The way we were, or, IT (and office life) in the 20th Century – Part 1 - kit

It’s nearly 30 years since I starting working in IT – a scary thought.  What’s even scarier is that I could face almost another 20 years working life before I get to retire.  Note that I didn’t suggest I would still be working in IT…  These days I sit under the shadow / glare of a 6ft interactive whiteboard which is basically one of the biggest TV’s I’ve ever seen (and the pride of our team). 

Our interactive "whiteboard" - glowing with pride

I get zillions of emails every day, most of which go straight through to my junk mail folder, and I can communicate via video links with people all over the globe at the click of a mouse button.  Generally, “all over the globe” most commonly means Normoss, a suburb of the Greater Blackpool metropolitan area, but it could be India, Australia or the US… Anywhere.  Back in the early 80’s all of this stuff was the work of science fiction and Q from James Bond…

The fact is that our working lives have changed immeasurably compared to the days back in the early 80’s – some, but not all, for the better.  So I thought it would be entertaining to ramble on a bit and mull over the differences between our present 3D reality and the days when phones hadn’t yet become mobile, TV screens larger than 26” were considered infeasibly large, and we’d only just got a 4^th Channel on the tele.  Sky was the cloudy bit above the land and the sea (occasionally blue in the UK) and if Rupert Murdoch was hacking a phone it would presumably be with a knife or an axe…  This blog may not be that interesting for the vast majority of my readership (all 3 of them) but it will entertain me (sad or what?).

There are a lot of places to start this off so I thought I’d kick off with kit – or the lack of it back then.  These days almost every office employee is equipped with a desktop at least.  Some will have a laptop and, as if that weren’t enough, smart-phones and tablet pc’s.  Most of this is essential to our working lives and, for some, ALL of it is.  And that’s fair enough because they make us more productive so we get things done much more quickly.  Actually, I don't even go on holiday without a notebook these days.   But it wasn’t always like this…

First of all though, I just want to make it clear that I don’t go that far back into computing history as far as my working life goes.  So I don’t remember computers like this…

Manchester Uni (Alma Mater) Mark 1 computer

Nor did I ever have to work this this stuff, although we did play with it a bit in my 1^st year of Uni (as a bit of a history lesson)…

Paper tape (as seen on old films)

As a student I did have some short dealings with the following cards but only for a couple of weeks programming Fortran.. (Ithink Fortran 66...)

Good old holorith cards - a staple of the (now) 60+ techy

So, none of that old nonsense.  Back in 1982, and for some time after that, "the desktop" meant the top of one’s desk and nothing more.  For a mere mortal this was generally a veneer of some cheap indeterminate wood, probably chipped and almost certainly stained by spilt, coffee, tea or ink.  More senior people would have their desk topped with a large sheet of glass – not entirely sure why that was seen as a better thing to do but that was the way it worked.  On top of the desk would be various pieces of stationery – paper, pens, pencils, etc.  The ubiquitous desk diary would be lying around somewhere, possibly a photo of the wife and kids (I had neither at the time), and for some people there would be an essential of working life - the ashtray.  Some “busy” people would probably have mounds and mounds of paper on their desks – quite often computer listings.  The one thing that you wouldn’t see on the desk was what we now call a desktop because, although they had been invented, they were very expensive and our applications weren’t designed to make use of them at the time.   

"Kit" generally only lived in “special” rooms.  They were the data centres and, sensibly we were kept away from them.  Our access to the vast computing power was via terminals and these were all housed in the terminal room. 

A typical terminal room, although they were usually smokier than this

Note the apt black and white shot although these places also existed in colour.  Because there were only so many terminals and there were plenty of us coding types, it was necessary to have a terminal booking system.  No surprises to find out that this was a sheet of marked out paper… You could only book 30-60 minutes at a time to give everyone a chance to use the things.  So you got maybe 3 goes on one in an average day.  This was probably just as well because the atmosphere in them wasn't that healthy.  They were generally quite smoky and stuffy but there was an advantage that they were a good place to hide from the boss...

So how , I hear you ask, did we find time to type in all that code?  Well the answer was that we didn’t…  We wrote out our code on 80 character wide sheets of pre-printed stationery.  Those sheets then got taken (I think the typists took them) to the Redifon team (I think Redifon was the agency we used for "data collection" which means people typing stuff in for us) who typed the coding sheets in.  We had special notation to differentiate 1 and I, O and 0 - in fact you still see some old coders put a slash through a 0 in case anyone gets confused.  So, in the course of developing a program, the first you saw of it on a computer system was the version typed in by the Redifon dept.  This was generally not exactly what you had written so job number one was to correct the errors before anything compiled.  And so it went on.  I do wonder now how we ever got things done but, thinking about it, we probably didn’t get THAT much done.  Happy but somewhat unproductive times…

Typical Honeywell terminal which we usede for many happy (?) years

In the mid 80’s we started to get more terminals which were split out by teams – so each team had a couple of terminals.  Just like the one above one… This gave us more terminal time so the coding sheets started to get dropped as we keyed stuff in for ourselves - the beginning of the end for the typists...  We also had basic word processing capabilities on new machines called “PCs”.  A few of these started to appear and some of us got to use them but mainly they replaced the typewriters that the typists used.  So, younger analysts (I was soon to become one) keyed in their design documents and specs on the PCs whilst the older ones continued to hand write them and feed them to typists…  Great fun.

