Travel Diary 6

Travel Diary 6

Ooops, getting a bit behind here, but have been busy. Seriously considering a “rest” day today. Since the last update, we overnighted at Tordesillas, 29km south of Valladolid and the site of the small town boasting that fairy like castle which Kerrie mentioned in her Rapunzel comment. Nice camp site too by the way.

We have been starting to get into a bit of a rhythm in terms of getting up and preparing for each day. Campervans don’t give one the luxury of much space. So everything has to be used then put away. We have to time moving around so as not to be continuously getting in each other’s road or having to step into the shower cabinet to let the other pass.

Neither of us have used the shower so far. In fact, I doubt I could move in there once I closed the door. Let alone wash and rinse! So we have been choosing camp sites which offer all facilities. Such as toilets, showers, water, Wi-Fi etc. Some observations about cultural and other distinctions between countries and facilities.

1.       It takes time to get used to cold showers when the temperature outside is 7C.

2.       Using a urinal in France while at the same time rubbing backs with a lady who is washing her hands after having used the toilet. Don’t ask … that happened. The French do not worry about having one set of facilities for men and another for women. All in together is fine with them.

3.       It was a bit disconcerting to first use a urinal that 6 in a row and an 2M wide doorway with no doors. Just wide open to anyone who wandered by. Or the ones beside another door which was made with see through glass. Or the ones where women could use a toilet and watch the men at the urinal if so inclined! At the same time.

4.       Choosing between toilets that have feet pads and a large hole in the concrete instead of the sit down variety.

5.       Using showers in cubicles that a dormouse would have difficulty in using. I gave up, washed and dried myself and got dressed outside. Much to the amazement of some other campers and their funny looks. But I noticed a few of them eventually did the same thing.

6.       Getting free Wi-Fi___33. Mmmm …. Signed up when we arrived here for Wi-Fi (not free) and wondered why Kerrie’s iPad could not hook up. My computer was working fine even if the signal was weak. Turns out each individual needs to buy Wi Fi time and needs their own individual password. You can’t share like every other campsite! But do not expect to get told this at first.

7.       No one wants you to pay the campsite fee when you check in.  Only when you leave. Have no idea why. I thought it would be the other way around.

8.       A number of the sites advertise a grocery or supermarket store. A number of these sites do not have one operating. They may have previously because one can see the locked down shop with empty shelves. So do not expect to buy anything just because the site says you can.

9.       Updating websites is something that apparently doesn’t need doing. Well not much! So do not rely on the advertising accuracy. In defence of this system, we have not so far, had any real disappointment. We went into a restaurant on one site that had lovely looking pizzas advertised at E6.00 which is cheap enough and the pictures in the window looked great. Only to get told, “No!. We don’t make Pizzas!” as if I was nuts. I felt like asking, would you like me to take the signs down for you? Maybe just a little bit of manana coming into play you think?

10.   Have discovered that if someone knows a bit of English, I also found that they do not want to speak in their own language to you. Apparently their little bit of English is much better than my little bit of whatever!! Maybe it is … but me getting in practice of their language is difficult at times!!

11.   Having watched many Westerns over the years which included Mexicans is proving useful for the odd phrase and word of Spanish! Much to the surprise of the odd local. Such things as “Toilette por hombres … no papiere” got the message across. Not that I’ve ever heard that in a film! But it beat the hell out of trying to make oneself understood with sign language.

The best thing is that the vast majority of people are really very, very helpful. People walking by will see with a map in one hand, a blank look on your face saying “I’m trying to decipher something here” and will stop and ask “You looking? I help?” And they do. We have been saved on a number of occasions and have been very thankful. And that includes the man who gave us directions to a shop in Madrid. He sent us around three sides of a square in the rain when we could have walked just down the fourth side! Been a lot quicker! Have no idea why he did that. Perhaps he knows something about that street we don’t.

Salamanca is a lovely city. We both enjoyed wandering around there. So old and so much to look at. You’ll see in the photos a house with conch shells over the outside. Apparently, the story goes, some bloke did a good deed for the King and got awarded the land and some money to build a house. This bloke’s family crest was a shell and he designed the house with the idea of putting shells all over as much of the outside as he could.

How a family in the middle of Spain, hundreds of kilometres from the sea ended up with a family crest of conch shells is beyond me!

Six or seven hundred years ago, the rulers of Salamanca decided to build a good University and they succeeded. Not just the buildings, but also in terms of the teachers they attracted. The brightest and best from around Europe all came and had stints teaching there. As a result, Salamanca University became known as the go to place if you wanted a decent education. The large numbers of philosophers, educationalists, politics and graduates in other fields has been extraordinary over the years.

Even today it is possible to see this is a University town. Large numbers of people in their early 20’s walking around with books under their arms and computer satchels with laptops inside. Sitting in small groups animatedly arguing some obscure point in Spanish (of course), or drinking coffee while madly typing on the laptop catching up on a late assignment just as students the world over do!

They come from all over the world. There are Africans, Chinese, English, French as well as other places. It’s funny watching two Chinese students chatting away in Spanish! Never see that at home. There they only use Chinese!

