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

Another pleasant (2 hour) drive from Gerés to Chaves yesterday – hilly, twisty and slowish but pretty.

Chaves has a delightful old quarter but it’s astonishingly dilapidated in parts. This, for example, is very close to the town hall:-

On the other hand, some scenes in the old quarter are quite delightful

Travel Notes

There must be money coming into a city blessed with thermal spas – our hotel has 9 floors – but clearly not enough to finance large scale gentrification, as in Pv city’s old quarter. Or perhaps no one wants to live in the narrow-streeted old quarter these days.

We eventually found last night one of the 3 restaurants we were looking for there and enjoyed a dinner of regional specialities, and an excellent bottle of Douro red wine. But they didn’t offer the delicacy – pastel de Chaves – that we’d wanted to try. But there was a small version of this in the hotel’s breakfast buffet and we did stumble late morning today on one of the places we’d failed to find last night and bought a couple of the standard version. Rather like large sausage roll, but more tasty.

Being in Portugal, last night’s restaurant was deathly quiet and my friend and I could have heard each other whisper, if we’d wanted to. Always an astonishing contrast with nearby Spain.

The streets of the old quarter were similarly silent and virtually empty of people at 8pm. Though there was slightly more life in what might well be a ‘restaurant quarter’ down near the Ponte de Trajano – Trajan’s Bridge – and alongside the river Tagus. Things were not much different during daylight this morning.

Chaves has a military museum and a Roman baths museum, both of which we enjoyed visiting. But we could only manage one of the city’s 60 churches/convents – the Egreja Matiz, dedicated to Santa María Maior, of course. Or we would have done, if it had been open. But there was a splendidly tiled church a few metres away, in the old quarter’s main square.

Chaves is on Portugal’s Camino Interior, which runs from Farminhão, near Viseu to join up with the Camino de la Plata in Spain not long after the border town of Vilarelho da Raia. We haven’t seen any obvious pilgrims in Chaves so far. Or, indeed, any obvious foreigners apart from ourselves.

Cosas de España

Two interesting, and contrasting, developments from Andalucía:-

• Fines of up to €600,000 for raking it in from illegal tourist lets, and
• And grants for investment in certain properties.

It dawned on me in the quiet Portuguese restaurant last night how much of an impediment Spain’s noisiness is to the learning of conversational Spanish. It’s almost impossible to listen to – let alone engage in – a very loud conversation in a bar or restaurant, meaning that one gives up. And so loses the opportunity.

Germany

Hard to believe that the trains there are even worse than the worst in the UK.

Trump

Lunacy unbridled . . . Days after suggesting he is above the law, Donald Trump declared himself “king” following his administration’s push to strike down new tolls for Manhattan drivers to raise funds for the city’s aging mass transit system. “CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD,” he wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday. “Manhattan and all of New York is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!” The White House’s X account then shared his statement with a mock cover of Time magazine featuring a portrait of the president wearing a crown with the caption “long live the king.”

Stephen Colbert addresses here Trump’s claim to be a king and his distraction ploy of talking about checking on gold in Fort Knox.

So, why does he get away with his endless inanities and insanities? Well . . . In a 2016 book Democracy for Realists, the authors provide ample evidence that people are too busy living their lives to be all that good at holding government to account. They show convincingly that people are not very well informed about politics, don’t have consistent views on issues, don’t assemble coherent suites of views, have little idea what is practicable and have a short memory. We are ready to blame politicians for errors but aren’t sure Voters are mainly concerned with economic satisfaction. When there are scandals, politicians often respond with complicated measures to increase transparency. Worthwhile as these are, they never work to increase trust. Trust is instead directly related to how well-off people feel. And voters can support a clearly corrupt and oppressive liar if the economy is prospering. This is all very rational, if depressing. 

How many laws has Trump already violated, asks the NY Times.

People outside the USA don’t vote for its presidents and didn’t vote for Trump. But they can, in their billions, vote with their feet and with their wallets. I see Trump causing a (semi)worldwide boycott of US goods and services which no increases Russian purchases will compensate for. Or is this wishful thinking? It’s certainly not hard to envisage a big hit on tourism receipts.

Meanwhile, it’s good to see that his ratings among American are falling to unprecedented levels.

Russia v Ukraine

Hardly surprising that the Russian media is rejoicing at the ‘success’ of the ‘friendly meeting in Riyadh.

Quotes

• We are told repeatedly by Trump’s circle that he does not really mean what he says, or that we should not overreact to what he is very clearly doing. Let us hope they are right, but it is becoming harder by the day to have confidence in such assurances, or to believe that either Republicans or plutocrats will lift a finger to stop him.
• The fundamental problem with Trump’s Cabinet appointments is that MAGA is less a political movement than a rehab facility for charlatans and the cancelled.
• Will Trump sanction nations for trying to do something about CO2 emissions?  Probably.

AI

An AI engine proved useful in giving us the names last night of 3 places where we could get the Chaves delicacy but then proved useless at giving us their correct addresses. Of course, I have no idea why this happens but it was odd that 2 of the wrong addresses turned out to be barbers. Maybe that’s a clue.

My thanks to those readers who take the trouble to Like my posts.

The Usual Links . . .

• You can get my posts by email as soon as they’re published. With the added bonus that they’ll contain the typos I’ll discover later. I believe there’s a box for this at the bottom of each post. If you do this but don’t read the posts, I will delete your subscription. So perhaps don’t bother if you have other reasons for subscribing . . .
• 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.
• 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. And this is something on the so-called Beckham Rule, which is beneficial – tax-wise – for folk who want to work here. Finally, some advice on getting a mortgage. And this article ‘debunks claims re wealth and residency taxes’. Probably only relevant if you’re a HNWI. In which case, you’ll surely know what that stands for.