Our Spanish Road Trip – Part 2

Before I continue with my ramble about the second day of our road trip, please note that I have added an amendment to the previous ramble, by way of a footnote at the end, it was relevant to the town of Jerez de los Caballeros and the Knights Templar and something that I felt needed to be added to complete the association between the two 👍

Day 2 – Jerez de Los Caballeros via Badajoz to Mozárbez

What a difference a day makes ? We of course were looking forward to experiencing some cooler temperatures as we travelled further North towards Galicia, but even up in that part of Spain the ‘Works of Fiction’ were forecasting daily temperatures still being around the 27 degree(c) mark, although very much cooler at night, but even those daily temperatures would still be a very welcome 10 degrees(c) cooler than we have been experiencing recently at home on the Costa del Sol.

On our first day we travelled nearly 200 miles in a North Western direction, skirting close to the Portuguese border where the temperature had remained high at 34 degrees(c), we had travelled a little further than we had initially planned, but of course we had added on an ‘extra bit’ for our somewhat unscheduled deviation from our intended route 🤭 But even when we arrived at our first night-stop location we were still pretty much South of Madrid and so the temperatures were still high, as we had expected them to be, but as we progress further North over the next couple of days we expect to reach some more bearable temperatures 🤞However, as well as our route planning, we are also continuously watching the advance ten day ‘Works of Fiction’ forecasts for the Galicia and Asturias regions, as that could potentially impact on our direction of travel as we get closer. The weather up there, under ‘normal’ conditions, is extremely changeable at the best of times, going from one weather extreme to the other, both on the Western and Northern coastlines and around the ‘Picos de Europas’ mountain range. Note however, that I said under ‘Normal’ conditions, for all over Spain this year their had been nothing normal in the weather patterns, with temperatures being very much higher than normal, creating devastating droughts, which are a more normal annual occurrence in the South, but less so in the North. However, even the more usual rainfall had not been occurring in the Northern part of Spain, which had created another major issue, the hotter and drier the weather, meant an increase in the incidences of sudden wildfires and we had been seeing warnings of wildfires when we had been looking at road routes up through both Spain and the Northern areas of Portugal, we certainly didn’t want to be caught up in any of those. This added another dimension to the choices we would have to make in our route planning once we started travelling a little further North. On the other hand, if the weather did change, and become more normal towards the approach of the Autumn months, this could impact on our opportunities for going on some of the hikes we were hoping to accomplish along the Western and Northern Coastal Paths, as well as some of the easier routes up in the Picos de Europa mountain range, as rain also brought low cloud and reduced visibility and being only ‘hobby’ walkers and not experienced ones with all the gear, we would be reliant on good walking weather and clear visibility. But, there was absolutely nothing that Shazza and I could do about any of this, the weather conditions were completely out of our control, all we could for now was to keep watching the ‘Works of Fiction’ forecasts, on a daily basis, and be ready to adapt our routes and activities as necessary 🤷‍♂️

The previous evening, before we went out to explore the town and have dinner, Shazza and I had looked at the map and had made a plan for the next stage of our travels. We were only an hour’s drive from the city of ‘Badajoz’, a city virtually on the border of Portugal and a place that ten years ago we had driven through during our motor-homing days whilst on our way into Portugal to do some wildcamping, however, on that occasion we had not stopped to look around the city, so now this would give us an opportunity to do just that and to tick off another Spanish City on our ‘To Do’ list 👍

That evening we had a look at what their was to see in the city, judging by the photo’s on Google and reading many of the reviews, it looked pretty good, there was an ‘Alcazar’, I like them, a ‘Roman Bridge’ that spans the ‘Guadiana River’ which had a nice looking ‘Riverside Walk’, there were also the old city walls which we may have been able to walk around and, within the city itself, there appeared to be several Plaza’s. So our initial thoughts were that there appeared to be enough to keep us out of mischief for a couple or more hours, in fact we would probably have to watch the amount of time we spent there as we would still have quite a long drive to get to our next night-stop. After our sightseeing in Badajoz we would then drive North East, inland to our second night stop just outside the city of Salamanca. The total driving time, even with the slight detour to Badajoz, would be around 5 hours, so that just fitted in with our daily driving hour’s plan, although dependent on how long we spent in Badajoz, and anywhere else we may choose to stop off as we drove along the route, it would be another longish day, but we had not come on this trip just to sit in a car and look at the passing scenery, as nice as it may be.

