Travellingon: Espana revisited!!

Okay so let me start from where we are today and work backwards. It’s 11^th October and we are in Merida in Spain, it is just west of Badajoz, not far from the Portuguese border about halfway between Madrid and Sevilla.

We came here to see the Roman ruins in the town and they were fabulous, but I made a very basic error-I didn’t check the camera last night and the battery ran out after two pictures!! Rookie travellers or what! There is almost too much for one day, a fabulous amphitheatre built for gladiator contests, a theatre –perfect for Mark Antony’s “Friends Romans Countrymen “ speech. Roman baths, snow houses, the biggest bridge they ever built and a fabulous 2 storey aqueduct and then the Moorish castle too. We were all cultured out and didn’t even get to the museum.

We got here yesterday having left our Portuguese house sit, Will and Wendy arrived back Wednesday evening and we had a nice meal and a few glasses of wine and then packed up and left after breakfast. It was an easy drive but I was a bit dubious about the site having read one or two bad reviews, but they were unfounded, it is very basic and simple but the showers etc are clean and hot and the bar sells cold beer!! It was easy to drive into town today and we parked for free-always a bonus.

The house sit was good especially as for the last 5 days we had sunshine and were able to laze by the pool, although some of it enforced!! On Sunday we set out for a trip to do a bit of walking and the clutch started vibrating and making awful noises-we knew it would need replacing before we left in August and just took the decision to drive and see how far we got-the answer was 3,500 miles!!

I did a bit of research on the internet and we opted to go to Ferriera do Zezere a little town about 5 miles away where there were 2 garages. The first one was very helpful but the entrance was too low for the van, the second one was perfect. I had the dictionary and a crib sheet with various useful phrases translated into Portuguese like, “we have a problem with the clutch” ,” we are leaving on Thursday”, “how much will it cost” etc. There was a lovely lady called Isabelle who spoke English. The place was also a spares depot, so they had the clutch and they could fix it the next day at 9am.......no repeat of Angouleme. The next day Ruby was in the garage, we spent the morning in Ferriera and then at 12.30 she was fixed. 240 euros for the parts and only 100 for labour.

We drove to Tomar in the afternoon to see the Castle and convent , which were stunning. We met two American guys who were “doing” Europe and I asked had they enjoyed Portugal and one of them said-“Huh they aren’t very geared up for tourists” and when I asked why not he replied ”they don’t even take dollars” My reply –well the local currency is the euro, just fell on deaf ears!! Stay on your side of the pond then!!

The day we arrived in Portugal we joined a toll motorway at Abrantes so when we were in Tomar we went to the tourist office to find out how to pay, she thought the post office would sell us a card. Wrong! Once you have got onto a motorway in Portugal the only system is to send a bill to the UK, they have number plate recognition systems . Apparently if you cross the border from Spain and join the motorway there are big signs explaining the system-not where we joined. It could take 9-10 months to get a bill , if ever, and the sad thing is the government introduced it to raise funds!!

We loved Portugal, the area was beautiful, the dogs were easy to look after, the house was comfy and the Portuguese people were so friendly and helpful. Sometimes it was a bit Esperanto, a lot of people speak French, a bit of English and understand Spanish and it helped us get by.

We weren’t as active as we thought, firstly Chris had a cold, then I had one then it rained for days but we did walk one day about 7 km, wandering through the woods and fortunately arriving back at the next little village where we had a beer and Pica Pau-which is Portuguese for woodpecker-thankfully the dish is little bits if pork and garlic.

So tomorrow we leave Merida and head across Spain towards Chris’ house, we have a stop-over planned but we will see how it goes. Driving in Spain is relatively easy, most of the motorways are not very busy. Then we have about a week before Amy and Carl arrive for their holiday with us.

Chris used the bad weather to get the China plan more developed and we have a broad itinerary that will give us a taste and fit in all of the must do’s , the wall, the terracotta army, cruising the Yangstze and the pandas.

Its only about 6 weeks till we fly home for the wedding and given how much we have eaten and drunk and how little exercise we have had its going to have to be a pretty intensive fitness regime.

Till next time

Take care

Norma xx