My adventures with walking, backpacking, running (hobbling?), cycling, amateur radio, traditional folk music and song...and loads of other stuff.
View from Oban Bothy
Thursday 18 September 2014
Spanish Spain, in the beginning.
Wednesday 17 September 2014
Wednesday 17th Sept, off to Spain on an aeroplane
Via de la Plata – a bit of a walk
Arco de Caparra on the Via de la Plata
Later today I’ll be flitting off to Spain, on my ownsome, for some serious brain-straightening and a goodly amount of walking.
The Plan (Ho-ho!) is to fly to Madrid then travel by bus to Salamanca where I’ve booked myself into the flashy Revolutum Hostel for the night. I’ll set off north-ish the next morning.
I’m only over there for a couple of weeks so I won’t get to the end of the route at Santiago de Compostela but I’m not particularly mithered about that – I want to spend some time doing the culture-thing as well as the walking.
I’ll try to blog en-route although it depends whether I can get WiFi connections – mobile internet is an expensive do over there.
The Via de la Plata is one of the Camino pilgrimage routes and whilst it’s not terribly popular it’s an interesting route, there’s all manner of Roman remains to gawp at. I must buy extra film for the camera.
Watch this space.
Tuesday 30 October 2012
25th September, Via de la Plata, Day 7
To San Pedro de Rozados
Rising at the ridiculously early hour of stupid o’clock was a struggle but it had to be done.There was another peregrino up and about, a French lady who had crocked her ankle. She was expecting to move slowly, hence her early start.
The breakfast table was set for the peregrinos, I grabbed a couple of cakes and made a butty and at 6.30am (the one in the morning) went on my way into the dark morning.
Total distance for the day: 26km – that’s because I didn’t get lost and there weren’t (m)any diversions.
Saturday 27 October 2012
24th September, Via de la Plata, Day 6
To Fuenterroble de Salvatierra
First the good news: By 6am the rain had stopped and the forecast for the day was dry.
Now the bad news: Bed bugs. Although the albergue looked clean enough and I had slept in a silk liner, the little blighters had launched a night-time attack – I was a juicy target. All but Nico suffered the same fate, itching and scratching like blazes for the rest of the trip.
The route out of the town entailed a bit of a climb along a stretch of restored calzada romana (paved roman road) punctuated with quite large milarios with still-visible inscriptions. Crucifixes were a reminder that this Roman route has been adopted by pilgrims.
Half-asleep, sunburned, hungry, itching…with Banos de Montemayor in the background
The emperor Caesar Nerva Traianus Augustus (The emperor Trajan AD 98 - 117), son of Nerva, conqueror of Germany, high priest, with tribunician power, father of his country (PP) Consul for the third time, restored this. 80 )CXXX).
Just shows that a good education is never wasted. In this instance it was Rick’s education. Thanks Rick!
No escape from graffiti
The next village, 11km ahead, was Puerto de Bejar, which I knew had an albergue that should provide breakfast. Well it would have done if it had been open. More of Aldi’s best washed down with finest corporation pop had to suffice.
I’m a sucker for old signage, particularly signs painted directly onto the sides of buildings…it’s a Timperley thing. Anyway I couldn’t resist this:
Three familiar faces appeared – in good spirits too! They’d had a lie-in and hadn’t set off until past 7am…and at this stage they weren’t admitting to being bitten by bed-bugs. Well not just yet.
I trundled onwards leaving Olga, Nico and Miquel, I really wanted to find somewhere for breakfast. It wasn’t to be, even the next sizeable village couldn’t provide food and drink. Well it COULD, but the woman running the cafe bar decided that a bunch of hungry and thirsty peregrinos weren’t worth bothering opening for.
Fortunately the bread-van was doing it’s rounds so an enormous sponge cake was procured for not a lot of euros – this provided sustenance, but a coffee would have been nice.
The village was pleasantly old and tired, the sort of place you could spend a lazy couple of hours just wandering around and soaking up the atmosphere. Shame about the cafe bar.
Buen Camino – have a good trip! Drinking water for peregrinos and the village launderette
Small villages in these more remote areas are a bit short on facilities so laundry tends to be done close to the village’s water source.
If you look carefully you can see Olga, Nico & Miquel ahead. Still another 18km to go but at least the sponge cake provided good sustenance. Shame about not being able to get a coffee though. Did I mention this before?
This stretch of the camino has lots of bits of Roman remains – including more milarios. I THINK this is / was a milario:
I’d noticed lines of ants, busy doing ant-like stuff. I was careful of these things, the word on the calle was that these little beasties could cause me rather more irritation than the bugs from the previous night.
Caffeine relief came at the little village of Valdelacasa. This place had a few houses, a church (everywhere seems to have a church) and an old school house that had been converted to a cafe bar, presumably for peregrinos – there didn’t seem to be anyone else around.
Refreshed and rested it was time to get back on the trail. The terrain was fairly flat and not particularly exciting although odds and sods of pilgrimage stuff appeared from time to time, like this shelter:
Although it was a 30km day, an early start and limited opportunities for rest stops meant that we peregrinos arrived in the village of Fuenterroble de Salvatierra around 2pm. We were all hungry and thirsty so we piled into the first (only?) cafe bar in town. Jugs of beer, bottles of wine and a rather indifferent meal of spaghetti with a tomato sauce followed by something deep-fried with chips did the job. At least we’d been fed and watered.
The very magnificent albergue in the town is legendary. It’s run by the parish priest who is apparently quite a character, sadly we didn’t get to meet him.
Just one of the many dorms, inside (above), and outside (below)
This was quite a remarkable place. It has beds for 70+ peregrinos who get fed and watered for nothing more than a donation.