The only issue, with spending many years motor-homing in both Portugal and Spain, is that we had already spent time sightseeing in a lot of the major towns and cities that were along today’s proposed route to our next night stop. After departing Badajoz we would probably follow the ‘new road’ that wound its way up through the scenic countryside, rather than heading for the motorway, we would pass close to the cities of ‘Merida’, ‘Caceres’, ‘Plasencia’ and then, towards the end of our travel day, we would be on the outskirts of ‘Salamanca’. But these were all places that we had previously visited, we had walked the walks, seen the sights, so more a case now of already seen it, done it but didn’t buy the tee-shirts sort of visits, so we made the joint decision not to make any stops in them. Of course we didn’t know what we would come across on the drive between these cities, but our road atlas and Google maps were not highlighting anything particular that stood out as a ‘must see or do’. However, sometimes you come across the unexpected, things that Google hasn’t highlighted, and they can sometimes turn out to be true gems, so we remained open-minded and decided to just wait to see what leapt out in front of us, although hopefully, not literally 😲

However, when the following morning arrived, it came as a bit of a shock when I stepped out onto the balcony of our hotel room, partially dressed, as usual, wearing only my shorts, I actually physically shivered when the cold damp air, from the fog that engulfed the landscape, hit my body 🥶 I did not expect that so soon into our road trip, but I guess, upon reflection, we were after all up in the hills. When I mentioned the fog, and the cold, to Shazza, who was still tucked up under the thin bed sheet drinking the coffee I had just made her, she just said “Yeah, right” in a disbelieving sort of tone, but it didn’t take her too long, after I fully opened the curtains and then slid open the large glazed balcony doors, for her to say, “Okay, Okay I believe you, shut those bloody doors it’s freezing !!” 😂 As I mentioned, in the previous ramble, we didn’t eat breakfast at the hotel that morning so it didn’t take us long to get ourselves sorted, checked-out of the hotel and put our cases and rucksacks into the car and hit the road, driving in to the murky damp greyness, it was the first time, in a very very long time, that we had to turn the car heater on and de-mist the windows 😲 Shazza had already got herself into the driver’s seat whilst I was packing the car boot. Fortunately, as almost everywhere in Spain, apart from around major cities, the roads are pretty quiet and by the time we got within striking distance of the outskirts of Badajoz the view in front of our windscreen had changed.

Part of our route planning the previous evening was to search on Google Maps for ‘Free’ parking locations near to the city centre, although if none had been available we would have used one of the paid for parkings, but you already know how thrifty I am 🤭 Fortunately, we found a place at the ‘Baluarte de S Pedro’, just inside the old town walls and conveniently close, within an easy walking distance, to almost everything we initially wanted to see. However, whilst the fog may have lifted, the sky was full with grey leaden clouds and the temperature had still not risen much above 12 degrees(c) 🥶 We had dressed in our usual shorts and short sleeve shirts, just by way of habit really, although the ‘Works of Fiction’ had forecast the temperature to rise to 21 degrees, so until it did, we dug out our hoodie tops from the boot and headed for our first priority, which was somewhere to have our morning ‘Cafe con Leche and Tostado’s’.

