Our travels are over for the time being.  Back in Blighty our van requires some attention, and so do our relatives and friends. After Alberca’s slow pace, England is something of a shock – we take a 2 a.m. ferry crossing to Dover and join the madness of the British motorway…

Life in the Fast Lane…

fast, furious, frantic, faithless, river-flow, detritus, faster, faster…Fruitless?

 Fuming furnace, smoke in folds, folding futures, funnelling faithless,

feeding, fasting, starving, furious,

 fermenting, fomenting

Home…

Imagine yourself deep in the Spanish mountains, allow yourself to be shrouded in a mist of history…

… Moors and Romans, the Inquisition and the French, where St Anton’s pig wanders the streets and old women in near mediaeval clothes still swill their balconies into the street, and you will be in Alberca…

…the perfect place for walking, eating jamon (they’re certainly keen on their pork here) and….I nearly forgot, speaking English to Spaniards in return for board and keep (puebloingles.com) as part of their total immersion programme in the English language. Met some fabulous people and it was a great experience, but can I ever look a pig in the face again?

We gorge ourselves on the delights of Salamanca, a beautiful city, and truly historic with a range of different architectural styles all within a relatively compact area – buildings made of warm yellow sandstone. For culture-junkies like me it’s like being at a buffet for Kings. For starters, there are three cathedrals rolled into one….

…and a great many small churches….

The central dish is the old centre of activities of the Plaza Mayor, where bullfights used to take place, amongst other things…

Surrounding this are plates of numerous interest such as the Casa de las Conchas whose walls are carved with shells and is supposedly one of the best examples of Gothic architecture in Spain…

Such a rich spread…

And lots of public art…

We think this guy was probably Columbus – he came to the university to try to persuade the authorities to back him in his exploratory adventures – unsuccessfully, apparently…

There is an excellent little Museo Art Nouveau y Art Deco housed in a building commissioned by one Don Miguel de Lis, an Art Nouveau enthusiast, and designed by the architect Don Joaquin de Vargas.

Of course, everything is washed down by a cup of coffee – yes, in the sun!

The next day we follow the Green route – only 7.5 km, but it’s arduous walking and we’re glad we’re properly kitted out. To begin with it’s pouring with rain, but it’s still incredibly beautiful…

We climb up to the Mirador Cerro Gimio (thought to be the site of a Bronze Age settlement)….

Just as we approach this summit, the rain stops and we are privileged to see three Griffon Vultures perched on the topmost rock outlined against the sky. They’re spreading their wings, I presume in order to dry them before taking off. They look like magnificent gods up there; it’s no wonder that early people worshipped such as these!

Once we arrive at the top, they are all circling. A Spanish Imperial Eagle has a good look at us, which means I get a good look at him! Fantastic!

Somebody (and luckily for them, I can’t remember who) once told me that the interior of Spain was mostly desert. If they were right, they define the word differently from me, as this is the interior of Spain near Plasencia…

It looks as though it’s been raining for months, it’s so soggy, but soggily, extremely beautiful. It’s the Monfragüe National Park, home of rather large numbers of birds, including Griffon Vultures, Spanish Imperial Eagles and Azure-Winged Magpies. Black storks also live here, but sensibly, not in the winter. They prefer Africa.

We spend a few days walking here. It’s actually not too cold and the rain only comes in showers at the moment, so we follow some of the very well managed trails to get an in-depth view, if you get my drift…

And talking of drift, Griffon Vultures high up floating on the thermals. I try to digi-capture them but my Point-and-Click can’t get the range, and these birds seem somewhat camera shy – or is it that they fly so fast, that by the time I’ve Pointed and Clicked they’re already on their next circuit of the hilltop, sniggering…

See what I mean?

We follow the Red Route up to the Castillo da Monfragüe which was originally built by the Arabs….

It was rebuilt by the Christians between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. Beautiful views from the top, of course, and the habitual church…

And lots of close up encounters with vultures: they are superb – some of the them fly in with their claws down, like wheels from the undercarriage of an aeroplane, not necessarily landing, just ready to grab a tasty snack if it becomes available (like going to MacDonald’s really). Others are a dab hand (or feather) at dive-bombing for their prey. We saw one come in and land on an olive tree, have a little peck around and take off again with an olive branch in its beak. Peace offering or a new joist for the nest?

