Typed
Tuesday 13/Wednesday 14 May 2014
At only had wi-fi once since last
posting, and it was very dodgy, so unable to post anything. Have been having what have become the usual
problems getting email in and out, but am trying not to let it stress me.
We have neither wi-fi or
electricity here but I am trying to get caught up to the present so that I can
post it when we do get a connection. I
don’t think the battery is going to hold out until I finish, so will probably
have to do it in two goes.
Last time I typed I was in
Castelo de Vide - seems like ages ago - and hadn’t even filled you in up till
then. Will give a brief overview of our
route and then come back and fill in.
From Berenquera we travelled to Castelo Branco (still in Portugal),
thence to Castelo de Vide, Portelegre, Estremoz and Evora. We ten back-tracked a bit to Elvas on the
Spansh border, and crossed into Spain through Badajoz to Merida. After looking around Merida, we headed south
for Seville, stopping overnight on the way at Zafra. From Seville we travelled yesterday to
Sanlucar de Barrameda on the south coast along the Costa de la Luz, where we
are parked up with a lot of other vans across the road from the beach, the sun
is shining and it is hot.
I have let myself get this far
behind with the blog because it has been too hot to sit inside at the laptop in
the day time and by night time I just can’t be bothered. It is lovely to be in the heat though. It is a very dry heat, like Adelaide or
Melbourne in the summer and neither Kenny or I are finding it easy to deal
with. I guess we will force ourselves to
get used to it though!!! :)
It is a good job I have been
recording my thoughts on the tablet as we go along, otherwise I would have
forgotten all the stuff I would like to tell you.
I had been getting really tired
as I hadn’t been sleeping well. So we stayed 2 extra days at Berenquera to
catch up on sleep, cleaning, etc. Got a
bit sunburnt lying around reading our books.
Did a bit of hand washing.
Generally relaxed as the village was NOT a tourist must-do. We did walk
up to the village to get bread, which, in Portugal, is heavy and solid and is
shaped like a cow pat. It was bread
however, and it was filling and good for you.
Spanish bread is more like the French and the baguettes are lovely for
lunch each day.
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| Spanish Gorse and dandelions |
Yellow is the colour of the season,
in Ireland, Portugal and Spain it seems.
Spanish gorse foliage looks like wattle.
Ancient olive and cork trees are everywhere and yellow gorse bushes are
everywhere.
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| Spanish gorse and dandelions |
The Portuguese countryside east
of the mountains is big valleys heavily wooded with lots of agriculture and
small villages. All the buildings
painted white with red tile roofs. So
it is very picturesque and from a distance all the villages look very
clean. Most of them close up would
qualify for the tidy towns competition, although in some places a crew with
whippa snippas would be very handy. The
camping that we stayed in a Castelo de Vide was great and was run by a Dutch
people who usually do a brilliant job of it, but in this case, the camp looked
like it had not seen a mower for a year or two.
The new manager was out with a whippa snippa doing the open areas which
could have done with a ride-on mower, and he left rings of long grasss and
weeds around all the olive trees through the park. I was itching to get out there with a whippa
snippa and a ride-on of my own!!
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| Wendy in the streets in Castelo de Vide |
Portuguese churches seem to be much
lighter in design than the imposing Spanish ones. They are not as big, heavy and imposing or as
tall. They are also painted white with
red tile roofs and blend into the community much more harmoniously than their
Spanish counterparts, which seemed to have been designed specifically to
intimidate the locals- I suppose the
Inquisition was fairly intimidating!!!
In the north of Seville everyone
had black hair. Down here the black
heads are only 50% clothing bright colours.
Language in Portugal has been quite
difficult. We have no Portuguese, and
had in the supermarket had to do ‘moos’ and ‘baas’ to identify the cheese - which
turned out to be goat milk cheese. Reading the signs is not as easy as Spain. We have been fortunate however, as we have
found young people with reasonable English. One girl Chinese/Portuguese was our
translator at one stage when I was looking to buy shoes - yes I did buy them,
fabulous platform, silver with 4” heels - and she was very helpful.
