Zaragoza - Spain

The Aljaferia - Moorish Palace 

We had a week's holiday in Spain at the end of summer. I think Spain must be our favourite country in Europe, just going off how many times we have visited there. It's sitting at 3 times since we've been here, which is definitely the most-visited country. And I gotta say I can't see that changing anytime soon. It's such a great country, the weather is always good, the outdoors are great, the food and wine are all good, and so long as you plan it so that you can handle the 8:30pm mealtimes, you are set.

Courtyard in the Aljaferia

Some great designs in the palace

This time we were off to the Pyrenees, one of the gateways is Zaragoza, which is about 2 hours drive from the Pyrenees. And the best thing is that there are direct flights from Stansted, you gotta love what easyJet is doing for these little towns. I was pretty impressed with Zaragoza, it's the capital of Aragon, and nearly all the people in that region live there. The infrastructure in this place is incredible, way better than anything London has, and it all looks brand new, huge highways, massive train station, enormous airport. I'm not sure where they get the money from, apparently it's the 5th contributor to Spain's GDP, but I think there may be a bit of a gap between these top 5 regions.

Good ceiling in the Golden Hall

The runway in Zaragoza is something to be seen, it is massive. It was earmarked as a contingency site if the space shuttle had to abort. That gives you some idea as to how big this runway is. And yet when you come in from Stansted it's just your plane, on this massive tarmac. If I had been allowed, I would have definitely have taken a photo.

There are probably two main attractions in the town, the Aljaferia and the Basilica del Pilar. We visited the Aljaferia first, it's a Moorish palace built in the 11th century. It's been massively restored and now it's where the Aragonese parliament is housed. Pretty nice surrounds for a parliament. After visiting this I am really keen to go to Granada as this was a pretty cool palace, but I think the Alhambra is another level. It's strange to think that Arabs were so far north in Europe, just on the other side of the Pyrenees from France. But after the Romans fell I guess there was a bit of a power vacuum in Aragon.

The moorish architecture really seems to suit Spain, you have this fierce heat and then these green courtyard full of water. Running around the courtyards are these lovely cool corridors, everything is open so there is always a nice breeze, and just looking out over the water seems somehow cooling. They did have some good ceilings too, these really decorated ceilings, with golden pineapples, I'm not sure what they symbolise.

The amphitheatre ruins

Zaragoza has a really great old town, I would not have picked that without going there. These tiny little alley-ways full of tapas restaurants. It was here that I decided I really have to learn a bit of Spanish, even if it's just enough to order food. We tried to order what someone else was having, and ended up with just a plate of breadcrumbs. They were good breadcrumbs, but still it wasn't quite what we were expecting.

I also didn't appreciate how much of a Roman city Zaragoza was, it's name comes from CaeserAugustus which was what the Romans called it. And there are some great ruins here, which they have done up really well. There is the Amphitheatre, which was huge, the market place and sewers and the baths. I'm not sure where all the money comes to restore these ruins to such a high degree, the amphitheatre really was amazing. And it's right in the middle of houses. Also they went over the whole history of the town, not just the Roman period, so you got a feel of how the city has changed.

A small section of the Basilica

 Perhaps what is most famous about this town in Spain is the main church, the Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar. The story goes that Mary appeared to James the apostle and gave him a column of jasper and a statue of herself and told him to build a church in her honour. It is this column and statue which, supposedly, are still in the church today. When we visited there was a massive line of people to kiss the statue, but it wasn't as if a special big deal was made of it. It was kind of around the back from the tabernacle, I was kind of expecting it to be inside the tabernacle, but it's actually just in a wall.

It was a fun little break before our main holiday in Spain - the Pyrenees!

Mountain Trail Challenge

Looking back to Pen-y-Fan

After our successful Skye trip Dave and I were looking for another challenge, but one that combined hiking with competition, because we just haven't done enough of that, or in fact any. Surprisingly enough it does actually exist, we were searching around the web and we found the Mountain Trail Challenge. To be honest, they are very clear in saying that they aren't a race, but I can inject competition into anything.

