After Cordoba we had a rather long, boring trip on the autovia, which skirted Madrid, to get to Turégano for our next night. We are constantly amazed at the network of excellent roads all over Spain. There are motorways in the most out of the way places. We think this must be contributing partly to Spain’s debt; they must have had huge borrowings which have now to be paid back. On the other hand there is a tremendous amount of road building going on which must help with the >20% unemployment.
Turégano is near Segovia, which we visited in 1973 and we had to go back to Meson de Candido for their famous Roast suckling pig (1/2 between 2). It was as delicious as we remembered but our livers are 37 years older and Arthur felt it for a day or so—lost his appetite completely for a while.
The Posada El Zaguan in Turégano was another special find. Opened our shutters and there in front of us … the castle! We are skyping Kristina almost every day and I am sure Andrea must think we now have at least a swimming pool, and a cas-tle in our back yard. While there we enjoyed a few hours visiting the nearby Palacio La Granja and its gardens—very reminiscent of Peterhof in St Petersburg but without the foundations playing.
The castle in Turégano was well worth a visit if only to see all the storks on their nests on every tower (a feature in this part of Spain we have noticed).
Our 3 nights in Portugal passed very quickly; the Guest House Douro in Porto is so lovely, a boutique place on the quay opposite the Port lodges run by an effervescent French Canadian and her Portuguese husband, and down stream of the historic bridge designed by one of Eiffel’s associates. It is now a road bridge on the lower level, and carries the metro line and pedestrians on the top level. However, it is just one of several bridges along the Douro in Porto.
On the way to Porto we drove via the Port wine route through a landscape of steep terraced hill-sides covered in vines and twisting roads. Just before the end of the route we passed the small village of Mateus and what do you think was there—the beautiful Casa Mateus and its lovely gardens. This is where the family who run the winery and vineyards have lived for several centuries. The infamous Mateus rosé was a marketing exercise by someone in the 1960s—they sold the licence to the name years ago, as they are known in Portugal for their fine wines. We tried some excellent reds and their most recent—a Sauvignon blanc. The young wine maker took us through the tastings and she really appreciated our interest.
Our stay in Portugal was too short but we were in for a real treat, again near Carballo in Galicia (N-W Spain) where we stayed one night in the Pazo del Souto (a pazo is a country house, not a castle which was owned by a noble). It is a smaller version of the Parador accommodation in Spain. Again, early booking online produced excellent rates and we had the pick of the rooms, because, sadly tourists are just not coming in their numbers to Europe, at least this part.
The weather up to now had been holding up but we were told by the owner that rain was forecast. He was not wrong—since then we have had rain in bucket loads, with the occasional break in the sky—and this in the most mountainous and scenic part of Spain.
I am finishing this after we have been in Picos de Europa (rain and fog), Burgos (rain and pilgrims on the Santiago de Compestela road), the Rioja wine area (rain, and one day fine when we went to a mediaeval festival), Bilbao (rain, and now flooding after we left) and now San Sebastian where we have had one day sunny in the four we have spent here. The sky is now lifting and maybe tomorrow will be better. But then we return to France and the other side of the Pyrenees and the forecast does not look good! To be continued …
Showing posts with label Still in Spain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Still in Spain. Show all posts
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Cadiz, Cordoba, Gaucin and Ronda
Continuing on to 8 June 2010
We have covered incredible distances since the last letter, and done such a lot of things, that I don’t know where to start.
At the moment we are in our room in the Hotel Picos de Europa and experiencing a little déjà vu, as we are in an area very similar to the Dolomites in Italy and we are having almost the same sort of weather that we had there in 2004 with the Maltbys (except it is not nearly as cold, it is not snowing and it hasn’t rained much). All the peaks have disappeared in the mist but we did manage to drive on some very scenic mountain roads earlier today. Anyway, I am getting ahead of myself.
The weather here is a far cry from the day spent a week ago in Cordoba where it reached 38C and was clear, sunny and dry. This didn’t stop us enjoying this beautiful town and it was made even easier as our hotel was directly opposite the Mezquite (former mosque, now cathedral) which is the main sight there. It is incredible and amazingly cool. Those Moors knew something about building in hot climates. The temperature must have been 10C cooler inside.
Our choice of places to stay has been very successful—probably because of a lot of pre planning and early booking. And we are out of the main season and booked early online, so have enjoyed very low rates (eg our hotel in Cordoba cost us about 60euro, when the rack rate is 250euro!).
We had a bit of excitement finding our hotel in Cadiz as the GPS didn’t differentiate between 2 similarly named streets in the old town and we found ourselves outside a very derelict building at first (thought we had been scammed!). A few enquiries (to cap it off my phone had a flat battery) around the area put us straight, then Arthur couldn’t drive into the pedestrian free zone and had to back out of a one way street after we had downloaded our bags. The plus side was it was Saturday evening, and parking on the street is free until 930 Monday. But … we also think our rear wind screen wiper blade was pinched then. Win some, lose some!
Food has generally been good in Spain, particularly if we keep mainly to tapas type dishes. We found the most amazing place in Cadiz—a classy restaurant which also had a popular tapas bar. The tapas were around 3euros each for dishes that had the presentation and quality that would set you back $15 and more in Sydney. We were lucky we arrived by 2030 on Saturday as 30 minutes later there were people waiting 2 deep behind us! (above—goat cheese salad, salad caprese with sardine and a dessert tapa of fried custard and caramel ice cream—all less than 3 euros).
