clairedavieswriter

Yes, it was a long way, but oddly, we don’t feel too knackered. Perhaps we were right to opt for chickpea stew last night instead of snails, like everyone else did (it’s the season for them apparently) Or perhaps our relative sprightliness is down to the ease with which we sped out of Sevilla –…

Cycle from the north coast to the south coast of Spain?Looks like we can tick that off the to do list. The water was a nicer blue than in Bilbao, but it’s still the Atlantic, and we had a few more miles to pedal, so we didn’t go for a dip, much to Bernard’s chagrin.…

At the risk of repeating a joke, Sevilla was very Bizet… In fact the streets were so crowded, we thought it was another día festivo.If you’re fond of military history or the paintings of Goya, you’ll know that Dos de Mayo is a holiday in Madrid, commemorating a famous rebellion against French forces in 1808.…

Overnight, rain hammered on the terracotta roof tiles directly above our heads. This morning, in our windowless sitting room, it was hard to believe the weather could have improved, but when we opened the door we found the cycling gods were smiling on us once again. They even laid on the best value breakfast of…

Yesterday’s blue skies and warm sun deserted us this morning, and we were back to wearing every layer we could find. It’s fair to say it was not the weather I had been expecting, this far south. The offence was compounded when, soon after taking the photo below, celebrating what felt like a significant moment,…

I knew nothing about Zafra before we arrived this afternoon, and had very few expectations. In my mind it was just a convenient stopping off point between more significant and exciting places. But that’s the beauty of these trips: they can reveal hidden (to me) gems. Looking for our guest house, I glimpsed a pretty…

It turned out to be quite hard to take a rest day in Mérida. Those pesky Romans just left too much interesting stuff behind. The whole set, in fact, commensurate with the status of Augusta Emerita (from which the name Mérida derives) as the capital of Lusitania and a hub for communication with the rest…

Our destination today was once a major Roman city, and someone must have left an offering for us with the cycling gods. First, they provided shelter, in the form of Cáceres’ train station, from a sudden downpour. And after that, good signs and portents came thick and fast (word of the day: glorieta – roundabout):…

Today we returned to the trusty N-630, but unfortunately someone had mislaid the memo requesting sunshine, downhills and a following wind. The scenery wasn’t quite as pretty as other days. We were either sandwiched between the motorway and the new high speed rail line (of which, more later)… Or riding through miles of scrubland After…

So children, do you want to find out about Plasencia? Let’s go through the arched window… It’s a town about the size of Fleet, but there the similarity ends. For starters, it has some impressive medieval walls, built to defend against the moors in the 12th century: And some equally impressive gates. The Puerta de…