You can do either 20 or 30 miles through the Brecon Beacons. Having never been to the Beacons, even though they are pretty close to London, 2 hours on a train + 40mins by car, we couldn't really say no. We chose the 20 miler - that's 32km. It's a pretty easy 32km though, you have one major uphill - Pen-y-Fan, which is definitely a good climb. But the track is really good the whole way round, and navigation is not an issue. The organisers did such a great job marking the turns that you didn't really need the map or the route notes. I was surprised at how many people there were, there must have been 500 people out there.

Coming off Pen-y-Fan

It did have a really good feeling, and the route was a good one. It only took us 7hours and 40mins, which for 32kms is not bad. Quite a contrast with the 12 hours that we took in Skye. What a difference a good track and minimal ascent has. It was also good training for next week, where we are off camping in the Grand Canyon.

The lowest point was when I realised I was getting blisters on the balls of my feet. I've never had that before, and it wasn't due to any rubbing since they were totally fine 2 days later. I think it was just due to the pressure on the feet. We were really smashing out the kms and I think my feet just started to rebel. I am usually a soft office worker after all. It did make the last 5kms less than fun, but once they were drained everything was fine.

The long slog up Pen-y-Fan

The only downside to the whole event was since the race is held from the National Park visitor's centre, which has a cafe on site, they couldn't offer any food at the end. Normally with these sorts of events there would be a big hash house where you could get a plate of something and relax with everyone else who had finished. But they weren't allowed to do that because of the cafe. And the worst thing was the cafe stopped serving food at 4pm, so we couldn't even get anything to eat when we finished. Kind of sucky on the visitors centre part.

A well-earned rest

I think if I was to do it again I might try the 30 miler and try and run a bit of it. There were a few groups which were obviously running it, you just travel really light and keep moving. I think so long as the weather is nice you could do that no worries. Would be a pretty tough day, but I wonder if the hurty-feet syndrome I sometimes get is just down to the hours on the feet, and that if I did it quicker they would hurt less. Of course it's entirely possible that if I ran 30 miles places other than my feet would be hurting a lot more!

The Brecon Beacons are pretty famous in the UK purely because it's where the British Army train. And they really do train there, we saw a lot of army people slogging up Pen-Y-Fan, we only had to carry a day pack. They had to carry massive overnight backpacks, and a gun (I'm not sure if it was a real gun). Though after having walked there, it didn't seem that tough, it's got those gentle, rolling British hills, and it's also very open, not much chance of falling down a cliff. Though last year a couple of army reservists died out there, I think it was dehydration, which goes to show, if things go bad, anywhere outdoors can be dangerous.

Old Man Of Storr

The Old Man of Storr

The day after the epic Trottenish Ridge walk we were really not up to much. We did have to drive to the other end of the island for the following day's walk, but we didn't want to spend all the time in the car.

Since the weather was much better that day (at least for Skye) we thought we may as well stop off at the Old Man and see what we missed out on yesterday. The walking couldn't have been more different from the previous day, then we had the whole place to ourselves. True we couldn't really see the rock formations, but we did have some solitude. The next day you could see the rocks but the place was seething. The tourists had definitely come out in force. In case you feel you are missing out on not seeing photos of the Quiraing, it was very similar to this area, except there the rocks were shaped in more of a amphitheatre formation, so very slightly curved around. The Old Man area was much more open.

The Old Man, with the Storr behind, shrouded in cloud

The Old Man is probably the most accessible "sight" in this part of Skye, so it's kind of weird that the first half an hour of the walk (before you can really see the Old Man) is through a post-apocalyptic hellscape. You walk through what used to be a picturesque pine forest, but that has all been clear-felled, so it's just stumps and logs and incredible boggy mud. Pretty weird to see all these tourists slogging through this really unpleasant section to get to the main attraction. Normally if you had such a great natural wonder, so close to the road, you would make it easy for people to get there, it would be a walking super-highway, people with prams would be able to get close enough to take a nice photo. It's a weird approach to tourism that the old Skye council has.

