Awake, for morning in the bowl of night has flung the stone that puts the stars to flight.

And, lo, has caught the sultan’s turret in a noose of light!

Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable: Christopher Howse: ‘A Pilgrim in Spain’

Cosas de España

Politics: The rot on the Spanish left is clear for all to see. It will take far more than a cynical rebrand to reverse its fortunes, it says here. I have to confess I have no idea why Sumar came into existence. Maybe it’s true that it’s essentially a vehicle for the ambitions of Sra Díaz. Who claims to be a real Communist. So, will break 2 records if she becomes the national President.

The economy: Utility companies are expected to benefit from the election of a right-of-centre government next months. Anyone surprised?

Says the Vd G today: On 26 June 2016, a general election was held in Spain. The date was etched in the records, because of the record number of postal votes cast: 1.4m. According to the government, there are already more than 1.5 applications[I think they mean 1.5m] and there are still 14 days to go before the deadline for applications closes. The flood is a problem for Correos: it will assign some 12,000 workers to the electoral process. I wonder how robust the fraud prevention safeguards are.

Several Spanish cities are doubly blessed when it comes to giving the faithful a choice of cathedrals. I enjoy visiting them all but always end up angry at the money that’s been taken from the poor to finance their multi-faceted magnificence. As if God cares how fabulous the buildings are.

Here’s the BBC on the soaring price of package holidays for Brits. Extract: The average of the top five most popular destinations for UK travellers has risen by 11.9% since last year, but there is variation between countries. The average package price has risen fastest in Spain, up nearly 15%, but only by 5% in Portugal. Well, the Spanish tourist folk have been saying for some time now they want a higher class of tourist. Maybe they’ll get it, perforce.

Talking of price-gouging . . . . My younger daughter and her 2 year-old son bought 2 days ago a one-way ticket to Oporto on Ryanair. I daren’t spell out what it cost but it was, for the numerate, 93% up on Renfe’s price of a one-way ticket from Madrid to Pv city of €212. For each of them . . .

The good news, I hope, is that we now have a Portuguese restaurant in Pv city, with the odd name of Ímpar. Or ‘Uneven’. Where I discovered today that pescaditas de la huerta in Portugal aren’t little fish but green beans in tempura . . .

I did my Samaritan act for a bewildered-looking pilgrim at the bottom of my hill yesterday evening. He was wanting to get to Combarro via the coast so that he could have a swim but, having come off the camino, was following a GPS route which was possibly shorter but would have taken him up a steep incline and down again. So, I took him close to the nearby beach of Lourido and told him how he could get from there to Combarro. Hope he made it.

The UK

More popular resistance to Net Zero

Russia v Ukraine

Will the war eventually end with a Korea-style armistice? If so, it won’t be before many more folk on both sides have killed. Madness.

Spanish

Here’s an entertaining post from Mr Chorizo in Madrid on Spanish proverbs.

Finally . . .

Reader Alexandras has kindly supplied this video of a Ukrainian folk group he heard in the Barcelona metro some years ago.

Finally, finally . . .

A moan or two . . .

I picked up my sister plus my younger daughter and her son at Oporto airport last night and had difficulty getting out of the carpark, needing to reverse away from the barrier and to put more money in the machine in order to do so. So, here’s a tip for anyone using carpark P-1 at the airport . . . Don’t use the machine at the start of the tunnel to the metro station and P-1. Walk past it and use the machine in P-1 itself. If you do use the first machine you meet, you only have 10 minutes to get out of P-1. So, don’t walk slowly if one of you has a bad leg; don’t go to the toilet: and don’t spend time packing bags and a child into your car. I could swear it used to be more than 10 minutes but could be wrong, of course. If I’m right, it smells like a ‘stealth tax’. Or just plain profiteering,

BTW, what is it with ticket machines and credit cards in Portugal? The one for metro tickets has long been infamously hard to operate and last night it took me some time to work where to insert the parking ticket at the pay machine. Which then refused to accept my bank card. The latter has been a regular occurrence on my trips to Portugal over the years. But at least it’s now accepted at the toll booths on the A3 to Spain. Which is just as well, as the folk who used to take cash instead no longer sit in the booths.

For new readers:- If you’ve landed here looking for info on Galicia or Pontevedra, try here. If you’re passing through Pontevedra on the Camino, you’ll find a guide to the city there.