I have to say, in nearly 15 years of continuous travel, we have never experienced near continuous rain for well over a month! That’s longer than any wet ocean passage we’ve had. But now we can add this to our life’s accomplishments. Enduring buckets upon buckets of water that was never on our bucket list.
I guess it’s good for our skin but it is hard on everything else. The gasket failed on one of our outdoor lights and it started leaking water into the galley cabinet so we had to fix that. And the shear amount of water that comes off of our wet shoes has damaged the wood floor around the area where we store them since we hadn’t thought of this scenario when we built the truck that it actually wouldn’t dry out. But enough of that. We have been doing a lot despite the weather. And it has improved since I wrote this. And we do take pictures when we get a dry moment but we rarely take our rain gear off and we think instead of buying the usual new clothes when we make a run back to the US to visit, we should really zero in on multiple rain suits for our fashion style if this is going to keep up. We think we understand why the parts of Europe we’ve traveled through thus far have such green grass even in winter.
We spent some time visiting some of Spain’s beautiful historic cities as we moved south but it was at first by way of north when we left Ivan’s because we wanted to see Burgos. He spent part of his childhood there and we wanted to try and picture what it would be like to spend summers on a beautiful medieval square. We spent a nice day there walking around and visited the huge cathedral. It was full of carved tombs, the most we’d seen. We liked the dog at the foot of one of them.
Then we moved down to the Rio Lobos canyon to try and take a hike from the Bridge of the Seven Eyes. It has 7 arches for the water to pass, hence the name. Well, on this day, the usual rain was snow and the water was so high we couldn’t cross the river on the trail we were hiking on so we ended up at a viewpoint instead. Nice day anyway and it always feels good to be outside regardless.
We headed to Segovia with it’s beautiful Roman Aqueduct. This aqueduct has 167 arches and brings water first 13 km under ground, then up onto a wall and then up onto the top of the arches to travel through the city, then down underground again before being channeled to the western corner where the beautiful castle sits- the Alcazar. This castle inspired Walt Disney, and it really is beautiful. We REALLY liked the city because not only is it walled, but it has a ring of quiet green trails around it. We had good weather that morning and walked all over, then toured the castle. On the plaza in front, the storks live in the trees and are a part of the scene. Their clacky call is as much a part of the history tales as it is a part for everyone visiting today. I like this kind of thing, it cracks me up. In fact, in this part of Spain and much of Portugal, the storks live in communes perched on huge nests atop power lines, they really love church roofs, big trees etc and they feed in the agricultural fields nearby. Then, of course you have the pigeons living in the castle walls.
We moved to the town of Avila, another walled city. It didn’t have an emerald necklace of trees but it has a convenient campground where we could just walk a few steps to enter the city walls and the way they were lit up at night was pretty.
We were on our way to Salamanca when Ivan messaged us that his cousin Carolina who lives right in the old town center was free to meet up that evening if we wanted to tour around together. What a great idea and it’s always more fun to meet someone new and get a local’s perspective. We met on the old Roman pedestrain bridge and then walked all over the city inside the walls. She showed us the old university that began in 1218, the lovely library with the shells on the outside walls, Calixto Garden, the Plaza Mayor, the Cathedral and a few other hidden spots. Then a nice dinner of Salamancan specialties. Good company and a nice moon. It was a perfect evening.
We walked back in to town the following morning and spent another day strolling around Salamanca and ended up at the lovely cathedral tower. You can go up into the tower and then walk all over the upper parts of the cathedrals (both old & “new” because they are connected) on catwalks- it is fantastic! You know when you’re in a huge cathedral and you see that upper walkway that goes around and wonder who gets to go up there? Well it is you that is up there on this tower visit. And even better is to go up onto the roof above the top of the ceiling of the cathedral. There is a catwalk up there that shows a video of what you would be seeing if you looked straight down through the ceiling, hard to explain. This is among our favorite things we’ve done as far as historic European buildings go, hands down.
It was time for some long walking days. We drove westward from Salamanca through the beautiful Duero River Valley full of wineries and positioned ourselves at the start of the Camino de Hierro historic rail trail on the Portugal border. It was a beautiful spot and we could park in the parking lot of the park visitor center overnight. This elaborately built railroad used to carry Port wine from Porto, Portugal to Salamanca and then carry back grains to Porto. It covers challenging terrain and this 17km section has 20 tunnels and 10 bridges. The tracks are still in place but there is a rough path beside them and its now a walking trail. Park staff transport you to the start of the trail and you walk back to your vehicle. The first tunnel is 1.5km long so this is what you see- the light at the end of the tunnel. They give you a flashlight to make your way through, then you come out to great views, a river, cliffs, waterfalls, cactus, huge bridges, more tunnels and miles of peace.
It was a great time even if it did rain for half of it. As we were the only people who signed up to do the walk that day, we had the whole place to ourselves.
That afternoon, we crossed to Portugal and headed to the trailhead of another really cool spot- the Passadicos do Mondego in the town of Videmonte. Have you ever walked on a boardwalk and wished it wouldn’t end? Well the Portuguese seem to have a thing with very Loonnngggg boardwalks. After having done a few of them now, we do still think that these first ones were the Cadillac of the lot. EU dollars helped to pay for the trail and the construction was top notch. We walked 24km in a beautiful canyon mainly on boardwalk with little links on paths at times, once again we were the only people who signed up to go. Price for these boardwalks? 2.50 Euros. What a deal.
We worked our way up into the mountains of central Portugal on small roads to do another boardwalk outside the town of Arouca, the Passadicos do Paiva. Traveling those roads, we got a little nervous at times because we could see flood damage and toppled trees from the near constant storms that keep affecting Spain & Portugal and the rain continued to fall. We can’t even the see the banks of most rivers wherever we go because the water is so far over them. In one little town we visited and went out to lunch, the locals were streaming in to warm themselves by the fireplace and have a coffee. The owner told us that many had damaged roofs from all the wind & rain. We can see how hard the road crews are working to keep everything together. The people have been very kind and we like Portugal. However, the architectural style doesn’t move us the way Spain & France do.
We made our way to the city of Porto passing flooded fields, storks perched on the sides of their huge nests, power lines with whirligigs on them to prevent storks from settling on them and cliffside roads that looked down on valleys the way they do in Peru. Green and beautiful. Fields full of grapevines, resting for the winter. We’ve started trying different vinho verde wines but haven’t actually found the one we love from Trader Joes yet! We toured an old paper mill and learned how they used to make paper with scraps of fabric long before trees became popular.
Then we spent a Sunday touring all over Porto. We got some morning sun and it lit up our walk across the river. It was so ice to see everyone out enjoying the light. We went about looking at tiled buildings that Porto is famous for, walking through the old streets where Port is made, we ate lunch in a mercado filled with really appetizing Portuguese food and then spent the afternoon in museums as it started to drizzle. There were interesting exhibits of ocean photography, chemistry and natural science. Then we bought tickets to tour what else but a sardine factory the following day! That’s what Portugal is also famous for and we love sardines. But I will save that for the next post because this is getting a bit longggg.
