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Tour - The Journey Home

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 On Wednesday morning the tour ended, with much hugging and promises to meet again. Three of us, Barbara Stormont, Dave Campin and myself drove off northwards to catch a Ferry on Sunday. First stop was in a very old town called Caceres, and it was here that the heavens opened in apocalyptic fashion, and the daytime temperature dropped overnight from 30C to 7C! The journey to Salamanca on Thursday was done in dreadful conditions, and at times we were down to 30mph on the motorway, battling high winds and intense rain. But we made it to Salamanca. The weather lifted a bit on Friday, so we went sightseeing. Salamanca is also very old, and full of palaces, Convents, Monasteries etc. Most enjoyable Today, Saturday, we drove an hour north to the small town of Tordesillas. It is famous, apparently, as the place in the 1400s where Spain and Portugal drew up a treaty to exclusively share the newly discovered Americas and African territories. A line was drawn from pole to pole down the Atlantic
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Tour - Days 29, 30 and 31

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 It wasn't too far from El Rocio to Seville, so Dave Campin and I took a detour to look at Spain's Green pride - a solar tower. This consists of a field of mirrors that track the sun and the reflection is focused on to a water tank at the top of a huge tower. This produces steam which is diverted to a turbine to produce 2 MW of electricity. It wasn't working. Too much cloud cover. Huh! Apparently the electricity it produces costs three times more than a conventional power station as well. Seville is a wonderful city, and a joy to walk through. Wonderful narrow alleys with tiny restaurants, imposing towers and buildings, and a real buzz to it. If you want a city break, have a look here. Four of us took a Segway tour, which was really good, followed by a last group meal as today is the last full day. They are a great bunch, and I'll miss them  There is a change of plan for getting home. Three of us solo travellers don't like the idea of travelling all the way through
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Tour - Days 26, 27 and 28

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 Castro Verde was a one night stop, but turned out to be quite fun. There was a music festival on, encompassing a brass band (labeled philharmonic!), viola playing, and starting at midnight - a rave, a very loud rave. It just so happened that we got our first rain just about midnight - oh dear. It did curtail proceedings so we did get some quiet sleep. There was time the next morning to walk into town for a coffee and look at the accompanying fair, which was huge . The locals were stocking up on winter wear, nuts, honey etc. The next two nights were in El Rocio. El Rocio is a pilgrimage town, but with a difference. It is in the middle of a huge wilderness called the Donanas, which the maps show as wetlands - nope, it was more like central Australia, and dry as a bone. We took a tour in a specially adapted bus into this national park, looking for wildlife. There were lynxes, wild boars, deer etc, which we did see, but at a bit of a distance. There were plenty of mosquitos though! El Roc
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Tour - Days 23, 24 and 25

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 Evora is another ancient city that was once the capital of Portugal, and it is well worth visiting. It was set up by the Romans, who built a massive aqueduct system, and the usual pantheon and temples. Apart from the aqueduct and one temple, it was destroyed by the Visigoths. Then came the Moors who filled in the gaps in the temple walls to make a mosque, followed by the Iberians who converted the mosque to a church. In the 1800's an enlightened architect converted it back to just Roman pillars. Evora is also a very old University city, and many formal and traditional form of dress are still worn by the students. It needed a very good guide to unravel the history for us. On Thursday, Dave Campin and I got on the bikes to try and find the source of the water for the aqueduct, some 20 km away. We didn't but the ride was very pleasant. We found the aqueduct again nearer the city. We also visited Church of Bones, decorated with - yes, human bones. Very strange indeed. Friday sees
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