Posted in
|
Polly Evans
|
|
||
|
Genre
|
|||
|
Media
|
Book
|
||
Publisher | Bantam | ||
ISBN | 0385339925 | ||
|
Reviewer
|
Jayne
|
Synopsis
After working for four years at a leading London book publisher, Polly Evans moved to Hong Kong where she spent many happy hours as a senior editor on the city's biggest entertainment weekly. But fighting deadlines from a twizzly office chair and free use of the coffee machine seemed just too easy. So Polly exchanged the shiny red cabs of Hong Kong for a more demanding form of transport - a bicycle - and set off on a voyage of discovery around Spain. From the thigh-burning ascents of the Pyrenees to the relentless olive groves of Andalusia, Polly found more adventures than she had bargained for. She survived a nail-biting encounter with a sprightly pig, escaped over-zealous suitors, had her morality questioned by the locals, encountered some dubious aficionados on the road and indulged her love of regional cooking. While she pedalled, Polly pondered some of the more lurid details of Spanish history - the king who collected pickled heads, the queen who toured the country with her husband's mouldering corpse, and the unfortunate duchess who lost her feet. And wherever she cycled, she ate and ate and yet still she shrank out of her trousers.
Polly Evans May 2007 by Victoria Warren
Review
Wow yet another fab read!
It's Not about the Tapas is her first book which is sub titled Around Spain on Two Wheels, but not on a motor bike but a bicycle - she certainly know how to look at countries in different ways!
Polly decides to do this adventure on a bicycle to get away from the rat race and the constant moans of the editor of a magazine in Hong Kong. What a change and what a great leap of faith to even think of going around Spain on a bike - her plan being to start at the top of Spain and do roughly a thousand miles in six weeks!The journey that she followed was incredibly gruelling.
Polly planned to start from San Sebastian, then work east over the Pyrenees and down to Barcelona where she would strut along tree lined boulevards - then head south to Granada and westwards across to Andalusia to Seville before heading up into Extremadura, Spain's wild west. Then pedal over to the historical capital of Toledo and finally end up in modern hurley burley of Madrid!
This to me seems an amazing undertaking for an unseasoned bike rider with the falls and spills of this journey including a run in with a fat pig and her piglets! The unnerving hills and and bends of the Pyrenees with long twisting roads and kilometers to her next destination planned before she realised just how bad some of the roads were!
I think anyone who has done any long distance journey as Polly has, meets and greets the locals and finds some places unbelievable and others just not worth even a stop at because, although they read as some unusual place to visit, turn out to be the most undesirable place to arrive at in an evening with nothing to do and no place to go for a meal and a good sleep.
I have to congratulate Polly on her ability to stay focused and complete this marathon ride and finally arrive at her end destination. The history of the places she cycled through and the events that happened in the places she passed; filling in the history of the country was a great way to have a history lesson on Spain.
If I had read this a school perhaps I could have passed my history exams !
A fantastic read and a great guide to the unknown parts of Spain, it almost makes me want to jet of to the country and discover some of the places she passed through. You can listen to Polly in Spoken Interview.
If you enjoy what we provide, please consider making a donation.
