M40間諜米格魯的秘密日誌

When we checked out at Melia Tryp Castelo Blanco, the friendly receptionist (Portugal has lots of friendly receptionists. In fact I must say all receptionists I have met at all the Melia's we have stayed at in Spain and Portugal are all very friendly and helpful) recommended we cross the border at Segura as the drive is a very pictureque one. We followed his advice and were indeed very impressed by the beautiful countryside full of wild flowers, red poppies and old stones.

It was spring time and the whole countryside was full of such purple-bluish flowers.

This is my favourite wild flower: wild poppies that bloom in the spring all over the lush hills in southern Europe. As these flowers do not have saps, they are not used to produce opium or related drugs.

When we checked out at Melia Palacio de Lousa, the friendly lady at the hotel reception gave me precise instructions and a handful of copies of detailed road maps, to help us find our way to Castelo Branco (our next stop) without getting lost somewhere on the way again. We followed her advice closely and found ourselves passing through some very pleasant countrysides.

A village cafe in the middle of Portugal's countryside. They serve very good espresso and the owner, an old man in his 60s, actually knows where Taiwan is ('Formosa' is the name he uses). In fact, many older Portugese know about Formosa and the troubled history between the Nationalists and the Chinese Communists.

All along the way there are countless olive grooves and orchards. In contrast to Spain, olive grooves and orchard fields all have a rugged, even 'wild' feeling.

Our next destination after Porto is Lousa. As we spent far too much time in the morning sampling Port wine and enjoying lunch on the bank of Rio Douro, we did not leave Porto until 4 o'clock in the afternoon. The drive to Lousa is another mini-adventure: we again lost our way while trying to find the road from Coimbra to Lousa. We saw one sign post which stated 'Lousa' as soon as we got off the highway at Coimbra, but fail to see any further sign posts after that. Not knowing which way to go, and there are at least 10 roundabouts in Coimbra (all without signs pointing out which direction is the way to Lousa), we ended up driving around Coimbra in circles. After one hour we became really fed up with such aimless search,  especially as it was already late and we really did not want to drive into the surrounding hills in complete darkness. Fortunately some passerbys told us the right direction and after a few wrong turns, finally found the road that is supposed to take us all the way to Lousa.

Porto has been on my agenda for many years because of the world renown Port wine. Port wine, a kind of fortified red wines aged in wooden barrels or in bottles, became popular with the English during the beginning of the 18th century. In order to prevent the wines from becoming spoilt whilst on the way from Porto to England, the wines were fortified to prolong its shelf-life for the journey.  

The wooden boat seen above, known as 'Rabelos' in Portugese, is traditionally used to transport barrels of Port wine down the Rio Douro for storage and aging in the caves of Vila Nova de Gaia.

Portugal is a strange country. It has some of the most friendly people in Europe, lots of history, serene sceneries, impressive buildings, stunningly good wines (not just the sweet Port wines, but excellent white wines too). Yet the whole country feels so 'dislocated' to the rest of western and southern Europe. It has been part of the EU since the 1980s, yet its level of development and standards of public infrastructure lie several decades behind the rest of Europe (with the exception of Romania and Bulgaria of course, but that's another story). To be honest, when we were in Portugal, we did not feel as though we were in an EU country at all. To a large extent, Portugal feels more like a developing country than a first world developed country.

The Historical City Centre of Porto, A UNESCO inscribed World Heritage Site, seen from across the Rio Douro

As soon as drove across the bridge over Rio Mino that marks the border between northern Portugal and Spain's Galicia province, you began to see rundown buildings, fields overgrown with weeds, roads with potholes, inadequately-signposted streets that make first-time visitors lose their way, etc. This does not diminish the beauty and attraction of northern Portugal, but it does highlight the gap between Portugal and her neighbours. The flair of northern Portugal is strikingly similar to certain parts of Maputo (Capital of Mozambique), also part of the former Portugese colonial empire. (In fact, many towns and cities of the former Portugese empire look very much alike both in terms of appearance and the degree of dilapidation suffered by the colonial buildings - it just seems the Portugese had imparted something of a laissez-faire attitude to all its overseas territories, and such an outlook on life and everything has persisted till this today.

(Many buildings and houses in Porto have walls decorated with beautiful blue painted tiles depicting scenes of stories from the Holy Bible.)

Since the early Middle Ages, countless devoted pilgrims from all over Europe walked all the way from the Franco-Spanish border  at the Pyrennes to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia to pay homage to the relics of St. James the Great, housed in the magnificent Cathedral in the centre of Santiago's old town. These pilgrims will stop en route at Pamplona, Burgos, Leon, before finally arriving at the steps of the Cathedral after a long and ardous route. They will carry in their possession a staff, with a Galician scallop shell (the symbol of St. James) and a document known as 'credencial' (Pilgrim's Passport), to be stamped at every town on the route where they had stayed overnight. The stamps collected in this document serve as proof that the said pilgrim has indeed completed the pilgrimage according to an officially approved route (i.e. Camino de Santiago or St. James' Way) and is entitled to an official certificate of pilgrimage upon arrival at Santiago de Compostela.

Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela

There are several official ways, depending on where the pilgrims embark on their journey. The most common one is the Pyrennes - Pamplona - Burgos - Leon - Santiago way. Since we did not walk to Santiago (we drove there with a rental car), we were not considered true pilgrims (driving is not an approved method of completing a pilgrimage), just ordinary tourists. 

Pamplona is an ideal destination for a day-trip if you happen to find yourself in La Rioja. Famed for its annual encierro (Running of the Bulls) every year during the San Fermin festival, Pamplona is a very popular destination for tourists from all over the world.

