Off to Valladolid - 17th May

I know that I’m on catch up but we have been doing so much that I haven’t had the time or energy to write my blog.  I can’t believe that less than two weeks ago we were in La Manga, it seems like a lifetime ago.

Anyway we were on the move again.  Our plan had always been to leave Toledo and go up to Zaragoza, then Pamplona and then move into France to the Biarritz area.  But I’m sure that you have noticed by now that these plans are not cast in stone and can change quite quickly.

Toledo to  Zaragoza Valladolid

We had been keeping an eye on the weather and also there was no ACSI site in Zaragoza and as we had had 5 nights at 30 Euros a night we thought we’d change direction and stay on an aire for a few nights.  Valladolid seemed a decent distance from Toledo, the old capital of Spain so we thought it might be interesting and also saves us some miles. Our plan then changed  to Toledo, to Valladolid, San Sebastian and then onto Biarritz.

So off to Valladolid – some 180 miles – but first – apart from the necessary full and empty we had to find LPG.  Was this going to be third time lucky?

I had programmed the SatNag to go to Valladolid, via the LPG station in Toledo.  I had looked at the map and it seemed quite straight forward to get there, using main roads – fantastic.  But then just as we were pulling away, I must have touched the screen while putting it on the stand and I saw the fateful message “Reprogramming” come up – OMG – not again. However when the reprogramming had finished it showed the correct number of miles (ish) so I thought it had just reprogrammed the route again.  

With Mr. Technophobe in the navigators seat I didn’t think it was worth asking him to check it so I just hoped for the best.  We continued on our way.  However the SatNag had reprogrammed the route to Valladolid, but had now forgotten the waypoint of the LPG station. It was only when we realised that we were about to get onto the main road to Madrid that I decided to turn right at the roundabout instead of left and pulled into a sports centre to check.  We were now about 5 miles out of our way from the LPG station.  

As I’ve said before LPG is only found in the major cities and towns so you can’t just go to the next one on route as this can be over 100 miles away.

Of course the sports centre took us up a hill and with horrible adverse cambers I had to turn the van around and get back on track. 

Reprogrammed, it was back into the city and out on another direction. Actually of the past three LPG stations we had to find this turned out to be the easiest.  Was this to be a good omen?

Back on the road again towards Madrid.

As usual we decided to take the paeage as the quickest route towards Madrid.  Now in Spain you can’t even guarantee that the paeage will have the best road surface.  It would appear over here that if there is a bad surface that instead of fixing the bad bumps or holes all they do is put some signs up, pain the road lines yellow instead of white and put a speed restriction on.  When you are pulling the load that we have this can still be very bumpy, even at slower speeds and of course it sounds as though everything is falling out of the cupboards.  That’s one good thing about a motorhome rather than a caravan, you have no idea what’s going on in a caravan until you get to your destination.  At least we can adjust driving to suit.  We found at least 4 stretches of  “bumpy road”.   

Further on the road surface deteriorated again.  The dual carriageway into Madrid was a concrete surface just like the M42 and it was a real shake rattle and roll all the way to Madrid.  I have never been so envious of the people on the other side of the road before as when I looked over to the other side of the road they had a lovely smooth tarmac.  Obviously Spain want people to leave Madrid rather than arrive.

Luckily the SatNag took us around the best road to avoid Madrid.  We had no intention of trying to drive through Madrid and my attitude was that we had survived the Peripherique around France so this should not be a problem.  No worries we were around Madrid and on our way to Vallidolid without any issues.

By now it was lunchtime and  I had noticed that the next service area was 23km away, so we stopped on the first picnic site off the ringroad.  It wasn’t a very pleasant site but at least it was proper parking.  Had we known,  just about 5 miles further on there was a lovely picnic area with lovely views.  Never mind that’s just sod’s law and it happens all the time.

Being a short drive for us today of only 180 miles we arrived at the aire in Valladolid at around 3.30pm.  We had decided on an aire because we’d had some expensive camping nights and though we’d bring down our average campsite costs.  At only 3.10 Euros a night this was a real bargain, and even better it was free on Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday – which just happened to be exactly when we were going to be there.  As long as we got off by 9am on Monday it was gratuit. The aire itself was in a car park, next to the telephone exchange  about half a mile from the city and I also managed to hook up with some open wifi.  There were about  10 other vans here so we felt quite safe.