Badajoz

As with most European cities, Badajoz has a long history dating back thousands and thousands of years, the city walls, Moorish and Roman architecture, the Alcazaba, Roman Bridge etc. are all clear evidence of the city’s past history. The ‘Moorish’ invasion of Badejoz, and its location on the Spanish-Portuguese border, means that it has had more than its fair share of bloody battles over the centuries, but the most brutal was during the more recent, historically speaking, Spanish Civil War, when the Nationalists took control of the city. On August 14th, 1936 they herded literally hundreds of men and women of the town into the bullring where they had set up machine gun points all around the ring. Hundreds were killed on that particular night and, the next day, they began the slaughter all over again 😲 It is alleged that in total over 4,000 people were killed, under the orders of General Juan Yague, who became known as the ‘Butcher of Badajoz’.

I like discovering small snippets of historical information like this on places that we visit, so perhaps I am not such the history heathen that I may profess to be 😁 Shazza much prefers to seek out where the best Cafe’s and eateries are, I on the other hand, look for the dungeons and places of witchcraft and torture, what does that say about me 😲

We could see on Google maps that where we had parked was very close to the ‘Alcazaba de Badajoz’ so we headed in that direction, one of the very first things that we noticed though was just how quiet everywhere was, unusual for a City, I mean it wasn’t exactly the crack of sparrows when we arrived and got parked up and, technically speaking, it wasn’t yet the end of the tourist season, so where was everybody ? Perhaps they had got lost in the early morning fog and were now looking for ‘free’ parking spaces 🤭

After a short walk, probably no more than ten minutes, we found ourselves in a wonderful Plaza with a building that was decorated with red and white tiles, this was the Plaza Alta, located in the oldest part of the city and right next to the Alcazaba, and a location where, due to the acoustics, many musical events are held in the height of the Summer. The only acoustics we could hear were the sound of the pigeons, the noisy buggers !

In a corner of the Plaza was a solitary Cafe, but on the face of it, it looked nice enough, so we sat down and ordered our usual breakfast’s. Now one thing we are discovering here in Spain, not just on this particular trip, but also when touring in our own local areas, is that ‘Tostados’ come in an assortment of different shapes and sizes, from ‘regular’ sized slices of toasted bread, to brick size slabs, large long baguettes, toasted and cut in half, smaller toasted baguettes cut in half, or perhaps round toasted rolls. But they are all, generally speaking, quite decent sized offerings, except that is, at this particular Cafe establishment, who take it to an extremely different level, but not in a good way 🤔 We suspected, after eating there, that this establishment was one that the locals would never frequent, more of a ‘fleece the tourists’ sort of place, for when our breakfast was delivered, the thinly sliced bread was much like the small thinly sliced toasted bread soldiers I used to dip into my softly boiled eggs, no wonder the scrawny looking pigeons were complaining, no scraps left for them to feast upon. When it came time to pay the bill I got the biggest shock though and had to check it twice, I was convinced that they had charged for two full English breakfasts !! I think it would be fair to say that he quite literally saw us coming, it wouldn’t have been difficult, as we were the only bloody idiots there 😲 So, our first impression on our visit to this city had not got off to the best start, I must confess that I thought that by now we would have learnt to only eat or drink where the locals eat and drink, obviously not, so it served as a quick reminder to us as any savings I had made on the free parking had quickly just disappeared. Whilst I am on the subject, another thing we have noted since leaving home is that the standard of the ‘Cafe con Leche’s’ are terrible, like milky dishwater, not the strong coffee that we have become accustomed to down our own neck of the woods, we can only hope that it improves as we progress North, otherwise, I may well have to take drastic action and seriously up the number of my ‘daily’ doses of Anti-Covid Vaccine’s, now there’s a happy thought 😂

