Across Spain, Through Chaos, Into Italy
5th May
We packed the car and started through the streets of Pamplona, heading for Barcelona on the non-toll roads.
Google Maps suggested 5 hours or so.
As we headed towards Nuezla… a destination I had no knowledge of, on a road which I had not even considered. It was satisfying that sometimes you just need to let it happen… explore, discover. A lazy way of saying… you have given in to Google Maps! And hoped for the best.
Cocooned in a mist, we drove on a perfect road bereft of traffic. It was a sort of Asgard landscape of green and mountains created for some game. A derelict village with castle appeared some 30 kilometres in. It might have been from the battle of Helm’s Deep after the attack of the orcs. A mini ruin which needs using as a set for something medieval featuring the plague. Somehow Rutger Hauer would have looked good, or that bloke from Highlander. The stone was sandstone or yellowed limestone… or something only Farrow and Ball could conjure… mottled savanna.
It sat to the right of the road as we headed south.
Truly a magical ruin.
Mountains to the left must be the slopes of the Pyrenees.
A great manmade lake now appeared on the right, azure and deep from heavy rain. It must go for at least 10 kilometres before it disgorges into a wide river which you catch glimpses of. I don’t fish, but you could imagine with the rain we have experienced the fish must be abundant and loving it. A sort of Windermere without development and pollution. Sorry old Windermere… this Spanish equivalent has me writing about it… not Wordsworth or Southey.
This new Scalextric road has gone for 60 km before it becomes a winding older road facing a hilltop with a town on a plateau. Still a great surface, bereft of potholes… no army or NHS to pay here!! And the EU probably kicks in more dosh.
The fields have pinkish red flowers with red poppies. Is it a sort of heather?
It creates a Hockney-esque picturesque, hyper-real grey and pink and lime, with contrasting darker green. It shouldn’t work, but nature beats even Hockney with his iPad.
As we move on, the road flattens to cross the valley on a single-track grey metal bridge. It looks like something you might see in the USA. Wrought iron… perfect for carrying a steam train. It crosses the torrent of the river which I now realise flows into the lake rather than from it. It is roaring, flecked foam against a green and turquoise avalanche of fresh H2O.
We ascend into a magnificent gorge with hardly any traffic.
Spectacular and a real treat.
Ross observes that this twisting road goes on for umpteen kilometres and it gets better as we see the massive molten forms of reddish coloured tongues of conglomerate reaching skyward. These are called Los Mallos de Riglos.
The government is doing roadworks and great incomplete slabs of white concrete lay next to the route.
We are delayed for 10 minutes as we catch up with a hearse, of all vehicles. It had seemed in a hurry when we had seen it earlier, but this delay of minutes gives some respite for whoever might be in the back… or indeed waiting to be its next passenger. The great M stands for memoria, I gather.
As we fall out of the mountains there are adverts for mountaineering and kayaking. No doubt this gorge must be fun to navigate for the canoeists.
We reach Huesca and head on decent roads. The pink crop returns in all its glory.
The Pyrenees to the left extend for miles.
Barcelona is not even noted on the signs. Lleida comes up on the right after we have refuelled.
The price is good at 1.45 euros a litre.
It would have been nice to pop in to see Benjy, but I couldn’t deliver his enormous expensive painting… so it would have been embarrassing. Also, if it gets stolen out of the car we would have had a double problem.
Sometimes you just have to keep focused.
As we approach Barcelona, the traffic increases even at 50 km out.
The mountains in the distance again are magnificent. Monte something… or Montjuïc… well, the area is dominated by them and gives name to the place. Almost silver coloured, with platinum streaks of sun, the pillowed rocks tumble upwards into the clouds. The voluminous cumulonimbus with stormy intent are great pillows for the rocks to nestle into.
The traffic some 5 km from the Grimaldi ferry terminal is now nose to tail.
I have to say it is good natured and shows that humans can grin and bear adversity together without horns or mindless road rage.
Google is doing its best to take us down a corkscrew of switchbacks at the docks.
Before that we see the statue of Columbus on his column… a ditty to Nelson’s Column. I wonder which statue was first. I know 1492 predates 1805.
We rock up at the Grimaldi offices and café. Agreeably massively early, we get our tickets and park up. It’s uncomplicated… not AI… a human takes our passports to establish we are who we say we are and bang, you have the tickets. We park up opposite the security gate where we think we might enter the holding compound for the aptly named Grim Aldi ferry.
A dodgy bit of pizza and a cappuccino is our reward at the café.
We wait while a small white dog with a matching owner has a beer. The dog looks on.
Two bald, matching Grimaldi engineers bestraddle the bar in orange overalls. I say they look like brothers. One vouches he is the intelligent one. I laugh… I guess he was… no rejoinder from his bald brother-in-arms. Both appear like Lego characters in the Grimaldi Lego set for ferries.