Shopped at Supermercado in
Portalegre. In meat section we saw: pork
in all sorts of cuts and pieces, tails, trotters, liver, strange cuts of pork
flesh, in beef section there were blocks of beef blood, and pack of testicles
from what were apparently verrry large bulls.
Kenny very excited to get 10 year old tawny port for €4.90. Large punnets of strawberries for €0.99, and
some of the most flavoursome apricots we have every eaten - we are coming into
stone fruit season now and I am drooling at the thought. Yum!!
Since we left Castelo de Vide
we have seen lots of cork trees in Portugal and Spain.
Before Portalegre we saw big sheets of harvested cork in the field by a
factory, laid out presumably to dry. Along
the roadside there are lots of wild flowers in the fields - yellow dandelions
and purple wild peas. Makes for a
beautiful, colourful carpet effect.
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| Cork trees |
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| Carpet of wildflowers |
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| Carpet of wildflowers |
Tolls and petrol prices. In Portugal nationals have to buy e-tag but
foreigners have to put credit card into machine and we get charged
automatically. Petrol in Portugal €1.60
= $2.00 per litre san plombo 95. Dearer
than in Spain where it has been €1.40 - €1.50.
We think our mileage on fuel is roughly 8kms/lt. We don’t worry about it as there is
absolutely nothing we can do about it.
You can’t move at all without petrol.
When I was a teenager I starting
reading Mills and Boon romances. The
hero was always a tall, dark, handsome and incredibly wealthy Latin type -
Greek, Italian, Spanish, with brooding glances and raw sensuality. He always looked from his fabulous hacienda
across his olive groves and grape vines.
It is always a quest for us to find the hacienda. We have seen a few as we travel along. Kenny reckons he is going to drop me off when
we find it. Haven’t seen the handsome
hero though. I’ll keep looking.
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| Hacienda of the Handsome Hero |
Looked around Castelo
Branco. Clean treed avenue nice public
spaces - pleasant without being exciting.
Did some grocery shopping and picked up a few other things as well
Travelled through Redondo on our
way to Evora, then Terrugem by Elvas. It
is a sweet little town with a sizeable bullring which doubles as a football
field - has an openable roof, so is an all-weather venue. Narrow, windy, one-way streets, all cobbled,
which made the drive through quite bumpy for poor Fiona, but the ladies of the
town have cultivated lovely gardens with gorgeous roses all through the town -
very pretty. Haven’t been to a bullfight,
and don’t intend to, as we are animal lovers and didn’t want to watch cruelty
to animals. In Portugal they don’t kill
the bull in the bullring - just cruelly torment him until they send him off to
the abattoir. |
| Roman Temple remains |
Had a quick look around Evora,
taking in the long expanse of Roman aqueduct and the old city, which included
the half of an original roman temple.
Evora was a perfect example of how NOT to run tourism.
You choose a gate to go in - any of the three
or four - and wander about (mapless) trying to find your way to the Plaza Mayor
where the Office of Tourism is usually situated. Couldn’t possibly put one where the tourists
first come to show them how to find their way around - let them find their way
first then tell them what they have seen.
Makes me very cross, as we come across this same situation so
often. In Evora it was particularly
difficult because ALL the tiny narrow streets went uphill (and it was VERY hot)
and none seemed any more important than any other. By the time we found our way to the Tourist
Office I had had my fill of Evora and was pretty grumpy for the rest of our
visit there - never want to go back!!
Poor Kenny. There is a university within the precincts of the old town
though and it was a very busy and apparently thriving place. However, not vibrant enough to entice me to
return.
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| Aqueduct at Evora |
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| Love these iittle utility trucks. This is a City Council vehicle in Evora |
Next stop an Aire de Stationmente
at Terrugem, a small town outside Elvas
Approaching Terrugem we came
through the little town of Belcatel and noticed large mounds of what appeared
to be overburden. Couldn’t make out what
the deal was until we realised that there was not one, but several marble
quarries. There must be a huge seam of marble in the area, because the quarries
spread over quite an extensive area - dozens of them, and there were pile of marble,
blocks, slabs and tiles everywhere.
