Thursday 14 June 2012

Google translate

Google translate has been a brilliant thing over the last 7 months, it has helped me get all sorts of information and stuff from the chemist, tourist office, bank, post office and pet shop. However, today I tested the extremities of its range and carefully wrote out in Portugese what I needed from the friendly vet in Marinha Grande. I tried to pronounce it - just got blank stares, so I handed over my little scrap of paper with my neatly written out and, I thought, polite request - the stares back at me went from merely blank to shoulder shrugging incomprehension. Eventually a lovely veterinary nurse who spoke a little bit of English (more than my non-existent Portugese anyway), came out and after a short conversation we were all sorted with the correct item. So, what I wanted to say on my little note was "Please could I purchase a worm tablet for my dog?" What I think my Google translated note said was "May I please purchase some earthworms to feed to my dog?" Oh well Google translate, it's been lovely and I'm sorry I gave you a task too far, I'll stick to easier subjects from now on.

Wednesday 13 June 2012

Sao Pedro de Moel

It got a bit wet and windy in Guithary, so we packed up and drove down to Portugal. The drive took us diagonally across the northwest area of Spain. Lots of wind, very flat and a bit featureless (apart from the many wind farms). We had an overnight stop in Belmonte in northern Portugal and then arrived at Sao Pedro on Monday. We last visited this place in 1996, it's a lovely little village on the west coast and the campsite is set amongst a pine forest that is called the Pinhal de Leiria. It was planted at the request Dom Dinis about 700 years ago to protect farmland from the inward march of sand dunes, it is a huge national park now and the tall pines provide shade and a fresh fragrance. The campsite hasn't changed much at all since we last visited. It's a chilled out, relaxed place. It's not very busy at the moment as the season doesn't really start until July. Paul had a bit of a surf today that turned into an adventure, but as he's going to blog about it I'll leave that particular story for him to tell. There was a Euro match on tonight, Portugal v Denmark, the Portugese are clearly as obsessed with football as the Brits as there were huge cheers to be heard from the village when Portugal scored. Portugal won thank goodness! We went on a great bike ride along the coast this morning and there are lots of bike trails through the pine forest that we'll try out this week. The weather here is sunny and warm, but not too hot, perfect for biking and beaching. Sorry to read that the UK is having very heavy rainfall and serious flooding at the moment. I hope the summer starts soon for all you Brits.

Friday 8 June 2012

Pays Basque

We left Brittany on the 1st June and headed south. We stopped overnight at Ile de Re and I had my first bowl of moules mariniere on this trip. Then we headed to Hossegor and checked out the surf beaches, wild and windy! We stayed overnight in the cheap camping-car area with all the other 'snow-birds' and had a wander around town the next morning. Lovely, chilled-out place. We arrived at Guitary 4 days ago, a little town right in the heart of the Pays Basque. It's about 3 miles from Biarritz. The town is lovely and there is a fantastic Basque church with incredible sea views. The beaches are empty, sandy and relaxing and the water is warm. Biarritz and St Jean de Luz are both great. St Jean is a lively city with a gorgeous harbour and great beaches. We watched 4 intrepid people surfing in an out-rigger this morning which was very entertaining. It looked like lots of fun with little control (shouldn't life always be like that?). The food here is delicious, red peppers and chilli with everything and loads of tasty fish. We saw some kids playing pelota a couple of days ago, fastest game in the world apparently. They must have been about 8/9 years old and they were already extremely competent players, I guess it's in the blood here. It's so nice here in the Basque country that we'll probably stay a bit longer and then aim for San Sebastian and Bilbao. Pip pip for now!