Day 64 Friday 4 May

We plan to end today in the Sierra de Gredos so that we can get a good walk in tomorrow. There are three valleys running NE from Plascencia, one of which, Valle de la Vera is considered particularly lovely, so that’s our first direction. The Spanish King Carlos V retired here when he’d had enough of kinging in the 16th century. We walked for a couple of hours, passing the monastery where the king ended his days, and Heather saw Golden Orioles 3 or 4 times, I didn‘t. As we were driving off and with my head in a map, H saw another one fly across the road in front of us. I gather they’re spectacular birds.

Having driven along one of the valleys we had to cross the spine of hills between us and the next or drive all the way back to Plascencia. The climb is a big one and gets almost as high as we expect to tomorrow. Even here, where the traffic can only ever be local (or a few like us) there is extensive road improvements.

Our campsite is the closest to the walk we want to do. It’s shaded by trees which is probably great in th eheat of summer but gives the whole place a greenish cast and feels a bit like being underwater.


Day 65 Saturday 5 May

Alarm clock set today ! We want to make sure that we get a reasonably early start to our walk high in the Sierra de Gredos. Above the tree line, snow on the tops and a wind from the north. The route is listed on all the boards and two leaflets we have and we get to the start at the top of the pass between Extramadura and Castilla y Leon, there isn’t the slightest hint of any waymarking at all. Somehow, we’re not really surprised. We set off up a track heading in the right direction and after about 45 mins come to a dead end with a ‘no entry’ gate. Two more rather determined walkers are behind us. As we’re scratching our heads a farmer drives down a track to a locked gate 200 yards back and directs the other walkers across a field while pointing upwards. We hot foot it back and are directed the same way. On the other side of the field a wide track leads upwards so we follow. Still no way marks of any kind.

A lot of the tracks we’ve seen look very much like footpaths or mule tracks which have just been gouged out to take a vehicle. They’re particularly ugly gashes across the landscape, especially a bare one like this but they are easy to follow. As we climb we get spectacular views of the land around with snow clearly visible higher up. The track splits and leads to dead ends but we continue to find a path up. There are just lots of tracks and although we are heading in the right direction by compass, we can’t believe we’re on the route we wanted. Just as well we hadn’t arranged a pickup at the other end 20 kms across the mountains. Eventually, mostly because there is little variety in plant or birdlife, we turn back and find the only waymark of the whole walk. It’s about 2 miles from the road.

The most interest for birds and flowers was over the first mile or so and apart from some lovely narcissus we don’t see much on higher ground.

We hoped to see some Ibex which number over 10,000 in these mountains and decide our best bet would be a herd with an albino to stand out against the mountainside. Even better a group of albinos randomly spelling out ‘Hello we’re Ibex‘, but no such luck.


Day 66 Sunday 6 May

Yesterday, after our 5 hour mountain walk we left Extramadura, which we are very impressed with and headed into Castilla y Leon

Very easy lazy day. Amble round the comatose village of Alba until we got to the church, where there were people. Bought cakes. Drove about 5 miles. Ate cakes. Drove about 15 miles to our site at the definite planned stop at Salamanca, capital of Castilla y Leon, university town for many foreign students learning Spanish and described in our guide book as ‘arguably the most attractive city in Spain’.





Day 67 Monday 7 May

Bus into Salamanca for one euro although the journey in takes a while travelling all round a local housing area to get there.

A most attractive centre ringed by a main road to take the traffic. Quite big centre with loads of warm coloured stone buildings and many pedestrian only areas. The obligatory Playa Mayor is stunning, very harmonious and looking all in the same style, consisting of a complete ring of buildings with archways to get in and out. The only drawback is that like many places we’ve been there is a market set up just selling books. That sounds great but every stall is a white metal flat roofed shed facing inwards, so walking round the outer part of the square or from the cloistered edge, all you can see to a height of about 9 feet is a line of white metal sheeting. Definitely not harmonious. We’ve arrived in the week of the Salamanca book festival so presume that these bookstalls are only temporary.

The old university buildings are open to visitors. The library was very impressive but one old lecture hall had benches made of roughly hewn logs which didn’t look as if they would aid concentration very much. Salamanca also has an ‘old’ and a ‘new’ cathedral. Relative terms of course. The old is 12th century and the new is 15th.

Today we went back to the van for the afternoon to return for the evening pasao (or stroll around). Hundreds and hundreds of people out and a jazz band set up in the Plaza Mayor to entertain the crowd. Lovely warm evening.



Day 68 Tuesday 8 May

It’s such a lovely city that we’re spending another day there. A two day city is very rare for us, we usually want to get back into the country after one.

Head in a bit later with a plan to stay until the last bus at 10.30. Yes, we do know how to live it up.

Just wandered, seeing different areas and the ones we saw yesterday, all glowing in the sun. Wonderful place.
One place we wanted to see was the Art Deco/Nouveau museum which is in the most fantastic Art Nouveau building from 1905. It has a stunning coloured glass roof, what these days they call an atrium in a smart hotel. Some very good pieces inside and beautifully displayed, lit and mirrored so you could see back and front but the best in the main gallery. The collection as a whole was let down for me somewhat by a collection of fans and dolls from the period. They were in the style but not what I like. Well worth a visit though.

Next door and not mentioned in any of the tourist information was the National Archive of the Spanish Civil War. Considering how recent and how important this was to Spain, the display was a small collection mostly of documents. Except that is for a set up of a Masonic Temple, which we gather Franco was very much against. No information in any language other than Spanish, which considering the number of foreign combatants in groups like the International Brigade, was a surprise.

We did stay, pasaoing, chocolate y churros, a drink or two, finishing off in the Plaza Mayor with the music from a Spanish band.