Tulips in Amsterdam

 I retired last year, and we wanted to do a trip to celebrate. However, what I really wanted to do was to go and see the tulip fields in Holland. Since the season is so short: from late March to mid May, we had to wait almost a year. It was worth it though!

We booked in advance: flights, hotel, tickets for Keukenhof Gardens (transport included) and for good measure, tickets for the Rijksmuseum. 

What we couldn't book was the weather. Amsterdam has its fair share of rain, and the day of the gardens it rained. Not all the time, but we didn't get dazzled by the sun either. The flowers themselves did the dazzling. 

There were a lot of people there; probably thousands. It really is an amazing place!

At the entrance

It's got a windmill and lots of tourists

I could post more photos of tulips.

Tulip fields

These won't show up so well, but surrounding the gardens are the fields; blocks of colour.

They let the tulips bloom then cut the flowers off son the strength goes into the bulb, which multiplies and grows bigger. We saw them from the plane on the way in but too far away to show much on a photo.

The best place to photograph the tulip fields is from the platform of the windmill, but there was a queue to go up when we came off the boat trip so we didn't bother; after 40 minutes on the canal we were a bit chilly and headed off to one of the pavilions to get coffee and Dutch apple pie (delicious)

More and more flowers!

And so on. More and more flowers, more and more tourists taking photos of flowers and/or self with flowers. It reminded me of Stonehenge; conpletely unique, completely overrun with tourists. I'm not complaining about the tourists, they are part of the show really. An amazing experience all round.

A walk by the river Ebro

 We went to the Ebro this afternoon to see a monument we'd spotted from the tram. It was just before six o'clock and as we looked, the light came on. It'sa map of Zaragoza on the river Ebro, from the time of the sieges, 1808 and 1809, and it's a monument to the thousands of people who died because of the sieges and were buried on the left bank of the river, just out of the city. 

Then we walked along the left bank to the old stone bridge. The basilica of el Pilar made a spectacular reflection in the water. 

Zaragoza 2023 Women's race

 On Sunday 22nd of October, thousands of women, many of us wearing pink t-shirts, went to the starting place for a gigantic race/run/walk. There were 13,000 of us and we had all previously enrolled to take part. It was sponsored and publicised by lots of big companies; I'm not sure how much of the money for the fees we paid went to the good causes of cancer research and violence against women, but whatever we did we were together and showing solidarity.

I didn't enter out of solidarity, I entered because I wanted to run in a big race. One of my husband's nieces, Alicia, kindly offered to run with me-I say kindly, because she's much younger and stronger than I am so it wasn't the same kind of challenge for her as it was for me. Although I'd done 5km races (two) I hadn't run with another person, and I'd never run that distance (6.4km) without walking a bit of the time.

The day started off bright and breezy. I got to the place I was going to meet Alicia far too early, from nerves and because I needed to pick up a piece of kit from my sister-in-law; (can you run a race if you've forgotten your sports bra?) 

The street was full of women and girls of all ages in pink t-shirts. We flowed up the road to the starting place and found our places in the line; you could choose: aiming to finish in 35 minutes, 45 minutes and....I suppose all the rest who would be walking. We went into the 35 minute slot simply because we couldn't get anywhere else, although my estimate was 45 minutes. 

The noise was incredible: music thumping through p.a. system so loud it made my chest vibrate. There were speeches, presentations and announcements. We jumped up and down when told to. We passed a long white and pink banner along over our heads so the drone could take a photo of it. 

Here's a video from Youtube; you won't see me in it!

Well, off we went, the serious athletes at the front and the rest of the runners weaving our way through the women walking at the front of the pack. The first part was quite complicated, because there really were a lot of women. My sister-in-law and niece, who were walking, said it took them ages to get started because of the volume of participants further back. It's a problem, because if everyone goes to the front, as some of the walkers did, they slow the runners' start. There's a lesson of collaboration there, not to mention excellence and equal opportunities.

I ran. All the way, without stopping. Alicia went at my pace and stayed with me all the way; I wouldn't have done it on my own, I don't think. We took almost twice as long as the winner, Sara Benedí, who crossed the finish line in 21 minutes 34 seconds. We finished in under 40 minutes. 39.19 was on the clock when we reached the finish line. 

 

You can see that the crowds of participants had thinned by then. We were handed pink bottles of mineral water, and went off to have a coffee while we waited for my sister-in-law and other niece. They had a struggle with the masses and arrived 40 minutes later.

I was proud of myself for doing the whole course without stopping (thanks to Alicia) thrilled to be placed 523rd.

