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Well yesterday morning we all decided to hell with Portugal and climbed on the buses and drove to Spain. It was a hell of a busy road we saw two cars in the first half hour of the trip. Passed through a few small towns one with a little mini bull ring a Roman bridge and dry stone walls from the 12 century. Also lots of storks in nest with babies on the top of power poles bell towers etc. They look so funny because they were so big. After two hours we arrived at Salamanca. Fortunately we were positioned at a nice hotel to use as a rescue centre as it was 30 degrees.
What a beautiful city so clean and pretty. It has about 160,000 people 50,000 of whom are students at the very famous old university founded in 1218: one of the oldest in Europe. 15,000 are foreign students who come here to study their Spanish because the Castilian Spanish is the purest in the world.
We had some time to go shopping, so we went to the very attractive food market and bought some black ham to taste as it is a delicacy around here at
about E50 per kilo. (Didn’t think much of it) and some Saffron for E2.5 and then back to hotel for a Paella lunch and flamenco dancing show . After lunch we had a walking tour of the town to the university which was really interesting being so old and into of course the cathedral. All the buildings are built in sandstone that has become a beautiful golden colour due to the oxidation of small quantizes of iron in the stone. They are beautifully cool inside which is a pleasant reprieve from the heat. Buy the time we gathered back at the hotel to leave on the bus we were all exhausted. We got back to the waiting boat in Portugal at 7 o’clock for a lovely BBQ on the sundeck as the sun went down - breathtaking atmosphere. Some got into the groove and were dancing Greek style after dinner and a couple more wines (guess who). Then the Senator and his wife (from Alabama) decided to sing karaoke. Well it all deteriorated from there.
This morning I really felt l like I needed a holiday due too much wine, too much food and too much history.
But no! A
sparkling wine for breakfast set me up for a 9 o’clock on to the bus for the drive to Castelo Rodrigo a little pretty medieval e village 3200 feet up with stunning views and beautifully clean air and so peaceful and quiet. This is one of Portugal’s 12 historical villages. There are 65 inhabitants all elderly. A typical elderly peasant woman in scarf came out of her house to water her roses and I stopped to admire them. Of course no English but she broke one off to give me. It was one of those moments. Jews Christian and Arabs have peacefully coexisted in this village for hundreds of years! Of course we visited the 1192 church and the ruins of the actual castle. Back to the boat for lunch and thank goodness a free afternoon as we start to steam our way back. Tonight we tie up a go to a Vintage hotel for dinner. By tomorrow we will be back in Oporto for disembarkation very early Sunday morning. It’s been truly wonderful and we have been treated so well: a very special holiday.
The next time I blog will be from an airline lounge somewhere!!!!.
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anonymous
non-member comment
Glad to see you're keeping the vino intake up,