We have generally walked our legs off, with Arthur as a competent (mostly) guide, once he has a good map. In Cadiz it is made easier because the walking routes are marked with different coloured lines on the streets. We really enjoyed Cadiz—it is a vibrant town with lovely shady parks on the perimeter (with a number of familiar Aussies in the form of Norfolk Island pines and Moreton Bay fig trees). Later, in Galicia in the north west we were amazed to be driving through large eucalypt forests. We think they are logged for chipping and there only seems to be one species planted, and very close together so they are tall and straight.
Before Cadiz, our week in Gaucin was a superbly relaxing time with the occasional day or two of doing nothing, reading, lazing around the pool, swimming and wandering down to one of the many cafes for lunch or a coffee. This was interspersed with two major sightseeing days, one to Ubrique, a town which is well known for its leather (but guess what time we got there—just as the outlets closed!). However we loved the whitewashed houses and buildings in the old quarter and had a tasty tapas lunch in a bar in little square. As you can’t take the same road back (and the scenery is incredible) we did a side trip to Ronda even though we were intending to visit this very scenic town later in the week. Our approach was slowed considerably by an enormous procession of gypsy caravans, not pulled by horses, but by huge tractors, which were returning from the big Romeria at Huelva (near the border with Portugal) the previous week. We think they were going to be in a town nearby the next weekend but we had to leave by then.
Ronda is in a high valley, with a deep narrow ravine separating the old from the newer town, and it is very popular with tourists. It also has one of the oldest bull rings in Spain and this is open for a visit, including to the excellent museum. This means you can see the parts that would not be accessible if there was a show on (the pens, horse riding school, etc).—To be continued….
We have covered incredible distances since the last letter, and done such a lot of things, that I don’t know where to start.
At the moment we are in our room in the Hotel Picos de Europa and experiencing a little déjà vu, as we are in an area very similar to the Dolomites in Italy and we are having almost the same sort of weather that we had there in 2004 with the Maltbys (except it is not nearly as cold, it is not snowing and it hasn’t rained much). All the peaks have disappeared in the mist but we did manage to drive on some very scenic mountain roads earlier today. Anyway, I am getting ahead of myself.
The weather here is a far cry from the day spent a week ago in Cordoba where it reached 38C and was clear, sunny and dry. This didn’t stop us enjoying this beautiful town and it was made even easier as our hotel was directly opposite the Mezquite (former mosque, now cathedral) which is the main sight there. It is incredible and amazingly cool. Those Moors knew something about building in hot climates. The temperature must have been 10C cooler inside.
Our choice of places to stay has been very successful—probably because of a lot of pre planning and early booking. And we are out of the main season and booked early online, so have enjoyed very low rates (eg our hotel in Cordoba cost us about 60euro, when the rack rate is 250euro!).
We had a bit of excitement finding our hotel in Cadiz as the GPS didn’t differentiate between 2 similarly named streets in the old town and we found ourselves outside a very derelict building at first (thought we had been scammed!). A few enquiries (to cap it off my phone had a flat battery) around the area put us straight, then Arthur couldn’t drive into the pedestrian free zone and had to back out of a one way street after we had downloaded our bags. The plus side was it was Saturday evening, and parking on the street is free until 930 Monday. But … we also think our rear wind screen wiper blade was pinched then. Win some, lose some!
Food has generally been good in Spain, particularly if we keep mainly to tapas type dishes. We found the most amazing place in Cadiz—a classy restaurant which also had a popular tapas bar. The tapas were around 3euros each for dishes that had the presentation and quality that would set you back $15 and more in Sydney. We were lucky we arrived by 2030 on Saturday as 30 minutes later there were people waiting 2 deep behind us! (above—goat cheese salad, salad caprese with sardine and a dessert tapa of fried custard and caramel ice cream—all less than 3 euros).
We have generally walked our legs off, with Arthur as a competent (mostly) guide, once he has a good map. In Cadiz it is made easier because the walking routes are marked with different coloured lines on the streets. We really enjoyed Cadiz—it is a vibrant town with lovely shady parks on the perimeter (with a number of familiar Aussies in the form of Norfolk Island pines and Moreton Bay fig trees). Later, in Galicia in the north west we were amazed to be driving through large eucalypt forests. We think they are logged for chipping and there only seems to be one species planted, and very close together so they are tall and straight.
Before Cadiz, our week in Gaucin was a superbly relaxing time with the occasional day or two of doing nothing, reading, lazing around the pool, swimming and wandering down to one of the many cafes for lunch or a coffee. This was interspersed with two major sightseeing days, one to Ubrique, a town which is well known for its leather (but guess what time we got there—just as the outlets closed!). However we loved the whitewashed houses and buildings in the old quarter and had a tasty tapas lunch in a bar in little square. As you can’t take the same road back (and the scenery is incredible) we did a side trip to Ronda even though we were intending to visit this very scenic town later in the week. Our approach was slowed considerably by an enormous procession of gypsy caravans, not pulled by horses, but by huge tractors, which were returning from the big Romeria at Huelva (near the border with Portugal) the previous week. We think they were going to be in a town nearby the next weekend but we had to leave by then.
Ronda is in a high valley, with a deep narrow ravine separating the old from the newer town, and it is very popular with tourists. It also has one of the oldest bull rings in Spain and this is open for a visit, including to the excellent museum. This means you can see the parts that would not be accessible if there was a show on (the pens, horse riding school, etc).—To be continued….
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