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Tim Lynette Wilkins
Tim Lynette Wilkins

Tim Lynette Wilkins

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  • Tim Lynette WilkinsJerez 2019Voyageur

    Flamenco and football

    3 février 2019, Espagne ⋅ ☀️ 9 °C

    Today has seen clear blue skies and sunshine again, although there is still a cold wind. Last night we went to our favourite flamenco bar for the late night performance and it was as good as usual, the dancer was even someone we have seen before, this time last year. This afternoon I went to a home match of my football team. They play nice football but it ended as a 0-0 draw. Try again next Sunday! It was lovely watching in the sun, but after the sun went down behind the roof of the stand it was really cold!En savoir plus

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  • Tim Lynette WilkinsJerez 2019Voyageur
    View over to the southern hillsVenezuela demoLions head post box at jerez central post office

    Yesterday

    2 février 2019, Espagne ⋅ 🌬 11 °C

    Weather has been very dull and overcast for three days, it even poured with rain over night Friday. Yesterday though was sunny again but with a sharp cold wind. I walked around the south of the city through areas I really didn't know much. It is mostly old and residential, and pretty thread-bare, no new apartment blocks here. It is one of the flamenco areas though and I found lots of flamenco penas (music schools) and some statues of some of the great flamenco stars of the past. There were also great views looking down over the valley below and across to the hills where the sherry vineyards are. On the way back I ran across a demonstration in the main square about Venezuela.En savoir plus

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  • Tim Lynette WilkinsJerez 2019Voyageur

    A week!

    1 février 2019, Espagne ⋅ 🌬 14 °C

    A week - we have been here a week already! We really haven't done much other than reacquaint ourselves with the centre of the city. Today I walked over to the west edge of the city where there are big sherry bodegas like Garvey, Fundador, Gonzales Byass and Tio Pepe. In amongst these is a old hermitage, built in 1675 but on a site dating back to the 8th century. It's a neat building, but sadly now surrounded by blocks of modern apartments.En savoir plus

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  • Tim Lynette WilkinsJerez 2019Voyageur
    Almacen restaurant
    Tim in AlmacenThe floor tiles

    Restaurants

    31 janvier 2019, Espagne ⋅ 🌬 16 °C

    One benefit of the rise in tourism is that there are more restaurants opening and some that used to close for the winter are staying open. On the first night we tried a new one just down our street, called Carmela, where the food was good but the red wine not very, should have stuck to sherry. On Saturday they are having a flamenco concert so we will go see. Two of our favourites from 3 years ago that were being renovated last year are now open again and good as ever - VinaT and Almacen. We went to Almacen last night - it's in an old store that has beautiful wooden ceiling and tiled floor. We spent ages looking at the tiling pattern and realised it's just one tile used in different orientations! Very impressive. It's due to rain tonight and tomorrow so we have bought hake from the market and various types of sausage and plan to cook at home the next two nights.En savoir plus

  • Tim Lynette WilkinsJerez 2019Voyageur

    Oh Wow! Just ... Oh Wow!

    29 janvier 2019, Espagne ⋅ ☁️ 13 °C

    Yesterday, like every day so far, was sunny, warm and clear blue skies, so I went for a wander around in the afternoon, revisiting places like the castle and the cathedral, seeing what's new and what's the same. There are a lot of buildings refurbished in the centre and lots more new or refurbished to rent as holiday lets. The local paper has articles about people being unhappy that these are taking priority over residents who want new homes in the centre. Then we stayed in last night glued to the radio to listen to the FA cup match between Barnet and Brentford, dubbed "the battle of the Bees", or as Barnet fans would put it "real Bees vs fake Bees".
    With Barnet being the last non-league team in it, it got huge amounts of coverage, although only on BT on TV, and full coverage on the radio. The Hive was packed with a capacity crowd of 6,250, and the noise was immense even over the radio (where are all these people for normal league games when we just get maybe 1,200?) It was a fantastic game, swinging first one way and then the other, and Brentford, despite being a championship team over 70 places higher than Barnet knew they had been in a match. In the end it was a 3-3 draw and could have easily been more either way, and we have to do it all again at Brentford next week. Let's hope some of that magic rubs off on our league form , which has been patchy to put it politely! It would so good to see and hear the Hive rocking again!    En savoir plus

  • Tim Lynette WilkinsJerez 2019Voyageur
    Closed!
    Wow, sunshine!Can get still churros and chocolateJust to remind usMummy stork and baby stork

