It was time to move inland – it was already August 27 – and make our way to the other side of Spain to Catalonia where we had rented a holiday house with Ciaran and Christina, Caoimhin’s brother and wife and Louise, a South African friend of theirs for most of September.

The morning in Galicia was grey and hazy – sea and sky were one – unlike the vivid blues and greens that we were used to and the temperature was a cool (almost goose bumpy) 18 degrees. We packed up the tent and decided to head inland. We stopped in Lugo to look at the impressive Roman walls. We climbed the steps and walked the 2 kms on top of the walls. It would have been a lovely walk at dusk or early morning but at 1 pm in 33 degrees, it was a walk for mad dogs only…..

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Afterwards while we were hydrating indoors in an air con café in the old town with good WiFi, we decided to give the camping a break. We booked a hostal there and then in Ponteferrada, a town about an hour and a bit away. (Hostals are different to hostels, they are cheap hotels usually two star).It was €50 for an en-suite room including breakfast and free parking so we weren’t sure what to expect. Hostal Rabel didn’t look very promising from the street and was over a little cafe/bar. But we were very pleasantly surprised – it was spotlessly clean inside with thick shutter blinds, crisp white sheets, bedside lamps (a luxury after camping) and wooden floors. It was bliss -cool and quiet with a fantastic shower and oodles of hot water and even complimentary toiletries. It was only a short walk from the old town. and there was even a good vegan restaurant (La Marmita Verde) up the street – we were the only customers in this meat obsessed country.

Ponteferrada is a medium sized town in the province of Leon surrounded by mountains and was a major stop for centuries on the French Camino. The old quarter of the town sits below a very imposing castle built by the Knights Templar near the iron bridge crossing the river Sil to protect passing pilgrims on their way to Santiago de Compostela. There were also several churches in the old town. We popped into the Basilica de la Encina where Gregorian chant music was being piped and were awed by the beauty of the building, the ornateness of the decor and the music. The building exuded power. It was actually spine tingling – the pilgrims who walked this route for salvation must have felt the urge to prostate themselves on the ground.

After our very pleasant stop in Ponteferrada, we headed southeast and drove for a couple of hours over dry flat landscape under a baking sun until we got to Tordesillas, a little town with a campsite that had good reviews online. The town didn’t look like much, the camping cost almost as much as our stay in the hostal the night before (€44)and had lots of rules, it was hot and dusty and as we pitched our tent, sweating in the dirt, we were regretting our decision to go there. But that changed when we crossed the bridge over the Douro and climbed the cobble streets of the old town. We had no hint of the treasures waiting up the hill – convents, monasteries, a palace going back to the twelfth century and a beautiful town square. Heat radiated from the stone walls but there was also a cooling breeze and birdsong, hundreds of doves and pigeons flying and an evening wedding in one of the old churches. We people-watched under the vaulted arches of the Square and drank cold beer in the shade. It was like walking through history and what history here – google the Treaty of Tordesillas where the American continent (most yet to be discovered at the time) was carved up between Portugal and Castille to avoid war on the Iberian Peninsula.. And the story of Joan the Mad, daughter of Isabel and Ferdinand who was banished here….who wasn’t ‘mad’ at all.

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After a morning walk along the Douro under the shade of poplar trees, we drove off still heading east along the fertile Douro valley with its vineyards in the direction of Siguenza where we had booked a parador a few days previously for Monday night. It was now Sunday and we weren’t sure where we would break the journey or if we would camp overnight. We kept driving until we arrived in Atienza, a small village in Guadalajara with a ruined castle on the hilltop overlooking the village and knocked on the stout wooden door of Hotel Convento Santo Ana, a door that looked like it had admitted travelers for centuries. There were rooms available for €49 a night and we were stunned both by the price and by the beauty of the interior design, all muted colours with large sofas and lamps. Incredible value in a beautiful place. We wandered up to the village square where at 7.30 pm, we are too early for dinner anywhere ( a common problem as most restaurants don’t open until 9 pm) and make do with tapas, olives, bread, tortilla, crisps and wine.

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Early the following morning, the smell of baking bread from the village bakery followed us up the hill to the ruins of the castle on the rock, once a very important seat of power and the interface between Christians and Muslims, frequently changing hands between the two. Atienza was part of the Ruta de El Cid (and even Don Quixote)but is now a mere hamlet of a couple of hundred people

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Then it was onward to Siguenza and luxury at the Parador of Siguenza, the Castle of the Bishops, a medieval castle with foundations dating back to the fifth century. Paradores are a group of historical buildings that are state owned and run as upmarket hotels at affordable prices. How could we resist staying in a castle for €140 for the night including a fabulous buffet breakfast? Siguenza is a beautiful little town with a stunning cathedral, narrow cobbled streets where the walls store up the heat of the day and release it in the balmy evening, where the barber was an ex-matador and the walls of his shop were covered with triumphant photos of himself in his heyday and the TV was tuned to some bullfighting event. But he did an excellent job of cutting Caoimhin’s hair. As we creep down the staircase for an early morning walk, the following day we notice lots of birds flying past a window at the end of one of the long corridors. We investigated and opened the window to see thousands of little swallows clinging to the castle walls like leaves and then flying off and landing again. It was a truly remarkable sight.

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After the luxury of the parador, we come down to earth with a bang. A deer rant out in front of he car and we missed him by a hair’s breath. We had seen some deer in the long pale grasses beneath the castle walls but this was a closer encounter than we wanted. The amount of truck traffic after Zaragoza is incredible – trucks outnumber cars at least ten to one. We cross the border into Catalonia and camp at the Riba Roja campsite which has a disheveled air, dusty and wilted by the heat and with lots of flies. But there were no rules here about where to park or pitch your tent or wash your dishes which is refreshing. It was on the banks of a reservoir made by the impressive dam on the river Ebro for the Riba Roja hydroelectric plant. But there were also thunderstorm warnings and the access road to the campsite was along a narrow road cut into high cliffs which made us (I mean me!) a bit nervous. The pitter- patter of rain on the tent in the early morning had us scrambling to pack up. But the rain which was very light stopped almost as soon as it began so we walked up the road to have a look at the dam and the hydroelectric plant and heading to the Costa Duarada.

Travelling across Spain through the interior has been a revelation – we picked our stopovers at random and without research and could easily have stayed in different places but we were completely awed by the living history, beauty of the old towns and the quality of the accommodation. We traveled all the way on non-toll roads and thankfully no car issues to report!!

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