Today it was a bookshop/cafe tour to find a ‘good book’ and the ‘best croissant’. We googled the bookshops and received advice about croissants from the best hostal owner in Spain. We’re staying here for a while and he is determined to ensure, as guests leave, that we are upgraded to the best room. Nothing is any trouble; he engages us in conversation whenever he sees us, and we get on like old friends.
Two of the bookshops have decided to become something else, two others don’t speak our language and were very sorry they were not bilingual so it left two that were able to converse. The first of these two had three ‘metre long shelves’ of English books – a mixture of popular thrillers, old classics, and others. I began a search while my guide shopped elsewhere.
I needed a book because I was not sleeping well and even though a friend has introduced me to a night time reading screen, I wanted a book. So I found a small chair (unsure whether that was its purpose because it just didn’t look like a reading stool) and turned a few pages. This one seemed to be on the same page as me, but I had another bookshop to investigate.
On the way we found Jaimie’s suggested cafe, small as we like them – three tables outside but the cool weather sent us in to a cosy ‘six table croissant cafe’, and they were the best so far in Spain, including our visit five years ago. Our next kilometre, on a circular journey, took us to a very small bookshop nearly hidden by its huge neighbours. There were travel books on Cadiz but I always want a story.
We had only half a breakfast earlier because we had another croissant appointment at La Poeme where it is said: ‘a beautiful tart is like a beautiful poem’. The croissants were beautiful but came in a close second today.
Back to our bookshop now to buy “The Secret Life of the Mind” by Mariano Sigman to read about how our brain, thinks, feels and decides – now, ‘food for thought’.