    Settling in

    26 janvier 2019, Espagne ⋅ 🌙 11 °C

    This morning we walked down to our favourite cafe in the market square to get churros and chocolate for breakfast and, horror, it's closed for refurbishments! Natalie will be distraught!. Fortunately the next door cafe has stepped up and their churros is almost as good. Resting this afternoon in the sun , with a view of storks nesting on the nearby church steeple. Every time mummy stork arrives all you can hear is the beaks of the baby storks clacking to say me, me, me ! ( they are mute so they shout by clacking their beaks).En savoir plus

  • Tim Lynette WilkinsCastles in Spain road tripVoyageur
    Bilbao river front
    Main square at nightArt deco railway stationArt deco buildingCathedralCathedral interior

    Bilbao

    25 septembre 2018, Espagne ⋅ 🌙 13 °C

    As first I thought that Bilbao didn't have anything going for it - a fairly boring city without any sites other than the Guggenheim. After a day and night I see that I am mistaken. Not great sights but a really nice friendly city that it's easy to feel comfortable. It reminds me a lot of Xerez. We looked at the cathedral , another one, but it is small and rather like a working church, and without the usual Spanish heavy decoration. Tomorrow a quick trip to the archaeological museum, a final long lunch and then to the airport for home. It's been a great trip, but I think I'm ready to go home. Until the next one!En savoir plus

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  • Tim Lynette WilkinsCastles in Spain road tripVoyageur
    Exterior of the museum
    Spider sculpturePuppyLight installationSculpture of ironsHuge sculpture over all the ground floor

    Guggenheim museum

    25 septembre 2018, Espagne ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C

    This spectacular building sits on the river front in the heart of Bilbao and was opened in 1997 to a Frank Gehry design, and is probably the reason most people come to Bilbao. We spent all morning there and it is certainly worth the visit. The building itself is created from huge sheets of thin titanium and shimmers and glows in the sun. Inside the exhibition spaces are huge, and perfect for modern sculptures and installations.

    Outside sit some sculptures like the huge spider, and a puppy made out of fresh flowers which was supposed to be temporary but so big was the outcry when the time came to take it down that they decided to keep it and water and maintain it. Our favourite piece was a light installation of pillars of red words that flowed up to the ceiling. After a while you realise that the wall behind it acts like a reflection in a pool of water and backs of the pillars, with blue words, are reflected back to you. Then you see people walking out from behind between the pillars and you see that you can walk through and view it from behind.    En savoir plus

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  • Tim Lynette WilkinsCastles in Spain road tripVoyageur
    View of Rioja vineyards from Laguardia
    View from the viewpoint!Tiled panel in Laguardia of Picasso paintingHenry Moore sculpture in peace parkAnother sculpture in peace parkStained glass window in Bilbao station

    Final day of road trip

    24 septembre 2018, Espagne ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C

    We left LaGuardia this morning for a longish drive to Bilbao. Our first stop was at a viewpoint up the mountain but it was in the clouds and drizzling so we didn't get much view. So far this trip we have been really lucky with the weather. We had only had a couple of short light showers. Yesterday was very hot 33C but today struggled to reach 20C and feels decidedly chilly. Our next stop was in Guernica to pay our respects before continuing to Bilbao where we have dropped off the car. We now have 2 days in Bilbao before we fly home.En savoir plus

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  • Tim Lynette WilkinsCastles in Spain road tripVoyageur
    Granny meets the iguanodon family
    Some flying dinos were as big as spitfiresIguanodon family tracksIguanodon tracksGrandad and new friends

    Granny meets the dinosaurs!

    23 septembre 2018, Espagne ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C

    120 million years ago the plain south of Rioja was a flat swampy wetland, home to many herbivore dinosaurs and so also the carnivore raptors. As these dinosaurs walked in the mud , it dried, was covered by later sediments and fossilised. Their footprints can still be seen today as the sediments have eroded. We drove around some of the sites and to a small interpretation centre. It was blinding hot out in the hillsides but I've never seen anything of dinosaurs before so well worth it. In many places they have put up replicas so you see what the creatures that made the prints looked like. Many of the tracks are from bipeds, in one case a family of two adults and a junior iguanodon, but there were also tracks of giant quadripeds such as saurodons.En savoir plus

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  • Tim Lynette WilkinsCastles in Spain road tripVoyageur
    Dolmen 3000bc
    Celtiberian site from 1400 bcBodega Ysios just next to the site with building designed by CalatravaView of Laguardia from the site

    laguardia archaeology

    22 septembre 2018, Espagne ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C

    In the afternoon we visited two sites just outside of Laguardia. The first was the remains of a celticiberian settlement dating from 1400 BC to 400 BC. Although there are only the low remains of walls it's easy to see the layout of the village and the streets through it. The outer walls would have been just wattle and daube to keep the animals in so they have all disappeared. At the site there is a nice little museum of some of the finds, and it was a great place to sit and eat our bocadillos (rolls) with spectacular views around us. Then on to a stone dolmen from around 3000 b.c, one of a great number all over the Basque Country, like in the uk and northern France. It took us a while to find and Google decided to send us over the hills over rough gravel track roads, and when we got there we could see the proper Tarmac road that we could have used.En savoir plus