Just great rocks in Skye

Trottenish Ridge - Isle of Skye

Glorious views along the Trotternish Ridge

The walk we did the second day on the Isle of Skye has to be one of the best day walks I have ever done. It has everything you want in a great walk; distance, views, remoteness, variety, difficulty, navigation. It's going to be tough to get close to this walk anywhere else. If you have a chance to do it, take it, you will not regret it. It's 34kms long though, so be prepared, with I think 1800m cumulative ascent during the day, so it's going to be long and tough. But I think it's more than worth it.

Those skies and that ridge!

It was a fairly early start, I think we were walking by 8:30am, and that was after having caught a bus to the starting point. We started out in total fog. You couldn't see more than about 50m in front of you. It was a bit of a shame, since you start at the Old Man of Storr which is this collection of weird rock formations that we just couldn't see at all. The walk was meant to include an ascent up The Storr, which at a mighty 719m elevation is the highest point of the day. The fog was so bad though it was hard to find the route up. You would think it would be obvious to find the highest point, but it was a ridge walk, so The Storr is just one point of many along the ridge.

Finally able to see the route ahead

The fog slowly starting to lift

The first 2 hours were a bit tricky navigation wise, just because we couldn't see any features. There is no path once you are past the Old Man of Storr. Since you are trying to get up onto this ridge, there are not many places you can get up from the front. You are faced with cliffs and you want to get onto the top of these cliffs. On the other side the ridge slopes down quite gently, but you can't get onto that side without first going up the cliff. So we sort of had to walk round the back somehow, which meant finding a break in the cliffs to get up and around. It was a bit tricky to find it in the fog.

We did eventually find our way up, we knew once we hit the ridge we would be right for navigation for the rest of the day. It was a little freaky coming upon the edge of the ridge, as it just drops away from you, hundreds of metres, but you can't see that until you are right on top of it, thanks to the fog. You would peer off the edge and there would be this really strong up draft coming up at you and just rocks down to the bottom. Apparently this 30km long ridge was formed from a massive landslip, must have been something to see when it occurred. I was hoping that the fog would lift at some point, it would have been a very depressing day if it was that foggy for the whole way.

Starting to see hints of blue sky, with the great rock formations.

The fog starting to lift, with glimpses of the cliffs beyond

Thankfully it did eventually lift, around lunchtime. We had followed the ridge out to the hill of the red fox, I'm not sure why it was called that. It's this little outcrop that you reach along a very narrow slip of rocks. That was the most freaky bit, it was basically a foot wide, there was one very obvious place to put your feet. It wasn't very long, maybe 10m, and then it opened up to a small platform where we could sit and have a snack. To get there it felt like the ridge should continue on some way, but it was hard to see where it would go. At that point the fog started to lift every now and again, and we could tell we were actually on this little spit of an outcrop, and really the ridge continued on the other way. So we had to cross back the narrow promontory to continue on.

The undulations we had to contend with

Now this is why I came to Skye 

Once the fog had finally dispersed the sun really came out in full-force. We actually ended up getting a bit sun burnt, because given the conditions in the morning no one had bothered with suncream.

One of the other great things about this walk was the lack of people. I've never been on a walk with such a high awesome views to people ratio. We saw maybe 5 other people during the entire 34kms, 3 of which were all together and heading the other way, and the other 2 were just spotted in the distance walking somewhere else. There was nobody around for almost the entire 12 hours we were out there. Once we got towards the end there were more people, but on the ridge itself, nobody. I would come back to Skye purely for that solitude. Seriously, if anyone wants to do this walk, I would be there in a flash, definitely the best walk I have done in a long time.

Just great views everywhere you look

Does it get any better?