Easter Monday is when it all happens here, a mega fiesta all centred on the church – as many of these events are. The albergue which is also home to the parish priest (Don Blas Rodriguez Boyero) is used to store some of the stuff of such celebrations:
After washing the smelliest bits of my kit, I managed a lovely hot shower followed by a pleasant kip. Drinking wine and beer at lunchtime is all very well but there are side-effects!
More peregrinos arrived including Michel and Ermelinda. Ermelinda hailed from Hunduras so her knowledge of Spanish was to prove very helpful. The only problem was that she had very little English so translations had to be made via Michel in French and then to English.
We had chatted with Michel and Ermelinda a few times on this trip, but from now on we were in their very pleasant company more and more.
A couple of hours was spent back at the cafe bar – just to study the local evening life you understand. Nothing at all to do with drinking beer and eating tapas that kept appearing every time I ordered a beer.
Televised football seems to have the same effect here as it does in UK. It’s nice to see a ‘pub’ culture though. Strange to think that not many years ago the powers-that-be in Westminster were try to encourage a continental-type cafe culture, whilst the REAL cafe culture is more like our old pub culture.
I blame Sky TV. And greedy pubcos. It’s no wonder we don’t go to pubs in the evening these days. We have zillions of TV channels and cheap beer from supermarkets. It’s not rocket science….and unless our pubcos sit up and see what’s going on around them we’ll have fewer and fewer ‘real’ pubs.
Sky TV is here to stay. The survival of our pubs is in the hands of the pubcos who charge exhorbitant rents and restrict the beers their pubs can sell. Worse, they will only allow their landlords to buy beer from pubco-owned distribution companies….at inflated prices. It’s a cosy arrangement where the greedy pubcos have their tenants by the wotsits. And it hurts everyone. Except the pubcos.
If you need further convincing, take a wander down to your local micro-brewery tap. It will be independent of control of the big boys, will supply excellent and affordable beer. It will also very likely be busy – unlike the Enterprise / Punch whatever pubs up the road. There are exceptions of course, Joe Holts and J.D.Wetherspoons for example: they give customers what they want and are justifiably successful.
I’ll get off my soapbox now.
Anyway I slept rather well that night…in spite of my itchy bits.
Total distance for the day: 30km
Although the the route had so far been through gently undulating terrain and had the ‘feel’ of a very low level walk, the average altitude was a heady 3500’ ASL. Hardly high, but not what I expected.
Friday 19 October 2012
23rd September, Via de la Plata, Day 5
To Banos de Montemayor…..or the day of the rain
A fast breakfast of toast and marmalade washed down with coffee set me up for the day’s walk. At 7.30am it was quite overcast but still warm.
Hostal Asturias
Walking north from Hostal Asturias, the first couple of miles were on tarmac but there was very little traffic – in fact I don’t recall any cars passing me. The map shows a railway running parallel to the road – I don’t think too many trains run these days though:
Dr Beeching would be proud
Although the road was traffic-free I was glad to get back on to footpaths. I frequently came across some pretty purple flowers on the paths – a type of crocus?
The wind got up, driving thick clouds around the surrounding hills. Flashes of lightning lit up the clouds, rumbles of distant thunder became frequent – but so far the rain all around hadn’t done anything other than threaten me with a soaking.
Once again the route was diverted. This time there were very clear signs directing me uphill and into some woodland. I followed the signs and the footpath into thickening undergrowth until a big drop stopped my in my tracks, there was no way I could continue forward. I reckon the well worn footpath only gets used by peregrinos doing exactly the same as me: walking as far as the natural barrier of a 20ft drop and then walking back again.
I managed to get to a road that would take me in more or less the right direction….and then it started to rain, and boy did it rain! I’d decided to take a lightweight waterproof, my Ron Hill waterproof running jacket. Lightweight and packing into a small stuff bag, this jacket has served me well on wet days when running in the UK. Except it wasn’t man enough to handle Spanish rain.
I stayed dry for an hour or so but then I started to get wet. Fortunately the small town of Aldeanueva del Camino hove into view and I leapt into a welcoming bar / restaurant that was doing good business feeding and watering a coach party of tourists.
The rain got heavier as I downed two cups of coffee and a bacon and cheese bocadillo, thankfully it has eased off when it was time to leave.
Well it eased for a short time, then it hammered down and I got well-drenched all the way to Banos de Montemayor. Oh well, at least the rain wasn’t too cold.
The albergue
I eventually found the albergue, the top floor of the local (public) museum. It was quite strange to have Joe Public wandering around the building, examining the exhibits….whilst I was struggling to keep my exhibits concealed as I wandered back from the shower.
The wet view from the albergue bedroom window
I’ll let you translate this one, I’m getting tired.
The rain continued on and off all afternoon and evening. This was the turning point in the weather, I wouldn’t experience the very high temperatures of the last few days again on this trip.
I enjoyed a very nice menu del dia meal in the evening, then it was time for bed. And another meal….but this time I was on the menu.
Total distance for the day: around 26km
Tally-Ho! Whitworth Wander / Turkey Trot 2023
Whitworth Wander – Turkey Trot, 27 th of a very wet December 2023 In memory of the late Brian Whitworth, a fine man, my friend, and a for...
-
Testing 1 – 2 - 3
-
Foreword: This should have been my 16 th Challenge. I had to bail out from last year’s trip – I got to the start but didn’t even get to...
-
Yvonne is one of my bestest mates, we go back a long way. She has perhaps the finest singing voice I’ve ever heard. When she mentioned that ...