The next leap towards the future was the introduction of the portable computer.  This wasn’t a laptop, yet, as you can see.  These were produced by Compaq and available to buy from about 1983,  I suspect we started buying them 2 or 3 years after that.  Portable was just about plausible.  They weighed in at just under 30 pounds (about 13kg kiddies) so they were as portable as a sack of spuds – the  screens were pretty pathetic as well.  Why they didnt put wheels on them I don't know.  You could book them out to work at home (at evenings and weekends – nobody “worked from home” in those days) but you could really only get them off site if you had a car parked nearby.  No way would they have seen atrain journey home.  Still, they got used and some (very senior) people had them in favour of desktops… 

The dawn of the personal computer as an everyday working tool (as above) was only round the corner and soon things like this appeared on more and more desks – the “workstation” was born and we have never looked back…  Well, maybe occasionally…

Unikids / Vive la difference

Having kids is a good idea and I would recommend it to anyone who can afford them - because, make no mistake, they can be VERY expensive - especially if you are weak of spine.  Sometimes though...

So here's the deal - I have two kids who are both at Uni at the moment.  The financial burden could only be increased, in fact, if they both happened to be at private School together, or required finance for concurrent crack habits, so I'm thankful for small mercies.  At least they’re not eating me out of house and home for most of the year or leaving clothes, plates and other assorted junk around the place or bringing manky members of the opposite sex home to eat, drink, sleep whatever, or, or, or…I could easily go on.  Instead they are working hard at their studies (so I’m told) and, if they are misbehaving, they are doing it hundreds of miles away where I am unlikely to find out about it.  I'm also thankful that they are not burdened with the impending 9k a year fee hike which is frankly a joke and just proves that The Government has no grasp on real life whatsoever...  “Oh, loads and loads of Uni’s, both respected and of somewhat dubious reputations, have jumped onto the 9k bandwagon – we didn’t expect that!!!).  Naïve or what?  Welcome to the 51^st State…

Anyway, the blog isn't about that (honest), it's about the fact that I had to move one out of flats, etc. on a Friday and the other one on the Saturday.  That was a 200 mile trip one day followed by a 400 mile trip the next (and I ain’t no long distance driver…).  Thank heavens for the Mighty Mondeo and for cruise control...  All of that was fine and, to be fair, what I'm signed up to do as a parent but the Saturday in particular was a nice day, and I've loads of outside decorating to do, and there are only so many decent days in the British Summer as we all know, so another little opportunity drifts past.

The interesting thing though is how different the job is from one day to the next in terms of the cargo stowed into the motor.

Friday was KJ day.  We went up to the flat in halls and worked out what could be safely deposited at the new house.  The new house was organised a few weeks, maybe a couple of months ago so has simply been waiting to be vacated by the previous student tenants.  Being taken between properties were numerous items of study material – books, papers, other stationery items – plus various items of kitchenware and other assorted items of small and not very valuable hardware.  So that amounted to most of a boot load that needed to be ferried just around the corner. 

After that, we went back to the old flat and started a pincer movement on it – there was the loading of the car plus the forensic cleaning of the flat -  in the hope, not a vain one I trust, that the deposit could be reclaimed from Uni – we shall see.  What soon became apparent was that the large wheeled holdall and mammoth wheeled case would be far from adequate as containers for all of the clothes that required transport.  How this has come to pass is something of a mystery, although I doubt it would require the talents of a Marple or Colombo to solve. 

Clearly we took clothes out with us the previous September and there has been opportunity to take further quantities of clothing out during the subsequent ferrying back and forth at the start of terms but I strongly suspect that there is another reason.  My suspicion is that KJ has been living off bread and jam/marmite (hopefully not both at once) for most of each term and she has ploughed all surplus funds into New Look, Primark and their counterparts.  They have also been the recipients of the funds endowed by grandparents and other assorted members of the family at Christmas, birthday and start of term events. 

I think, as part of this apparel collection, there were enough coats/jackets to wear a different one on each day of the week.  I also think there was a different pair of shoes for each day of the month - -and not all of them particularly savoury…

This clearly put something of a strain on the motor and it is just as well that the kitchen contained a world class collection of supermarket carrier bags to put all of the stuff in.  The boot was full, the parcel shelf crammed and the back seat loaded up with a mass of cotton, polyester, viscose, leather, etc.  There was, however a glimmer of hope for the following year.  KJ has quite a large room in her new house but not that much storage space so it may force her hand to cut down the quantity of clothing.  That does fall over, though, when you consider that she won’t need storage space for shoes as the floor looks quite capacious.  We’ll see.  There was, of course her “kit” as well but this was limited to a keyboard and stand, PC, printer, clock radio and docking station.  KJ prefers to walk rather than cycle – if there was a bike it would have had to stay at the flat…  It’s as well she’s not a fat lass either because there wasn’t too much space left on that back seat.  It all got brought home safely in the end but there may be a lesson learned there for Uni Year 2..

