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Published: January 21st 2011
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Hi Everyone!
We are charging through the mist at 120. Yes, there are whole freeways and mountains and cities enveloped in winter mist and glorious sunny spots in between. We’ve just had 5 nights in a little, white farmhouse in a valley without the mist. The farmhouse was the real McCoy with walls 60 cm thick, a delightful, extended family running the farm and views from both sides of the house that were from a picture book. We travelled out most days seeing Moor Ruins, Roman ruins, Gothic churches, Renaissance churches, Baroque churches, magnificent houses and a Dominican monastry with so much gold that it’s a wonder that there was any left in South America.
We had been very keen to walk parts of “Via de la Plata”, an old Roman road that goes from Seville to the Bay of Biscay. We’d been hacking around the countryside for hours, including going up a very steep road to a village on the top of a hill, only to be told in Spanish by a restauranteur, that we needed to be down on the plain. We eventually found it and there was a dig happening there together with a gateway, a
bit of an information centre, toilets etc. There was an arch in the air, and 30 m of genuine Roman road that we weren’t allowed to walk on.
A few days later we saw a sign to another bit of the Roman road and after driving many long kilometres on back roads to find it, arrived to see a very similar set up. We commented on how they must have used the same architect to design the info centre and gateway. I guess if something works, why use a different architect which only costs more money? The catholic ed system in the NT had managed to put in libraries in lots of schools via one architect with the government’s stimulus money, saving buckets and enabling extra resources inside the buildings.
Anyway, back to the Roman road. After a bit of a poke around, we thought, “This looks a bit like the other one.” After a bit more looking we thought, “This looks like the other one.” And then we thought ……
Driving to all these ruins has meant winding our way through hills and valleys and we have delighted in the sights of cows and sheep in
dry walled enclosures. Cherryll was “over the moon” at seeing pigs grazing in the fields.
We’ve discovered that only part of Spain speaks Spanish, we’ve eaten tapas, paella and other Spanish treats – Alan has to eat what Cherryll finds too suspicious but he’s not complaining. We’ve walked in the mountains and seen enormous birds that have migrated to the warm(?) for the winter.
All the old Spanish architecture has beautiful ceilings, presumably from the old Moor beginnings. There is lots of shape, colour, vibrance and carving that draws you to the ceiling.
There is a modern equivalent, a ceiling full of legs of ham, thousands of shops with ceilings full of hams.
We stayed in the old town in Seville. Finding a park was a serious challenge but we found one on a building site and stayed there for 3 days and weren’t towed away. The plumbing was another challenge as the pensione was a few hundred years old, but the owner was very helpful. We found a flamenco bar with dancer, guitarist and singer, where the music was free, the beer was 2E and entertainment started at 11:00 pm. We are rapidly getting into
the swing of 10:00 rising and 8:00 dinner and are not looking forward to our 5:45 am starts back in Katherine.
From Seville we had hoped to go to our rural retreat near Plasencia but the intricacies of finding it proved too difficult at the end of the day, so we stayed in a plush hotel in Caceres where we had happened to pull up outside, intending to ask for directions. Because there are so few tourists around at the moment, hotels are struggling for customers so we had a night for 60E. Again, its old town was charming and we had hamburgers for tea sitting round a bar with 4 older Spanish workers. The gin they poured was huge and the local beer has a great flavour. We have discovered that the floods in Australia have made a great impression on the people here. Every time we meet someone new they talk about the floods (in sign language).
We will soon be in Toledo, a couple of days in Madrid and then alas we head home.
PS Visited Toledo and Madrid. Went to the Palace but their majesties were having a siesta so we couldn’t see
them or the Palace. Toledo has an amazing cathedral and Madrid, amazing art galleries. A vast washing up bowl full of mussels was consumed and there was much wandering around ancient streets and plazas.
We recommend Spain to you all, it certainly beats going to work.
Arios
Alan and Cherryll
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