We are finally let into the compound and watch the bikers assemble. A group of Roma Indian bikers have matching jackets. Their bikes are steampunk monsters, in contrast to giant BMW and Kawasaki growlers or fat-tyred juggernauts. Everyone is nose to tail in gear to protect from rain. All are oldish… grey on the road, to hell with Meat Loaf on their minds.
A quartermaster Grimaldi female adjutant barks out orders for more precision. Better stacking in a small place. A chap in a yellow vest scans our tickets and we get a green sticker stuck on our car. He scours the cars looking for screens missed. Of course he needs a smoke.
We are finally asked to load on the ferry, which we think is bound for Palermo. Civi is the half stop for us. We are loaded up ramps which must be 25% slope. Certainly not for the faint-hearted driver. I have no idea how the trucks do this. Experience and a death wish. It’s also very dark and it’s obvious grim is the apt name. Grim Reaper ferries might be more apt.
The cabin is fine…
The boat is glitzy and a bit more aged than its new Brittany ferry equivalent.
Ross nobly takes the bunk bed while I have a big double. Thank you, Ross.
We both have a G and T before we crash.
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6th May
a day with some sunshine and dodgy pre-purchased food awaits. It really is old-fashioned cafeteria-style service and food. No frills at all. Think Blackpool without rock and hats… lasagne and fish and chips for lunch!!
We bump into this Bulgarian truck driver. He can’t get sugar for his coffee because he has the basic breakfast package! We have booked the business breakfast, which means we get yoghurt added. We feel sort of cool because we got the less basic breakfast, which is still, urgh… basic.
Anyhow, our Bulgarian driver had all the conspiracy theories of the world to recount… ’69 moon landing not happening, Diana being killed by MI6.
He had worked in the UK in 2017 picking cabbages in Lincolnshire. He had shopped at Morrisons and considered all UK food shit.
It was interesting, his view on Schengen, because he recounted that so many immigrants bound for Britain were let into Bulgaria by corrupt, mafia-paid officials. Also, he replayed the French view of Britain with immigrants.
“Don’t give them anything, they are attracted by the benefits… as are the crime lords who sell them the crossings.”
He was full of warnings of Muslims taking over the place.
It just made me think of Bulgaria also as a country bereft of young people, run by crime lords. A beautiful country with only 6 million people.
He slept in his lorry. No thank you.
But everything he said wasn’t entirely untrue.
As we got into our car for the disembarkation, the lady in the car in front looked around bewildered. Well, she might. She was far too sensible for this ferry malarkey.
We had to reverse into an area and then descend down a long ramp. The guy who loaded us on was either pissed, on drugs, or simply new to the job.
All the camper vans and lorries had gone. The bikes had blasted off with a cacophonous roar through the canister-like innards of the grim monster. We now left the void to be refilled with humanity bound for lucky Palermo.
Still, the guys helping get people off were now getting bored.
It was quite chaos dockside.
Half trucks, like something off Alien without Sigourney Weaver, whizzed around while massive loaded trucks disgorged regardless of cars in the way.
Raining and muddy conditions added to the joy. The reflections of high-voltage halogens beamed out. They left black spots adjacent to areas of heavy light which pierced into your cranium.
The odd sign directed you.
It was an Orwellian bête noire set, or Peaky Blinders on steroids… it didn’t have the belching fire of Dante, mind you.
We went wrong and came back on ourselves before splurging out of Civi towards Grosseto. I hate being misdirected… but couldn’t see either.
It was grim at the docks for the Grimaldi docking… a sort of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly if Sergio Leone had his movie naming hat on.
We headed along a dark road with hard roadworks until we were directed left to head towards Viterbo. Winding, with speed cameras. The road mercifully bereft of vehicles.
We head onward towards Salus Terme… passing signs for Saturnia.
On pulling up to the small roundabout in front of our hotel, we asked inside if it was OK to put our luggage on the trolley.
Gian Marco was very sympathetic and even moved his car so we might stay nearer to the hotel. He upgraded our rooms and even said we could go to the spa. I cannot have higher praise.
We were also trying to keep an eye on the second leg of the football, where PSG were beating Bayern.
We went upstairs to the rooms.
I got the Five Live commentary and heard Kane had equalised. Somehow Kane is the sort of person you might depend on. Even the 75 thousand Bayern supporters roared out his name.
They had drawn… so out of the cup… but I thought positively of Kane, German fans, the big picture they had put out. Football in a positive light had to be good because so many people like it.
I had some tea… English breakfast… it kept me awake.
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7th May
I woke, had a shower and cleaned my teeth.
It was 7:15 and I drew the curtains to reveal a balcony which looked out on some very sculptural trees. They looked like giant bonsai in a mist which moved eerily.