As for “The Boy”, well it’s just a complete opposite really.  First of all there was no house to move stuff into.  This was because the house had only been signed up to on the very last day of term.  The reason for this, apparently, is because houses come up late in this particular town so there’s no point in trying to get one early beacause there aren’t any.  I suspect that is for the most part true, but there is also another suspicion, given that it took 2 weeks to find and sign for this veritable mansion, that getting up late in the day isn’t conducive to speedy resolution…  Much easier to stay in bed and pick up the crumbs left by those prepared to put the effort in (probably mostly organised females).  Various other excuses were also put forward and are the subject of a CJ blog but I take most of them with a pinch of salt.

So, EVERYTHING that had been accumulated by “The Boy” during the year needed to be fitted into the Mondeo because there was nothing else to do with it.  It was just as well that AJ (CJ’s mum) stayed at home for this one (we had planned for that in fact).  We also knew that CJ was buying himself a “decent” bike so, on a previous visit, the “indecent” bike came home in advance.  What we didn’t need too much room for in the car was clothing.  Just as well.

Being a young chap there was only a mostly full wheeled holdall and a half full suitcase to contend with.  In fact I was surprised to see CJ with a new pair of trainers – clearly an old pair had disintegrated at some point during the final term.  What you begin to realise with a chap like CJ is that the only clothing gets bought as a result of being a pre-requisite for a course (like a lab coat), having been to a gig (i.e. the odd t-shirt), having been seen on t’internet and deemed “cool” (i.e. more t-shirts) or because it is college rowing related (t-shirts, rugby shirts, actual rowing gear, and the customary blazer).  That all sounds like a lot but, in volume terms, amounts to little.

"Customary rowing blazer"

Plenty of room in the car then you might think.  Not exactly, no.  Alongside his sister there are a variety of books, papers and assorted stationery.  There are also a variety of kitchen items.  But then, to replace this apparently chronic “lack” of clothing there is a surfeit of kit.  This takes the form of the new bike (which was dismantled and place around most of the back of the car) guitar, amp, PC, netbook, 2 external drives, Joystick (not a little one, this is like part of an arcade machine…), framed picture (our fault, a present) and 24in flat screen monitor (another present).  Nearly all of this stuff is a bit delicate so it’s all boxed and therefore takes up even more room.  All of this means that the return journey is also with a car boot crammed with stuff and a back seat and parcel shelf also full.  No room, in fact, for any third body on the back seat.  The time may well come when I return with all this gear alone as there will be no space for “The Boy” himself.

The journey up and down the country to pick CJ up was started at around 7am on Saturday.  This is primarily because this Saturday heralded the start of Le Tour – easily the biggest bike race in the world and, probably, the most entertaining sporting event of the summer.  Well, there’s no World Cup or Euro Championships to “entertain” us is there?.  Sorry girls but the Women’s World Cup really doesn’t cut it… You can’t get excited by a sport that ends in a final between US and Japan, sorry.  Anyway, a 7am start allowed us to catch the best part of the first stage of Le Tour so it was well worth while.  Special commendation must also be given to CJ for assisting in this by rising at the “unfeasibly early” time of about 9am.  To be fair to “The Boy”, all of his gear was ready to shift and he also had the presence of mind to go to a Uni where women come and clean up after you every week so nothing had to be done – excellent value dude.

Days 13-15 - The end of the tour - winding down

Our apartment complex (well some of it) - Fuentes de Nerja

The next few days involved mainly more slobbing and also the discovery of another restaurant just up the street from us (the street being the Calle de Malaga) – Rosi’s Bar.  At first I thought this was maybe an English place, which is why we visited it late, but it turns out it’s run by a couple of local lads (Rosi is their mum).  Nice food and a relaxed place to eat (the watch/sunglasses sales guys and buskers don’t seem to bother with it).  So there’s another recommendation.  During the last couple of days we took another morning out to Velez Malaga – interesting enough but not a place we’d bother with again.

One silver lining of the bust aircon cloud was that I found out from our “concierge” that there was no need to vacate the apartment early on Saturday because she wasn’t cleaning it until Sunday, ready for new tenants on Monday.  This was a major bonus because our flight home wasn’t until nearly midnight.  That meant we didn’t have to find something to do for the whole day or go home in a somewhat unkempt state.  An extra day’s worth of slob – perfect.  The only notable incident that day involved our resident tramp. 

This guy spent the night on a bench in the little square in front of our balcony.  That wasn’t an issue for us because he was some distance away and you couldn’t smell him from our place…  The thing was that he left all of his gear on the bench during the day.  Understandably, nobody touched this stuff all week – until Saturday…  On Saturday they were having a mini fiesta in the square and a market accompanied it.  So, the guys stuff got moved (not far away but off the bench).  Our guess is that he came back and threw a bit of a wobbler that somehow involved him falling over and gashing his arm.  We came back from our habitual walk and found the paramedics dealing with him.  Interestingly enough, we only saw paramedics on the street twice during our hols and both time it was to sort out tramps.  What a satisfying job that must be – rather them than me.

