December 2009
Monthly Archive
Sunday, 13th December 2009
Judith 15 Dec 2009 | : Holiday
We woke up in our plush hotel room and went to have our so-much-food-you-were-spoilt-for-choice breakfast, which was served on the top floor in a room with 270° views. In the dark we had seen the harbour lights and walked down for a nice pizza, but in daylight, the place was a building site. Four star hotel in one star surroundings.
We set off for what we came for… the Greek ruins. We resisted the tourist train tour of the site and walked. The temple complex at Selinunte contains five temples, four of which were destroyed by earthquakes. The remaining one is stunning. Looking at the piles of temple rubble is fascinating, as you can see the inner workings of the building. After looking at the first three, we went to the acropolis, which contains another temple and the remains of the city. There are still troughs, grind stones, etc. there. It’s an impressive place and it overlooks the sea.
While there, we learned that the Cave di Cusa, the quarry where the columns came from still exists and can be visited. It’s 12km from the site, but we couldn’t miss this amazing place. The columns were cut, in-situ, from a whole block of stone. So the workers would have to cut a channel (only as wide as a man) all around the column and it was then cut off at the bottom and levered over, before being dragged all the way to the temple site by oxen and slaves. The quarry was abandoned something like 2300 years ago, but you can still see columns started and abandoned.
We decided to try to see another place while there was daylight, so drove to Sciacca. As we arrived it started raining, so we had a snooze but the rain got harder and harder until after an hour we gave up and drove to our next B&B, in Agrigento.
The Rough Guide describes the town as follows: “It would be a mistake not to scout around the modern town of Agrigento. Modern only by comparison with the temples, it’s thoroughly medieval at its heart. After the mean streets of some Sicilian towns, the long main drag, Via Antea is something of a revelation.”
The B&B we were staying at was described as in the old, run down part of the city. We got to the address and it was run down, but not old. Horrible, crumbling apartment blocks surrounded us. We were an hour early, and no one was answering the door, so we tried to find a bar. We walked around for ages, getting more and more disillusioned with area, but not finding any bars. We looked at the Rough Guide again and spotted the section we had previously missed. “No one comes to Agrigento for the town, though its worn medieval streets and buildings soak up thousands of tourists every year.” Oh, dear. At 7pm, the time we said we would be arriving, we called the B&B owner and he appeared 10 minutes later apologising that the online booking company had given us the wrong address. He took us up an amazingly steep road into the heart of the old town. The last bit was inaccessible by car and we had to walk. The place we were staying was indeed medieval. Exposed stone windows and the highest ceilings I have seen in a normal house. What a relief! Via Antea was indeed a revelation. After the run down, near empty residential area, the main drag was packed with people promenading. Everyone was dressed to the nines in their Sunday best and Geoff and I felt decidedly shabby. We found a really nice eatery where we managed to get a 5 course menu with local dishes. Once we had finished our meal and were ready for some more promenading, the streets were completely deserted.
Saturday, 12th December 2009
Judith 15 Dec 2009 | : Holiday
We arrived in Trapani, Sicily by flying through the perfect XC sky. Little fluffy clouds, which I wished I had photographed, but my camera wasn’t handy and the seat belt sign was on. It was actually really windy on the ground. We’ve been to Italy four times together in the past, but never hired a car because we’ve been too scared and public transport is so good. This time we wouldn’t be able to see the things we wanted to easily without a hire car. The excess waiver insurance was nearly as much as the car hire (the usual car hire scam – say there’s a massive excess, 900 Euros in this case, then charge a huge amount to remove it), but we grudgingly bought it, just to be on the safe side (and having seen Italian drivers before).
Our first hotel was in Selinunte, southeast of Trapani, so we headed to Marsala (as in the famous wine), which is on the way. Barely 10 minutes out of the airport and I was a complete nervous wreck, pressed as far back into my seat as possible and gripping the door handle so hard I was getting white fingers. There is no giving way in Sicily, it’s whoever is the most assertive/suicidal who gets to go first. People are constantly pulling out in front of you, regardless of how fast you are going. Even if the gap between you and the car in front is only one car length. After a couple of days I realised that Sicilian drivers don’t care about what’s happening behind them. The only thing that matters is what’s happening ahead. And whatever is ahead needs to be overtaken as fast a possible, regardless of oncoming traffic, blind bends, pedestrians, etc. Pedestrians on the other hand, are the most nonchalant I have ever seen. They step into the road regardless of what’s coming, and saunter across without a care, usually stopping halfway to pinch some toddler’s cheek, have a loud argument or greet acquaintances, while all around them cars screech past, swerving around them by inches.
