Geoff had a plan…..
We were going to spend a week together in Cambridge before he went off to Seville to do his 1000km walk.
The walk is known as The Via de la Plata/The Camino Mozarabe or The Silver Way and 
is a variant of The Camino de Santiago de Compostela.
Its also the longest of the many alternative routes.
Then yesterday the plan changed….
I am now flying out to Seville with him on Sunday and will spend a week walking with him.
Hopefully we shall get as far as Merida then I will leave him to come home and he will carry on with his walk.
Merida is 140 miles from Seville and I am not sure we can expect to get there in 6 days.
The town before that is Zafra and at a distance of 100 miles may be more achievable.
My only concern and its a huge one… is getting back from Merdia or Zafra to Seville airport all on my own.. seeing as I don’t speak any Spanish.
So once again Geoff is pushing me out my comfort zone and I wonder if he has any idea how worried I am about this .
When we set off on our walk Emily and Mark will be setting out to walk The Camino de Santiago de Compostela, a distance of 750km.
Their first ever big walk 🙂
Geoff is hoping to meet up with them when they finish their walk in Santiago de Compostela but to do this means he has to walk 20 miles every single day which in his words is "unlikely "
A very strange coincidence too that JMB should do a book review this week… maybe she was being psychic and knew before I did that I would be going off to Spain 🙂
Sounds like an exciting adventure! Hope you have a great time 🙂
Go Girl go. These relationships, both with walking and the man in your life, is simply the best thing ever for you. I am so happy and “nicely envious” that you are able to take this opportunity and go to Seville.
You will have a memeorable time and I can’t wait to hear all your news on your return.
Take lots of photos.
Sally, that sounds so wonderful, have a great time. I hope Emily and Mark enjoy it too.
I’ve never been to Spain yet, like jmb. But I did study the language eons ago at school and uni. You’ll be fine – but one other phrase you might need is “donde esta?” (where is…?) pronunciation = Don-day esTAH
Have fun and like the others, I’ll be looking for photos when you get back. And wish Geoff my best in that loooooooong walk he’s going on.
{{{Hugs}}}
You’ll be fine, Sally!
Hi Sally, you’ll be fine in Spain.
One important phrase is no entiendo [noh en-TYEN-doh] ‘I don’t understand’.
Also useful is no hablo español [noh AB-loh es-pan-YOL] ‘I don’t speak Spanish’.
Also useful is ¿habla usted inglés? [AB-la oo-STETH ing-GLESS] ‘Do you speak English?’ (this is used to address one person politely; there are other forms I could give you, but this is probably the most useful).
In the above attempted pronunciations, -oh is meant to be pronounced like the -ou- in ‘cough’, the -th is like that in ‘with’. The letter ‘u’ is pronounced more like the -oo- in ‘boot’ than the -oo- in ‘look’ (I hope you have a distinction here!). Syllables are separated by a hyphen, and I’ve capitalised the stressed syllables.
Hope this is at least of some help to you in your travels!
Good luck, and above all, have fun!
You get to go to Spain while I still haven’t been! Pout! I once planned it but I went to Italy instead. One day. Have a great time Sally. You always amaze me at how fit you are to walk all these distances that you do. I’m sure you will do fine getting back. At least Spanish uses the English alphabet. I spent two weeks in Japan with an English map but Japanese (Kanji) signs. But all these lovely Japanese people were very helpful and somehow we communicated.
Oh yes, these things that take us out of our comfort zone are those which stay with us.
Hope you have a great time. Take plenty of water and a Spanish dictionary and smile a lot and you will be fine. Oh you could take some of those wonderful muffins of yourself I suppose – you’d get anyone to do anything with one of those!!
Relucs
Sounds like it will be a great adventure. I am sure you will have a great time 🙂
You will have a great time Sally 🙂
I don;t know if Geoff does know how worried you are, but I am sure he won’t leave you stranded.
Thats a long “first” walk for Emily and Mark…do they normally do walks then??
Sally forgot to mention I don’t speak the lingo either – I can see lots of miming going on 🙂 unlike Emily who is totally fluent having just got an A at A in it!
Jiminy – that’s a lot of walking each day, nearly marathon distance. At least it won’t be too hot this time of year.
I’ve always found Spanish people very helpful when you attempt their language, and it sounds much like it’s spelt (if you say things with a lispy northern accent more or less!) as you probably know?
Sounds like a lovely trip though – photos to be posted?