The return to the airport was, thankfully uneventful as was the flight back home.  I think we were the last flight into Liverpool because our bags came out very quickly (so everyone could get home?).  We were back home within an hour of hitting the runway and our lovely little holiday had come to an end.  Back to “real” life…

Day 12 - Granada

We decided to have a day out in Granada.  The last time we went we visited the Alhambra but not the city itself so we went to have a look.  I decided to set Jeeves for the Cathedral in the city centre knowing that we probably wouldn’t get right to it but hoping to get somewhere nearby.  We got within about 1km of the place and decided to find a parking spec.  As look would have it we found one almost straight away – a pretty unusual occurrence given our experiences to date.  We had a coffee then a wander. 

Granada's an interesting place and we didn't even do the main sights.  We ambled around the old quarters - there are several of them (?).  Included in the “tour” was a visit to the Mirador de San Nicolas.  From here you get a really good view of most of the city, the Alhambra and the Sierra Nevada above the town – it’s very scenic and I’m not sure my photo does it justice... 

View from the Mirador de San Nicolas

We eventually made it back to the car, via lunch and more coffee, and Jeeves guided us back home… When we got back to the apartment late in the afternoon we noticed that workmen had been in and fixed the aircon again – for the last time (hurray).

Day 11 - still slobbing with a morning in Torrox

Day 11 took us out of town for our morning amble - Torrox Costa.  This is quite a nice, although relatively standard resort - pretty uninviting name though. The fun bit was that they clearly have some excessive long shore drift here and are struggling to retain the beach.  I don't think they have groynes in Spain.

Torrox beach - bulldozer in distance

Bulldozing the beach (doesn't look much like sand either...)

So, we had the interesting perspective of people sunbathing on the sand with diggers, big trucks and earthmovers around and about them. 

Bathing beauty with beach deconstruction in background

Not exactly a relaxing scene but it made out walk more interesting.  After Torrox, lunch and pool ensued and yet another restaurant in the evening - probably Meson Jose Y Victoria which is a very well priced local.  In between we had fun with the aircon again – it was OK for 30 mins but then started leaking once more.  I put another call in to the resourceful Pat and she said what she could do(whilst also apologising profusely).  The (maybe rather boring) plan that evening was to retire to the apartment and catch the opening episode of Luther on TV as the sunbathing was wearing us out.  However, on the amble back we were spotted by previously mentioned woolies and we joined them at a bar for more drinks and chats.  By the time we were done we were straight to bed (knackered).

Days 8-10 Nerjan slob action part 1

Day 7 was the last sightseeing day and on day 8 we were off to Nerja for a week of (almost) total rest.  The thing with slobbing out is that there's not much write about but thast'd probably not a bad thing...  Anyway, time to leave Seville behind.  AJ had had enough of O'Reilly sending us the wrong way so, for a short time, we tried Bruce (Oz accent) and then, having got fed up with him after 5 minutes, settled on Jeeves.  Jeeves took us effortlessly to Nerja, partly helped by the fact that when we actually got to town I kind of (kind of) knew where we were going.  The fun with Nerja then, at this time of the year, is parking the car. 

I think we did 3 laps of our part of town before deciding to go into a dead end bit (albeit a BIG dead end bit) where we did find a space.  Journey's end (well, for a week).  And on the 8th day shalt we rest?  Well, yes, but not until some shopping has been done and then washing put in the machine (I think 3 loads that day).  A couple of late afternoon hours by the pool and we were set up for the evening.

The evening was quite entertaining because the last time we were in Nerja it was November.  Wandering around the restaurant area on a Saturday night in November invloves deciding which half-empty place to go and visit.  In June it involves about 10 times as many people and AJ did not appreciate the hustle and bustle   (they like to call it atmosphere I think).  We went to an Italian that we knew and had an OK meal.  It was really busy but the service was OK (I think we just beat the rush...).  We kind of decided then that we'd be eating in the quieter parts of town after that...

Sunset from the balcony

Day 9 involved a refresher course in the town's geography - particularly as our Saturday shopping trip ended up with us coming the long way round from the Supermarket.  So we had a wander up and down the beachfront and around the middle of town.  Lunchtime followed that, then slobbing around the pool, drinks, dinner, etc.  You'll see a pattern here (and far less words).  Actually the evening surrounding dinner was quite interesting.  We watched the Canadian F1 GP where it rain terribly (or really well dependent on how you look at it) until the race got red flagged (i.e. stopped).  At this point we went out to dinner.  We returned 2 hours later, got some drinks, sat out on the balcony and then I remembered to check out the F1 result.  I turned on the TV and the race was still on - in fact it had only just restarted...  Jenson Button won.  Brilliant.  All rise for the National Anthem...

Day 10 was a virtual re-run of day 9 with us walking to Burriana beach this time (where we had previously stayed) and (obviously) a different restaurant.  Day 10 also introduced two couples from Leigh and (ex) Bolton thus extending the conversation circle from 2 to 6.   Oh yes, one other thing that made Day 10 different - a drip.

