Comment: It's a dog's life - historic buildings and beaches

Friday 08 June 2018

Self-named 'Queen of the Road' Indie Luce, an eight-year-old Newfoundland, has been on the road with her humans for a month. After hitting France and the north of Spain, she travelled down south to Portugal - but all the historic buildings have left her dog-tired.

"I feel like Christopher Columbus. Discovering more and more historic places. Bit churched out tbh (to be honest, ed.)!

"As we headed further west into Galicia the weather was getting a bit hotter, a long van ride took us from Llanes to a place on the extreme tip of western Spain to a place called O’Grove. We were sticking to the three wag rule, no roughing it. Well the site was bang on the beach.

"On the way there, we headed off to see some very famous old walking place, I was excited at the thought of a long walk. Santiago de Compostela and the Camino de Compostela is some mighty long walk, we did the last bit. I’m not great in crowds, the streets and history of this place is truly wooferful. We had a lunch and a few hours look around then off to a night stop. Don’t miss seeing this place if you ever get a chance.

Pictured: Santiago de Compostela ranks high on Indie's list of places to see.

"I seem to remember a few nights in hotel was on the agenda. Mmm not many so far, are they just living in the bleeding hippy van, I think dads turned bush?

"I’m not so keen on these van drives, this was a long one so the stop was indeed a welcome one and a destined by board decree as a three nighter. As is with all the campsites at the moment there not properly open, so as novice campers we struggle to get to the shops, of course the continentals eat late so the restaurants are not open til 20:00.  On the very plus side, late dinners for me are chef prepared... ha ha (I mean woof woof) as the mercados are closed.

Pictured: Indie and her mum Sharon Fitzpatrick soaking up the sun on the beach.

"O’Grove is in a national park called the Isles Atlantico, and boy it’s posh. The beaches are all little sandy coves with nobody on them, except we spotted a naturist hiding in the undergrowth “naked as a Jaybird, came running right outta the....boggady, boggardy...” not shocked at all, we bravely waved “Buenas Dias” and carried on our walk. It took Sharon a few minutes to catch up... and she spent the afternoon on the beach by herself. It was a very hot day and we walked further than a newf should. But plenty of swims the rocks are massive boulders and a really different landscape.

"These coves are beautiful and the sand and water so clean, I didn’t really want to leave. But in the whip of a tail in that bleeding van again. Not far down from the islands was a place called Porto Novo (there’s lots of Porto Novo’s in Spain) so a great coastal road drive, through private Islands with massive stylish houses and we sought another campsite. No Dogs! The cheek!

Pictured: In, out, in, out, shake off the wet fur, and repeat.

"The search went on, we found another high on a cliff, Dogs allowed but no bar! Can’t win them all (haha). The beach was the best we had been on, lovely beach bar and sea gently rolling in on golden sand. All too much even for a well behaved Newfi... in we went, out we came, in we went, out we came, shake off the old wet fur usually near, or on if you can, by sunbathers or old People. Heavenly place. Jersey has St. Ouen’s beach but I’ve found so many equally as woofalicious.

"Funny thing Dad always makes sure I’ve lots of clear water (sometimes bottled, ooooeeer! Posh me now) but he seems to want to drink brownish fizzing water, he obviously looks after me more than himself. We sent pictures to Ellie my little sister who was happy that I’m having an adventure. Dogs I hear aren’t so well treated in Spain second class woofers, I’ve seen a few and think I’m a lucky girl with the way my humans care about me. The challenge has been finding hotels, restaurants and bars that will allow dogs in. We’ve been lucky I guess, or is it my magnetic charm and teddy bear eyes?

Pictured: "Jersey has St. Ouen’s beach but I’ve found so many equally as woofalicious," says Indie.

"Anyway, the next day we were in the van I love so much to Portugal, my mate Jose is from Portugal, he runs a pub in Jersey and always gives me biscuits, so it can’t be all that bad.