Surprisingly, the houses were quite ordinary and we are not sure why
they were not marble masterpieces - marble is obviously worth more as a
saleable product. The quarries are a
real eyesore on the landscape though.
Next day we drove the 20 odd kms
from Terrugem to Elvas, a word heritage listed medieval star fort and walled-city.
Very lovely. As we approached we were
gob-smacked at the fabulous 15th
century aqueduct that extended for at least
8km and towered above us on
the road by 40metres. AND they had a Tourist Office just near the parking where
we got good maps and tips for the visit - wish all these tourist spots did
that. The old town is in perfect condition behind the walls and there are
several separate star forts to protect the rear of the fortress from any
Spanish forces who tried to attack the rear.
Enclosed within the walls were a castle and some beautiful gardens, not
to mention some lovely old buildings and
churches.
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| Aqueduct at Elvas |
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| Aqueduct at Elvas |
Having done Elvas, we then crossed
back into Spain again and the landscape here is similar to what we have had in the
last bit of Portugal: flat plains heavily cultivated with olives, vines, fruit
trees apricots, peaches, and even some rice paddies.
We travelled on the Autovia
Sureste into the province of Estremadura, which is very pretty.
We smiled to ourselves at the weight of the traffic,
as travelling through Portugal has been an absolute breeze traffic-wise -
fabulous road system and surfaces, with minimal traffic - often we are one of
two or perhaps three vehicles that we can see on the road at any one time. We
have left Kenny’s fan club a long way behind - when we left England, in
fact. In Spain there is more traffic,
but still a strung out line of 5 cars is like a traffic jam in comparison. The median strips in Spain are planted with Spanish
gorse and wattle and oleanders for miles at a time, and as it is Spring, all are
in flower and it is very colourful.
Almost makes the roads pretty and I have taken lots of photos of them.
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| Great roadworks engineering |
Bypassed Badajoz to Merida (world
heritage listed walled city). Badajoz
looked like a huge, sprawling industrial city and we were pleased not to be
going there. Merida was quite a nice
town with monuments to the Romans, but when the GPS took us (down some pretty
ordinary narrow roads - mongrel) to our planned overnight stop at the advised
Aire de Stationmente, it was no longer there.
So we looked up the hill at the walled city and the roads that we would
have to traverse to get to it, and decided to give it a miss and move forward
and southward towards Seville. We hit
the road and paused only long enough to get some groceries at the Carrefour
before heading out of town. Seen one old
town you have seen them all!!
Halfway to Seville we left the
autovia and pulled into Zafra, where our overnight Aire de Stationmente was in
the grounds of the local sports centre, close to the heart of what turned out
to be a charming little old town - aren’t they all? All the streets of these little Spanish towns
are lined with fruiting orange/mandarin trees - hello, Seville - which look
lovely, and what a good idea to have trees which fruit as well shade. During the hot night at the sports centre -
under cover of more of these lovely trees, a couple of loud thumps came on our
roof. The local lads ‘egging’ our van,
but not with eggs - oranges!!! They
didn’t do any damage, and we had to giggle when we got up next morning to find
the remnants of the mandarins on the ground around the van.
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| Wendy at the the Old Town gate in Zafra |
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| Beautiful building in Zafra |
The weather getting a lot hotter
and we are now in shorts and finding it quite warm. For our stay here the heater was turned off
and we left vents open and doona off.
Should have left the windows open too because it was verrry warm.
Before leaving Zafra, we took a
walk around the neighbouring streets and checked out the shops. Lucky we get up late because they don’t open
till 10am. Kenny had checked it out the
night before and took me to a shop that sold Spanish spotted material which is
used to make the Flamenco dresses - he thought I might like some. They had not only the material, but several
of readymade Flamenco dresses and skirts as well. I was verrrry tempted to buy one, but at €100
to start, I decided that I would never wear it, and gave it a miss.
When we went to Seville on our
previous trip to Spain, we were there on a Sunday and everything was closed, so
I was keen NOT to be there on a Sunday this time and we organised ourselves to
get there on a Saturday. When we got to
Seville we headed for the Aire de Stationement (AdS) that we had be advised of
in the centre of the city, but were unable to get to it because the centre of
the city was entirely closed off. The
whole of the centre of the city was to be closed to traffic for ONE WEEK
because the Feria (Festival) de Seville was being held over this period -
bugger!!! - missed out again!
