Posts Tagged ‘travel’

“Can you invigilate an exam in Pamplona?”

I said yes, thinking of San Fermín and bulls and historic cities and Navarran wine and that kind of thing.

The reality, as ever, was a little different. Everardo and I left Oviedo on the Friday evening after our last classes (so once we’d got the car sorted and such that meant 8pm). There are two choices to get to Pamplona according to google maps, South via León and Burgos, or along the coast to Bilbao and then inland. We plumped for the coast road. The sun sank lower and turned everything golden as we figured out the limiter on the car (don’t want to go over 110km per hour, thanks to the new speed limits and the police being all vigilant and all).

An unfinished part of the motorway

Eve said there might be some traffic but there was nothing, well, nothing compared to the M62. We drove until the car asked for fuel, and pulled off at the first garage… lights on, no one about. So on to the next, hoping it was within 25km which, thankfully, it was.

At the side of the garage there was a Meson, which is basically a restaurant, but one which doesn’t have any pretensions. I was a paper tablecloth kind of place. We didn’t really have time to hang around so we ordered a plate of chorizo, egg and chips each. It was bloomin’ lovely. Sugary coffee and a coke to keep alert and off we went again.

From Bilbao south, the roads get a little trickier to navigate, signs appear just yards before the junction, they’re poorly lit and they don’t always point you towards the bigger cities (I had in my head that we’d follow Santander – Bilbao – Pamplona, but the signs alternated between Pamplona and Vizcaya. Eve is not the worlds best navigator so we had to be a bit careful). Still, at one thirty we pulled into the car park behind the hotel and checked in.

After what seemed like a criminally short time we were up and out. Just 5km to the exam site. But in this part of Pamplona they’re building a lot of streets and there are neither houses nor street signs to help you. There are, however, a lot of roundabouts. Take the fifth exit, according to Google maps, onto Calle Juan Pablo II… oops, there are only three exits, and no street names. It took us forty minutes to find the damn place.

The exam itself is easy to invigilate. Hand out the exams while reading from the script (it’s an american exam) then watch and make sure there’s no shenanigans. For four hours.

Then pack up and head back to Oviedo. This time via Burgos. Total distance 999km. Six hours each way.

We’ve got another one to do next week.

I didn’t know much about Vigo. Truth be told, I still don’t. But here is a short summary of things we learned in the last week.

-The bus journey is long and easy and you go via the major cities in Asturias and Galicia (7.5 – 8 hours).

-You can get a clean comfy room in Hostal Las Cíes for €25 a night.

-Money saved on accommodation is well spent on food.

-The Guardian includes Rodas beach on Islas Cíes in its list of the top ten beaches in the world.

-The Guardian seems to be right (not having been to all of the beaches in the world for comparisons). The sand is smooth and soft, the water crystal clear (and chilly). The only way to get there is by boat, so it’s not too crowded.

-Nudists seem to be exclusively German. There’s a nudist beach there, open to the clothed too. Everyone who sported the bare look seemed to speak German.

-Jules Verne is immortalized on an octo-couch because Vigo is mentioned in 20,000 leagues under the sea.

-Galician food is rather nice.

-Octopus every day is a possible diet.

-You can have a good three course lunch, with wine, bread and coffee, for €8.

-A single cruise ship disgorging its English passengers is pretty obvious.

-We’ll return to this neck of the woods for a couple of reasons; one, the roads are being dug up all over the place, we want to see it when it’s finished; two, a few days camping on the islas Cíes will be a bit special.