Jaki, Ste and Jorge do Spain.

Who the Hell's Jorge? It's Jorge Tutor, who has a brilliant website of all his fantastic photos of Spain

Jorge's Photos

Apart from taking beautiful photos he also appears to have an uncanny knack of always being in the same place as the rain. As he appears to have followed us around Spain on our travels I thought I'd combine his snaps with my words about some of the fab places we've visited.

Alarcón

A tiny town in Cuenca, dominated by this 1300 year old castle, which is now a Parador. We had dinner there and provided the evening's entertainment for the 200 residents of the town - all sitting in their garages - as we walked from one end of the village to the other (roughly 15 seconds)

Zaragoza

You've now realised we're doing an alphabetical tour? Zaragoza was my kinda town. It had a park down by the river Ebro with a dog exercise area with a bar in it!! Good thing we took Lucy with us. I have fond memories of her paddling around in this fountain one hot August night with the temperature's nudging 38 degrees.

During the civil war a bomb dropped right down one of those towers on the Basilica and didn't go off when it hit the bottom. Another miracle, though somewhat less believable, depicted in the Basilica is of some peasant boy who woke up one morning to find that his amputated and buried leg was now back to its original position next to his other leg. Why can't we have miracles like that these days?

Covadonga

As historically monumental in Spain as the Battle of Hastings is to the British, Covadonga marked the first battle won against the invading Moors (the baddies) on the 700 year road to reconquest.

Needless to say a vision of the virgin appeared to the King of the Visigoths (the goodies) before the battle. A shrine has been erected there and the water in the spring where the virgin appeared is revered as the Holiest in Spain. This mattered little to our Lu who, drier than a dead dingo's donga, waded in scooping up mouthfuls of Holy water as she splashed about. Not sure if we could return to Covadonga?

Asturias

On Spain's green Atlantic coast, Asturias has got it all. It's Switzerland with a coastline and no punctuality. Mountains and beaches, surf and turf, hiking, biking, bears and boars. The best beef in all Spain is reared here and some of the finest seafood is available in the coastal towns and resorts. Strangely, I still have a perfect memory of Jaki carrying me home after 3 bottles of cider. (er, she's never let me forget it)