Ruta de la Plata Part 3 Days 47-48 A stroll through Salamanca UPDATED & OUT OF SYNC!

Another day, another city stop and what a stop this one was.

 

Salamanca has been on Mrs B’s bucket list ever since we first drove close by after taking a wrong turn en route to Portugal about 25 years ago and she was struck by how lovely it looked from the road passing by.

After our less than perfect day in Cáceres, there was a lot riding on this one…

It started well at our chosen campsite, camping Regio, a few kms outside the city. This very pleasant site is behind a hotel of the same name and shares the reception for check-in in low season. It’s an attractive set up, with a grand statue outside and intriguing tower in the grounds.

 

 

There’s even a bus stop in the hotel car park where campers can catch a bus that goes into the city centre, for €1.50 each way.

 

We’re loving public transport here in Spain; punctual, reliable, clean, publicly owned, reasonably priced and well used.

After settling into our new home, we decided our weekday trip the next day was to be a relaxed one and indeed it was. We’d planned to start the day at the famous Plaza Mayor, but passed by the huge indoor mercado on the way, and of course just had to pop in just for a peek.

 

 

The building itself is rather lovely, set on two levels with vaulted stained glass windows and same fabulous produce within. The ground floor was positively stuffed with jamóns and cured meats, hooked up overhead, displayed on counters and in cabinets and, tempted as we were to buy, as we were poised for a day of sightseeing, we enjoyed this fabulous feast just for the eyes and took photos instead.

 

Downstairs was a little less photogenic, so we’ll spare you the images of teeny tiny whole piglets, tripe, trotters, snouts, ears and faces, all neatly compartmentalised, and although we’re sure they’re all delicious, appropriately cooked - and nose-to-tail eating is very on-point at home these days, as it should be, we’re just not used to seeing the body parts so graphically displayed!

No photographs of the Plaza Mayor can quite prepare you for how grand it is in real life, it really is quite something. Not so photogenic on our visit as a temporary structure and book fair was just being dismantled the middle but very impressive all the same.

Next stop was the cathedral, or more accurately cathedrals, old and new, connected. We climbed the tower here for spectacular views across the city. There were a lot of steps…and bells…

And a look at the shell house…

And another church…

 

 

And the ‘old’ cathedral…

 

Then it was lunchtime and we opted for an outdoor sit down menu del dia, with a platter of Iberian cured meats to start (of course), although we were tempted by these sandwiches at a takeaway we passed just before, positively dripping with jamón…

Salamanca certainly seems to be jamón central. Much of the jamón that Spain produces comes from the Castilla y Leon region as well as from Extremadura, with the famous free range Iberico pigs producing the very best - and most expensive hams, jamón iberico bellota, from free range pata negra pigs. We’ve driven through some beautiful pig territory on the trip north, with rolling hills dotted with oak, grazed by cattle as well as pigs.

Our post lunch destination was Casa Lis, an urban mansion nestled in the former city wall, showcasing decorative arts from the Nouveau and Deco periods. This is an absolute must on any Salamanca visit, both for the building as well as its fascinating exhibits, from paintings to glassware to toys. We loved it!

From there it was a hop across the road to yet another Roman Bridge for Mr B and then time for a quick coffee before catching the bus back. But not before we’d spotted a rather unique take on convenience shopping Spanish style…

Salamanca, we thank you for a grand day out - in every sense of the word!

 

J&S

20.11.22

Salamanca to Donostia/San Sebastián Part 1 Days 49-50 Evie goes home to her birthplace, an unusual stopover, and discovering Orio whilst getting to grips with Euskera!

The first part of the journey on from Salamanca was as easy as the trip up the A66 Ruta de la Plata had been – along the (recently made) free motorway to Vitoria-Gasteiz.

 

Our first stop was driven (no pun intended!) in part by the personalised naming of our vans and Evie the Iveco’s ‘birthplace’ at the Iveco plant in Valladolíd! We’d always known that although Italian by make, Evie had been made in Spain before being imported to the UK, and it was only a chance conversation with an Iveco technician in Britain that pinned it down to Valladolíd.

 

As it was on our route, Mr B couldn’t help but pull into the factory gate with all the HGVs waiting in line to deliver to the plant, take a cheeky photo and head on out before security realised what was happening!

 

We’d decided to look out for a free stop over on this stage, and eschewing the initial option of a supermarket car park at Miranda de Ebro (yes, we were surprised the Ebro comes this far up!) Park4Night delivered an interesting alternative in a small village just off the AP1 and N1 where its 114 inhabitants had decided to create an Area de Autocaravanas, no doubt to tempt some extra income as well as get their village known.

 

 

An odd place, Cubo de Bureba. Nobody was about except for a French campervan in the ‘Area’ and, after a peaceful night’s sleep, nothing much changed in the morning when we nipped into the supermarket for some bread – except today wasn’t a fresh bread day, as witnessed by the box of stale bread outside for the locals to take for free. Neither was the bar/café open.

