The Bad, Bad Laundry Man of Benidorm

Pss... on the laundry thing....I went there to collect it and now he wants to charge me 18 euros rather than the 10 euros we had agreed on to wash and dry my laundry. I have previously had my week's worth of laundry done for 6 euros, then 8 euros, so I figure the more touristy a place the higher prices will be. But now he's taken it upon himself to dry clean three of my skirts and one of my shirts, all of which I put through both the washer and the dryer at home for years now. I say sorry, I didn't ask for this to be dry cleaned, I asked for it to be washed and dried only, I will only pay the 10 euros we agreed on yesterday. Which significantly hasn't been written down on my docket.

A stand in photo for Benidorm: a poodle on a balcony in Porto.

He takes out the tags on the clothes and tells me that they said dry clean on them and it is very bad to put through the washer. I say no it is too bad for him, he didn't have my permission to dry clean them. He shows me the tags again. I say too bad. He shows me the tags again. I say too bad. I only have a 20 euro note. Blast. I need to get 10 euros somehow, if I give him the 20 he will only give me 2 euros back. I was going to throw all these clothes out at the end of the trip anyways but I would have liked at least my last week wearing the clothes. So I say 10 euros for the other clothes and you can have the freaken three cheap skirts and the shirt with all the missing buttons!! So now this loser has my clothes! oh well.

A cafe in Porto. All of the buildings are fronted with beautiful tiles, which were unfortunately last cleaned about a century ago. Porto taught me that there are two issues with being a beautiful city: good design to begin with, but maintenance is crucial.

I wanted to report him, because every business in Spain must keep a customer complaint book that is inspected regularly by the government. I tried to get the hotel to ring him to complain, which they did for me, he told them to call back in 10 minutes and when they did, of course now he won't answer the phone and they get the answering machine instead. I can't be bothered to go back to the horrible little man! Luckily I was wearing one skirt that I did like and was thinking I should have put through the wash, glad I didn't or else I would have lost that one too, the four things I lost I really was going to leave behind!

I went on a tour of Sandeman's port distillery.

I spent a feverish hour or so on the internet last night researching a hiking trip to Iceland , I've always wanted to go there and figured I ought to go there now while I am at loose ends and reasonably close to there. But trips are very expensive and none of them really fit my dates right, so I guess I ought to just hang out in Wells, and enjoy my last few weeks there, it really is a beautiful place.

Tile fronted homes and a church in Porto.