On the Baise with Locaboat

 After catching the train through the very flat, pine-forested southwest coastal France, and a quick change at Bordeaux, we arrived in a rather damp Agen. Vikki and Choco picked us up at La Gare. They are friends from Melbourne, who joined us for canal boating after their three weeks in Provence. We stayed in Condom, which started a course of hilarity that went on for days. We had a night there and next day descended on the Carrefour supermarket to provision up. One of Choco’s rules is that if you spend more on food than on grog in provisioning then you’ve got it wrong. We got it right and set off to drop our stuff at Locaboat in Valence, then Ann and I stayed in the village while Choco and Vikki did the rental car return to Agen and taxied back

Espagnette is a very spacious 12.6 m and  a beamy 3.85 m wide. She has 3 bedrooms (so we have a storeroom), 2 bathrooms and a very big saloon. The boat is so wide it just fits inside the locks width wise.

Initially the river Baise was very narrow so we were running through a corridor of trees. It is very tranquil. Nothing happens quickly on a canal boat. In the narrow part we could only motor at 4 kph, now we are up to a heady 8 kph.

But that helps when there are choices to be made: the barrage or the lock?

It also means we get plenty of time to spot wildlife. The count so far is two deer in a paddock, one heron, and lots of fat, buck-teethed creatures called Coypu. Big rats really, up to 6 kg, introduced from South America for the fur trade. They actually look like beavers, but have a ratlike tail. Quite a few fish around at times.

 

Aquitaine is a really historic area. The centre of the Hundred Year War, it has lots of walled towns that we’ve walked or biked to during the day. The architecture of the houses is fascinating, with a lot of half-timbered houses in the villages that look really rickety, and lots of Romanesque churches and town buildings. Alongside the canal/river are some beautiful chateaux, and in the canal some lovely old boats.

 Alongside that we’ve seen some French rural life. Groups of men playing petanque/ boules (some ferocious sportsmen there), the rubbish collection trailer towed by a draft horse, the pomp of a funeral for an earl, fishermen, houseboaters who spend months on their boats cruising, a friendly dog who understood fetch but not ‘sit or ‘asseyez vous’. It’s been fun to ride around, chat to curious locals and find a place for coffee or lunch.

There's varying land use: maize, kiwifruit and apple cropping, poplar plantings, and some animal farming – geese and cows. While we are locking up or down, Choco aka the pirate, forages around the lock area and has supplemented the salads with wild walnuts and figs.

Some double locks, and a ‘water bridge’ that ran over the Baise River made for fun but no real challenge.

Plane trees and poplars have been the dominant species, and the treatment of the plane trees has been inventive at times as in these hand-holding specimens in Le Mas D’Agenais.

We’ve had some great overnight stays and done some good biking. Because we were in a river we had to stay in anchorages initially, rather than just tying up to the bank, but it’s made life very easy.

Night 1 was in Condom. Potentially very peaceful, but the church bells tolled every quarter of an hour. Guess it saves having to look at the watch during the night. (The mornings here are really dark until at least 7.30-8am.)

Night 2 Moncrabeau. The “head town of liars, boasters and storytellers of the kingdom.”  The story goes that at the beginning of the 17^th century several old soldiers who were enjoying their retirement, but running out of news to talk about. So they started to create their own news. A nearby monk in Condom approved of the concept and instituted the above name, and an academy of liars. A ‘best liar’ is still chosen on an annual basis, and as king/ queen of liars they sit on the chair of liars and adjudicate the following year to choose the best unlikely story.

Even better was the bike ride to a nearby chateau, Chateau le Carrejot, which makes Armagnac. It is a family affair. The grandfather and father manage the production on site. The son, who is studying the IB, gave us a tour and tasting. We started with a 1998 then a 1984 then a 1974, which was very smooth and finally a 1994 which had good ‘aromas’ as he termed it and mellow flavour. Heady stuff for middle of the day tasting. The distillation process was very interesting, involving lighting a fire under the brewed wine to vaporise the alcohol, which then transformed into the spirit and stored in barrels to age. Or at least I think that’s how it worked - the English wasn’t always clear. We settled on the 1994 Giacosa – Gold medal winner in Paris 2009. We’ve also taken on the technology so may develop a still.

Night 3 Nerac. This is a lovely town, the biggest we visited, and a chance to reprovision. The butcher really enjoyed the chance to talk about his meat and between our French and his English we even manage to discover that the sausage casings were lamb for the small and beef for the fat ones, but the contents identical!  A coup for cross-cultural communications I think. The Toulouse-style sausage is just superb. We need the recipe. Our anchorage was really picturesque, with the castle of Nerac overlooking us.