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  • Tim Lynette WilkinsCastles in Spain road tripVoyageur
    Clock in the main square
    Tower in the town walls14c / 17c porticoBalconies with olive and grape vine decorationBasque pipe band

    laguardia

    22 septembre 2018, Espagne ⋅ ⛅ 27 °C

    We spent the morning wandering the narrow medieval streets of Laguardia, and walking around the walls. The town is so small and confined to a narrow hilltop that it only takes 20 or 30 minutes to walk around. The tiny main square has a clock that as it chimes the hours little people come and out and spin and dance. It seems to be a huge tourist attraction as the square every hour is full of tour groups standing waiting for the show. We also went into one of the churches here, which was built in the 14c with a magnificent coloured portico. This was repainted in the 17c and an extension to the church built so from then it wasn't open to the elements and now is still in fine condition. Later the streets were filled the sounds of a basque pipe group - being Celtic they seem to have the bagpipes in heritage.En savoir plus

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  • Tim Lynette WilkinsCastles in Spain road tripVoyageur
    Hotel at Marques de Riscal
    View of the mountain from our hotel room terracebentleycarlos San Pedro cellarMore street scupturescene into a butchers shop in Laguardia

    Bodega visits

    22 septembre 2018, Espagne ⋅ ⛅ 15 °C

    On our way into Laguardia we stopped to see the winery of Marques de Riscal, which is one of the biggest and most famous Rioja names. The estate is huge and I guess hadn't suffered much from Spain's economic problems as it is beautifully maintained and has built a splendid new hotel and restaurant designed by Frank Gehry of the Bilbao Guggenheim museum fame. The building has become a tourist attraction in itself and well worth a visit. In the car park we came across a vintage Bentley on a British Bentley owners club tour of Spain and Portugal. Later in the day, in Laguardia, we went to tour the opposite size bodega. In the town of Laguardia itself, the bodega of Carlos San Pedro is family owned and operated by just seven people, with casual labour help, producing only 50,000 bottles a year. All the houses in Laguardia, including our hotel, have dug caves and tunnels down into the rock underneath them, and the bodega still uses theirs for wine making and storage. We tasted three wines there, a 2014 crianza, a 2010 reserva and a 2009 grand crianza which were all really good, and the best, the grand crianza superb.En savoir plus

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  • Tim Lynette WilkinsCastles in Spain road tripVoyageur
    Fields of ripening sunflowers
    Rows of vinesTempranillo grapes in RiojaLaGuardia - our next stop with mountains

    Rioja

    21 septembre 2018, Espagne ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C

    Fòr most of this trip we have been travelling through brown flat countryside- the massive high Spanish plain - that is used mainly for growing wheat, now harvested. Also mile upon mile of sunflowers ripening in the sun. This must be sunflower oil country rather than olive oil. No fields of olive trees like there are in Andalusia. Just once we saw a few cows in a field but there is not much grass here for them.
    Today all that changed and as we left Burgos we encountered hills and now we are surrounded by mountains - and VINES! We have arrived in Rioja and everywhere there are vines covered in purple grapes just waiting to be made into delicious red wine. We are no longer in Castille y Leon we have crossed into Pays Vasco - Basque country and all the signs are in a strange language - a bit like Welsh.    En savoir plus

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  • Tim Lynette WilkinsCastles in Spain road tripVoyageur
    Camino souvenirsBurgos camino mementosStone camino scallop outside the cathedral

    Camino de Santiago

    20 septembre 2018, Espagne ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C

    When we were in Segovia the road outside our hotel had brass scallop shells embedded in it, which are the symbol of the pilgrims taking the Camino de Santiago to Santiago de Compostela. The story is that Saint James , having being beheaded in Jerusalem was buried in Spain and his shrine became a centre for pilgrimage. There are now many routes of the Camino, including ones from Britain, but the major ones go through northern Spain and the Basque Country, and many go through Burgos. A minor one goes from Madrid through Segovia by our hotel, and there is even one from andulcia from Seville. Burgos has many hostels for the travellers, and the Camino is a big thing here with maps and souvenirs everywhere. Our apartment here is in close sights of the cathedral so there are scallop shells in the road here too, and lots of pilgrims trekking the streets.En savoir plus

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  • Tim Lynette WilkinsCastles in Spain road tripVoyageur
    Entrance to the excavations
    Forehead and manible of a 12 year old. 850,000 years old.Burgos castleOne of many lifesized statues

