Typed Wednesday 7 April 2014
Last posting was from camping Cubillas prior to Valladolid. We are now at Castelo de Vide in Portugal. Only 20 kms from the Spanish border, but a couple of hundred kms south of where we initially crossed into Portugal. We are not crossing back yet, as we plan on going further south in Portugal before we go back to Spain.
Since leaving Camping Cubillas we accidentally passed Valladolid. We had set the GPS for downtown Valladolid and we were going there. We had need of a hardware to replace a blown light bulb (special sort) and spotted a sign for the Bricomarché (hardware chain in Europe) and followed roadside signage for a very long involved way on the way into Valladolid. We successfully found it and a supermarket next door - both of which we were looking for, but they were closed - Public Holiday. When we started off again, GPS bypassed the Centro and had us heading for Cuellar, our next port of call.
Knowing we were going there, Mum has studied Valladolid via Google Maps and probably now knows more about it than we do.
Off to Cuellar, a sizeable village between Valladolid and Segovia
Along the way we drove past a
large hilltop walled village. Decided we
don’t want to go to hilltop city in our van - seen enough from the road so
didn’t get tempted to detour. Crops in these
flat areas are canola, wheat and solar panels and wind farms in mountains. Trees are conifers of some sort pom-pom pines
- very European rather than Spanish and thickly wooded. However there are huge
plantations of several varieties of Eucalyptus - why don’t we do that and grow our
own hardwood? Are travelling on the Autovia
de Pinares in Castille e Leon.
Castelo of Cuellar
Wendy in the Tzigy - a doorless 2 seater car
Cuellar has a huge castle in very good state of repair undergoing renovation. It was the venue for the festival of 1 May - Labor Day. Drank wine and tapas. The festival was a cross between a food festival and a home show pushing productos de artesanos - we spent a small fortune on sheep milk cheese and a couple of varieties of prosciuttos. Kenny is worried about how he is going to cut the block of prosciutto, ‘cos it requires a VERY sharp knife. Turns out we have to eat large slices of it, which is nowhere near as nice as having whisker-thin wafers of it.
We haven’t seen many animals in the fields for quite some time even up north (lots of sheep in the north). Huge barns attached to farms - a football field per time. Often the farms have two or three of these barns obviously housing cattle and pigs. We passed one with a humungous pile of cow poo outside - obviously waiting for the poo truck to come and collect it and cast it upon the fields - which is why we have to wash all our fruit and veg before we use it. They also have enormous stores of hay either under cover or out in the open. This would be for winter feed and for bedding straw for the barned animals. I wonder how much of the crops that we can see in the fields is for cattle/pig feed and how much is for human consumption.
Passing through stands of planted conifers of some sort which have cups on the trunks and they appear to be bleeding them for the resin. Not sure, but that is what it seems like. Feels to me like they are being bled - like those bears in China and places like that which are milked of their bile - seems cruel. We have also seen many cork trees which are harvested by stripping off sections of their bark (which is the cork), and it looks like they are only half dressed.
Spent the night at Zamarramala -
a small village overlooking the walled city of Segovia. We actually started driving down the road to
Segovia and chickened out, because it got steeper and steeper, and it looked as
if when one reached the bottom, there was nowhere to go but straight up.
Road back up to Zarramamala
So we went back to Zamarramala and parked in
a new housing development looking out over the beauty that is Segovia and caught
the local bus into the city next morning.
We were very pleased we chose that option, although the way the bus
driver threw the bus around all the hairpin bends and narrow little streets, we
still had frayed nerves. We followed a military parade through the length
of town to the Alcazar. It turned out to
be the annual memorial for the regiment based in the city. Lots of drums and a flat bugle which matched
the discordant church bells. We explored
the Alcazar (an ancient fortress) - it was really interesting as most places of
that age are, and contained suits of armour for knights and their horses. We went up to the battlements - where it was freezing
although it was a lovely day.
The Alcazar of Segovia
Altar piece of the Cathedral
We decided
that it is the last tower we are going up - all those narrow spiral staircases give
me vertigo. The Cathedral of Segovia is absolutely
beautiful and appears to have an onion dome - it is not quite, but fabulous
anyway. I paid to go in while Kenny
waited outside - he is over Cathedrals.
Cathedral of Segovia
It
was beautiful, but despite its enormous size I was disappointed to see that it wouldn’t
seat more than 150 people as it was all sectioned off into little chapels and a
heavily carved choir area. Seven churches
could be counted in Segovia from our eyrie in Zamarramala and there were also several
convents to be spotted as we strolled through the city. The highlight of the city, however, was the 2000
year old aqueduct built by the Romans - the biggest surviving in Europe, and in
superb condition.
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| Altar piece of the Cathedral |
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