July 27th - ¡No hablo español!

Our kitchen floor is in need of some repair. When we removed Signor Ascero’s home built reinforced concrete kitchen units in 2002, we were left with large gaps in the otherwise attractive tiled floor. Local French tile stockists told us that the small elegantly shaped terracotta tiles haven’t been manufactured for years, but a friend had since told us (on the basis of a rough sketch) that they are still common in Spain. Feeling that we have been rather idle of late, JR and I decided to mount another sortie across the border into Spain in search of said tiles. Neither of us speak a word of Spanish but, with the help of the babelfish translation engine (http://babelfish.altavista.com), we located a couple of tile merchants in Huesca - about 3 hours drive away.

The first problem that we encountered was finding a useable street address to program into the Garmin - we didn’t know that “poligono” indicated an industrial estate. Undaunted, we just typed in “Huesco” and off we went. Not south, across the river via Gourdan Polignan, the way we normally drive to the Boya hypermarket near Les. But west. Leaving Montrejeau on the St. Laurent de Neste road, we picked our way around the foothills. Several “recalculations” later, we eventually joined the main Arreau road at Hechettes via the D26 . The patient lady from Garmin then took us over the border through the 3km Tunnel Aragnouet-Bielsa. After the Spanish town of Ainsa, we followed the undeniably scenic N260 for 70km around the Valle de Solana and the Reserva Nacional de Viñamala. But after an hour or so passing nothing but a handful of Spanish cars, two or three lost Dutch motorhomes, and a couple of rural molinas, even the scenery began to lose its appeal. We began to regret setting out without either a road map or a Spanish dictionary. Believe me, in these circumstances, a GPS screen is no substitute for a good old-fashioned Michelin map - especially when one realises too late that our projected arrival time is based on Britsh Summer Time!

It was about 3pm when we eventually arrived in Huesca. Siesta time. There was nothing to do but find a restaurant for lunch. Next problem. How does one order a meal when no one speaks either French or English, and you can’t read the menu? Actually, that’s a lie. The Dutch family on the table next to us spoke English. Unfortunately, they didn’t speak Spanish. Miraculously, thanks to a couple of lucky guesses, some pointing, and an extremely good humoured waiter, we managed a very good 3 course meal from the 10€ menu.

Huesca is a beautiful city, and we had plenty of time to explore on foot while waiting for the tourist office to open. Parking in the centre of town was free during the lunch hour: 1pm - 4pm. Needless to say, the majority of shops were closed until 6pm. Nevertheless, we were able to buy a road map and dictionary at the station bookstand, and the lady at the tourist office helpfully marked the location of the two tile merchants on a free town map.

No one had ever seen anything like the sample tile we had brought with us, so we came home empty-handed. But, armed with our new road map, we identified a much more direct route home via the Col du Pourtalet, and were again able to relax and enjoy some breathtaking scenery on our return trip. We’ll be back. But, next time, we’ll bring a phrase book.

We got in just before 9pm. The cats were not impressed.

This entry was posted on 31/07/2007 at 08:45 pm and is filed under Uncategorised. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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