So not knackered from the journey we decided to have a quick look in the city.  

Valladolid

As I’ve already mentioned, this used to be the capital city of Spain until it was moved to Madrid and Christopher Columbus died there so we thought it might be worth a look.

A pleasant walk into town with the dog and then we returned to the van for the evening.  The only problem with aires is that you cannot put out your tables and chairs as this denotes camping rather than parking, so when it’s a bit hot you are rather restricted with outside space.

The following day we went back into Valladolid to have a better look around and were pleasantly surprised with how pleasant the city was.  I would recommend this as a good stopover place for travellers.

Again, like Toledo the buildings were incredibly clean even though some of them were very old.  It would appear that Valladolid, once the capital had moved to Madrid in 1606 the city was abandoned for some 300 years until the railway made it accessible again.  It’s almost as if it missed all the industrial times which would possibly have meant that a lot of pollution would have darkened all the stone.

Here’s some pictures of the buildings I found interesting.

I wondered if I could get the same man three times in this shot

A rose garden in Spain

Pleasant riverside walks

Still along the river front

Christopher Columbus - back view - the sun was too bright to take it from the front

Just an interesting building

The Cathedral - notice only one tower - they must have run out of money

And here’s a couple just to show that I’ve been learning how to use digital zoom on my camera.  It shows just how close I can get with the detail on my pictures.

Look at the shield at the centre of the pic

I can't believe just how close I can get the detail.

Just one to finish our time in Valladolid, Connie has decided that after all these years she actually like yoghurt.  I love seeing her lick the pot and she can even get to the bottom with her tongue – I love my dog and she makes me smile, even if she drives me mad sometimes.

She's loving her time travelling

Toledo – put it on your bucket list

I had chosen Toledo as a stop over as the guide said that although there were not many buildings worth seeing the inside of, the whole city centre is a World Heritage Site.  This also made it ideal for us to take the dog with us for a good walk.  Boy did it live up to expectations.

The following day we checked the map and decided that even though there was a bus stop outside the campsite (can’t take the dog on buses in Spain)  it was close enough to walk, although we were well aware of the ups and downs that we would have to face. I don’t do ups very well.

We set off fairly early in the morning to make the most of the coolest part of the day.  What a day we had.  Now I’m a bit of a philistine and not really interested in history but I do like to look at historic buildings even if I’m not that interested in who lived there and why but I was just so impressed with Toledo that I would thoroughly recommend that anyone put it on their bucket list.

The downside of Toledo tourism is that it doesn’t have an airport but if you ever fancy a city break in Madrid then you can get to Toledo in 40 minutes by high-speed train. 

One thing that really struck me about Toledo is that although parts of the city are over 600 years old it is just so clean that it looks like it has been built in the last 10 years.

Here’s some pictures that I hope you enjoy.

Oh look Iain in front carrying the pink rucksack

The pink rucksack again

Spot the pink rucksack

It's there again, like something from Schindler's list

Toledo also houses two our of only three remaining Synagogues in Spain, here's a picture of one which is now an Abbey. Each chain hanging on the wall represents a Moor's prisoner released when the Christians took Toledo in the 12th Century.  They took the chains off them and hung them on the wall as a reminder.

This just about sums up our first visit to Toledo city but before I go, we were amazed at how many shops were selling swords and knives.  Now I know that Toledo is well-known for it’s armoury but the displays were amazing and would never be allowed in England.  Here’s a sample.

By the time we had had lunch and left the city it was getting on for about 2.30pm and was getting very warm.  Connie is getting on a bit, she’s now 12 or 13 and this was a long walk for her.  We knew that there was a big hill to get up back near the campsite but had spotted – would you believe it – a “we got to the top of the hill bar”, just on the side of the road which would make a great place to rest before returning to camp.