Night 4 Buzet sur Baise: the name also rather apt in view of our treatment of it. Our nights are generally very food focussed, and accompanied by sampling of local vintages, with time whiled away by a few hands of 500. So we livened up the sleepy little village, situated at the junction of the Baise River and the Canal de Garonne.

Night 5 Le Mas d’Agenais. This village has many claims to fame. It is a walled city, and the 11-12 Century Romanesque church has a genuine Rembrandt of the living Christ on the cross. Thursday morning was market day, but my expectations exceeded the reality significantly. I guess it is late in the year.

 

Night 6 back to Buzet sur Baise

Night 7 Agen and time to return the boat. We stayed on the boat in the Locaboat base, did the laundry, had the last supper and emptied out the fridge and larder. I picked up our rental from Avis on Saturday am, dropped Choco and Vikki at la gare for their return to London by train. They have a couple of days there and then fly back to Melbourne

The weather’s been autumnal. We had some showers initially, then three days of beautifully warm weather after heavy morning mists burned off, and a cloudy but warm day today. The trees alongside the canal are losing their leaves slowly – lots of reflection shots.

San Sebastian, or as the txe people call it, Donostia

 The drive to San Sebastian via Pamplona took us through very dry land. The grapes changed to ploughed land, maize and hay. Quite a lot of evidence of past history – old Roman constructions in particular. We stopped at the Puente de Reina Bridge, and several more bastidas. Note the pimentos drying from the balconies – another typical smell in the area.

 

The area we passed through is one of the popular parts of the Camino walk, and we saw several individuals or small groups making their way along dusty paths. Also two huge solar energy plants and the ubiquitous wind farms!

San Sebastian is warm. TomTom took us straight to our accommodation – a narrow building in the city centro. She would have been more direct except she wanted us to go the wrong way up one-way streets. Our host, Inaki, was having a coffee next door, so helped get the bags up while I stayed with the double-parked car. Our base here, Pension Regil, (www.pensionregil.com), is right by the Hotel de Londres e Inglaterra, a landmark on the beachfront, very central. By far the cheapest, at about 40E, but it was well-recommended on Trip Advisor, and with justice. Small - to use the bathroom requires some contortion - but the bedroom has access to a Juliet balcony and clothesline, so good fresh air and space. We are one block from the beach front, with a lovely sandy beach, and space to walk for miles in both directions, and eight blocks from the railway station, where it will cost us E1.70 to catch a train to Hendaye on the French border.

We said goodbye to the rental car and had a very relaxed afternoon, walking along river, having a pre-dinner drink in a peaceful plaza, and people and dog watching.

Dinner was pintxo (the Basque name for tapas) in the old town. This is a real art form here and we relaxed at the bar, along with lots of others, sampling prawns grilled on skewers, mushroom tarts, tiny bocadillo (little bread rolls filled with delicious tuna, anchovies, pimento, jamon or really whatever you want.) Sorry, I know it’s all about the food again, but this is a holiday focus it seems, and this food was superb. We can certainly recommend Borda Berri and Goiz-Argi

Today dawned more cloudy, but we did manage a walk right along the beachfront. We first visited the 1952 ‘Wind Comb’ sculpture to the left of the bay. Spectacular waves coming in.

Then we went up Monte Igueido, coincidentally in the same funicular as a Wellington couple travelling with their two London-based sons and their attachments. Great views from the top, surrounded by lots of carnival sideshows and rides which are probably open in the summer.

The day deteriorated, so no chance to go up the mountain at the other end, but we did visit the port and were intrigued by the number of shallow open vessels and wondered where they might be used, given that once through the shelter of the bay the area seems quite unhospitable for such a craft.

Tomorrow off on the next leg of the trip after a very relaxing stay in Donostia, capped off by an delicious dinner at the more upmarket Bodegon Alejandro. No more Bastidas for us

Rioja: Home of Temperanillo and many Bastidas

 We came here via Santillana del Mar, a small village ‘unchanged’ since mediaeval times. Apparently they instituted a set of rules on house preservation signage and pedestrianisation to retain a16th century look. But we both felt it was rather artificial, especially in contrast to where we are now – Laguardia, a mediaeval fortified village.

TomTom managed the trip far better than I (Ann) would have, despite the gaps in the new motorways that she valiantly tried to take us on! We could see the evidence of new construction, and at times they are working on it, but in other places it appears totally abandoned. The trip through the back of Bilboa certainly justified her worth! Monday is museums-closed day so we missed the Inquisition Museum and church in Santillana and there was no point attempting to get to the Guggenheim in Bilboa.

As we arrived in Laguardia, I realised that I’d not noted the address of the place where we were staying. I asked a man who was on the side of the road, who talked extremely fast Spanish, no English at all, took me racing through the pedestrianised streets to a guest casa, wrong one, then asked another lady who directed him in Spanish to the right place, back out to see Steve and insisted on climbing in the car with us and driving around the outside of the walls with us all the time volubly explaining that there were two such places and why he’d got confused (or at least I think that is what he was saying).

