Not So Fast, 9. Fairness.

By law Spaniards have a month's vacation during a calendar year. By law. On paper, some benefits look like they've been written in invisible ink because you just can't see them. Generally, the bigger companies comply, though they tend to scatter the vacation throughout the year. Few companies shut down an entire month, mostly in August, and then mostly manufacturers. But my husband's company is a father and son business with less than ten employees. The only concession to vacation is made during the one or two days of festival in the parish where it's located and half a week during the festival of our town, in September. As a result, we've never taken a vacation together anywhere since we were married. We would go for an all-day drive around Galicia to see someplace new or revisit favorite areas, such as the Costa da Morte where so many ships have foundered on treacherous rocks and shoals. But we would leave in the early morning and be back by early evening.

This past year I put my foot down. My father is in his eighties but he has full use of all his faculties and limbs. Our daughter at the time was seventeen and completely responsible. So I checked the calendar and found that one of the days of the parish festival was on a Monday and the Friday of that week was a regional holiday. I asked my husband to talk to his boss, which he gladly did. I made reservations and in July we went off on our own for a week. I had been wanting to go to France for years, since my childhood. So I picked out a route through southern France by car, which would be cheaper, though more tiring. I really wanted to reach Provence, but for a trip of only a week it was too far away. So I traced a line through Carcassonne, up to the Dordogne and down to the Pyrenees. 

We set off on a cloudy, cool Friday. Cloudy and cool in Galicia. By the time we got to Burgos at midday we were panting with the heat. We were on our way to Barcelona first, to see my brother-in-law, who had been living there for a few years. For that we had to traverse the northern plateau of Castille, cross Logroño, bypass Zaragoza in Aragón and zoom through Lleida before plunging into the city of Barcelona. A drive of about eleven hours doing it quickly (avoiding radar traps and camouflaged cars) and changing drivers every few hours. I strongly recommend not doing that on a hot summer's day. The air conditioning of our car was not up to par. Though we had bought it in March, it was second-hand and already twelve years old. At the hottest moment it was only ten degrees cooler inside than outside. And outside it was over a hundred degrees. Going by Zaragoza, catching glimpses of the basilica spires in the distance, I felt I was having an anxiety attack from the heat. But once we were into Lleida the temperature started to go down, and as we rounded Montserrat going down into Barcelona, the cooling Mediterranean brought it down into the eighties, with thunderheads growing behind us.

We spent that night with my brother-in-law and the next day he showed us the medieval center of the city. Though first, of course, we made the obligatory trip by subway to Gaudí's unfinished cathedral of La Sagrada Familia. From there we visited the Gothic cathedral, behind which there was a photo shoot of a Chinese couple who had just gotten married. It seems whenever I visit someplace new I find a newlywed couple! Ever since we went on our honeymoon and found another couple taking wedding photos, I have seen a wedding party in almost every place I have visited.

Barcelona struck me as very cosmopolitan and green. Much greener than Madrid, despite the Parque del Retiro Madrid rightly boasts of. But it seemed that every decent-sized street and boulevard in Barcelona had its rows of trees. And except for the medieval center, streets were all crosswise, except for the Avenida del Diagonal, which was exactly like its name. There were people from all over the world, and stores that opened up to new ideas. I liked it and I hope I can return some day.

That afternoon we continued north, along the majoy highway just off the coast that would take us up to La Jonquera and the border. We shared the highway with tractor trailers from all over the European Union and beyond. We had fun trying to decipher which country a license plate belonged to. It's obvious that highway is the one of the arteries of European transport, sending merchandise to and from northern Africa to Scotland, all the way to Russia and the Balkans.

When we reached our destination it was close to ten and we were tired. So tired that when we stopped our car in front of the B&B and the proprietor opened the door to let us bring in our bags, I said, "Good morning." The woman, British, gently corrected me but I wondered if she thought she was letting a possible lunatic into her house. I tried to give her no reason to keep thinking that for the rest of our stay. And she was very helpful and welcoming, telling us about all the nearby sites and how we shouldn't go into La Cité at Carcassonne on a Sunday because that's when everybody decides to visit. We did so, anyway, because we had only two days in the area. It was chock-a-bloc visitors, but still exciting to cross the moat and discover ourselves in a city I had wanted to visit for so many years. Toward the end of the day we rushed back to the B&B, escaping thunderstorms that had grown throughout the afternoon. But they were relatively brief and we went back in the evening, trying to find some nightlife. Either we looked in the wrong places, or in France the streets that live on into the night don't exist. Being used to the Spanish custom of going from bar to bar until five in the morning, or later, it was strange seeing bars that closed at eleven or midnight. And late dinners simply didn't happen. Either you ate at seven or you went to bed hungry.

