Espana first couple of days

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After about 1 million hours of flying we arrived in Madrid, grabbed the rental car and hit the road. We got on the road about 7:30 am local time, and had a three hour drive to Ponferrada. Madrid is definitely in the "pampas". It was like driving through a slightly hillier version of Oklahoma, very intensively cultivated with corn, wheat, etc. Every town we drove by would have some sort of historic site, usually a large church or cathedral at the center of town and a few had good size castles. The temperature got pretty hot, nothing compared to Phoenix, I'd say mid 90's with some humidity. By the time we got to Ponferrada we were pretty exhausted. We began what would become a recurring theme of circling each town for about 30 minutes trying to figure out where our hotel was, apparently I only booked hotels that are extremely difficult to find. Hotel de Templarios could only be reached by foot in the historic old town section of Ponferrada. We checked in and proceeded to crash for about eight hours. The timing was good as we woke up around 9:30, which is when the locals start coming alive, they take siesta seriously here. Ponferrada had a festival called "Los Templar Noches", or Templar Nights. It was a renaissance festival atmosphere with everyone dressed up in white Templar gear, basically a KKK looking outfit sans hood and with a big red cross in the center. Our first nights dinner wasn't very exotic, some chorizo and a couple hamberguesas from a festival street vendor. The highlight of the festival is a parade that goes through town at midnight and ends in Castle Ponferrada (more on that later). The parade was pretty cool, it was a few mounted folk and a whole bunch walking all dressed like Templars and carrying torches. When they got to the castle, they carried a replica grail and ark of the covenant inside and then set off a ton of fireworks. Very atmospheric and cool, and as a bonus the music they blared on the loudspeakers was the the theme to Conan, which was epic. Once the festival wound down Melissa and I headed for the hotel and some more sleep.

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Photos

Ponferrada castle
Walkway on the castle

Church from Castle
View of the church from the castle