It did take us 12 hours to do the distance, I think the navigational issues in the first half of the day, along with the lack of path, really slowed us down. Plus the copious photo taking didn't really help, but how could I resist.

The end of the walk is through the Quiraing, which is very similar to the Old Man of Storr. So the walk had a nice feeling of closure, as if you were back at the beginning. It was this whole section of just freaky rock formations that you walked through. Unfortunately the light was no good by this stage, so the photos didn't really come out. I guess I'll just have to visit again in different conditions. The conditions on the ridge couldn't have been better, so I'll leave you with a few more.

It's like another world up in Skye

One last shot

Vienna

Natural History museum in Vienna

Vienna and Prague seem to go together, what with them historically being part of the same empire. So when we went to Prague, we decided to catch the train across to Vienna and spend some time there as well.

The Kunsthalle in Vienna

I was pleasantly surprised with Vienna. For some reason I kind of thought it would be boring with not much to show for itself. How wrong was I! I should have know given the might of the Austro-Hungarian empire that there would be some evidence of it's golden age. I mean they were intimately involved in the outbreak of the first world war after all.

Man their golden age must have been impressive going from the buildings still remaining. It also had a bit of a buzz to it, very slightly like Berlin, which I really wasn't expecting from an Austrian city. I always imagined Austria as the more provincial, conservative, lesser relative to Germany. Lets just say it wasn't quite that bad. I think they are quite conservative but that Vienna at least seemed to be going places.

It also continued the feeling of wealth that you had in Prague. We were staying a little bit out of the main old centre, but you had to walk through the museumsquartier to get to the old part of Vienna. Which is how I like to run my holidays, maximise the chance of coming across a great museum. And there are certainly a lot of them to see in this city. The main one is the Kunsthistorisches Museum, which contains a lot of art and Egyptian artifacts. You can't be a world power without pillaging Egypt at some point. I'm a little surprised now that there was anything left in the Cairo museum when we visited. The building itself is a work of art, marble all over the place, cornicing, pillars, paintings. It's got everything.

Weird trumpet thing at the musical instruments museum

We also went to the modern art museum, we turned up with not much time left in the opening hours. The ticket seller was a bit sad to take our money since I think she thought you needed at least a day to see everything there. I don't think she appreciated that not everyone visiting was a hard-core contemporary art museum aficionado. In fact that seemed to be a theme at Viennese museums. At the musical instruments and armour museum (strange combo I know) the guy lost it when we walked in with 1 hour to go. I really think he wanted to refuse to sell us tickets since apparently there was no way you could see everything in only an hour. We had to convince him that we were only interested in the instruments part, and that there was no other time we could visit before we would let us buy tickets. Pretty weird.

The main arena at the Spanish Riding School

When you are in Vienna you have to do a tour of the Spanish riding school, we didn't see a show or anything. I think you have to book a bit of a ways in advance to see that. But since we were the only English speaking visitors that day we got a private tour of the stables and the arena. So that was pretty good.

It's a very strange life these riders live. You start off as an apprentice working with an already trained horse, just sitting on the horse whilst someone else guides it. At that stage it's more the horse teaching you how to ride. After a few years you are allowed to start controlling the horse yourself and doing some of the more complicated movements, but still this is on a horse that is already trained in the school. After a few more years of that they are allowed to train a completely unbroken horse all the way through to the most complicated movements. This last step can take 4-6 years. It's only once a rider has accomplished this that they are considered a full rider in the school. That's some impressive training, almost as long to become a specialist surgeon!

I think there's a pretty high drop out rate in the apprentices, as you can imagine, though they don't really go into that during the tour. It's not as if they are even doing that much riding either, at least when they start. They'll only get maybe an hour a day on the horses, then the rest of it is caring for all the horses, cleaning the stables, that sort of thing. You would think you join the school because you love riding, then you don't seem to do that much of it. Doesn't sound like a great deal. I'm not sure the tour guide really appreciated my questions, because I would also have thought that someone who has trained at what is basically dressage for that long would be also out winning some major Olympic medals. But that didn't seem to be the case. It's not as if Austria is known as a horsing nation, Australia has won more horse event medals than they have.