No, not me, the drip was from our bedroom aircon unit.  I came out of the shower to find it dripping good style.  We switched it off, stuck a pan under the drip and rang the "concierge" Pat.  She was very good.  She got onto someone to fix it who sent someone out - they said 45 minutes and they took 90 but at least they came.  There was a blockage of sorts in the condensed water outlet.  He tried to clear it then told me in Spanish that the system probably wasn't set up right.  Anyway, it all went back on and worked for the rest of the night.

Day 7 – Sevilla and the last sightseeing day (well the last consecutive one)

Day 7 started a little late. The Hotel offered a reasonable breakfast which we could take in our little patio or on the roof-top terrace. It was a lovely day so we took it on the terrace and enjoyed the roof-top views, the sunshine and the bread, pastries, etc. I have to say that cake for breakfast seems a very civilised thing to do (bacon is still a preference though).
Having had our fill we set off for the Cathedral & Giralda - Giralda is the name for the big bell tower that stands next to the churchy bit. AJ said that, after the spiral staircase incident in Segovia, she wasn't going up any towers.

As it happened she didn't have to - the tower was closed for repairs that week. Here's where see a theme repeating. Basically, Segovia Cathedral is very much like the previously visited places only even bigger. It also has even more gold and intricate carving so must have been even scarier and awe-inspiring to the C14th peasants. For us, though, it was more of the same and we would probably have been better off finding something else to do.

Yet more cathedral carving

They did have rooms full of "treasure" though, so even more gold. They can afford to given the amount they charged us to get in...

After that I knew we would have a more interesting time - we went to see the Alcazar which is an old Moorish castle turned Royal Palace. The Alhambra at Granada is unparalleled but this place sits credibly alongside it. The ornamentation and scale isn't the same but neither was it crammed full of tourists so you actually got time to roam around at your will rather than feeling herded. We enjoyed it very much and would recommend it as the best place to visit in town. You could pay extra to visit some upstairs apartments in the place which we didn't do but neither did we feel we'd missed anything...

Sevilla Alcazar (apologies for the leaningness – I have subsidence)

Some more ambling about the old town continued, interspersed with drinks stops and another church. Then it was back to the hotel for a rest. Then, about 4'ish peckishness set in (we'd had nothing since the late breakfast) so we moseyed out for some tapas. Very nice. The evening meal was at another tapas bar, this time for more substantial raciones. The waiter was very good. Whilst we'd ordered individual meals he served the plates up individually so we effectively had big tapas action. At the end of the meal we found out that the guy was from Chile and was, of course, a Liverpool supporter (isn't everyone?). He did a couple of quick lines of YNWA and explained that he'd learned most of his early English from Beatles numbers. He was dead busy which was a shame because we couldn't really chat but I can definitely recommend La Mesquita for good tapas and service.
Then to bed to polish off more sherry and get some kip in prior to the big slob that the next week had in store (well hopefully)

Day 6 - To Sevilla

Day 6 was to take us to a potential highlight of the trip - Seville. Certainly the biggest city we were going to see on this trip.  We left Caceres early, trusting to O'Reilly's instructions yet again.  This time I decided not to ask it to send us to the hotel.  This was because I knew that we couldn't park at the hotel, we'd have to drive past.  I also knew that there was a car park not far from the hotel so I got O'Reilly to take us there.  This he did without too much of a slip (there was one attempt to get us to drive down a road that was being dug up - can't blame him for not knowing that).  We got to the car park only to see a sign saying "Completo" - it was full and only open to residents.  Oh dear (or words to that effect).  We drove around for a few minutes and eventually found somewhere to leave the car but it didn't feel like a bona fide parking space so I knew I'd be back...

We trolled over to the hotel and checked in. This hotel is the Amadeus - a small independent place in the old part of town and best described as quaint (or maybe quirky).  It has a musical theme (clue in the name?).  For the first time this trip we were given a 'real' key rather than a piece of plastic and told our room was just round the corner.  Before we even got in the room I thought it was a bit strange because we didn't appear to be on an outside wall - the whole of the room appeared surrounded by the rest of the hotel so I'm thinking "where's our window?".  No problem. 

We walked into the room (which was reasonably compact) and there, on the left hand wall were french doors leading to the tiniest little courtyard (a little larger than an apartment balcony).  It was a nice surprise and we were very happy with it. 

Amadeus Room

Another happiness generating thing was that the hotel had a spare space in the previously 'completo' car park (albeit for a significant fee) so I took it and went and retrieved the car, no problem (O'Reilly helped once again).

Actually, our first sight-seeing in Seville was inside the hotel.  We've never been anywhere quite as individual as this place...

Amadeus Lounge area - note the sherry, centre right

View from Amadeus roof terrace

Hotel having been 'seen' we went out to find coffee. We didn't think we needed anything to eat but we sat at a tapas bar and somehow got persuaded to take 6 assorted tapas plates (like they REALLY twisted our arms...).  Very nice and it all slipped down.  Then we had a wander, leaving the main sights for the next day. 