I got dressed and texted Ross that I would go to breakfast.
Gian Marco was not on reception… and somehow it wasn’t as friendly. It was, but it wasn’t.
Anyhow, I realised how enormous this place is. It is also caught in a sort of bling time warp. The guys waiting on were in black and white, like something out of a Noël Coward play in the 1930s.
But they weren’t as sharp. Jeeves would have told them all to get their suits properly pressed, etc.
Anyhow, there was a lot for breakfast… most of it well-meaning but odd.
I tried the cereal dispenser… it was one with the wheel. It simply crushed the cereal like you were grinding flour in a windmill. I popped off the top and hand-spooned the stuff out.
So and so forth.
Stodgy pastries, not cooked enough… but good if they had been.
A big round of cheese that was probably great… but wasn’t soft Parmigiano… but hard-as-nails Parmesan you might attack with crampons and an ice axe. The moon come to earth.
I tried a soft-boiled egg in a cup, but it was hard… but they had no small spoons.
I finally found some next door… this place was big.
A fellow guest was explaining how they wanted their coffee. I have to say the coffee machine appeared OK to me, but I am a tea man. But the poor waiter got a lecture on decaf mocha with milk from the lesser-spotted mongoose.
Anyhow, he returned and the young lady appeared placated.
Another interesting event was the pattern made by ants on the floor. It was happening by the food and this lady in her bathrobe was pointing it out.
We didn’t know the bathrobes at this point signified hardcore thermal bath attendees who wanted to suck the living daylights out of the place. They might have been already in the pools before breakfast getting up to all sorts.
I was thinking… where is David Attenborough when you need him. Not for the humans… but the ants.
Anyhow, the ant destruction team turned up and they were popped onto a large red shovel.
Everyone looked at the floor as if the ants had somehow dematerialised like in Star Trek. Maybe they had.
Now there’s a thought!!
How nobody had the presence of mind to notice the ants building a sort of kingdom makes you wonder.
But again, you get used to putting the stuff out if you wore a penguin outfit which wasn’t pressed. Who cares about the obvious.
That said, it was amusing.
We convinced the Gian Marco substitute that the real Gian Marco had said we could enter the inner sanctum, and had given us free passes for the spa. He had, and it made me feel positive about the place, actually.
The spa was natural. Warm pools of decent natural water with calcium carbonate build-up. Like a Mother Shipton cave à la Italia… without the Knaresborough accent, eh up.
There was a steam bath and a cave which had a statue. If only we had some sacrifice or chanting going on… only joking. But it was atmospheric.
We got robes and I had a job fitting my XL. Ross got the 3XL. We only deduced this later on. Thickos, or what!!
By the way, the lady who gave us the necessary gear of towels, etc., was rather large. Maybe more than 3XL. She was very pleasant, but it definitely recalibrated my idea of spas being healthy.
We completed our spa whatever and it was very good.
We went back to reception and Gian Marco was back. The real one.
He asked if we had enjoyed the spa. We gave the affirmative.
He had said we could check out late, but we did not want to take the mickey, so we got the car and put the stuff in.
We retired for a sandwich and Aperol spritz, and we then saw that this place years back had everybody from the Italian film world visiting it.
One of the numerous corridors was a sort of hall of fame from the 60s and 70s. Marlon Brando, Francis Ford Coppola, Claudia Cardinale, Dustin Hoffman.
All looking glamorous in a way the modern stars can’t touch. Even Jack Nicholson looked good… but not as good as Britt Ekland.
It was famous in a way, and you might say it retained a bit of the star quality… faded… but with kindness like Gian Marco, it goes a long way.
We texted our next accommodation, which is near Lake Bolsena.
I gave Gian Marco one of the brochures from the exhibition.
On the way, I stopped while Ross popped into a supermarket for some provisions.
In the afternoon, I was assailed with stuff. Work, sacking the accountants, insurance in France… you name it.
It was like Santa’s little email sack of brown stuff had reached overspill point. I was the recipient of the brown payload, which I flushed away, hoping it did not pollute the lake.
In the evening, the sun was going down over Lake Bolsena and you could see why the chap had built this lovely house we were now staying in.
Olive trees, bats, the multiple colours of the beautiful life-giving sun all made for a technicolour end to the day.
You might say it refilled the pot of optimism one needs when faced with mediocrity.
What do I mean by this?
A bit of kindness and thinking of others goes a long way in business and in life in general.
When you see nature in all its glory, you realise we have complicated life a bit too much.
We had boiled eggs for tea. Once ensconced, it wasn’t worth moving.
It wasn’t overcomplicated… but the sulphur from this morning in the baths somehow was redolent in the eggs… maybe that supermarket wasn’t serving up the freshest of produce.
Hey ho.
Off to bed… what would the morning bring with those eggs!!
David Jackson
08.05.2026