From the place where we had suffered our ‘daylight robbery’, we walked up some old stone steps, through a couple of ancient archways and alighted into the upper gardens and external grounds of the ‘Alcazaba’. The photo’s of this place on Google must have been taken from another Alcazaba located somewhere else, even with taking into consideration the time of year, and the recent extended drought period, the place looked totally unkempt, scruffy and disheveled. There was a museum, which involved parting with an Admission Fee, which we are guessing was housed within the old Palace buildings and would perhaps be in a much better state of maintenance, but we decided not to take the risk and subject ourselves to yet another ‘daylight mugging’, so early into our visit. Now, as you know, I have a thing for Castles, and ‘usually’ Alcazars, and even Lighthouses, which Shazza tolerates, well it would appear that Shazza has a thing for old Stately Homes and their Gardens, and for some inexplicable reason, even Roman Bridges it would seem 🤷‍♂️ Well, at the moment we couldn’t do her first choice but, if my beloved wants wants a Roman Bridge, then a Roman Bridge she shall have, or at least see, for I, and Google Maps, knew just exactly the place to go and see one, conveniently, only a short fifteen minute walk away along the banks of the river 👍

The sun had still not broken through the grey leaden clouds as we walked across the road and entered into the walled city, but there was a noticeable rise in the temperature 👍 Our intention now was to find the steps up and walk around the walls, to see how far we could get and what the views were like. Unfortunately, we were thwarted yet again, as the entrances were protected by padlocked rusty iron gates, the so called inner gardens beyond them again looked derelict, unkempt and more like a rubbish skip, it made us ask the question, just what exactly are the local and regional government’s doing to this place, they certainly don’t seem to be spending any money on general maintenance, grass cutting, litter clearance etc. Perhaps we were just at the wrong part of the city wall 🤷‍♂️ We decided to wander into the centre, in the hope that we would find that, to be more scenic and picturesque, and we were also now ready for another coffee as we had already spent over an hour of this visit seeing nothing very much of interest !!

I know that at this point of the ramble I must be sounding like a bit of a grumpy old git, although we did come armed in the knowledge that lots of inland places like this had suffered with water shortages during the height of the drought, so watering of grass, shrubs and plants during that lengthy period were banned. Also, away from the main coastal resorts, it had passed the period of the main tourist season, so we were not expecting to see or feel the same sort of ambience, we also anticipated the change in weather and the temperatures, so to be fair, we had not arrived with too many expectations, but being a city we had expected a little bit more than we were actually currently experiencing, to get us back into the holiday mood perhaps we should visit a few ‘Tourist Tat’ shops, we could purchase fridge magnets, flamenco dolls, key rings and even ‘I Love Badajoz’ tee-shirts emblazoned with a big red heart………… 🤔 Yup ! You are correct, never going to happen in a month of Sunday’s 😂

But you know what they say, ‘Patience is a virtue’ and as we entered the inner part of the city with it’s hustle and bustle, small little Plaza’s with Cafe’s, the typical big modern retail stores and the noise of traffic, it was as if we had just walked through an invisible outer defence barrier and into the real everyday world of down town Badajoz. Neither Shazza or I, generally speaking, like inner cities with their crowds, but on this occasion it felt good, as if we were not actually part of an Apocalyptic Disaster Movie as it had felt like a little earlier.