The drive from Ezcaray to Pamplona passes through some scenic little towns and villages in both the La Rioja and the Navarre province. As the old town of Pamplona, with all the little winding alleys and one-way streets, is best explored by foot, it is advisable to park the car at one of the underground car parks on the outskirt of the old town and walk into the old centre.

All over the route of the annual encierro, you will see red signs like this one above the street corners. Each sign explains the peculiarity of each street segment. If you follow the white arrow sign and walk from one sign board to the next, you will know how it is like to be in an encierro - except for that there are no bulls running behind you on the narrow cobble stone streets.

The good thing about renting a holiday apartment in La Rioja is, you can rent a car and explore the surrounding countrysides at your own pace. And there are several highly interesting cities for those who want some thrill and fun, all within 3-4 hours' drive from La Rioja, easily accessible thanks to Spain's great highway systems. You can choose from the likes of San Sebastian, Pamplona, Bilbao, Burgos etc. As one Spaniard puts it, 'the possibilities are endless'.

Since we already stayed overnight at Burgos on our way from Madrid to La Rioja, we opted for a full day-drive tour from Ezcaray to San Sebastian and return via Bilbao instead.

San Sebastian is a beautiful city, located right on the northeastern part of the Basque Country close to the border with France. There are lots of things to see and do in the town: you can stroll around, shop at one of the exclusive boutiques, enjoy a leisurely afternoon on the beach, or just hang around doing nothing. Being the location of a world-famous film festival, there are a lot of posh shops and expensive hotels and bars in San Sebastian. Locals also display very good taste in terms of outfits and the way they look and behave. Needless to say, being the culinary capital of the Basque Country, you find good and inexpensive resturants virtually everywhere you go.

When we arrived at Ezcaray, it was already well past 2 in the afternoon. Desperate for a decent lunch, we wandered around the streets trying to find a restaurant or cafe which was still open. By sheer coincidence, we parked our car at the parking lot in front of the village cathedral, and notice an elegant stone building right across the road. To our delight, it is a restaurant which serves regional cuisine.

(See the building behind the trees? That's Hotel Restaurante Echaurren, one of the most interesting restaurants we have ever visited in Europe.)

When we planned our trip to Spain, my father said we should rent a holiday apartment at a place which fulfills all of the following requirements:

1. The town or village in which the apartment is located must be 'old' (i.e. with lots of history)

2. The town or village concerned must consist of houses and buildings made of stone (i.e. no concrete or otherwise man-made building materials)

3. The town or village which fulfills the above conditions must also have beautiful sceneries at its door steps, with plenty of nature within walking distance

4. The said town of village should have good vineyards/decent red wines/good restaurants within an hours' drive with distinctive regional character

5. Whichever town or village so lucky to be chosen by us as our destination of choice must be off the beaten track, i.e. neither rawdy tourists running around the streets half-naked nor noisy backpackers 

To be honest, I am not sure if such a place ever exists. Out of desperation, I rang up a friend for help. He is a native of Madrid, but knows other regions in Spain very well. I told him about our requirements and he came up with a few suggestions, one of which is Ezcaray, a picturesque little mountain village in La Rioja. As I have always wanted to visit the world-renown wine growing region of La Rioja and sample its legendary tempranillo reds, I thought we might as well spend a week there, just an hour's drive from the heart of La Rioja's viticulture enterprise.

Before then I had never heard of Ezcaray; after doing some research I realised that it is actually a beloved weekend destination for well-to-do Spaniards from Madrid and Barcelona. Anyway, once I set about looking for holiday rentals in Ezcaray, I know we have found the town/village that meet all our requirements: when I wrote to enquire about the availability of holiday apartments, our potential landlord replied that 'he has never had enquiries from Germany before'. Tell you what - if a village has never been visited by German tourists before, you can rest assured that the village is absolutely 500% off the beaten track. (For it is a well-known fact that German tourists are to be seen even in the most remote corners on Earth)

So I booked the 2-bedroom apartment for one week and set about preparing for our trip to this mysterious little village.

It was early April and the hilltops surrounding Ezcaray are still covered by snow.

Kanyon Shopping Centre located at the posh district of 4. Levant, Istanbul, is a place for the rich and the privileged. Ordinary Turks actually do not shop there, as most of the shops are high-end department stores and expensive boutiques which only the very rich and affluent could afford. A visit to some of the shops in Kanyon can actually give you a lot of food for thought. Inside the posh Harvey Nichols (a branch of the well-known up-market department store in Knightsbridge, London), where a simple designer T-shirt comes with a price tag of more than 150 TL (about 75 euros), you would see expensive imported designer handbags and shoes with astronmical prices being snatched up by fashion-conscious Istanbulites within hours after the annual winter sales began. Given that the average salary and wage levels of most Turkish city dwellers are less than 700 TL a month, it actually reflects both the rising standards of living of the middle-class city dwellers on the one hand, and the huge income discrepancy between the haves and the have-nots.

有讀者問我有關旅遊不便險該如何索賠,我把自己之前因為班機延誤,導致行李無法及時送到的索賠程序寫出來跟大家分享.

I. 行李延誤索賠

有一次在網路上用信用卡買了奧地利航空(Austrian Airlines) 從德國杜塞道夫 (Dusseldorf) 經由維也納轉機飛到新加坡的機票.

出發那天,所有的乘客都已經登機了;正在等候起飛的時侯,機長突然宣布,因為某種通訊儀器零件壞掉無法修復,必須專程從維也納送新的零件過來,所以本班機取消;請各位乘客下機回到候機室,奧地利航空的地勤人員將會替大家更改班機.