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

Tourism is now even more important to the Spanish economy than ever. A record 20.2m came here this summer and spent €27.4bn. (Most of them seemed to have passed through Pv city . . .)

The relevant (bad) news is that the Galician Xunta has approved a tourist tax, albeit only for
Santiago de Compostela for now. Other cities will surely follow. But will it include ‘poor pilgrims’, though many of these are nowhere near as poor their predecessors were 10-20 years ago.

Megalithic complexes such as Stonehenge come in various forms and levels of complexity and have been found across the continents. And now archaeologists have found another, in the Huelva province near the Guadiana River. It is one of the largest ever discovered in Europe — if not the largest.

No huge surprise to read that confusion around the new Animal Protection law has led to an upsurge in the abandonment of pets, especially dogs. And to the Pv city pound – suddenly full – closing its doors to new entrants.

Also not a huge surprise to read that September was a record month for camino ‘pilgrims’ passing through Pv city. In fact, the only surprise for me is that they haven’t yet authorised another new variant, to go with the 3 that didn’t exist 10 years ago. It’s mostly about money.

Another quote from Cees Noteboom’s Roads to Santiago: [At the end of the 8^th century] Toledo, the old Visigothic capital, is now an important city in the caliphate of the Umayyads, and this ancient ‘urbs regia’ lies halfway between El Andalús with its subjugated Christians at one end and the free lands of Asturias and the Carolingian Empire at the other. It is a capital in the cosmopolitan sense of the word, with different cultures existing side by side, observing each other, stealing and borrowing from each other. The Christians are proud of their Visigothic tradition, and at the same time they are open-minded when it comes to the Arab world, in a way that will ultimately prove to be a blessing, because of the cultural legacy that was preserved by Arab scholars in translations from the ancient Greek.

Portugal

Those tax breaks for foreigner are going, having angered the populace by increasing housing problems.

France

If you must go to Paris, here’s how to avoid the bedbugs which are (allegedly) infesting that city.

Relatedly . . . How to jump the Eurostar queues. Provided you can afford to ‘splash out’ on a very expensive room in a London hotel the night before your trip. Guess who paid for the writer’s stress-free experience.

The EU

I read this morning that in recent months the euro had fallen considerably against the dollar – tho’ not the pound! – but I decided not to mention this, so as to avoid being negative/critical. But now I’ve also read this article, on looming EU stagflation. Which I remember in the UK some decades back. So, negativity seems justified – assuming the prediction is correct. The take-home line from the article is: Some very complicated months lie ahead for the European economy. But ’twas ever thus, surely.

The Way of the World

The UK prime minister has been reported to the police – by a Scotsman, of course – for joking in a speech that Nicola Sturgeon, the former Scottish first minister, might go to jail.

This reminded me of the threats from the West Midlands police force to prosecute folk for hate crimes if they criticised its policy of referring to a transgendered rapist as Davina, even though he’d committed the crime as a male called David. The police force said that it was complying with the 2010 Equality Act, which protects transgender people from discrimination. 

Did you know? . . .

It’s said that most immigrants return to their country of origin. For example, of the c.15m Irish who went to the USA in the 19^th century, c.9m of them braved a 3 month boat journey to return home.

Finally . . .

We occasionally have a high-seas, high-speed chase off our coast which results in the ditching of the cocaine cargo and the beaching of the narcotraficos’ big-engined planeador. Here’s a foto of this week’s case, off the mouth of the Miño, which forms the Spanish-Portuguese border. It involved a shoot-out with the police.

More upliftingly . . . Swiss Radio this morning introduced me to this fine music, by Isaac Albéniz and played by Giuseppe Feola. As someone accurately puts it: The music conjures up the experience of breathing in Spanish air and Spanish life! Interestingly, Albéniz wrote his Spanish Suite for the piano, not the guitar.

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 – updated a bit in early July 2023.

For those thinking of moving to Spain:- This is an extremely comprehensive and accurate guide to the challenge, written by a Brit who lives in both the North and the South and who’s very involved in helping Camino walkers.

Finally, finally . . .

Some readers, I hope, will know that the verse I cite at the top of my posts is the opening quatrain of Fitzgerald’s wonderful – but very ‘free’ – translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, which you can read about here. Some verses are well known, of course, eg:-

The moving finger writes; and, having writ,

moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit

shall lure it back to cancel half a line,

Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.

My favourite:-

Myself when young did eagerly frequent

doctor and saint, and heard great argument

about it and about: but evermore

came out by the same door as in I went.