"The plan was to travel down the Douro River, we’ve watched Prunella Scales and Timothy West’s adventure, we also wanted to find a place to pitch up yet able to walk to a town, this no food in campsite shops was not ideal (the campsites aren’t fully open). We went to Vila Real as we really wanted to eat out in a local town, having a few places in walking distance. A wine town in a massive Red Water country, the humans seemed to drink a lot of Red Water! We went to the place Red Water is made Mateus Palace, it was spectacular and paid for entirely by customers of the Bistro Premier in the 1970’s, well that’s what Sharon said.

Pictured: 600 steps proved a lot for Indie.

"The Douro is breathtaking and full of vineyards top to bottom on all the hills, there space for roads and Olive trees only, we did a massive drive through the mountain vineyards to a hotel stop in Lamego. 

"We walked 600 steps up to the Cathedral (that’s a lot for a Newfi) were there was a tour of Japanese cruise people, they took more photos of the famous multi-step climber “Indie Bear” than of the amazing views. I thought I was taller than most of them as well. After a good regathering of breaths, we visited another castle, no dogs allowed in, happy really you get castle’d and cathedral’d out, don’t you I find .

Pictured: Indie and her humans went to see the tallest lock lift in Europe.

"The long drive down the Douro valley was awesome and the steep sided vineyards a real experience, the VW camper was the perfect width for these narrower than Jersey roads. We went to the Cherry capital of the world, no exaggeration there then. Dad kept saying the amount of Red Water made here must be phenomenal, he likes that coloured Red Water and suspects these Portuguese keep it all for themselves, cunning plan! Well who would blame them at €1 a bottle.

"Next stop was the incredible Carrepetto dam and the tallest lock lift in Europe. We were lucky to see two massive cruise ships go through the 35 metre lift lock. Amazing engineering on an epic scale. Onwards to Porto and the Port.

Pictured: Indie gives Porto three woofs on wagadvisor.

"Arriving in Porto at 17:30 and to find a lush beachside camper van home in the middle of rush hour certainly brings out colourful language. Amazingly we found it, we liked it we stayed for three nights. Weather was not fab so we decided a two hour walk to Porto in the rain was the trick. It was worth it, what a lovely city. We walked and walked then lunched on sea bass which hung over the plate (€23 for two in a city).  

"We went to the Port caves over a river boat crossing that would not allow dogs onboard, I made out I was human and sneaked my seven-stone lithe body onboard.  The Port caves are not stalagmites and stalactites but surprisingly barrel after barrel of Port which as I understand is Red Water mixed with a much stronger Red Water, think it’s a bit of a St. Bernard “barrel” thing.

Pictured: After Spain, Indie headed off to Portugal where there were even more beaches to lounge on.

"We loved Porto and the beaches, oh and especially that taxi driver bribed strongly that gave us all a lift home. That night I was treated to turkey and rice in an Italian restaurant on the beach. Epic day.

"The next day there was a lot of smiling as dad had a bit of good news, something about my old beach where we used to live and play, it cheered everybody up, loads of phone calls later, we had a dinner and some Douro wine to celebrate at an extortionate price of €1.78 a bottle (yes they had two bottles), if I drank Red Water this is defo the place I would live!"

Pictured: Indie with her humans, Sharon Fitzpatrick and Alan Luce.

Human's take:

"This camping in a van lark is not for the faint hearted, all your worldly chattels stuffed in a box is quite a challenge. For sure the argument for a full blown luxury seven-bedroom motor home (with a maid service) holds water, but you would no get to the places or towns we have got into, the roads were far too narrow. The challenges of one-night stops setting up and dismantling is frankly a pain, but the ability to move on from a place that you don’t like, a bonus. We move on if we don’t like a place and stay if we do. No timescale or agenda.  

"It sounds bad but you don’t really need half the clothes or tosh you brought with you. We love our flexibility and no schedule. Hey ho! It’s a mind changing thing to not have any schedule.... weird really. Think we are turning hippy."