 

Mulling over what had led to the Cubo ‘Area’ being created, but grateful for it, we headed off towards Vitoria-Gasteiz, spotting that the rest of the AP1 after there was no longer free. Luckily, the adjacent A1 was free (also a two lane motorway) so we completed the rest of the journey at the same pace, arriving at the outskirts of Donostia/San Sebastián via a very slightly longer, but free route.

 

It pays to check on which motorways are free or not in real time by the signs on the roadside, as our Google Maps thought the whole of the AP1 was a toll road – as did a number of trucks we criss-crossed with where the two routes overlapped!

 

Navigating the outskirts of the city via our old map was a bit of a challenge to start with, but we soon arrived at Camping Orio, or Orio Kanpina as it stated proudly in Euskera/Basque on the sign outside.

 

As we’d added Donostia/San Sebastián to our itinerary at the last minute (a Mrs B brainwave as we were both pining for the coast), Mr B hadn’t had time to get to grips with any Euskera, and with some trepidation he went into reception armed only with ‘sorry I can’t speak Basque’ in Spanish. Although the road signs were dual language, a lot of what we’d seen on shops and business as we drove through the Pais Vasco/Euskadi was in Euskera only!

 

Returning with a smile on his face that we’d both got a pitch and that the staff were appreciative of campers speaking either of the native languages, we pitched up on a largely empty site, with enough time to walk the 1km along the river to the nearby town of Orio, after a quick look at the beach.

 

 

And what a fabulous location it turned out to be, with a wonderful surf beach a few hundred metres away…

 

 

a lovely walk along the harbour into the town…

 

 

and a visit to the Turismo, where we discovered that we were right on the meeting point of a number of coastal walks as well as a short train ride into Donostia/San Sebastián…

 

 

We wandered back through the old town, admiring the active café/bar culture and starting to put together some plans for the next few days, and maybe even extending our stay!

 

We’d taken a punt on this site being open at all, as it closes the Monday after we arrived on Wednesday, and what a gem it looks to be!

 

S&J

19.11.22

Ruta de la Plata Part 2 Days 45-46 Cáceres – confusion, consternation and a climbing competition…

Just a short hop up the Ruta de la Plata, Cáceres had been chosen by Mr B, having read in our Rough Guide about its ‘stork topped towers that dotted the wall which circled the mediaeval centre’. Not to mention that we had also discovered that it had been used for filming the recent Game of Thrones prequel, leading us to expect something not hugely different from Dubrovnik, perhaps…

 

Well, maybe our arrival at our pitch at Camping Cáceres and its quirky, personal ‘bathroom hut’ should have alerted us to the fact that all might not be what it seems here…

 

 

We have come across these ablution arrangements before, in Italy. And, were we travelling in the summer, the unheated, tiled and unventilated wet room might have had more appeal. However, under a tree, with no warmth even in the full autumn sun, its appeal was lost on us!

 

Undeterred by the quirky hut, we set off the next morning for a day exploring the old city. We could have had a better start: having confirmed with reception that the bus into the city left from outside the site, Mr B got it into his head that it was actually the other side of a bridge over the nearby main road. Had it been a week day, he would have been right… as it was Saturday, however, we had the pleasure of watching our bus stop outside the site we had just left, and then head into the city… Still, we had a nice view from the bridge…

 

 

One hour later we were on the next bus, and disembarking at a roundabout rather than the normal stop we had been told to look out for, we could see that the road where we should have got off was closed due to an accident…

 

 

… except, of course, it wasn’t real, just filming, Cáceres style!

 

Arriving at the main square in front of the old city, we were surprised to hear what sounded like a late finishing, or early starting, full bore Euro-pop disco around the corner, only to be greeted by a huge crowd watching a climbing competition, set up in front of the entrance to the old city!

 

 

With national TV on hand, it was clearly a big deal and we were soon absorbed watching different youth teams compete.

 

 

It did, however, detract a little from our expectations, and combined with the large tour groups we dodged around, not to mention the absence of storks (or even abandoned nests) we wandered around the old city practising our best techniques for expectation management…

 

Seeking refuge in a fascinating exhibition of lithographs, lino prints and water colours by Mirò, Dali and Picasso, we managed to allow enough time to elapse for the groups to clear before we managed to explore without most of the hordes.

 

 

The old city had plenty of photogenic vistas…

 

 

 

but our favourite bits were in an old Arab family home that had been turned into a museum celebrating Arabic culture and the city’s Islamic period…

 

 

…and wandering outside the walls on the non tourist side, where we learned about the back breaking work (by the women) of hauling water from the stream outside the walls back into the houses, using big jugs on their heads. The men, used donkeys…

 

 

Our cunning plan for avoiding the crowds soon presented an immediate drawback however, as we climbed back up into the old city and main square, we couldn’t get a vacant table at a single resto/café anywhere! So, making do with a snack bar substitute outside the city walls, we promised ourselves for future visits to swerve cities on Saturdays, do more advance planning where we can, and recognise that the fickle finger of fate will always have the last laugh!

