Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable. 

– Christopher Howse: ‘A Pilgrim in Spain’

Cosas de España/Galiza 

The Galician health ministry say the Covid situation there is starting to improve but stresses there are still weeks of effort ahead. And that: Most of the outbreaks originate in private parties. So, people should limit social contacts as much as possible. 

Down here in Salamanca, it’s as if there were no virus risk at all. As elsewhere on this trip, no one has asked us to show a vaccination certificate in bars or restaurants, except back in Santiago de Compostela

But there were Covid mask zealots in Burgos’s excellent new Museum of Human Evolution. These folk are clearly unaware that when a mask is on the tip of a (large) nose it’s still covering the nostrils. 

We’ve been covering much of the same route as the Camino Francés in the last few days, albeit by car. Occasionally, I’ve had flashes of deja vue from walking it in 2012. But not that many on the Meseta, possibly because its featureless landscape is easy to forget.

Travel tip. If you’re going to visit the Tordesillas museum dedicated to the signing of the treaty between Spain and Portugal in 1494, make sure you don’t, in error, go into the adjacent Museum of Sacred Art. Though you can there go up the tower from which queen Juana La Loca threatened to throw herself when incarcerated in that town by her male relatives.

There are, of course, pockets of wealth in every country, no matter how poor it is on average. Here’s something on one in Spain.

And here’s something on the Spanish in the Americas I came across yesterday.

This Day in Labor History: August 10, 1680

On a lighter note . . . The National Geographic gives you here the chance to check on the origin of every capital in Spain’s history, reflecting invasions by Romans, Celts, Visigoths and Moors.

The UK 

Having been told that my nationality was British, the receptionist in this hotel in Salamanca asked me which country this related to. And then confessed she couldn’t find Gran Bretaña in her com 

Spanish 

A nice dissertation here on Spanish diminutives and augmentative. Maybe it was caminico I heard in Pamplona.

Finally  . . .

Johnny Depp: Less of a surprise

Note: If you’ve landed here looking for info on Galicia or Pontevedra, try here.