Caspe to Barcelona

To get to the Mediterranean coast from Caspe you have to cross yet more mountains, ( no more brake fade, thank goodness!)

First glimpse of the Med at L’Hospitalet de L’Infant down the coast from Barcelona. After driving along some pretty hairy coastal roads (still a lot of steep hills/mountains dropping down to the sea!) passing some fishing villages and marinas we arrived at the campsite of Park Playa Bara near Tarragona.

This place is about a five star campsite/holiday villa and we hated it!! We stopped there as it is in the Camperstop book as being ‘motorhome friendly with special pitches and facilities for motorhomes’. They did and very good they are too. Very clean, good quality – quite posh in fact! But too ‘packaged for us – we spent the evening doing a wash in their laundry (quite a luxury getting the sheets washed AND dried). We were also able to use the internet on the laptop in the laundry (using their leccy as we don’t bother with hooking up - no telly!) as we paid to connect to their Wifi connection, to pick up e-mails and upload blog.

The following day we drove into Barcelona… and out again!

I was excited and looking forward to seeing all the Gaudi buildings but the roads were too narrow for the ‘van and we drove round and round looking for somewhere to park that would allow us to go on foot, but the place was crowded and we went round and round in circles round tiny streets as the roads had been barred off to vehicles …it was a nightmare !! It was very hot and we could not have left the dogs in the van to walk around by ourselves. We decided in the end to give it a miss and will have to return someday either by car or fly in for a weekend break etc. So no gorgeous piccies of wonderful Barcelona…sob! Just this one of a palm tree lined street on our way out!!! Oh – and this weird multi-storeyed troglodyte graveyard!

Lake Caspe

The following morning was bright and hot so we decided to go for a long walk round the ‘lake’ we were out for about five hours over the hottest part of the day as befits all mad dogs and Englishmen!!

Here are some images of the lake.


Some of the wildlife …

A locust -


And a blue butterfly –

-a strange poppy –

- milk thistle ( a good tonic for the liver !)

and hounds-tongue with its seed capsules that look like flies eyes!!

… this is me with my boots and socks off cooling my feet in the river!!

Journey across Spain from San Estaban de Gormaz to Caspe

We set off early the following day and travelled across a large part of Spain passing by Calatayud and Zaragoza; the journey took us through many types of landscape from flat plains of fruit trees and vines over mountains (where we found a complete toilet pot dumped that Peter left planted up at the side of the pull-in where we stopped!!) – We drove for miles after climbing up to and along the top of a plateau that was home to many wind turbines. We reached the campsite at ‘Lake Caspe’ not really a lake but inlet in the vast Rio Ebro where it twists and turns forming great expanses of water including the area known as the Sea of Aragon.
Here are some images from our journey

Stopover at San Estaban de Gormaz

We followed the road along the valley at the foot of the Sierra de Guadarrama, the mountain range that separates Segovia from Madrid until we reached the town of San Estaban de Gormaz. The temporary repair Peter made to the exhaust manifold decided to pack in and the Satnav found us a mechanic here! Miguel the mechanic and his son did a good job and we wandered around the town with its troglodyte dwellings burrowed into the rock that towers over the town.

The rain washes the mud bricks into interesting shapes.

View across the roofs of the town from trog tower!

The medieval church with its carvings above the cloisters is I the same lovely warm coloured stone as the surrounding rock. Some of the carvings can still be made out and depict beasts and animals and scenes from everyday life.

Segovia

We headed for Segovia as there is a campsite just on the outskirts of the city that would give us an opportunity to explore this place. We bought a Green’s Guide to Spain, and read about the Roman aqueduct there and the medieval walled town and the various wonderful buildings. The old centre of the city, circled by ramparts, is built on triangular rock at an altitude of 3,280 feet. Segovia was an important military town in Roman times and became a wool town and industrial centre in the middle ages under the Moors.
We woke up to a cold morning and a fresh fall of snow on the mountains!

We walked into town with the dogs about five miles there and back plus the walk round the town. The Roman aqueduct is amazing! Built during the reign of Trajan in the 1st Century to bring water from the hills to the town; it is one of the finest still in existence and is still operating. It reaches a height of 92 feet in the Plaza del Azoguejo and is 2,388 feet long. This is a picture of the stone at the head of the aqueduct which is constructed of huge shaped blocks of granite.

We followed the aqueduct into the heart of the town where we saw this gothic merry-go-round!

This is the huge gothic cathedral that dates from the 16th century when Renaissance architecture was at its height.

Here’s Peter internetting in the plaza just in front of the cathedral!

This is the old ‘Jewish quarter’ I think, and the Iglesia de San Juan de los Caballeros. This is Segovia’s oldest Romanesque church, 11th Century. It was almost in ruins at the turn of the last century and was bought by the artist Daniel Zuloaga who converted it to his home and workshop.

This is a not very good shot of the ‘Alcazar’ – the Islamic Palace/fortress that stands at the end of the triangle of rock towering 320 feet above the confluence of the rivers Eresma and Clamores in the valley below. It was built in the early 13th century and modified in the 15th and 16th. A chemical laboratory was established here in the 18th C where the French chemist Louis Proust formulated his law of constant proportions.
Here's picture of the alcazar I got off the internet to show you!
Some views outside the town over the ramparts.

And some small interesting carved things!!

To celebrate Peter’s umpty-fifth birthday we had a meal in the posh restaurant near to the campsite. I had seafood soup and Hake done in the Basque style and Peter had asparagus and turbot ; we both had strawberries and cream and finished with coffee and a Spanish cognac… I could develop a taste for cognac, can’t to get back to France! We discovered from the wine list that they stocked the wonderful Paternina Banda Azul 2001 Rioja that we bought in Haro. I think the Spanish waiter was impressed that we asked for the Spanish wine list and chose something we knew!!

The weather took a turn for the worse and was pelting with rain when we left, it kept up all night and in the morning we watched a fellow (Dutch) motorhomer having to be towed out of the pitch he was in as he got himself bogged down in the mud!!