Today I want to have a Cantabrian breakfast in the harbour café, and write my texts during it. What starts well soon ends with a sharp intervention by the owner, who rudely turns me away (‘sit here and consume so little; the lunch guests are coming soon, so go away now’). Well, I leave, take the ArgoFram over to the city centre, pass the ‘Club Real’… and experience the next surprise: While I leisurely drive past the imposing club building jutting out into the river delta (and consider whether I should pull into the harbour again and park so that I can catch up on my sightseeing stroll), an attentive club member waves at me. I turn around and ask where I can moor here – and he says curtly (somewhat militarily) that I should go to the next buoy, I will be picked up.
I am almost speechless, but say nothing, moor at the buoy in question – and sure enough, a club employee comes in a rubber dinghy to pick me up and take me to the jetty of the club building – I feel like a gifted tennis player or golfer who is rolled out the red carpet and welcomed in the VIP area of this most prestigious club.
Yes, not only does it look noble in these sacred halls of communal businessmen, it is also posh inside, perhaps a touch too wooden, too conservative, too dark – what a contrast to the outside world! Whereby, pardon me, not only the Spanish women with their well coiffed hair and bright red lips, but also the gentlemen of creation flaunt themselves here and look like little sun kings with their wardrobe, vainly combed hair and attached glasses in and in front of the tapas bars. Northern Spain seems to be doing very well.
After visiting several of these fine tapas bars, I walk along the harbour promenade with a full stomach, marvel at the many (also modern) sculptures, and then I march back into the clubhouse as if I had always been a member there. I receive a friendly welcome, have another chat with the attentive businessman who invited me in and organised the shuttle – but I still want to go on. Something draws me to the next place, hard to describe: If up to now it was the threat of bad weather breathing down my neck, now I want to go with the sun – on to Gijon!
The club employee takes me out to the ArgoFram on his ferry boat, I give a quick wave, and I’m already sailing past lively beaches out to the wide sea. – Gijon itself is a crude mixture of old-town flair and stifling modernity, a mix that bites.
The harbour is again in the middle of the city; a rain shower is coming – but so what, the locals say to themselves, and sit comfortably chatting in the bars and (covered) street bars. The mood is unclouded, somehow southern (but not Mediterranean), quite peculiar at any rate. I like it.
During a visit to a department store, I discover a folding bicycle and buy it immediately. At last, I think to myself, I can relieve my Achilles tendon and still get ahead.