Page 148 - Exile-ebook

148 AN EXILE OF THE MIND CHEAP WINE AND PAELLA 149

Coastal town of Cascais, west of Lisbon, Portugal. ordinary building with its blend of Portsmouth sliced off and towed
the gothic, art nouveau and Hog- 500 miles south’.
warts fantasy. Its forms were based With the camper safely parked
on nature with not a straight line to away from the destructive Barbary
be seen. macaques, the only wild monkey
Its knobbly spires soared 170 population on the European conti-
metres above the city. This ambitious nent, we hitch-hiked to Tangiers in
project was begun in 1882 by Antoni Morocco. We returned just in time
Gaudi and is yet to be finished. When to re-enter Spain before Spanish
the final stone is placed in 2026, the dictator, Francisco Franco, closed
basilica will have taken 144 years to his borders. Had we stayed a cou-
build. The Great Pyramid took only ple of days longer our camper would
20 years. have been marooned. The borders
We hugged closely the Spanish were re-opened 16 years later.
coast until reaching The Rock with On midsummer’s eve the wind
its quaint British influence of red howled in fury. We were warm and
pillarboxes, fish and chip shops and snug inside the camper as it rattled
tall-helmeted ‘bobbies’. Gibraltar and creaked on its chassis. And then
Shopping for our groceries on a Lisbon street. was once described as ‘a piece of suddenly dark clouds appeared