it’s already 5.30.  If we start on the churros now, we’ll have full stomachs where an appetite should be. We shuffle back to the flat — in the rain, naturally — and recharge for a couple of hours.

Our last ace is Casa Toni, an unflashy tapas bar recommended by the Spain Revealed channel we’ve been following since Estepona. We’re far from the only extranjeros tonight, but we’re two minutes from the Puerta del Sol, so we can hardly expect to be embedded in the beating heart of Madrid’s local culture. We nibble deep-fried aubergine, anchovies, and mussels in spicy sauce while sketching out rough travel plans through to the end of 2028 as our 90-day EU hourglass trickles down to its final grains.