I said it was a big hill, not really that bad but when you’ve already done about 5 miles and you are an old girl (now I’m referencing the dog here, not myself) the little leggies are feeling a bit tired and the fur coat is getting a bit warm.  You can’t tell a dog that as soon as we get to the top of the hill we’re going to rest with a nice well-earned beer and the poor thing refused to go any further twice up the hill. 

It’s very rare that she refuses, once before in La Motte in France when it was hot and also at Saint Michel Mont last year when she had a puncture in her buggy tyre and we had to walk most of the way. This is from a previous post where we got a puncture and had to ditch the bikes and buggy and walk the majority of the way.  When we picked up the bikes again she had to travel in it with a flat tyre.  She didn't seem to mind very much but it couldn't have been very comfortable.

Never mind, just another 50 yards to go and we could all have a rest.

That evening we decided to eat in the restaurant which we discovered that it was not as good as it purported to be.  The food was ok, just about, but the wine was good and the view fantastic.

We had enjoyed Toledo so much and wanted to make another visit so we decided that although we were paying 30 euros a night we would stay another night and take the tourist train around Toledo the next day.

Toledo Day 2

As we had planned to take the tourist train around the city it meant that we would not be able to take the dog with us.  She had had a good walk the previous day and would probably welcome the rest.  Well I might be speaking for myself there.  

At least we would be able to take the bus into town to rest my weary legs – not on Iain’s plan I’m afraid.  Again it looked like it was going to be a hot day, so we left fairly early and set the air conditioning for the dog.  It had worked before so there was no reason to expect it not to work again.  This time however we set it at 26 C so that she wouldn’t be cold.

Off we went down the hill and took a different route into the city this time, over the old bridge.  

Surprisingly though it was very quiet today compared to the previous day.  We went straight to the tourist train, which was at the other end of the city – funnily enough right where the bus would have dropped us and the next train was going in just 5 minutes after we purchased our ticket.  We got on the train when it arrived and then sat there for 15 minutes while the driver got himself sorted – this is typical Spain.  Now don’t get carried away, this is a tourist train, some sort of engine covered in something resembling a train engine, pulling about 10 little open carriages. Get the picture? At least there was a commentary in several languages and the 5.2 Euros included the cost of a set of earpieces each.  We don’t very often do this sort of thing but it had been recommended to us by some people we met and it was well worth it.

Views we would not have seen had we not taken the train

.

Now over the last couple of days, I’d been learning more about my camera.  I have had it a few years and like most people I could take some reasonable pictures but hadn’t really bothered to learn some of the features.  So I’ve been playing with panoramic pictures and digital zooming.  Here’s a panoramic pic I took overlooking Toledo.

And just for a laugh here’s a couple of my earlier failures before I got the hang of it.

I'll bet the architects would turn in their graves!!!

Having left the train we walked through the city, getting a look at anything that we hadn’t seen the day before.  The guide book said that the Cathedral was one of the buildings to take and inside look of so without the dog we were free to browse.  Somehow we found the back entrance of the Cathedral and went in.  This is the entrance where you enter for church services, and although you are not supposed to come in this way, it is free to get in.  You are restricted to where you can go via this entrance but it did give us a good idea of what it was like inside.  If you go to the front entrance it is 8 Euros each to enter but that does give you access to see the inside closer up.  We saw enough and it was very impressive and totally ostentatious.

Walking through the streets  I can never help browsing in the shop windows, although these days we don’t buy STUFF.  If we buy something it has to be beautiful, practical, affordable and NEEDED.  The reason I’m mentioning this is that we stumbled upon a shop selling Lladro statues.  Not like the Lladro that you will find in the department stores and jewellery shops in England but this was a specialist shop.  I managed to get a half-decent picture of this flamenco dancer and matador and they were absolutely stunning.  There were some other fabulous statues and the prices were way out of this world.

Flamenco dancer - £3,200

Matador - £2,700

But they were still STUFF and I don’t suppose they’d survive some of the bumps that we go over.  No we were not in the market but as they say, no harm in window shopping.

The bus ride walk back to the campsite was warm again after lunch and so we treated ourselves to a rest at the top of the hill.

