Where's Bertie? He's in a municipal Aire in the town of Ceuti. Exact location: 38.08159, -1.26652.
Weather: Gloriously sunny and warm
Everything was packed away, we'd used the service point and the engine was running when I programmed our destination into the SatNav. 1.3km it said. That couldn't be right! I consulted Google: 1.2km, it said. I knew we were going to a neighbouring town, but if I'd realised it was that close, we would have left Bertie where he was and walked. As it was, we started our day with the smallest nightstop-to-nightstop journey we've ever made.
One of the options considered when we realised the proximity of our destination was to omit it entirely and find somewhere further afield to go. We're now glad we didn't. Whilst Ceuti may share many of Lorqui's characteristics (a lot of abandoned houses and building projects in various stages of decay), it's a bigger and more interesting place, all (apparently) thanks to a mayor who was elected in 1979 and is now the longest serving mayor since democracy returned to Spain. Recognising that the town lacked in visual appeal, his idea was to bring art and sculpture to the streets.
Unfortunately there isn't a tourist office in town and we couldn't find any consolidated source of information, either on a board in the town or on t'internet, that set out the locations of all of the works. However, we did find enough information for a couple of walks today that have taken us comprehensively through the main bits of the town and the back streets. Here are a few collages of most of what we saw:
A couple of the works, including this mural, had an embedded wifi hotspot via which we were able to listen to an audio description.
We wondered about the history of the chimneys when we were in Lorqui yesterday, then we saw more today. It turns out that they belonged to the canning factories for which these two towns were once known.
Our first stroll started about three minutes after we arrived at the Aire, at which point we knew nothing about the existence of any of this. That outing spanned elevenses time, so we popped into a busy bakery/cakery/cafe in the main square. I do hope that when I queried the bill as we paid that they didn't think I suspected an overcharge, as quite the opposite was true. I couldn't believe we'd really just had two excellent cups of fresh coffee plus a tostada each for a grand total of €3.
Snap taken half way through the tostadas. The inside of the cafe was split into two rooms. In our room there was also a table of four old chaps, a table of four young women and another couple. The volume of the chatter amongst so few people was quite something!
As for the Aire, there are officially seven spaces (as it happens, we're in one of them), but the entire car park has been taken over by motorhomes. I counted 46 - some of them absolutely enormous. By far the largest representation of any country is Sweden. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen so many Swedish motorhomes in one place.
Hey, why not take up half the roadway with your solar panels?! Why not run your noisy generator too?
From what I've read, this car park was surplus to requirements, and being tucked away in amongst industrial units, it seems a particularly suitable place to put an Aire. There are few people passing and no houses or flats overlooking it to be offended by the collection of white boxes and the amount of flesh on display as their occupants sunbathe.
You'd have thought that today's top bargain would have been the coffees and toast for €3, but then we bought a bag of four huge peppers for 50c. With what we already had in the fridge, we are now slightly overrun with peppers.
Weather: Gloriously sunny and warm
Everything was packed away, we'd used the service point and the engine was running when I programmed our destination into the SatNav. 1.3km it said. That couldn't be right! I consulted Google: 1.2km, it said. I knew we were going to a neighbouring town, but if I'd realised it was that close, we would have left Bertie where he was and walked. As it was, we started our day with the smallest nightstop-to-nightstop journey we've ever made.
One of the options considered when we realised the proximity of our destination was to omit it entirely and find somewhere further afield to go. We're now glad we didn't. Whilst Ceuti may share many of Lorqui's characteristics (a lot of abandoned houses and building projects in various stages of decay), it's a bigger and more interesting place, all (apparently) thanks to a mayor who was elected in 1979 and is now the longest serving mayor since democracy returned to Spain. Recognising that the town lacked in visual appeal, his idea was to bring art and sculpture to the streets.
Unfortunately there isn't a tourist office in town and we couldn't find any consolidated source of information, either on a board in the town or on t'internet, that set out the locations of all of the works. However, we did find enough information for a couple of walks today that have taken us comprehensively through the main bits of the town and the back streets. Here are a few collages of most of what we saw:
Our first stroll started about three minutes after we arrived at the Aire, at which point we knew nothing about the existence of any of this. That outing spanned elevenses time, so we popped into a busy bakery/cakery/cafe in the main square. I do hope that when I queried the bill as we paid that they didn't think I suspected an overcharge, as quite the opposite was true. I couldn't believe we'd really just had two excellent cups of fresh coffee plus a tostada each for a grand total of €3.
As for the Aire, there are officially seven spaces (as it happens, we're in one of them), but the entire car park has been taken over by motorhomes. I counted 46 - some of them absolutely enormous. By far the largest representation of any country is Sweden. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen so many Swedish motorhomes in one place.
From what I've read, this car park was surplus to requirements, and being tucked away in amongst industrial units, it seems a particularly suitable place to put an Aire. There are few people passing and no houses or flats overlooking it to be offended by the collection of white boxes and the amount of flesh on display as their occupants sunbathe.
Better bargains than my local Booths. Nearly all fresh fruit and veg is on for example £2, or 2 for £3.50 type of deal. I am single - I don't want two of something the second of which I will boringly have to eat more than once in a row or keep it until it has gone stale or worse until I have to chuck it, and if I only buy one I feel I am being penalised for being single. I have mentioned this to others who generally don't seem to see eye to eye with me implying that I am being unreasonably critical of what they see as a good idea - chacun à son goût.
ReplyDeleteWe are completely in agreement with you. That sort of deal is a recipe for people buying things they don't need (hence why the supermarkets favour the model!) and for creating waste.
DeleteWe usually shop in the 'discount' supermarkets (usually Lidl) which don't employ that sort of offer, but sometimes our travels dictate the use of the 'mainstream' supermarkets where I've often ranted about multibuy deals. Just a few weeks ago we found ourselves leaving Morrisons without most of the things we'd gone in for, because we didn't want two of everything and refused to be penalised for buying just one.