So we consulted the GPS and she
took us to our alternate AdS in the south of Seville. It turned out to be in a
small harbour on the river (not sure WHAT river) and we parked up on the wharf
under some giant gum trees, had our lunch and then caught the bus into the city
to check out the Feria. Imagine my
chagrin when we got into Seville to discover that this is the period when all
the girls and ladies get into their flamenco dresses and wander around the
gigantic carnival seeing and being seen, being driven around in horse/mule and
carriage and checking out the guachos riding through the venue on their
beautiful Andalusian horses. I could have had one of those dresses!!!! Mind you, I was told by one of the ladies,
that the some of the dresses being paraded about would have cost well in excess
of €1000.
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| Flamenco dresses in the shop |
We had a really nice time
wandering around the biggest sideshow alley we have EVER seen or imagined (I
would think it was two or three city blocks square at least) then we sat in one
of many mini restaurant tents available and had a cold drink while we watch the
passing parade and some of the locals doing their flamenco thing on the
stage. We, and the rest of the crowd there
were very entertained by a middle-aged Japanese gentleman attired in the local
Andalusian costume strut his flamenco stuff to the great admiration of the
Spanish crowd. And speaking of the
Japanese, we saw the most juxtaposed thing ever - a Japanese lady in a flamenco
dress with a black and white TARTAN pattern - very unSpanish fabric. The Spanish ladies were in a variety of
patterns from block colour to florals, with lots of polka dots in between. Check out the photos - I am very disappointed
that we didn’t get a photo of the be-tartaned Japanese lady.
Well we still didn’t get to see
much of the city of Seville, because it was a scorching day and after 3 hours
wandering in the full sun, we decided we had seen sufficient of the Feria and
we caught the bus back to our AdS. When
we got there at about 4.30pm the van was in the full sun and VERY hot, so we
moved it to what shade we could find and left it to cool off whilst we sat
across the marina at a bar and had a cold beer and a coke. It is getting hotter all the time.
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| Andalusian horsemen |
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| Hitching a ride |
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| Locals dancing |
Next day we decided we have seen
enough of cities for a while and we headed south to a small town on the beach
on the Costa de la Luz, Sanlucar de Barreda.
Our AdS there was across the road from the beach in a huge specially
designated parking area and we joined half a dozen other campers there for 2
nights. We lay on the beach and got some
colour (too much in my case, but fortunately for me, it will fade quickly and I
will have a good tan) and we even went for a swim - we can now say we have swum
in the Atlantic for the first time.
Every time we have tested Atlantic waters previously it has been WAY too
cold. I said to Kenny that we should do
this more often and he said
live next to the beach, why don’t
we do it at home” - no time at home, too many jobs. There are many Bodegas (wineries) around this area (The Manzanilla) which specialise in ports, sherries and Muscats. Linda you will be please to know that we got 2 (plastic) bottles of glorious muscat for about 15 Euros.
So, having spent 2 nights there we
have moved one 4 kms east to another section of the town which is also by the
beach. Today we have caught up with the
washing and hopefully I will get this section of the blog posted. It has been too hot to sit inside typing, and
too glary outside, and so I have gotten way behind. Will try not to let that happen again,
because I have now spent hours catching you up
All the towns in this area are in
festival mode, so I guess I am going to jealously watch lots of ladies in my
flamenco gear!
Tomorrow we are going a little
further south to another AdS near Rota, a coastal town not far from Juarez de
la Frontera, (which is supposed to be lovely and also having a festival from
this Sunday till next). Hopefully by
then, my sunburnt front will allow me to get some sun on my back.
That’s it - finally!! - for
now. I am going to post this and try and
get some photos aboard as well, and then we are going to join Mick and Marg
(English ones not the Martins!) from the van next door for a few drinky poohs. Will be glad to get this particular post off
my back.
Hope all are well at home and
wherever else you may be whilst reading.
Stay well till next time.
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