I’ve omitted to mention that the highest and best views come from the very top of the tower which is totally exposed to the drops all around it – but never mind, there’s a red line marked (as in above photo) so the wind will know not to blow me beyond it… And I’ve also omitted that to get up the tower you have to climb some steep wet stone steps in the pitch dark with only the stone walls to hold on to. No wonder I’m looking relieved once I get there…

…though I’ve still got to get down again…

We set off from La Zubia in the sunshine and head North-East…

…passing acre upon acre of olive grove again…

then fields of  what looks like winter wheat to flatter land covered in green oak. We stop for lunch just outside Castro del Rio where supposedly Cervantes stayed and began his novel Don Quixote. Then it’s down into Cordoba – the weather’s getting murky by now – and we decide to stop in a small town called Fuente Obejura in which is happening almost…Nothing. The museum is shut, at any rate – just a strange unidentifiable beast welcomes us in one of the squares…

…and then suddenly there is a flurry of activity in which several Marys, Josephs, golden-crowned Kings (of varying shape and size) some tarted up tractors and trailers and a horse or two appear in the lower streets in time for a Nativity Carnival…

We head on towards Azuaga which also appears to be Shut. By this time we have managed to deduce that this is a major day of festivity in Spain… we see more small children dressed up in Nativity attire. We do however manage to scrape a cup of coffee from a friendly man in a café and a town map from a man in an art gallery who tells us the Tourist Info Office is Shut and the town campsite is also Shut.

We find a little spot on the edge of a park to spend the night, feeling a little like that more famous couple who found there was “No room at the inn”…

The following morning we are subject to a continuing case of Shutness and can’t find anywhere to buy bread for breakfast, end up driving on to the next village, which is also rather Shut. However, with some dastardly powers of observation verging on those of Sherlock Holmes we trace the steps of people carrying loaves back to a single heroic baker. Breakfast at last!

Tummies full, we drive on to the city of Caceres which is also 85% Shut or being dug up and repaired, but this is another historic centre abounding with Moorish and Roman buildings…

Caceres claims to have derived much of its wealth from its explorers of America. It’s also the site of the WOMAD festival…

Some of the inhabitants do seem to be somewhat hard-nosed…

Of course the tourist information is Shut, but we manage to find a campsite north of the city which is very civilised – it’s Open!

We must be mad but we get up shortly after 6 a.m. and set off to catch a bus in the dark and walk through the still quiet streets of central Grenada past this cavorting couple… 

…in order to arrive at the Alhambra just after opening time. Tickets were fully booked online, so we need to book our place to visit the Palacios Nazaries. There are already a number of people there before us, but no problem, we are allocated a slot and begin our journey of discovery…

This place is an absolute Must with a capital M.

From garden… to ceiling…

…from wall to tower…

…from Matisse to steam bath, from stone carving…

 to wooden inlay, from Sultan Mohammed (1238) to Leopoldo Balbas (1936), history exudes from every pore, or if we’re talking about the restored marble lions, every paw… We walk around for hours…

…until we’re so tired we tumble down into town for a cheap menu in the atmospheric back streets of Grenada…

…not without a sneaky look at the Cathedral and one or two of the shops en route…

…Terry is a little distracted…

Those guitars may be wonderful old acoustic, but the Alhambra is ELECTRIC!

We wake up to a beautiful morning, eat rather unpleasant packaged croissants from an unnamed supermarket (with a rather better cup of coffee) and take to the road again. We pass flat-roofed Andalucian houses, their white walls dazzling in the sunshine, churches with Moorish domes and streets lined with trees heavy with oranges. 

As we continue, the terrain varies through industrial valleys and acres of olive groves. Then we see the snowy peaks of the Sierra Nevada in the distance…we find an excellent campsite with a manager so helpful he deserves a medal (maybe he has one)…in a pleasant suburb of Grenada called La Zubia.

Time to leave our lovely Fuzeta – shame, because there’s something going on on the sea-front which my nosiness is aching to visit and also I’m feeling really sad about leaving this place. However, time for Nely, the lovely Portuguese lady to come and inspect the apartment, and it’s off along the motorway into Spain. We bi-pass Seville and drive through a beautiful Andalucian village called La Puebla de Cazalla. The place is crawling with guitarists, just packing up from Sunday lunchtime sessions. We drive up into the hills and find a great camping spot…the wild flowers are really pretty here and the birds provide a magnificent soundtrack….

We’re booked into a gourmet extravaganza at a restaurant with a French name (La Plage – what else?) run by a German guy who speaks excellent Portuguese and English. We tuck into freshly cooked prawns, pancake rolls, pork fillet cooked in sherry, duck with port and chocolate sauce, and, strangely, wild boor (or was it a spelling error on the menu?). Anyway, whoever he was, he tasted very good in a delicious sauce, especially with the braised chicory and “Heaven and Earth” potatoes. Cream puffs and wonderfully un-sickly little chocolate cases filled with various fillings for afters. Wine, coffee, and at midnight, champagne. What more could a gal ask for? (Or a chap, for that matter). The hammiest fireworks display we have seen in a long time…

…when at one point the landlord does an unintentional head-over-heels when he’s trying to light the fireworks (perhaps it was the boor trying to escape from his intestine).

But the company was excellent: everyone was really friendly and we chatted the night away until 2 a.m. when we thought we ought to let those poor restaurant staff get to bed. Fantastic!