First time to be in Sardinia. Hotel Ancora is a simple tourist hotel and the tourist business is probably the only they have in Santa Teresa. Somehow I always feel more at home in Italy than in the Spain or Franch and perhaps the reason is that the Italians does not spek so much more english than the other countries but they are willing and doing their best to help you. Found it today again at the busstation, not really station but there are a lot of busses. One of the drivers wrote all the time possibilities I have to go to Olbia tomorrow and he did not speak one word english. Had yesterday my first coffee in 10 days. Espresso. Not the most healty one for the cholesterol. Spend the day at the beach and ... read more

I m in Ajaccio now but the location option of the blog is not working at the moment: In Carcassonne I found, never seen before, an ATM that switched into dutch after reading thedutch card. Walked down to the railwaystation. Took the 12;09 to Montpellier and changed there to the train to Marseille. Airco in that train was not working and temperature went up to mid 40 degrees. The route Carcassonne/Montpellier is a beautiful part; after Montpellier it becomes a bit dull my reserved place in the very crowded train was already occupied by a young lady who explained in 1 sentence of about three minutes , in french, what she was doing at my seat; I explained in3 dutch words what I thought about it and she left very fast: Looked if I was the ... read more

Left Valencia with some delay. Strange thing with the spanish railway is the very professional luggage control and checking in procedures at beginning or mainstations.On all the smaller station it s no problem to jump in without luggage control. Valencia- Narbonne took about 7 hours. Specially the last two hours are exciting, the mountains of the Pyrenees and after Perpegnan kind of swamps with water on both sides around the train. Had a stop over in Narbonne to wait a few hours for the highspeed train to Toulouse who stops at Carcassone. Only a 25 minutes trip. I promised myself to visit Carcassonne for two reasons. A few years ago I saw from the train Lourdes- Toulouse the Citadel and it looked magnific. A second reason was my younger brother who died two years ago, not ... read more

Made a tour in the bodega of Gonzales Byass. Still a family owned bodega who is celebrating this year 175th anniversary. The total stock for sherry and brandy is over 80.000 barrels is approx 42 million litres and sales are approx 5 million litre a year. Gonzales Byass owns the brand Tio Pepe. Met an english couple during the tour in the bodega. They came form Manchester and his occupation is painter, mostly gold ornaments in churches. In the meantime temperature is over 40 degrees. Good for old bones. Jerez Impressions - City who is trying hard to get more industry beside Sherry - Probably the main projects in the last decades were building underground parkings .A lot of bodega s gives the impression of a terrible wealth , in the past. - Lots of brides ... read more

Walked a bit in Jerez de la Frontera. Not really exciting town but first time to visit so all is new. In my early previous life I bought sherry and since my mainsupplier had his bodega in Puerto de Santa Maria I never took the opportunity to see Jerez where the most bodega s are like Sandeman, Gonzales Byas, Harvey and so on About the cathedral of Jerez you can say 1 thing. It s huge. In the mainstreet there are as in the other streets lots of banks probably waiting to be rationalized by the crisis. There are still a lot of pappa-mamma shops who would not survive in the northern countries of Europe, But it looks nice and a pity that they will disappear slowly slowly. Had a late dinner on the main marketsquare ... read more