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Published: April 22nd 2013
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Yesterday we left Tordesillas at 11.45 to drive up to the border country between Castile and Galicia. Our journey took two and three quarter hours and the distance was 186 kilometres. As we journeyed northwards and westwards we could see the snow-capped peaks of the border country getting nearer and nearer. For most of the journey we were following the “Camino de Santiago” the route which devout pilgrims walk to Santiago de Campostela (all the way from France). Our destination, a campsite on the banks of the Lago de Sanabria, on a part of Castile which juts westward like a land-locked peninsula, with Galicia to the north and west, just about twenty kilometres away, and Portugal the same distance to the south. It is a beautiful location, but as night drew in and the sun began to set, it got decidedly chilly, well actually - COLD! There is snow on the top of the sierras all around us. It had been really hot during the day, so the contrast was quite a shock to the system!
This campsite is in woodland. It is an older site and at first we thought the loo blocks looked a bit old and tatty,
but we were wrong. Inside they are modern, scrupulously clean and there is loads of hot water. Nice! Our son and daughter-in-law, Nick and Mam, had camped here before, some years ago when they lived in Castile y León, in Palencia; we knew from them that it was a good campsite. The site staff are really friendly and the little bar by the lake is great. We enjoyed chilling out there in the evening and discovered that they had WIFI coverage (which we thought was unavailable up here in the Sierra de la Cabrera), so today we are able to access our email and send this blog as well as the previous blog from Tordesillas. There are only a few Spanish campers on the site, it is very much “out of season” up here, unlike on the Mediterranean coast, where the holiday season has already started. The northern Europeans rarely come this far west, they all head down to the sun! It was a good first day in our third camp! This camp is another one where we can use our ACSI discount card, so it will only be 16 euros per night (Tordesillas was 23 euros). However, it is
so chilled here that, although one of the campsite guys has been around to say “Hola” we haven´t paid anything, nor checked in yet! Mañana, mañana!
Today, it is our wedding anniversary (an unbelievable 46 years) so we headed out to explore the locality and find somewhere nice to eat; somewhere dog-friendly! We headed firstly back to one of the little towns we passed through on the way here; simply called El Puente (The Bridge) due to the fact that since Medieval times it has been an important sheep crossing bridge ( a cañada) over a fast flowing river. It was market day and we stocked up on important essentials like fruit, cheese, wine and beer! We couldn´t see anywhere we really fancied to eat, however, so we headed back to the lake then around the western shore of the lake to a little place called Ribadelago and found a great little hotel and restaurant with a lakeside terrace and stunning views. If we ever come back this way minus dogs, then the Hotel Don Pepe at Ribadelago would be a super place to stay. They laid a table for us on the terrace so
that the dogs could join us (obviously they could not go inside the hotel restaurant). Unusually for us, we chose the same food from the menu and it was excellent. For starters we had a plate with four mini starters on: home-made asparagus and mushroom soup, a bowl of butter beans and locally-made chorizo in salsa, a ham and cheese croquet and the softest octopus that just melted in the mouth. As we sat looking at the sun shimmering on the blue water of the lake at about 3 p.m. eating the starters whilst our steaks were being cooked (to perfection as it turned out) we looked at each other and said “It doesn´t get much better than this!” With the steaks we had a delicious salad of raw spinach, dried sultanas, figs, goat´s cheese and walnuts tossed in olive oil and balsamic vinegar (I shall steal this simple salad recipe for summer barbecues when I get back home). After pigging out on apple tart and coffee we went for a little lakeside stroll and then headed back to camp to chill out the rest of the day. We are now at the camp bar to use the WIFI –
how inconvenient it is that one has to stroll down from the caravan to the lake and drink beers whilst the sun goes down to be able to use the laptop! We are having a great holiday and we have had a great anniversary. Happy Days!
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