Of all the cities that I have visited, I would put Toledo up there with Rome well almost, Rome is pretty spectacular.  A very highly recommended stop over on the way from southern to northern Spain, or a trip out from Madrid for our friendly mortar homers.

Granada to Toledo – approx. 240 miles – 14th May

I accidentally managed to publish two posts at once so if you want chronological order, don't forget to read the Granada post (below) first.

As I’ve already mentioned, the first task when leaving a city is to refuel with LPG, but at least we had seen the garage, knew vaguely where it was and knew that it had gas.  I was aware that there was a low height tunnel nearby and we had experienced Granada streets by bike, I spend about 20 minutes studying the SatNag to find a good route to the gas station.  I did find a good route but it wasn’t the way the SatNag wanted to go.  I had planned to get out onto the dual carriageway ring-road and do one junction back to the garage.

All packed up we headed off and as the route I had picked was quite complicated Iain suggested that we follow the SatNag route, at least we would get there. BIG MISTAKE.  The first part of the journey was ok but then there was a straight on at these lights (my route would have been to turn right here).  Well we have an adage that if a bus can go down a road there’s no reason why we can’t.  We actually followed a bus through Lyme Regis once and it worked there, so should be good again.

The street was so narrow with parked cars on the right so at times we were close to pulling in our wing mirrors.  One very kind Spanish man who was selling vegies at the side of the road decided that he’d help to guide us through – I wish they wouldn’t, I might be a woman driving a big truck, but I’m quite capable and I have very big mirrors and a reversing camera.  

Then it was straight on again and down a steep slope and – wait for it – under a low bridge with a very sharp right turn after it. The bridge sign said 3.5m and we have always said that we are 3.5 m high.  There was nowhere safe to turn around and we had come down a one-way street anyway so all we could do was suck it and see.  Iain got out and watched as I inched my way along.  You don’t want to go very fast in case you hit a bump and the last thing you want to do is bounce up into a bridge smashing off your satellite dome.  

Well I inched and inched and inched and finally we got through.  I had already decided that if anyone was behind us then they could bloody well wait.  Iain thought we must have had about 10 cm clearance so all was well and at least we now know that we can get under 3.5m in future, albeit slowly.  

The narrow sharp right turn was not too much trouble and I just clipped the curb going round.  Then the SatNag said to turn left, Iain was telling me also turn left, turn left but I could see that the road was blocked off at the bottom with some very large boulders so it was straight on for me, whether he or the SatNag liked it or not.  Finally a sweeping round to the left and hey presto the Repsol  garage was in sight, and I thought we were going onto the dual carriageway to get there.  So tank full as appropriate we headed off, stressed but still speaking, to Toledo.

At least the garage was on the side of the dual carriageway so there was no further drama getting out of Granada.

The roads were ok and once out of Granada we found that again they were very quiet.  The scenery was lovely, the main source of income for the area appears to be olives and the hills looked like they were knitted.  The pictures on route are not good, especially as the camera had been left on video and Mr Right is certainly NOT Mr Technology and I haven't got the software to take stills from a video.

Once again we didn’t entirely trust the SatNag so when we saw signs to Toledo and the SatNag said to keep going, we took the exit.  Now this was not a problem, in fact it was a good thing as it took us around the outside of the city centre.  The roads were modern and not too bad but it did give us a quick look at the city.  Wow!!!!! Can’t wait to get back in there tomorrow.

We pulled up at the campsite El Greco and booked in for two nights.  Again the weather was very hot, up in the low 30’s and again it was May and still spring so the swimming pool was not open. At least at this time of year it may be very hot during the day, but the evenings and nights are much cooler so you just have to wait it out until the sun sets and there’s no problem sleeping in heat. The campsite was really nice, with Grecian influences everywhere.  The toilet block was second to none and it had a good looking restaurant and bar.  The WIFI was free but not a good signal so we went to the bar to see if we could download some TV.  What a view!!!!! Even though this was an excellent campsite, I would recommend it for the view alone.

View from the campsite restaurant terrace

We were by then really looking forward to a visit to the city the next day, but for tonight rest.