I was very tired last night when I wrote the blog and forgot to mention that not only did our friends at the bar last night treat us to delicious Iberian ham but they also covered our drinks bill for four glasses of wine. We were touched by their kindness and generosity. As I've written before, this is the alternate reality to the hatred, anger and bitterness that assaults us every time we read 'the news'. As we sat talking with them and using Google translate to get over the difficult bits, a baby buggy was parked next to our table with an adorable seven months old baby fast asleep inside. I couldn't think of a better way to introduce that little child into the social world of adults than for her to wake up and see everyone around her laughing and smiling, drinking delicious wine and eating delectable food. Standing near us was a family with three generations with the grandmother laughing with her youngest granddaughter who looked about eight. I loved the lack of division between the adult and children's world. Had the baby been a bit older I might have given her some advice on how not only is drinking wine with friends one of the great experiences of life, but that it can also help with long-distance air travel. I regretted not having a copy of the Rubyat of Omar Khyam to plonk in her buggy for her to read later.

The life expectancy of pigs in this part of the world is, I suspect, rather short with an alarming incidence of infant mortality. The locals consume them voraciously in a variety of forms. The gourmet option seems to be the Iberian ham we had last night. You can see it hanging as whole legs which have been preserved, most for several years. Like a good wine they have a label to indicate their vintage. It is served sliced by a waiter wielding fearsome looking razor thin knife. The other favourite dish is suckling pig for which Segovia is apparently famous. To advertise their little porkers, some restaurants have a model in their window of the delicacy that awaits you should you choose their establishment. The one near our hotel proudly displayed a baby piglet reposing in a dish with its little trotters in the air and it's snout and cute hairy ears hanging over the edge of the bassinet in which you eat it. This presentation takes 'eating something with a face' to a whole new level. I felt sorry for any passing vegans who might have been exposed to this but, hey, everyone has the right to their favourite food. I was relieved to see in the restaurant we ate at that the piglet at the next table had been decapitated and dismembered before serving. I appreciated the chef's discretion. I opted to have the charcoal grilled shoulder of pork which mercifully bore no resemblance at all to any animal, and which I could therefore eat with relish.

We are now on a train to Salamanca. The landscape around is flat and dotted with villages and beautiful small churches. The clouds are different in Spain and the light has a delicate, more subtle quality. This produces a more nuanced look in some of the photos I have taken. In New Zealand the light is so often bright and full. It can be difficult to photograph landscape and give it a texture because it is floodlit and therefore even. That's why I have to take photographs close to dawn as the light paints the landscape with a delicacy that disappears as the sun rises high in the sky. Here the clouds interest me and produce softer light. I have christened this blog 'Looking For Light' mainly because that is what I spend all my time doing when I am taking photographs. I realised after a few years of taking landscape photographs that I was not really capturing the land so much as the light. My most satisfying images had a quality of light that was both evanescent and rare. Even the flattest of landscapes can look magnificent when the light is just right.

The second reason I chose the blog title was because when we are north of the Arctic Circle, there will be no sun to illuminate the land. That's a pretty unique challenge for a landscape photographer. I've spent years learning the craft of photography so this is, in some ways, like an exam! Let's hope I pass.

So, we have come to the last day of our trip to Spain and Italy. We are feeling sad because it has been a wonderful varied trip. Gill and I have been together 24 hours a day for the past month and realised how precious it is to be in a buble together away from all the normal stuff like supermarket shopping and doing the weeding. 

It has been an adventure and we have loved every minute of our travels. We have been lucky that nothing has gone disasterously wrong and, we have been healthy so far. We became seriously ill on a previous trip and this was always at the back of our minds. We have seen so many things that delighted us and we know how lucky we are to be able to travel in this way, stopping where we want to and where something catches our interest. 

Hall of the Kings   C. Rozay

Queen Zenobia's last look upon Palmyra by Gustave Schmalz 1888