Within a couple of hours behind the wheel Geoff had found his inner Italian. He treated the whole place as one big dodgem track and surprisingly this made things safer. By day three I had mastered wild gesticulating and shouting at other drivers, which allowed me to make a useful contribution to the driving effort.
The Rough Guide to Sicily had a nice write-up of Marsala, so we went there, but it being siesta time, everything was closed. We eventually found the tourist information office to get a map and some info, but they had moved, leaving only their new address on the notice on the door. Since we didn’t have a map we couldn’t locate the new address! I wonder if the lack of customers in the next few months will eventually alert them to the flaw in their thinking…
There’s not a lot to do in Marsala in the middle of the afternoon, so we walked around the old centre and headed for the next place recommended in the guide: Mazara del Vallo.
Mazara turned out to be a one-square wonder. It’s a lovely square, to be sure, but the main tourist attraction was the remains of an old castle (“spectacularly illuminated at night”), but this was a small piece of wall barely higher than me and only twice as wide. So on to Selinunte.
Selinunte is the site of some spectacular Greek ruins and the town is a seaside resort. We arrived after nightfall and went to look for our two star accommodation. We have a history of incompetence in locating our hotels in Italy and we continued this trend. Thankfully we had packed our sat nav (sign posting is atrocious in Sicily) and although we put in the correct address, no hotel. We drove around the one way system three times, with sinking hearts. Selinunte was a bit of a dump. Finally, we managed to locate the hotel, which was closed! However, they directed us to a posh hotel just round the corner and when I handed in my reservation they confirmed we had come to the right place. So we paid for our two star hotel, but got a free upgrade. Result! This was a four star hotel, with fancy minimalist interior, leather couches, etc. The view from the window showed the sea and the pretty harbour. Not such a dump after all!
Friday, 11th December 2009
Warm (20°C) and sunny today, although this is the last in the spell. From tomorrow we’re in for a 5°C drop. Today should have been good on paper – high pressure and Tramuntana, but it was very stable. We headed out to Santa Brigida and saw a French white pick-up there. It could only be Mike Cluer. Really nice to see him. We haven’t seen each other since March, so there was plenty to catch up on. Geoff and Nani flew, but it was weak with little wind or thermals.
More and more people arrived and it seems that Friday is now a popular day to come out. Everyone got off and had a nice time, top landing sporadically. As I was launching, I tripped over a rock and went sprawling, much to Albert’s amusement. Once I had dusted myself down I had to wait until there was a good cycle again. Once in the air, I wasn’t flying very well and went down. Geoff persevered and got up and top landed again.
I was hoping that the evening flying would be nice, but with the stable air, the wind in the valley turned north earlier than usual, so we didn’t bother and chatted to Mike some more.
Off to Sicily tomorrow, so no blog for a few days.
Thursday, 10th December 2009
Judith 10 Dec 2009 | : Walking
This morning we had the satellite repair men coming round to fix the dish, which (happily for me) has been broken for the last 18 months. They came yesterday, but it’s been cherry picker war in our street, with a crew already installed at the entrance, painting a house and blocking everyone else from driving down. Our guys managed to negotiate a truce today and they let them through. Turns out one of the guys used to own our house and renovated it years ago. He was amazed to see the changes and we gave him the grand tour. So we’ve now met three of the previous owners and someone who was born in our house. Small world…
Once they had gone, it was lunchtime and we debated the plan for the day. The choices were: 1) go flying; 2) stay in and work; 3) do something else. We looked at each other and simultaneously said “do something else!”. You don’t have to fly every possible day. So we went to Camprodon, which is a town whose outskirts we’ve driven through scores of times, but never actually stopped in. To be fair, we haven’t been for some years, as we used to drive through on our way skiing in Valter 2000, but we’ve not been there in years either.
Camprodon is really nice. Famous for its bridge and river flowing through it, we thought it had a really nice genteel feel to it. We discovered a civil war museum, which unfortunately was closed, but we’ll definitely go back when it’s open.