The tourist map we'd picked up was really confusing though until I worked it out.  Call me conventional but I generally expect a map to show North pointing to the top of the page and it quickly became clear that this map didn't work like that.  However, having sussed that North was to the left (west) of the page the thing started to slip into place and we found our way to the riverbank. 

We did the Museo De Bella Artes which is described as one of the best collections in Spain and is, thankfully, free.  I can think of at least 2 galleries near home that are both better than this was but maybe I'm biased (Brit Art is way better than Spanish art after all - well when you take Picasso, Miro and Dali out of the equation...  Better leave that one before I dig any deeper). 

Once again tiredness took over so we went back to our lovely room for a rest before going out to dinner.  Another fantastic thing about this hotel - FREE SHERRY!!!  I have to admit to more than one trip to the decanter during the course of the late afternoon.   So to dinner - dinner is very easy to do in Seville because decent places to eat seem to be all over the old quarter...  Stay at the Amadeus and you won't have to walk more than 200 yards for some decent scran...

Day 5 - Caceres and more Sat Nav fun

Day 5 was mainly a travelling day.  We were headed for Seville but it's a fair way from Salamanca so we broke the journey overnight in Caceres - stopping in Plasencia at about lunchtime for a bite and a coffee.

All of a sudden I am reminded of the Yemas (see day 3 for pic) and can describe them in 2 words - "don't bother".  They are the confectionery equivalent of a "local delicacy" - you know, the sort of stuff that you'd only eat when there's absolutely nothing left and even then you'd maybe hold your nose.  These things looked like little egg yolks and were very soft.  They tasted eggy and sweet and where the lemon ingredient was is anyone's guess.  I definitely wouldn't recommend them (but, actually I did eat them all) and AJ wouldn't touch them.

Anyway, anyway, off to Plasencia...  Sat nav took us in very easily (although it's all on the main road to Caceres so hard to miss) and after a bit of shuffling round we found an easy parking place.  It's quite a nice little town to stop in and we ate at a cafe on the main square - all very pleasant.  It's town hall has a clock tower with a bloke who dings the hour bell just like on Trumpton - a shame we only saw 1 o'clock but never mind. 

Plasencia "Trumpton" Town Hall Clock

After lunch it was back into the car and then the sat nav went and let us down.  It took us around the town, sort of, trying to send us the wrong way up a one way street (thankfully ignored) but then it sent us around some newly built roads and into a market / gypsy camp / dead end sort of place.  We forced our way out of that, gleefully ignoring O'Reilly's instructions (as the sat nav was now known) and finally we arrived on some roads that we both agreed would take us to Caceres.

Everything was going well and we entered the heart of the old town of Caceres but then O'Reilly told us to turn right and, flipping heck, this is a bit of a narrow street...  Some Spaniards were walking the other way waving hands and fingers in a good natured way as if to say "turn back" so we stopped.  They saw the sat nav, jabbered a bit and chuckled and then helped us work our way backwards for the 20 yards required to get us out of the street/alleyway. 

"The" Caceres Street (apols for googleness)

 It appears that I had taken O'Reilly too literally and should have waited an extra 20 yards to turn.  Now then, the hotel we were staying in was on the Plaza Mayor and I saw a sign which matched the sat nav but then O'Reilly said turn left and, whilst I could see the Plaza beckoning about 30 yards away, the sign in front of me said no entry.  The thing is... you can't actually drive through the Plaza...  At least not in the middle of the afternoon.  No wonder it looks so clean (it's a very clean Plaza).  What I was then left with was a requirement to park somewhere, anywhere, within a "reasonable" distance of the hotel.  We managed to find a space about 5 mins walk away but it was definitely temporary.

The Hotel Casa Don Fernando is a nice little place - all modern and a bit quirky but very good for the price.  They had a cut price deal on the local multi-storey so I plonked the A1 in there.

Caceres are trying to do tourism but there's not really much there.  A nice square and a very ancient old part of town but not a lot of gold in the churches maybe and definitely no castle.  I did take a couple of pics but nothing worth adding here. We wandered about it a bit but felt we'd earned a lie down before tea. 

Finding dinner was probably more tortuous than it needed to be.  We'd had a drink in a place called El Pato earlier and that seemed OK.  It was also recommended in the DK guide but when I went on Tripadvisor it was unanimously panned - seriously panned.  So, we ended up wandering around the busier end of town (definitely not much fun) and coming back to the square where we had a meal in the restaurant next door.  The service was good but the house wine was distinctly ropey and the desserts came in plastic tubs.  Oh dear...  Still, I guess you can't have a good meal every night (unless you've loads of dosh).

Day 4 - Salamanca

Day 4 was full on Salamancan sight-seeing action and we even had a plan (well sort of...).  First up we visited the University - it looks like there are 2 bits to it so we went into the old bit.  It is, indeed, very old but, to be honest, there's not that much to see.  In fact the facade on the front is pretty fancy compared to the bits inside - in fact the facade contains the frog that is the symbol of Salamanca (although it's well hard to find).  You could see that some of the lecture facilities were ancient although, even then, designed for mass education.  No interactive whiteboards though...

