Fairy tale castles, festivals and hot water.

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Day 12
Olite to Tiermas
We started the day with a walk around the town, it's much quieter this morning, the revelers must still be in bed, or church. The castle looks as if it could be from a fairytale, with its pretty turrets. It was the home if the Royal family of this area in the 1500's. The walled town around it us made up if churches, set in squares with narrow cobbled streets joining them. We're low on food but it's Sunday, the supermarkets aren't open, so when we found a small general store I popped in to buy food for the day.
Back at Dream Catcher we plan a scenic drive to take us east further into the mountains. The route passed by rows of grapes all dark purple and waiting to be picked, were on the edge of the Rjoca region here.
Our first stop was at Ujue, a small village balancing on top of a hill, a perfect example if a fortified village, with steep pretty narrow streets tumbling down the hillside. The same festival is taking place here, we couldn't explore the church as it was packed with a full congregation. The board outside explained that along side a statue of a beautiful Madonna found inside a cave was the heart of a past king! A strange combination.
We had lunch before we set off again. The countryside is very pretty with more villages on top of hills and rivers running in valleys. We stopped to look at a reservoir who's water shone a beautiful blue in the hot sunshine. The water level was very low and we noticed several vehicles parked close to the water, we found a track down and went to take a look, a perfect place to stop overnight even if its still early. As we sat out drinking a beer a chap with two small children stopped by to ask if he could take a picture if Dream Catcher, he told us he was going to the hot springs just around the corner, as the water level was so low you were able to bathe in them, from the remains if buildings still standing we think there must have been a small spa village here before the valley was flooded. There was around 10 people in the pool when we walked over to take a look, they had churned up the mud and the water looked cloudy and uninviting, we could see the small bubbles rising to the top and a smell of sulphur filled the air.
By the middle if the evening there was just a couple of other overnight campers left, with a lovely sunset and a pretty moon it was a lovely place to sleep

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