Anyway it's a cool city, with a lot of museums and history. So definitely worth a visit.

Racing in Sherwood Forest

We did another one of our trail blazer races the other weekend. These are great purely because they give you an excuse to get out of London and into an awesome forest. This team really knows how to put on a great race, so well organised and always in such great locations. We took the train up to Doncaster on a Friday night. The trains up north are in a really weird state, it seems like there are two different train lines, one goes to Birmingham and takes ages, and the other goes to Doncaster and is a lot quicker. Only downside is that it's run by the First group, my most hated train company. Since we left it a bit late, it wasn't that much more to get first class tickets. And I do have to say the first class to Doncaster was one of the better ones, they will actually bring you a proper meal at your seat. Not just tea and biscuits, but a full 3 course meal if you so desire.

It did mean we had to sit next to this awesome upper class group travelling up to a wedding. Working for an Australian bank in London, it's not often that I am really exposed to the British class system. And this was just such a great group, they were drunk, and loud, and had the full accent thing going on, they would be on the phone to their daddy's who were off in the middle east driving Ferrari's or something. And then the person on the train serving them would have the real northern accent. It was just such a juxtaposition.

It reminded me of this really bad movie Dave and I had watched recently, Hollow, not a great movie. But the 4 main characters were these terrible upper-class twits who you were happy to see killed off in gruesome ways. It was kind of like the people on the train were off on a journey to recreate that movie.

Anyway the race was good, I was having a little battle with a lady the whole way round, she got me at the water stop and put in a bit of distance. But then about 500m from the finish she had stopped to walk! So I came past her right at the end, she obviously didn't want to give it up though, so there was a bit of a sprint to the finish. I think it was a draw in the end.

They do them through winter as well, except they have names like IceMan and MudMan, so I think they may be going for a different feel. Though to be honest it could be a completely different company putting those races on.

Isle of Skye - Day One

The cliffs of northern Skye

We did a bit of a walking holiday in Skye back in the beginning of summer. There is the beginnings of a long-distance walking route along the length of the island, the Skye Trail. It's not official and there are certainly no track markings along the way, or indeed even a track along most of it. But the photos we saw looked pretty stunning and we managed to find someone who would organise accommodation and transfers for us, as well as give us some walking notes. It's about a 3 hour drive to the very north of the island from Inverness. The roads were pretty good, we had heard about the single lane roads in Skye. But luckily the first day was on some good roads, managed to ease us into the weekend. We were also lucky in that there wasn't much traffic, I wonder how crazy it gets in the high season?

Inhospitable graveyard

Fences just fall off the edge of cliffs

Our first two nights were at Flodigarry, right up in the north of the island, there is not much further you can go. We got there kind of late in the day, having a long drive from Inverness, but we still managed to fit in a couple of kms of walking. The first section of the Skye trail is from Rubha Hunish to Flodigarry (I loved the names on this island). We got dropped off at the start by the owner of the hostel we were staying at that evening. There is no path to speak of, we just followed the cliffs round the headland and then back along to the hostel. The hostel owners definitely seem to be trying to drive the creation of the Skye Trail. They will go out and add route markers and try and get the route to go as close as possible to the hostel they own.

We really got a good feel for the wildness of the Skye landscape even in these few kilometres. It was blowing a gale, cold and raining on and off, it really didn't feel like somewhere you want to live. The cliffs and rocks are amazing, and whilst you wouldn't want to swim in the ocean the pounding of the waves against the cliffs really added to the atmosphere.

It was a good start to the walking, and the hostel we were staying at, whilst it was a real basic hostel, was right next door to this incredibly luxurious hotel so we could jump the fence and eat at their pub. Which was pretty nice after a couple of hours in the cold and wet.

Not much out there

Great cliffs, wouldn't want to mis-step in the mist