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Hi everyone - we have made our way down to Spain since the last time we posted. We are about to start heading back north again after today - hopefully to more blue skys and warm weather.
From the Loire we headed to a little place just outside of Bordeaux city called St. Emilion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-%C3%89milion), famous both for the local wine production and subterrainian religious bulidlings. They are very protective of these underground mounuments, which include a masive vaulted monolithic church and banned any photos being taken :-( We did however have a nice wander around the place, which doesn´t seem to have changed much with narrow cobbled alleyways in the thousand years it has been around.
We also had another crack at the local winerys but were stiffled yet again by the French passion for having a day off - this time celebrating the end of WWII.... not really too much of a problem for us though as the local shops sold the same stuff at just about the same prices as out of the vineyard gates :-)
Next we headed for the coast and to Arcachon and the "Duna de Pilat" - a rather striking 3
km long stretch of sand dunes poking out of a section of coastal forest. These reminded us a lot of 90 mile beach at home, although the French had done a better job of developing things with a large set of fibreglass steps being provided to give acess up the back of the dunes.
We also found some really nice camping sites on this coast, giving us great evening sea views to go with our evening wine and cheese nibbles - and thankfuly Bert the Bedford didn´t get stuck in the sand like some of our neighbours.
A bit more driving south took us over the border and into Spain. We stocked up on nice cheeses before we crossed over, but were happy to see a large reduction in petrol prices and a huge selection of sausages, ham, and preseved meat on offer at the shops to replace the French passion for cheese.
Our first stop was a place called San Sebastian, a city on the coast with large sections of beachfront right in the city center. The spring weather is still pretty unsettled over here so we didn´t get into the water, but instead wandered around
the city center and got our first taste of the local Tapas. These were really tasty snack size morsels of sea food, meats, cheese etc sold in the bars where you could pick and choose as many or as little as you liked depending on your tastes.
We then left the coast and started our tour down to Madrid, stopping along the way whenever our guide book or road atlas pointed out anything of interest. This plan of action took us to Burgos next, another old city with a "White Cathedral" (photos attached). Further down the line we visited Valladolid, which was having a centennary festival when we dropped in so we got treated to some local music and dancing in addition to our first plates of local Paella - which usually takes the form of a big hearty mixture of rice and seafood.
One of our last stops before Madrid was in Segovia, being probably the best of the old towns we have been through. The place boasts a Castle/Palace perched inside the old city walls on the local hill top, as well as the usual massive cathedral with miles of stained glass windows. However the real
eye opener was a huge old roman acquaduct which ran right up to the top of the old city wall and over it to provide the town water supply. This structure towers over one end of the town, and has the local road traffic crawing around and underneath its base still.
We also stopped a little bit further down the road at a place called El Escorial which had another Monastery highlighted by our guide book. This was a bit of a let down as the tour of the place kept you inside the building at all times, so aside from museums of oil paintings, you couldn´t get any idea of size or perspective of the place :-(
Madrid has just kicked off a festival month which includes a bull fight just about every night so we took the oppurtunity to check this out. Sandra took lots of photos (attached) of the fights which saw the end of about 6 bulls during the course of the evening. This was a pretty bloody activity, with the bulls always coming off the loser while the matadores strutted their stuff and did their best to show off... However the last fight
of the night was more of an even contest with the bull catching the matadore and giving him a good goring and trampling - only to have the guy get up and shake it off then finish off the bull with a single clean strike with his sword (the other bulls were not so lucky and ended up being pin-cushins for 3-4 strikes of the matadores sword).
We are now in Valencia and planning on heading slowly back up to France via the coast - hopefully to more sunshine and definelty more sand
Asta la vista,
S&S
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