The next day we visited some of the Cathar castles in the region, including Montségur. In France, cars generally don't reach the historic sites up on hills, so you have to walk. The climb to Montségur was gruelling for me - out of shape, asthmatic. My husband would bound along before me and then wait while I toiled up to him. But the climb there was worth it. I understood why that castle had taken so long to fall. Up on the top of a hill, with views for miles around, the wind whistled through and you could believe that God had chosen you for his own. The Cathars just wanted to live in peace, but dissent at that time was impossible. So they died for their beliefs. Down at the beginning of the path there is a stele, commemorating the deaths of 210 Cathars on March 16, 1244.

The next morning, after having watched the Tour de France leave from Carcassonne, we went to the Dordogne region, where we stayed at a B&B just outside Domme. Again our hosts were foreigners. These were a couple in their later years who lived in Wales during the winter and ran the B&B in France during the summer. There was no untoward greeting this time, and we settled in nicely, our bedroom on the back side of the house with a view to the town of Domme, with its spires and typical sloped roofs in the distance. Then began a tug of war with my husband. Our hostess had told us that a path began behind the house and led all the way to Domme. It would take about fifteen minutes to walk. My husband was like, walk, me? So we ended up taking the car. It's a beautiful little town, on a cliff overlooking the Dordogne river. It even has a cave underneath you can tour. The entire region is peppered with caves, many of them used in prehistoric times, including the famous Lascaux caves nearby. And chateaux, new and in ruins, including the one once owned by Josephine Baker, the American dancer who wowed the Paris of the Roaring 20's.
The Dordogne itself is a popular river with canoers, and you can rent a canoe by the hour or by the day at numerous spots along its shores. I assume if you're a novice they show you how to row, though we saw a few canoes that were going around in circles, so the lesson may not have stuck.



Our last stop was in the French Pyrenees, near the Spanish border. We stayed at a small hotel that is directed mainly at people who are looking to do all sorts of mountain sports. It even has a camping area. But there were sedentary people like us staying there, too. It was in the middle of the woods, literally. The building had been a posting station about a hundred years ago and before that had even been a convent, though not much was left of that original building, just the large entry hall that served as dining and living area with a large fireplace. From there we drove through the mountains and into Val d'Arán, on the Spanish side. There we visited its capital, Vielha and some villages around it. While the scenery is beautiful, the buildings were too new, created mostly in the building frenzy that attacked Spain ten years ago. It lacked the atmosphere of time that we found in the towns on the French side, where the old remained next to the new.

That day there were thunderstorms as they can only be experienced in mountainous areas, but the next morning was sunny, with some stray cumulus that would build up later. We drove to another mountain valley where we saw people parachuting from a tall hill down into the valley, landing on a sweeping green lawn next to a small lake. My husband was seriously thinking about going up, until he saw one freefalling. As the parachute swirled around, we stopped the car, anxious, and then we saw the parachuter gain control and land farther down, away from the designated area. That was when my husband got cold feet. "Uh uh, no way. I'll stay down here where the oxen walk." "Quedo donde pisa o boi." Nothing I could say would make him change his mind. 

After eating lunch we went up to visit Lac d'O'o, a glacier lake that was a recommended sight. We had to leave our car at the bottom of the valley and walk for a half hour. That's what we thought. We ended up walking for over an hour, uphill along a path filled with rocks and switchbacks. I've never done so much exercise as during that vacation. The funny thing was that there were all kinds of people going up and coming back down, too, including older folks and kids that looked like they had just learned to walk. The French are a fit people. I bet few of them have problems that stem from a sedentary life. Not with all the exercise they do, at least on vacation. 

At the top of the hike, the lake stretched out, serene and quiet. People were sitting and wandering all along the shore, and some serious hikers with backpacks and walking sticks were heading out on a mountain path that continued beyond. There was a small shelter there that served drinks and basic food, like sandwiches. Behind it was hidden a quad which they used to carry supplies and themselves up and down the goat path we had hiked. The driver must have good reflexes and excellent driving skills.

We drove back home on the last Sunday, straight along the northern coast this time, hugging the sea and bypassing San Sebastian, Bilbao, and Santander. It was a shorter drive, though my husband kept bewailing that he would have to go back to work the next day, and that I should have planned to leave a day earlier. But by eight in the evening we were back home, and a good night's rest would leave him feeling fine. 

I had though that by spending a week visiting those places my appetite would have been sated, but it was only whetted, so now I want to return and spend a week in each place instead of a day or two. The problem now is filling up the bank account to be able to do so. And scratching some more vacation days from my husband's boss.