Ancient Lecture Hall

Lovely Old Library

 

That done I had a much better option up my sleeve - Casa Lis.  This was a rich dude's house back at the start of the 20th century.  Consequently it's been created in an Art Nouveau & Deco style and it is now a museum for such.  We both enjoyed going around it and I have to say that they've conserved it brilliantly.  Loads of exhibits were originally bought by the guy who owned the house and a lot more has been donated.  The only thing we didn't really "get" was the dolls exhibition but what the heck.  Would recommend it though.

Casa Lis Roof - Spectacular...

After that, just for good measure, it started raining again.  This happened whilst we were on our way to the roman bridge.  The city and the bridge stand on an ancient highway - The Ruta De La Plata which I think runs right through from the south to the north of Spain.  The bridge is old and it goes across the river.  The Romans built it.  That's about it really.  Also, there's nowhere on it to shelter from the rain (see, the Romans weren't THAT clever).

Now things get a little hazy as I can't remember whether we visited the Cathedral next or the Convent of San Estaban.  It was probably the Convent but I'll write about the Cathedral first - actually it's Cathedrals, plural, but they are built next to one another so it's probably the first time we've visited a semi-detached Cathedral.  We visited the "new" Cathedral which is actually quite old (from C16th) - this was also the "free" Cathedral (no entrance fee) and you could kind of see why.  Basically it was a larger version of the place we visited in Segovia and in some respects was simply the lobby for the older place (from C12th).  So, a massive organ and choir stalls in the middle and lots of dimly lit and fenced off chapels around the sides with varying degrees of gilded and painted wood carvings.   

We didn't go into the old cathedral (well it wasn't free) but I'd seen some of it on t'internet and apart from a big fresco thing at one end there wasn't much to it...

That reminds me - an interesting 10 minutes was spent in the Ciel de Salamanca.  It's in this little building near the Uni and is a type of early zodiacal planetarium.  Very interesting and peaceful(it was dark and nobody else was in).  No pics though, not allowed.

So, to the Convent.  In our guide book this gets a listing but it isn't highlighted like the Uni and Cathedrals which is a shame because it really was impressive and not at all busy.  Basically you got a standard type convent arrangement - cloisters, various rooms, sacristy, etc. Then you’ve got this church next door.  Not another church, surely.  Well, maybe not just another church...  First of all I should say that the church had about 3 other people in it so it felt more tranquil than any of the others we'd been in (which does make a difference). 

Inside it was very light with fewer caged off chapels but basically it had this massive gold altarpiece at one end which was way better lit and more impressive than anything previously seen (in Spain, this week, at least).  At the other end was this huge fresco above a galleried choir / organ area - kind of like the circle in a theatre.  Having viewed all this from ground level you then had the chance to go "upstairs" and look at it from the gallery.  The organist was higher still - a great seat to view proceedings from (although we weren't allowed up there).  I remember now that we definitely did do the convent thing first because the cathedral was a major disappointment afterwards...

San Esteban Altar

San Esteban Choir

We then had a late lunch and a wander about, ending back in the Plaza Mayor.  It wasn't raining now and, in the middle of the square, a big temporary stage had been set up and these African dudes were rehearsing something.  We had no idea what was going on - much singing, shouting, stamping and few acrobatic leaps but it all looked jolly good fun so we thought we'd come back later for the show.

That night we ate out next door but one to the restaurant from the night before then, a little before 10, went to the Plaza for the show.  We sat on a bench whilst the usual pre-show messing about went on.  Then decided to stand near the front as it was obvious we would otherwise see nothing.  What we did get was a show about a white guy making friends with some African chums - singing, dancing and some great acrobatics (including male pole dancing - but none of that mucky stuff...). The only regret was that I didn't take my camera.  I took some shots on the phone but they were pretty rubbish so you won't see them here.  Later on I found out that they are called Cirque Mandingue and here's a flavour of what they were like.

Day 3 - Segovia to Salamanca and Sat Nav Fun

Day 3 started looking rather damp.  We had had some sporadic showers over the previous few days but this looked more like brolly weather.  Anyway, not trusting the vagaries of the hotel breakfast buffet we nipped round the corner for a bite (which was pretty much all we got...).  Then we headed off for Salamanca. 

The plan was to stop in Avila for lunch - this ancient town has a magnificent wall around it so I was hoping to wander around it (sad but I like that sort of thing).  So the sat nav got set for Avila.  Now the thing about sat navs is that they like to take you to a specific address, so after getting Avila as my town I needed to give it more detail.  The problem was that I didn't have a specific address in mind, nor did I know any addresses in Avila.  I decided that the best bet was to set it for the Plaza Mayor because every town has one of those.  Then when we got there I could just park up somewhere as usual. 

The sat nav got us out of Segovia very handily, after a stop off to take a picture of the Alcazar from outside the town (you get a better idea of the scale...).  As it happened Avila was well signposted, as it's a major town, so we didn't really need the sat nav but I left it on anyway.  The fun started whilst we were headed down a reasonably major route that seemed to be taking us all the way to Avila. 