We drove back through the Val d’en Bac, and walked up to a torre which turned out to be a name of a house, rather than an actual tower. We did find a 12th century church and a herd of Norwegian fjord horses, and the biggest bull I’ve seen outside Andalusia.
The latest podcast on Winter Flying is now on the podcast page.
Wednesday, 9th December 2009
Sunny, warm, light winds… and to make up for the reduced quality flying of yesterday, we went back to Santa Brigida. There were fewer cumulus today, so we knew it wouldn’t be the booming day they had yesterday. Xevi was there and Pep and Albert had come out for a lunch break flight. It was still a little early at 2pm and they had short flights. I waited until the cycles became more marked by cold air and was first off. I thermalled up from the monastery and bumped against the inversion at 460′ ATO. I bounced along it for a while and then hit very strong sink, so went to top land. Meanwhile Geoff and Xevi had launched and were having a nice float about, getting highish at times. We flew off and on most of the afternoon and then had a chillout. We were going to drive down together, but I decided to have an evening boat about and then land at the bottom.
I love flying in evening conditions like these at Santa Brigida, when you are on your own and can just enjoy being in the air without any distractions and without having to keep a lookout. It was getting late and the sun was setting behind the ridge to the west and the wind was getting light. To stay up would involve a good scratch. I set myself the goal of staying up until Geoff had packed up his glider and driven down. Everything was bathed in a golden glow, so the scenery looked lovely in the sunset. I managed to use the last patch of ever decreasing sunshine on the ridge, and then fly close in over the trees and rocks of the cliffs near the monastery, playing with the glider and scratching close in. I achieved my goal of staying up for 33 minutes – getting flushed eventually, but landing after Geoff had parked up at the bottom. I had to pack up in the near dark.
Tuesday, 8th December 2009
The forecast was for sun and moderate N wind, but not Tramuntana. I am desperate for a change of scenery from Santa Brigida and all the forecasts indicated that the north side of Sant Pere de Rodes would work for at least a soaring flight. Geoff was extremely skeptical and voted for Santa Brigida, but agreed to an alternative day out. I have only flown off the north side of Sant Pere de Rodes once before, although Geoff has flown it a few times more. The issue is that when it is north it is mostly far too strong to fly or if there is little wind, then the sun brings the wind up the south side of the spineback. The north side is undoubtedly the prettier, and you have the advantage of landing on the beach at Port de la Selva for a sunshine beer. So today seemed the perfect day for my second north flight from Sant Pere de Rodes.
We got there and there was no wind in the car park. None at all. Not a breath. What did surprise us was the amount of cloud just above and along the ridge. We walked up and there was a light waft coming up the north face. My theory is that you can do a top to bottom at any point in the day, so you might as well hang on and wait to see if the day gets better, so I got ready (Geoff volunteered to let me fly first; if it was just a flydown, he would drive rather than fly, since retrieving the car is a real pain here) and we waited. The wind started to pick up a little at 2pm and two little cumulus formed below us to the west. Two minutes later it had developed into extensive orographic cloud and we were clagged in. We could only barely make out the monastery below, but couldn’t see the sea at all. This has happened to us before, and it does clear, this time in just 10 minutes. As soon as the sun came out, the south side warmed up and the wind changed 180°. I carried my gear over the spineback and launched. I managed to get above launch height briefly and maintain for a little while, but the hill hadn’t warmed up enough for the thermals to form properly, so I went down.
Meanwhile Johnny and John, the skydiver dudes from Empuria Brava, arrived and offered Geoff a lift back up for the van if he wanted to fly. It was still sunny, and he got ready, but then it started to cloud over again and the wind became switchy between the two faces, so he didn’t bother for what would definitely have been a top to bottom, and drove down. In retrospect, we should have gone to Santa Brigida, where they got to 1050m in 3.4m/s thermals. Still, it was nice to see some different views for a change.
This evening we’ve been on the other side of the mic and we’ve been interviewed for a podcast about hang gliding and paragliding for Steve Cooke’s Flying Podcast. Can’t wait to hear the result of someone else’s editing.
Monday, 7th December 2009
High cloud today and we had a post-conference evaluation meeting at 11am, so I arranged to record a podcast with Kelly Farina about efficient thermalling first thing in the morning. He did the recording from from a sun soaked beach in Thailand. After the meeting I recorded another, with David Thomson, on winter flying. Should be edited and available when we’ve had a bit more bad weather.