St Jean de Luz (France) to Lleida (Spain)

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ST JEAN de LUZ (France) to LLEIDA (Spain) 12th May 2007 (Saturday - Sunny and 23º in SJDL and much the same in Lleida)

After such a quiet day yesterday who would have known what our first taste of Spain had in store for us today.

We bade farewell to the Madison Hotel and St Jean de Luz and head once again to Spain and the city of Sans Sebastian. It is only fair and reasonably that we give this City another chance and seeing as it is sunny and 24 degrees it is a much nicer place to see and be. We drive around the shoreline and through the City before heading out onto the Auto Route.

We learn more about tolls today. We arrive at a tollgate needing to pay 1.50 euros and we don’t have the right change. I press the “help” button and a policeman appears and he reaches in our window and turns off our fog lights. Whilst this is helpful and appreciated it does not relieve our monetary dilemma - shortly a helpful lady appears with change and we proceed. We pay toll after toll and can’t fathom how they are calculated and what they are for - in the end whenever we pull up near a window with a cashier encased we just wind down the window and throw some money out. This works fine for tolls and McDonalds but not for border control.

We bypass Pamplona and Zaragozza with our sites set firmly on Barcelona. After approximately 350 kilometres we arrive in Lleida, this is enough driving for one day and Lleida looks like a nice peaceful sort of joint, so we go in search of a place to kip for the night.

We park and go looking for accommodation. It is during these wanderings that Deb mentions a poster that she had roughly translated to read that today was the Festival of St Anastasia - no wonder everywhere we go is booked to the gunwales. It would appear that the whole damn region has travelled to Lleida to share the Festival joy and we are smack bang in the middle of the whole shebang.

We are given directions to a Hotel on the Highway that may have vacancies. Finding it was a chore in itself as we could see the Hotel and get tantalising close but the only way I could see us getting there was to drive the wrong way down 200 metres of dual lane Auto Route. Not something to consider unless you have top-level health insurance. Eventually we drive through a Fairground complete with Circus and down sideshow alley (yes - really) whilst people are popping ping-pong balls into the mouths of clowns and we break through to the Hotel Ilerda.

The Hotel Ilerda looks innocent enough and was some shack in its day. The terrazzo floors and wide sweeping staircase gives a clue to a more glamorous past. However now it sits on the Auto Route and the clientele as we learn later are less than innocent and certainly not glamorous. We drop our bags and go in search of Tapas and St Anastasia’s Celebrations.

Rather than finding everything open ‘The Festival’ has had the opposite effect as shopkeepers and restaurants have closed to enable everyone the opportunity to join in the fun. We settle on a quickie joint where I have something resembling Lasagne that has been thrice cooked. Deb had something indescribable but could have been related to Bolognese. So much for the Tapas for which we had a hankering.

The food was soon forgotten as we found ourselves in the middle of an increasingly frenetic crowd looking to let down their collective hair. The fun was about to begin. This was signalled by some fireworks down the street that once started in earnest latest for nearly two hours. These are not fireworks as we know them - no sky high explosions with shooting stars of colours - no these pyrotechnics would have Phil Koperburg in therapy for 10 years. They are mostly attached to or hand held by people (see photos). Admittedly the people concerned are dressed in heavy garments, that we assume are fireproof, but there is still a great risk of injury or harm to them not to mention the spectators who are sprayed with showers of sparks at every opportunity.

We prance around in the mayhem and praise St Anastasia whom not long before we had cursed for her part in denying us decent digs and chorizo in garlic sauce. The band finds another gear and starts up a series of songs that may have been penned by the Devil himself - this is further evidenced when the band members strip down to their underpants to play their last set. Not sure if St Anastasia would approve but the crowd goes nuts!

After the excitement we are looking forward to a peaceful night. This was never meant to be. We find our way home without having to drive though the Circus again but it takes time and tests our patience.

Once inside the Hotel Ilerda we realise that the Fairground we drove through earlier is directly across the field from our room and the ‘Fair’ runs all night. Yes, it was still going at 6:00am the next morning, but this wasn’t the major reason for the lack of sleep that contributed to a nightmare of a night.

No the prostitute in the room next-door clip clopped around in her stilettos on the terrazzo floors for hours on end. She and her various clients came and went (if you’ll pardon the pun) all night. There was the German chap (yes another German) who had a big loud voice and given the squeals emanating from the prostituta he had other big stuff to match. There was the creepy quiet guy (who I pictured as a serial killer or a Charles Manson look alike) and a stream of others. I think she hung up her stilettos just before the Fair ended at 6:00am.

Being the well organised type that I am I was ready for such intrusions into my nightly slumbers. You see I packed earplugs. So after the first kafuffle I popped to the bathroom to retrieve the soft little saviours only to find the door had locked from the inside. Nooooooooooooooooooo! I rang room service who said that this happens from time to time and the duty manager would fix it in the morning. Noooooooooooooooooo!

9:00am - We packed our bags and leave quickly as the timer on the bomb that we have planted is due to go off at 9:10am.

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Photos

Sans Sebastian
A beautiful place when the sun shines.

Festival of St Anastasia
The Spanish love their patron saints and love a festival even moreso!

Festival of St Anastasia
Call 000