Later I was stunned to discover that I had won a (virtual) gold medal in my age group!

I know it's more important to take part than to win, but it's nice whe you do!

A little holiday

 When you're retired your time is your own, more or less. It's been very hot this summer and we didn't really fancy moving very much. Autumn is almost here; in fact the hot spell has really broken and we've seen some rain and some storms. After a week in Zaragoza, where first of all we slept without even a sheet and the windows open. During the day the weather was good for shorts and sandals or even in my case a summer dress.  Last Friday the 15th of September we set out from Zaragoza to Orihuela del Tremedal. What a name! It's in the province of Teruel, and it's very remote. There's a motorway from Zaragoza all the way to Sagunto in Valencia and we were going to use our journey to the church retreat as a stepping-stone to Valencia. As the retreat didn't start till the afternoon we wanted to visit Peracense castle.

It looks good, doesn't it? Before we got to the turning there was a violent storm, such that I didn't want to carry on driving, so I pulled into a service station and waited until the worst had passed, and we decided that it wasn't the right day to visit a castle, so we still have it on our to-do list. Instead we went to the city of Teruel and spent the morning there. The streets of the centre are elegant, mostly Modernist, with two beautiful Mudejar towers and a spectacular cathedral, where we had a guided tour finishing up in the jewel in the crown which is the medieval wooden painted ceiling.

This is taken from ground-level

Here, in this view from the gallery you can see the freize of carpenters in red and blue

When the tour was over we had a nice meal on a terrace and then headed for Albarracín which is considered one of the most beautiful towns in Spain. The road is long and winding, and the town is certainly spectacular.

Set in the mountains, with steep streets

Amazing views

Oddities

Curious knockers

It turned out the town had its fiestas.  There were barriers up for bull-running and left-over cow-dung in many of the steep streets. We got our coffee, walked around a bit and then headed off along the winding mountain roads to the village of Orihuela del Tremedal.. Beautiful scenery, scant population.

The place chosen for the church retreat had in earlier times been a hunting lodge from which Franco hunted, presumably the red deer which are celebrated here.

This is a statue outside the tourist office and they offer tours to see the rutting.

The area is all pine forests but they are bordered by oak trees and all the undergrowth is oak seedlings. However, there were hardly any acorns. My theory is that they are harvested to feed the pigs for the all-important ham production.

View from 1790 m above sea level

There's a chapel at the top of the hill and the most spectacular views over three provinces

This explains about the tremedal or trembling peat bog

The arrow tells you where to find the Pole Star and the disk helps you locate constellations.

Once the retreat was over we headed for Valencia, more specifically Manises, a 2-hour drive away.

In spite of problems

 A few weeks ago I tried to run along a track I hadn't run on before, from the north end of Jaca, more or less parallel with the main road to France. After a while I crossed a bridge called Puente de las Grajas; rook bridge and followed a paved road back towards Jaca on the other side of the river Aragón. I thought I'd be able to get to the medieval bridge of San Miguel and from there go up to Jaca, but I found this: 

and I understood I couldn't carry on. At this point, there's a pipe coming down from the top of the mountain which reaches a kind of golf-ball structure. I think there's a hydro-electric turbine in it. 

Here's the pipe in the distance

And the golf ball structure

Well, that day I turned round and went back the way I'd come, there was nothing else I could do and noone to ask.

Yesterday I tried the other way, this time walking, not running. I started off at what they call the Rompeolas, the breakwater, because it looks as if it belongs on the seafront. I went down to St Michael's bridge
 

(sorry, I didn't take my own photo)

On the other side I turned right and walked towards Asieso, with the river Aragón on my right. Reaching the turning for the tiny village of Asieso I turned and immediately found a sign for the Puente de las Grajas.

This was quite an easy footpath until I found my way blocked by red and white tape and a car.

I couldn't think how it had got there, but it must have been some kind of off-roading that went wrong. 

I really didn't want to turn back, so I ducked under the tape and carried on following the footpath, with its little wooden footbridges across the streams going down into the Aragón river. 

By this time I was almost at the golf ball, emerging on the other side of where it said no entry.

I came out from the right-hand side, not the left, where the no entry sign is.

Well, from there it was easy enough. I went along the paved road to the Puente de las Grajas and crossed the river again, then turned right along the footpath leading back to Jaca, past the little chapel of San Cristóbal, where I found another blockage of the path: 

A fallen tree, making difficulties for cyclists and horses

but no trouble for lone walkers.
I'm glad I managed to find the way!