He certainly got us to the right place and ensured Steve had parked the car adequately and explained to the lady several times more why he’d got it wrong initially before we said goodbye to him ….. or at least that was our thought. But Laguardia is a very small place and despite efforts to avoid another onslaught, we’ve had other encounters, again explaining important stuff to us in unintelligible Spanish!

The accommodation is actually in the wall of the town and we have a beautiful view out over the valley of vines. Certainly a great place to stay.  (www.erletxe.com)

Laguardia was a mediaeval fortress town - the Guard of Navarra – on a hilltop. It has four gates in and is pretty much pedestrian only - we park outside the walls. It is a really beautiful area.

The information office was really helpful and in quick succession we saw the mechanised clock, which pops three dancers out a few times a day and plays music while they dance, did a small winery cave tour and visited an amazingly ornate church with a huge façade, carved out of stone in the 14^th century and painted in the 17^th century. The figures in it are larger than life. It’s been preserved as, unlike others, it is inside a reception area, and you walk through it to get to the equally ornate church proper.

A quick lesson in Spanish as a background to the Cave tour in English. Spanish involves lots of tongue…we massacre the words we commonly use in the English language eg gracias (grassyarse or grart. c. arse as we pronounce) is really a very tongue forward in the mouth grathhhiathh. Barcelona is really Bathhelona. Buenas Deas is Buenath Deeathh. So a lisp would be a considerable advantage.

Carloth did our tour in English spoken with lots of the Spanish th. It was in fact very good despite running a mental translation of the English.

Rioja is about 14 000 vineyards, 123 000 hectares and the area is about 120km long. This is a family-owned winery, just 10 hectares and supporting the father, a winemaker, for 50 years and the two sons. None of the family has any formal training, they just do the business. Carlos gave a good background and showed a video of the old traditional process being carried out in the building we were touring which is within the walled hilltop town of Laguardia. The caves (cellars) were not installed for winemaking but adapted to it. They were originally for storage of food, refuge in times of adversity and provided an escape route also. All of the houses in the town have them.

Carlos and family produce about 50 000 bottles a year, pretty much all Temperanillo, in three of the four allowed styles. They don’t have storage capacity in the cave to allow them to do a Grand Reserva which requires two years in oak and three years in the bottle. So they do a Temperanillo labelled wine which is fresh and fruity, a Crianza which has a year in oak and a year of bottle aging and a Reserva which has two years in oak plus one in the bottle. The DOC has lots of rules, maximum no plants per Ha, max number of leaders (no more than 5), no irrigation unless the DOC say so, no more than 6500 tonnes/Ha yield of grapes, no more than 70% yield of wine and there were plenty more.

We sampled straight from the stone storage vat the last year’s vintage which was being drawn off as we left the premise for bottling. Also sampled a 2005 bottle, not DOC, this was one the father created to his individual taste, lovely smooth style. We did purchase for the boat stocks, but as we still have a train journey before we get to the boat we are limited in our carrying capacity.

The fermentation is slightly different here; the whole bunch of grapes is fermented for a few days before any crushing. Small things sometimes make a difference!!

Melissa, I’m actually very disappointed that Grannie does not aspire to the feat of carrying a dozen bottles in her back pack. Your record seems to be secure.

Today we saw some more modern manufacture, the history of the area and some more EU money invested. The afternoon wine tour is at the Marques de Riscal (www.marquesderiscal.com) Check out the architecture!

The tour today was 1.5 hours, very good and covering the variety of wines…they make around 20 million bottles export 70%, Spain is the No 3 wine producer in the world (Who are No 1 and 2?). They have a fantastic cellar, containing over 150 000 bottles with a selection from every vintage since 1862. Special guests get a treat. The architect for the futuristic hotel building Frank O Gerhy was born in 1929 so they sampled his year when the hotel opened in 2000 and it was still in great shape. They are now making a white wine with new plantings in the Rueda region. Their reds come from 500 Ha they own and 1000 Ha they buy in from locally. Highly mechanised, but still the best wines are treated very specially with hand selection initially and cellaring in the 1852 cellar buildings.

We also visited an amazing wine museum which covered the history of the grape, the bottle, the cork, the processing, the role of wine and the drinking. They have one of the world’s largest collections of cork screws – over 3000.  A small selection in photo!

 

The museum gave a great context to the visit to this valley where the fields are busy with harvesting , the roads with tractors carrying the wine to the hundreds of local bodegas (wineries) and the warm smell of fermenting grapes hangs in the air.