    A trip 1.3 million years into the past

    20 septembre 2018, Espagne ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C

    Woke this morning to thick fog, with even the spires of the cathedral barely visible. Thankfully it dispersed as soon as the sun came up and the day was clear and hot as usual. We drove out of town to the site of the archeological digs at Atapuerca, where a series of cave systems were discovered during the cutting of a railway. It is a dig that has been going on for forty years and shows no sign of getting to any kind of end. The caves have animal and human habitation going back 1.3 million years (that's a lot!) with a series of types of humans, including a completely new subspecies never found before. Sadly the tour around the site was all in rapid Spanish so we didn't keep up very much. Must go and get a Spanish refresher course I think!

    Back in Burgos we trekked up the hill overlooking the city to go to the castle (oh, another one!) which was founded in the 9c and rebuilt in the 14c. It was the centre of napoleon's army in Spain until Wellington came along and defeated it. No doubt with Sharpe's help - read the books !

    Then back to the museum to go and see again the finds from this mornings dig site.

    We leave Burgos in the morning to drive to Rioja. We have enjoyed this city a lot, it has a lot going for it, and the food has been excellent- always a big plus. In places you find life sized statues of ordinary people doing ordinary things, like the photo of a young lady looking out over the river. It all seems very human.    En savoir plus

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  • Tim Lynette WilkinsCastles in Spain road tripVoyageur
    Facade of the cathedral
    Funny clock in the cathedral - man dongs the bell - very noisyHideous altarpiece in main chapelEarliest 13C chapelMediaeval gate of Santa MariaStatue of El Cid, local hero, buried in cathedral

    Seeing the sights in Burgos

    19 septembre 2018, Espagne ⋅ 🌙 20 °C

    Another cathedral - the cathedral in Burgos really does dominate the town so we started off there this morning. It is enormous, started in the 12C and added to over the centuries. It has some good parts, particularly the very fine carving in stone and wood, and some hideous bits of over decorated and brightly coloured statues. The outside facade and spires are beautiful. There are many chapels from different centuries and one of the nicest is the earliest 13C, very simple and plain. We must have spent 2 hours in there and ended up skipping bits.
    We then walked through the town to see mediaeval gates, bridges and palaces. Our next stop was the museum that contains artefrom the Roman sites at Cluni a but after we started walking round it they told us the archaeological section was closed this week. Duh.
    So instead we went to the Museum of Human Evolution that we planned to visit tomorrow. Near here they have found human fossils dating from 1.3 million years ago and this museum is a wonderful explanation of the different branches of the human tree with fossils and artefacts from each period. We stayed until it closed at 2.30. Exhausted and hungry we retired to our apartment and rested after lunch. This evening for dinner we tried the local specialty of roast suckling lamb. Yummy.    En savoir plus

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  • Tim Lynette WilkinsCastles in Spain road tripVoyageur
    Palencia cathedral crypt with visigoth colums at the end
    14c altar pieceVestry lined with tapestriesExterior of Palencia cathedralburgos cathedral at nightTapas in Burgos

    On to Burgos

    18 septembre 2018, Espagne ⋅ 🌙 17 °C

    After really enjoying Palencia cathedral we went to find our new apartment in Burgos, which was good and right next to the cathedral. So many cathedrals, maybe we should called this trip "cathedrals in Spain" not "castles in Spain"!

    We went on a tapas trawl in Burgos tonight and decided that Burgos is a really pleasant place to be in the evening, especially after some good food and some glasses of wine!    En savoir plus

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  • Tim Lynette WilkinsCastles in Spain road tripVoyageur
    Visigoth church from 661 ad
    Churros and chocolateInterior of the visigoth churchChrist statue from 1931Stained glass in palencia cathedralInterior of palencia cathedral

    Palencia - on the way to Burgos

    18 septembre 2018, Espagne ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C

    It turns out that just around the corner from our hotel in Valladolid is the best churreria in town, so churros and chocolate for breakfast was necessary. We were then going on the Burgos but went to Palencia, about half way, for a break and found three great surprise treats. The first was a lovely Visigoth church dating to 661 a.d., and said to be oldest church in Spain, then a huge art Deco (1931) statue of Christ on a hill outside the city - over 20 metres tall, and maybe 800 metres high, it is the fourth tallest Christ statue in the world. Then Palencia cathedral which is simply wonderful. I thought - ok, another cathedral, but it was probably the prettiest cathedral we have seen. It dates from the 14 century, but it is built on Visigoth foundations, and has a crypt with Visigoth pillars. It also has lots of 14c and 15c art, lots of beautiful stained glass, and huge tapestries. A real joy to find!En savoir plus

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