We stopped at a hostel come restaurant come bar for a … yep … a glass of wine and got proudly shown the new area where one can smoke under cover. A young lady waitress turned on the heating for us and kept checking to make sure we hadn’t bolted without paying. Or maybe she was checking to see if we needed a refill. No one else came in, but it was very new and very nice and kept most of the rain off us.

Eventually we left for another meander and found, believe it or not, another Tapas Bar when it began to drizzle again. I mean, what else was there to do. By this stage we are quite sold on the Spanish version of Tapas. Very nice. Someone should introduce it into Australia because what we have there is not really Tapas. Well … not from what I’ve seen. Should be more of it if it does exist.

Maybe a chain of them. Franchise them. No … that would ruin the experience. The best Tapas bars we’ve seen are tiny and cluttered. Seats maybe 25 people with standing room for a few more. Tables and chairs outside or two standing tables only for smokers. The actual bar covered with food on plates from which one chooses what one wishes to eat. Order your favourite drink and away you go. If you’re still hungry, go back for a couple of more pieces. And of course, another red wine!

It’s a kind of smorgasbord. But of wonderful small servings of all sorts of stuff. Salmon covered in a local mayonnaise; fish done in a batter like Tempura; ham; ham, cheese & tomatoes on French bread; potato bake on bread; variations of potato including onion, or spinach or other types of greens mixed in; tuna mashed up with a sauce on bread; stuffed peppers; olives; deep fried mince balls, fish, tuna all done in a light batter; slithers of marinated beef; prawns in a sauce of some kind; prawns in a salad and so on. Bottles of flavoured oils and vinegars to add as you want. And the lovely wines to wash it all down with.

We’ve bought a Recipe book to try out at home some time. Kerrie thinks some should work OK and I have a couple of people in mind who need roping in to help as the preparation of some recipes will take a week.

You’ll see in the photos in the blog that there is one set titled “Old Church”. The reason for that is this. When the Cathedral was built, the builders decided not to pull down the original church to provide material for the new cathedral. Instead they just left it there and incorporated it into the new structure. So, one enters the Cathedral which, like the one in Palencia has many Chapels within, but unlike Palencia has two enormous organs. These are brightfully coloured and situated above the choir seating. I can only imagine what the accoustics are like!

The old church is still used and has a few chapels. Built in the 9^th Century according to some and has latin script carved into blocks of stone, flagstones worn thin with years of footsteps heading into the main part of the church and a wonderful display of timber carving for which Salamanca was widely known in the old world.  

After Salamanca, we hit the road again. This time we were heading for Madrid via Avila. A distance of … a “long way”. Being a “long way”, it requires a number of stops involving coffee, toilets and broken English and copious amounts of Spanish. Much pointing and smiling and “Si Si” when they figure out what we want, followed by “Gracias” or “Mucho Gracias!”.

Ohh and red frogs in the van while driving. Sugar hits help I can tell you!

Avila is the place that still has a medieval wall around the old city. Built on a hill, it is one of the highest provincial capitals in Spain. In winter, access roads can be blocked by snow. I can understand that as it is cold enough to snow in springtime! Can’t believe summer is only 3 weeks away!!

This apparently is the best preserved medieval walls in Europe. They look real enough and the battlements around them allow one to envisage all sorts of men dressed in leather and armed with swords, shields and spears. I looked for stains from boiling oil having been poured over the sides during an attack. But couldn’t see any so maybe they haven’t done that in recent times and the stains have worn away.

Along the walls are 88 turrets which seem to have adopted storks during nesting time. We did not go inside the city itself as Madrid was a fair way off and a few photos from outside was all we decided to do. Then off again, filled up with petrol and a big “Mucho Gracias” to the man who filled our van for us. This having a service station attendant as Australia used to back in the days, is still a big thing here in Spain.  All service stations, that have been open that is, have had someone to do this.

Don’t laugh! People here work Saturdays, so Sundays and Mondays are predominantly days off. A lot of shops, bars, service stations etc. all shut to make up for that extra time spent working. I think we call it, time in lieu. Reality is, it works out to a 5-day week every week anyway.

I was feeling pretty good by the time we reached Madrid. So we decided to push on to one of the two Camping grounds I have found locally. One is a long way north of Madrid, the other 40kms south, half way to Toledo! Campers are not welcome in Madrid it seems. Never mind, we chose the southern town called Aranjuez. It is right on the last stop of the one-hour train trip into Madrid and we plan to spend 3 days here. A day in Madrid which to be honest I don’t think will be long enough. A day trip to Toledo if we feel like it and a day of rest. Also known as washing day!

So late that afternoon we booked into Internacional Camping Aranjuez complete with a toy train to run one into town, but not back again! Taxis are best to get home apparently. AND, a real grocery shop that has full shelves and is open! Kerrie is in seventh heaven! She can go shopping 20 meters from “home”.

Tomorrow we will head off to Madrid and see what happens.

Ohh, it’s raining again or rather, I should say still!