Headed out for dinner…an upmarket night in a 200 yr old hotel after sampling local café fare last night. This turned out to be a veritable feast with the very attentive maître d’ producing all sorts of little titbits ( just try this) insisting we sample each other’s starters, and bringing out an extra dessert- creme caramel. (Those who know Ann will understand how full she was by the stage as she had only one teaspoonful of her favourite continental dessert.) We did a traditional menu so enjoyed a range of local food and of course a lovely Rioja 2001 reserva – Marquez del Puerta.

PS A bastida is a walled hilltop village

 Off now to San Sebastian and the canal boat! 

Asturia and Los Picos De Europa

We had planned a day of sightseeing around the Cudillero area, but as we had breakfast in a local café -toast and a paste of fresh tomato and garlic spread (see above) with cafe con leche… E5.80 for the two of us) the weather forecast showed thunderstorms for Picos for the next day, so we decided to get to the mountains a day earlier.

 

TomTom reprogrammed and we were away, mainly motorway travel, no tolls, lots of viaducts over valleys (the Romans really started something, and the locals still think they are a great idea). We had the odd “Take the exit” instruction that could not be executed due to construction work, but the ever flexible TomTom took us on to the next exit, and then immediately back in the direction from whence we came where the off ramp was still operational so on we went, gathering confidence in her….no Port yet though.

Arrived in Cangas de Onis, crowded with locals on a national holiday weekend. Took a photo of the 13^th Century bridge with the Asturian cross symbol.

 A sustaining coffee and croissant/Danish and then off to Covadonga. This is the place where Spain has always been Spain…it was never occupied land. This valley was where the Moors were stopped in their advance up the Iberian Peninsula. The Caliph of Cordoba ordered the Moors to attack and clean the place out of Christians, however they were easily defeated in the very steep valley, giving the Christians the belief they could defeat them and they moved south and pushed Muslims back to Africa, this process took a mere 800 more years. (Note: must check the El Cid story from Charlton Heston movie days when I get home.)

We parked the car and were driven the 12 km up to Lagos by bus. The road…very narrow, unsure how the buses actually managed to squeeze past in places. Plenty of very white knuckles and relieved people got out at the top.

We had intended a 2.5 hour walk, but by the time we arrived at  Lagos  it was around 3 00pm and we still had to get off the mountain and drive to Llanes, so we took the 1 hour short route.

  

The Picos are 65 000 hectares and are three lumps of limestone upthrust at a tectonic plate joint where the high sea cliffs from the other day which are granite form the other side. They now form a national park, but the traditional farming (cows, sheep and goats) carries on.

This has no adverse impact, and the absolute clarity of the rapidly flowing water in the streams would support that.

On to Llanes (pronounced Ya ness) and into new accommodation. Great renovated building on the main plaza by the harbour. We were signed in by the owner who also has the restaurant downstairs…. We were the first NZ visitors…there have been many Australians though. This place has been a great food experience; the apartment has good cooking facilities and plenty of space.

We have tried the local chorizos with Queso Cabrales (a tasty blue made from a mix of goat sheep and cows milk and the milk is unpasteurised) I can see David Munro shaking his wise head!! Washed down with a local red 80% Temperanillo and 20% Cab Sav 2002 Riserva… very nice, thank you very much. LLanes is very pretty harbour village. Like Cudillero without the steep hills around it.

Today we drove back up to Poncebos where there is another valley entrance to the interior of the Picos. Fascinating country and a lovely drive. The high steep peaks, shrouded in rain clouds, made for great atmosphere.

Visited the Quesa Cabrales Museo so now understand a little more of its origin and manufacture. (Three different milks – cow, sheep and goat.) It's a very manual process, protected by regulation (this is Europe keeping its tradition). What do you do with the whey? (traditionally it is fed back to the stock, couldn’t determine what happens in the current process.)

Heavy showers, so no walking and crowds absent as the locals must have returned home. Coffee and a snack at a local and then home to Llanes. Popped in to the local deli equivalent, which sells artesano products, some English spoken which is handy, and walked out with a huge slab of chocolate with almonds (tucker for the boat, and restocking the larder which was raided for a late night Port at one point you may recall. Also got a bottle of the local (Asturian) speciality cider which helped fill one of the between-food gaps today. When you don’t eat till around 9 00 pm you need to take the local approach to eating ie breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner.

Tonight we will dine out at a local recommended by the deli lady, and will try the local dish – Fabado. This is a white bean stew combined with a selection of meats, usually four: chorizo, morcilla, ham and bacon. Unsure what you wash it down with but it won’t be the cider which is now in the “been there, done that” pile.

But having now had the famed Fabado Austurianos it definitely has a place in the ongoing diet. We were the only non-Spanish at the restaurant and the E10 menu de noches per head covered wine (1 litre) water, de entradas, segundos, postres, cafe…. Very full!