After a brief coffee stop, which by the way, was only a minor improvement on the rest that we had so far experienced whilst on this road trip, we decided to just wander, following a tourist map we had picked up from of the Tourist Information Offices we had passed. Now we could have spent time in Museums, Art Galleries etc but that really isn’t our thing, however, we did take the opportunity, seeing as we were in a city, to find a branch of our Bank and get some extra money. It wasn’t that we desperately needed any, as we were paying for accommodations and fuel on our Spanish bank debit cards, but we used cash for coffee’s, lunches, dinners and other incidentals, although in truth we could have used our cards for most of that as well, just call me old-fashioned, but I like cash in my wallet 🤔 Anyway, it seems that further North, the presence of our particular Bank Institution is not that well represented, and to withdraw money from other banks ATM machines, here in Spain, costs a fee, so this was more a precautionary measure rather than one out of necessity. The only reason that I am mentioning this is to highlight just how friendly and helpful complete strangers can be. Google Maps are very good for guidance on road routes, but we are discovering that when getting ‘walking’ directions it is not nearly as good, now wether that is because the GPS signal is not as good in small streets I do not know, but it doesn’t seem to be able to accurately pin point your location, so when you think you are heading in the correct direction and following the voice and visual directions, the on screen tracking suddenly changes and indicates that you are then travelling in the wrong direction, which is extremely frustrating to say the least. Anyway, we had stopped to study where we needed to be against where Google Maps indicated that we were and whilst we were looking for a wall plaque to indicate the street that we were on, a young chap, smart but casually dressed and probably in his late twenties, or very early thirties, stopped and asked if we needed any help. I told him the name of the bank we were looking for and he kindly offered to show us the way, now of course we were a little cautious, as you would be, but we accepted his assistance otherwise we could have been going around and around in circles forever. We discovered that we had actually been walking in the totally wrong direction, so thank you for that Mr Google 😳 Whilst walking, we started chatting, as you do, and, we discovered that although he originated from Badajoz and is currently living and working here, he had actually spent most of his adult years working in other cities and countries within Europe and, blow me down with a feather, he was in the same Pharmaceutical profession as my daughter in Munich, now how’s that for a coincidence ? Anyway, just before we got to the location of the bank he was stopped, and greeted, by a female friend, so he pointed to where our bank was, which was just a little further down the street we were now on, we could see the sign, so we thanked him very much for his help and said goodbye. We had to wait in a queue before we could use the machine and as we did so, the helpful stranger walked passed, we briefly exchanged pleasantries again and once again thanked him for his assistance. No matter where we have been in Spain, from the early days when we were travelling, or since we have lived here, it is not often that we have come across unpleasant, unhelpful or unfriendly locals, perhaps just the odd young female waitress having a ‘Personal Crisis’ 😂

After a little further exploration we decided that we had seen enough and decided to make our way back to the car and continue with our long journey, we had already passed a little over three hours of our day since leaving the hotel that morning, we considered eating lunch first but agreed to stop somewhere else along our route. On our way to the car park we stopped at a small supermarket, purchased a carton of Oat Milk for our coffee’s in our hotel rooms and a few snacks. We decided to take a more scenic route, away from the noise of the inner city, and walked through what turned out to be quite a nice large park on the outer side of the city walls.

The walk through the park had taken us a little longer than we had anticipated, probably because we were getting a bit leg weary and so had slowed down, by the time we reached the car the clouds had started to break and the sun had started to shine, it was feeling a little warmer than it had done during the majority of the morning. Our feelings about Badajoz, well, we walked the walks, saw some of the sights but it certainly didn’t justify buying a tee-shirt 🤭 To be fair and not too critical, in the height of the Summer it would probably have been a much better time to visit, the river walk would certainly have been a more pleasant experience, with the riverside Cafe’s actually open for business, and perhaps the local Council may have maintained some areas a lot better, we will never know, but if we do come this way again it will only be to either cross the border into Portugal, or vice versa, back into Spain, but we wouldn’t make a point of stopping in Badajoz, however, we can now cross it off our ‘To Do’ list 👍

As Shazza had driven us here I asked if she wanted me to do some of the driving, but she declined and said she would prefer to drive and let me click away on my camera, I didn’t protest but said that when she had had enough, I was happy to take a turn at the wheel as we still had the longest stretch of the drive to do, around four hours 😲 We had a choice of three routes out of Badajoz, our somewhat outdated road atlas of Portugal and Spain had shown the ‘old road’ route towards the direction we wanted to be in, but it also showed what was then the proposed new road, we took a gamble on the new road now having been completed and we were correct to do so.

