Sped off to research/shoot the first of three articles for a popular UK based Spanish lifestyle/travel mag.
Baeza and Ubeda are two handsome Andalucian towns chock full of impressive Renaissance palaces and churches. Hope they look just as handsome in the rainy season, which set in (I swear) as the ink was drying on the magazine contract promising the article next week.
I took the train from Granada to Linares-Baeza, and Fred met me at the station. I´d anticipated a journey enlivened by chickens, gypsy picnics and flamenco. I´d planned to write about poor but proud peasant folk in tightfitting black Sunday best (and that was just the guys). What I got was a spotless, brand new carriage and never more than two travellers for company. At Ubeda, the stop before mine, there was a moment of sheer excitement as two elderly women came in. Nope. Not a hair out of place, and disappointingly sane.
However, once reunited with Fred I sipped my pre-lunch fino before going for a post-train-journey pee. In the gleaming, EU-subsidy-tiled ladies loo, I was greeted by a turd, perched ON the loo seat. Though no use to enliven my article, that perked me right up.
More about Baeza and Ubeda in my next post. And no crap, I promise.
