Adventures With Harvey

Navigators and Earthquakes Hands up who’s heard of Prince Henry the Navigator?  OK, let’s make it a bit easier… Who’s heard of Christopher Columbus?  Ah that’s better, I see a whole load of hands in the air.  Well read on because later in this edition you’ll find out why Henry was arguably more critical to discovering the Americas than Se ñ or Columbus! But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s back the truck up and pick up where we left off last time – those of you with a good memory will recall that was Tavira, Portugal, just over the border from Spain.  In the end we spent 8 nights there in our little carpark under the bridge, it was just so lovely to remain in the same spot and get to know a town and surrounds.  While there your author enjoyed exploring the nearby villages of Santa Luzia and Cacela Velha by bicycle (at times some destinations can be a little too far for those in the pink corner to cycle), but mainly it was relaxing, exploring, watchi...

Farewell Spain… and hello Portugal! Jerez de la Frontera is famous for two things – sherry and horses.  It’s located not far from Cadiz on the Spanish coast and is in the middle of the ‘Sherry Triangle’ so no prizes for guessing what the main industry in the area is!  Jerez has several large Bodega (wineries) offering tours of their facilities along with tastings so, for no particularly good reason, we chose Bodega Tio Pepe which is one of the oldest and largest in town.  A beautiful and stately old property however the guide had a thick Spanish accent so you had to concentrate quite hard to understand him.  At the end of the tour was a tasting along with matching tapas which was a perfect way to end the tour. Next day it was time for yet another new experience, this time it was the Royal Andalucian School of Equestrian Art – yes, it’s a horsy town for sure.  The show was called ‘How the Andalucian horses dance’ and the name of this show is most definitely a...