The Wine widow on pinxtos, ghost hotels and washing windscreens (February/March)
We adapted to the Spanish hours pretty easily – lunch at 3 and dinner at 10 – until last night when it all seemed to catch up with us and we bought queso and jamon in a supermarket before retreating to our hotel room to watch Netflix. We have covered 1000 miles in 5 days including a drive to the top of the Picos Europas that had even Zam, an unflappable driver, gripping the steering wheel as we squeezed past oncoming cars on hairpin bends with a substantial drop on the driver side. The driver being on the wrong side, as it were. Booking hotels as we go has born some surprises including a hotel in which we were the only guests. Provided with a door code via WhatsApp it was like arriving at a ghost hotel – very comfortable but definitely eerie. We went to the nearest town for food where the waitress tried to explain that we were having potatoes with potatoes as we made our pintxo choices but we took no notice and downed a couple of glasses of Albariño. With 2 plates of potatoes. An elderly couple wandered in with a dog the size of a donkey. They sipped coffee and exchanged not a word but stared at their dog whose bouffant hair was so beautifully coiffed that I stared at it too. It sat as still as a statue, quite used to being stared at.
Back at the ghost hotel the wind roared round our window and I thought I could hear footsteps on the balcony that overlooked a slightly spooky estuary. In the morning I was surprised to smell coffee. I descended to the basement, lured by this delicious scent but half wondering if it was in my imagination. And there was a very elegant woman welcoming me to the best breakfast of the trip and the whole experience became even more baffling.
Then the rain came down … torrential rain… as we headed towards Vigo. Unable to see much out of the filthy windscreen, Zam pulled over and got his shampoo out of the boot in order to clean it. His familiarity with this procedure leads me to think he does it quite often. Tomorrow we visit a winery, the first and I think only one which is a good thing. I mean obviously I love a winery, but one is enough. As I told the driver.
