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

I can’t say I’m surprised to read that inflation here in Spain is back on the rise.

The word aperitive(aperitivo) comes from the Latin, aperitivus, the adjective from aperĭre (‘to open’). The original (medical) meaning was ‘something that opens and clears the ways.’ Fascinating Spain tells us here – in machine-translated English – what it means these days in Spanish culture.

And the same folk give us this primer on the wines of Castilla y León.

A few quotes from an article on this summer’s tourism in Pv city, endorsing my previously expressed views:-

• Foreign tourism has taken off in Pv. This summer, the city registered visits by more than 9,000 travellers from other countries, 23% more than before the pandemia. One out of five are from Portugal but travellers have bounced back from France, the United Kingdom United States, Switzerland and Italy.
• Foreigners spend more than Spanish visitors.
• ‘In my hotel, I don’t ever recall hearing so much English spoken’.
• ‘In September and October, nearly all our clients have been foreigners’.

Talking of travelling . . . My daughter and grandson returned to Madrid last evening, on a (post-‘bridge’) Monday when all the trains were full and the price of a basic one-way ticket was €118, compared with €66-€93 next Monday. Roll on the competition from the Italian and French companies operating elsewhere in Spain. Maybe by 2030.

Another quote from Cees Noteboom’s ‘Roads to Santiago’: [After the 1984 death of the writer Julio Cortázar] During the next few days I see Latin sentiment working overtime. Perhaps it’s just nostalgia, or indeed envy, but it does seem to me that writers are truly cherished as public property in this country – Mario Benedetti, Gabriel García Márquez, other, less famous names – pouring in from the far corners of the Spanish world come mourning, memories, grief. And again I am overwhelmed by the enormity of that linguistic domain stretching from Tierra del Fuego to Los Angeles, and the pivotal function therein, even today, of Spain and Madrid.

Ireland

This is another article in which the writer predicts the end of Ireland’s alleged ‘freeloading’on the global economy. The blunt truth is that Ireland has turned itself into a parasite on the global economy – and sooner or later it will quite rightly face a clampdown. Wishful thinking?

The USA

A judge has placed a gagging order on Donald Trump. Will it make a blind bit of difference?

Quote of the Day

To deny that men can become women is the modern equivalent of denying that a wafer of bread and a cup of wine became the flesh and blood of Christ during Mass. If you deny the magic of transgenderism, you will be subjected to a similar wild-eyed fury that was once visited upon those who denied the magic of transubstantiation.

The Way of the World

A couple of pertinent questions:-

• Do Israel’s critics understand evil?
• Why won’t the Jews just let themselves be killed?

And a third . . . Is it the fundamental – though unstated – view of many/most of Israel’s critics that Israel should never have been created in 1948, in any form whatsoever?

And a fourth . . . If so, it this driven by sympathy for the Palestinians or by anti-Semitism?

Spanish

Ropa vieja: Literally, ‘old clothes’. Leftovers. Or meat stew, apparently.

Did you know? . . .

These are said to be cheap ways of dealing with a bedbug infestation.

Finally . . .

It might well be that – with the departure of Canadian relatives – my summer influx of visitors has come to an end. Though it’s possible a final foreigner will arrive tomorrow. So, now I can plan for another road trip – through Portugal – in November. Which I’m hoping – weatherwise – will be the new October down there.

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.