Segovia Alcazar from outside town

 

The sat nav told us to turn left off this main road onto what was clearly a more minor road.  A short cut, possibly, I thought - or maybe I just didn't think, I just did what the nice Irish man told me (he can be very persuasive).  This road turned out to be the literal high point of the tour. It took us past a quarry - in fact we did wonder if it was going to take us THROUGH the quarry (did that earlier in the year in Cyprus).  Thankfully it didn't but it did keep climbing.  In fact it took us through some really nice scenery and we did stop at one point to take photos. 

 

We basically drove into the middle of nowhere for about 20 minutes.  We were still vaguely going in the right direction and because the landscape was very nice and the roads OK we weren't too perturbed.  We "topped out" at 1467m and, on one of the straighter bits of road, did get a km check for Avila. 

The thing was, though, that the sign then said we had about 20kms to go but the sat nav said 5...  A bit strange.  It was when the sat nav then suggested that we turn right towards a small village, and that we were nearly there, that we switched it off.  Clearly I had programmed it to take us to some random Plaza Mayor in some random little village in the Province of Avila.  We then followed signs to Avila and found it , no problem...  The moral of this tale being program the sat nav carefully and don't forget that provinces and capital towns regularly have the same name... 

Avila walls in the rain

We parked up and at this point is was raining "properly", like back home - no ridiculous thundery stuff that ends after 20 mins, this was a full "set up for the afternoon" sort of rain.  So, brollies out and we wandered around Avila for a bit.  Nobody was walking on the walls and, whilst it was clearly set up to do so (rails and such) there didn't seem to be an obvious way up so I gave up on that. 

Instead, we walked around the old town and decided to find some lunch - a nice little bar did the job filled with little old ladies consuming tapas and white wine before 1pm.  It was clearly a haven for golden girls.  Anyway the bocadillos were very good and so, suitably nourished, we wandered round a bit more of the town. 

Then we found the main square...  Now Avila has a famous saint - Teresa.  She had visions and stuff and is variously painted and sculpted in an ecstatic state (nuns clearly can have fun).  No real surprise therefore to find that the main square in Avila is not a Plaza Mayor but THE Plaza de Santa Teresa...
 

Santa Teresa having ecstasy
Bernini - Santa Maria della Vittoria - Rome

Another thing the nuns are famous for is making Yemas (Spanish for yolks) which, according to all the books are a "delicious" local confection.  I am known for consumption of confectionery so we bought a small box to try later.  According to the box the Yemas are made from egg, sugar and lemons.  Sounds good.

Yemas... Lovely...

Because we are nothing if not optimistic, the sat nav got set for our hotel in Salamanca and we set off yet again.  There were no problems finding the place as the little computer did its job well.  The only wrinkle appeared to be that the hotel is in a vaguely pedestrianised little precinct but anyone who's been to Spain knows that you can drive and park almost anywhere, at least up to a point, and the front of the hotel was not even approaching that point.  So, we checked in and I went and sought out some longer term parking.  The hotel had its own parking but the (efficient but not very friendly) reception staff didn't mention it.  Anyway, I'd already decided that I wasn't going to pay so, after driving a couple of circuits of our part of town for 10 minutes, I managed to find an acceptable spot to leave the car.

Now you will recall that in Segovia we got a room with a view which was very nice...  In Salamanca I actually paid to get a room with a nice view (flipping heck dude, MORE expense...) because tripadvisor reviews recommended it.  This effectively means that you do get quite a nice view rather than no view at all...  And it was quite a nice view apart from the large television aerial on the building opposite.  That meant that you could get an unobstructed pic of the University buildings but not of the cathedral.  A few rooms further down the corridor and we'd have been perfect...  Never mind.

The lovely view of Salamanca

The "not quite as lovely" view of Salamanca

It was a little late in the afternoon for sightseeing so we had a little amble around instead to kind of get our bearings which isn't a bad thing to do when you're sense of direction gets as bad as mine.  I used to be quite good at directions and stuff but as well as hearing, sight, and just about every other sense, it appears that directional capabilities also reduce with age.  So we headed into the old town which is very interesting, despite the graffiti. 

At this point note that Salamanca is kind of Cambridge and Oxford rolled into one from a Spanish perspective which means there are loads of students about (although, thank god, not many bikes - Salamanca is for walkers). I'd also note that the students didn't appear to be that posh (rich) either - maybe they hide it well. 

Anyway we wandered about and I suggested that we head for the Plaza Mayor (in between showers). After a while, however, it appeared that I couldn't find said Plaza which may have had something to do with a total lack of map action.  So, we headed for the tourist info and got a map.  It turned out that the Plaza Mayor was only 5 minutes away and it was indeed Mayor... 

Placa Mayor in the rain (and slightly tilted)

At this point the heavens opened so it was just as well that we were here - it has a colonnade thing all around it so we ambled around twice waiting or the rain to stop.  It eased a bit so we then slowly ambled back to the hotel checking the restaurants on the way.  That night we ate in a small place called Restaurant Ruta de la Plata on Calle Melendez.  A very nice meal ensued..