 

Our next stop is Salamanca, further up the Ruta de la Plata and – we’ll be there on a weekday!

 

S&J

12.11.22

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ruta de la Plata Part 1 Day 44 Marvellous Mérida, rammed with Romans – and so much more!

It wasn’t until we started to head north from Cádiz on the A66 and saw the roadside signs that name the route as such, that we realised we were more or less following the old Roman road that carried silver south from the mines in the north – the Ruta de la Plata.

 

Which seemed entirely appropriate, as this first city stop as we make our way back to France, has been on Mr B’s hit list for ages! Renowned (at least in our Rough Guide, which has let us down a few times…) as having the largest concentration of Roman artefacts in Spain, it had always been too far north or south of our usual transit routes into Portugal over the last 25+ years, and so remained unvisited…until now!

 

Adding to the excitement for Mr B, was the existence of an ‘Area de Autocaravanas’ right in the centre. Building on the French model, these offer a free, or paying chance to stop over in locations that may not have a handy campsite – or in this case, a campsite that was a bus ride away from the old city and with reviews that were so bad, we really didn’t want to opt for plan B!

 

At €12 a night (€15 with electric), with access to toilets, fresh water and chemical toilet/drains as well as a nearby laundrette, it’s a great alternative to a campsite!

 

We struck lucky, arriving to find only three other vans there (Spanish, Portuguese and German – 14 spaces in total) and set off to find the Turismo, so Mr B could put together some sort of plan for the next day, knowing that there was way more to do than we’d be likely to have time for.

 

 

The very helpful woman at the Turismo gave us loads of info, including details of a useful 50% discount ticket to get into a number of the main attractions… so long as we were EU citizens… and suggested that we head straight over to the (free) national museum of Roman art before it closed later that evening!

 

The museum building itself was impressive in its own right, built in 1986 and mirroring Roman brick building style, it housed what seemed like an enormous number of statues, artefacts and mosaic floors – all found within the footprint of Roman Emérita Augusta/Mérida, a colony established by retired Roman soldiers and part of the very clever way the Romans had of ‘pacifying’ their new territories.

 

The sheer scale of some of the mosaic floors, some mounted on walls to better view and appreciate them, was breathtaking, along with a vast range of statues and everyday Roman artefacts.

 

 

As closing time neared we headed outside, to be greeted by a cacophony of birdsong, a regular occurrence at dawn and dusk we learned. We’ve only ever heard something like this before with ‘lolas’ or parakeets, but none of the people we spoke to knew the type of bird. And as we couldn’t see them, we left just as unknowing!

 

Spotting a nearby jamonero/bodega, Mrs B soon found that there was an entire section given over to Extremeñan produce – and this being our first time exploring Extremadura rather than simply passing through, we were pleased to see that there is a wine DOC we were entirely unaware of – Ribera del Guadiana. And not only that, some of the wines featured the Alicante Bouchet grape, or Garnacha Tintorera here, which we have not had in an absolute age. Needless to say, dinner that night was washed down with a very lush bottle of local red!

 

 

Mr B was up with the lark the next morning, raring to get at the Romans! We’d decided to go for the combined entry ticket which, when chatting to the woman at the Turismo the previous evening, we thought we may get away with the 50% discount as we still have EU passports. She certainly seemed to indicate it was worth a try…

 

Not so the chap on the ticket desk the next morning though, and in spite of Mr B waving our red EU passports around and using his best Spanish to argue a case, it was made quite clear to him that we were no longer EU citizens since Brexit. And so, running out of arguments and Spanish vocabulary, Mr B had to admit defeat and pay full price, whilst thanking Boris and co for yet another Brexit bonus!

 

But, as the following pics hopefully show, it was worth every Euro!

 

We started with the amphitheatre…

 

 

followed by the theatre…

 

 

the temple of Diana…

 

 

the Roman bridge (with the modern Lusitania bridge behind)…

 

 

the Alcazaba Arabe and its well…

 

 

a stop in the centre for lunch…

 

 

back to the van for afternoon tea, where we had been joined by more travellers…

 

 

then on to the funeral columns and aqueduct, complete with resident stork…

 

 

and then, with legs tiring and Roman overload looming, the Circus, where chariot races, betting and general mob-placating used to take place, Ben Hur style!

 

 

We could, and maybe should, have stayed another night and had a wander round the old town of Mérida and admire the monuments lit up in the dark.

 

Next time then, as there is so much more to see and explore in this part of Extremadura!

 

S&J

07.11.22