What became immediately evident to us was the devastation caused in this area from forest fires, the majority of the trees had blackened trunks and branches, although there was evidence of new green growth, large areas of the land were still scorched black and even on this new road, there were several long areas of recent re-surfacing work where the original tarmac would have melted from the heat of the wildfires as they jumped the roads. Houses and farm buildings lay empty, their blackened interiors clearly visible through the collapsed roofs, many lives would have been lost, human and animals, as the fires swept rapidly across acres of land at great speed and without much prior notice. We had seen this in our own area, it is a common annual occurrence and is one of the reasons why many are leaving rural areas for the safety of larger coastal towns and cities. This is one of the main reasons why rural properties with acres of land can be purchased very cheaply, both in Spain and Portugal, by the unsuspecting foreign buyers who are unaware of the dangers. But some of the many older residents, who have lived here for decades and invested all their money into their properties, animals and farmland, remain, some have no other financial choice 🥺 As we moved further North and inland, to areas that are more arable and much less forested, the landscapes became green again with the usual acres upon acres of Olive trees and Hay meadows, the clouds all but disappeared, the sky was a deep shade of blue and the external temperature jumped to 30 degrees(c), thank goodness this car has really efficient air-con 🥵

We were both beginning to feel tired and weary, the scenery was very much the same for mile upon mile and I got bored of taking photo’s, Shazza needed a ‘rest stop’ so we pulled in at the next Cafe we came to, surprisingly, as we had eaten very little all day, neither of us felt hungry so we just settled for a small cold beer and then I took over the driving. Shazza booked us hotel accommodation on-line in the small village of ‘Mozarbez’ just on the outskirts of Salamanca, it had a swimming pool and an on site Restaurant which opened at 8pm, we had seen this the previous evening when conducting our route planning but had not booked it, just in case we diverted from the route. We both agreed to just head there, have a swim and go to the restaurant for dinner later that evening.

By the time we reached the hotel it had been nearly an eight hour day, we were both tired, we checked in and went straight to our room, which was very modern and immaculately clean, a lovely walk in shower, large LCD TV, free good fast WiFi and a small refrigerator, but nothing in it, no water or soft drinks, but we had our own which we had purchased from the supermarket before we left Badajoz, at least it would serve to keep them and our oat milk chilled, notably absent, as usual, was the lack of any coffee/tea making facilities, we were glad we had come prepared on this trip and now we were ready for a ‘decent’ cup of coffee. Neither of us felt like getting changed and going for a swim, we relaxed on the bed and fell asleep and didn’t awake again until 10:30pm later that evening 😲 We couldn’t be bothered to get showered and changed just to go down to the restaurant, so we snacked on what we had purchased from the supermarket, had another coffee, perused our Emails and Social Media on our iPads and then planned a route for the following day. We considered just getting into the ‘Picos’, it was closer, however the ‘Works of Fiction’ put a spanner in the works for that idea, with rain forecast for the next three days, we didn’t want to just sit in an accommodation doing nothing , we could have done that at home at no expense. We were also spending a lot of time driving and having long days, the driving was the most tiring bit and, although it had only been two days, we agreed that we just needed to now get ourselves up to Galicia, and take a few days break, basing ourselves in a hotel that we could use as a bit of a base camp, somewhere where the sun was still shining. However, getting up and across there in one go would entail another very long and monotonous drive, but we both agreed that it would be worth it.

Today had also not been a good eating day, a small, and I mean small, Tostado for breakfast followed by ‘junk’ food much later that evening, we were also not drinking enough water, so we agreed that on the rest of this trip we had to plan our travel and dietary needs much better than we had been doing. For really the first time since we sold it in April 2023, we miss not having our Motorhome, our home on wheels with all the facilities, being able to stop more or less wherever we wanted, cooking facilities (Hob, Grill and Oven) to ensure we could eat properly, and regularly, a proper large fridge/freezer, our own on-board toilet and shower facilities and our own bed to sleep in, damn it, I don’t half miss that ‘Little Fokker’ right now 🥺 But the grass is always greener as they say and life is never completely perfect, their would have been issues of living here in Spain with the van, financial implications and even practical issues with parking/storage 🤷‍♂️ I guess just seeing lots of other motor homes, and camper vans, on the road, or parked up discreetly under the shade of trees, the occupants sat in sun chairs outside enjoying a cool drink, yes I admit, it did make us more than a little envious.

To be continued……………………

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, ‘La’ Vida Es Buena

(even without our Little Fokker 😉)