After three bitterly cold but very sunny days we reached
Bordeaux. The following morning we awoke
to several inches of snow! It was Sunday
so we drove into the town to the Anglican Chaplaincy but nobody else had braved
the weather. On the Monday we continued
south and had more fine weather until we had more snow as we crossed the Pyrenees to Burgos. The town’s most famous resident was El Cid.
There is a huge cathedral which felt more like a museum than
a place of worship.
Scattered around the city were some interesting and amusing
sculptures.
About 50 kilometres south of Burgos we left the snow behind
and stayed a couple of nights at Aranjuez where we were able to walk through
the formal gardens to the town centre with its impressive Royal Palace.
From there it was a long day’s drive down to Isla Plana on
the south east coast near Cartagena and a site where we stayed last year. By then the temperatures had increased
dramatically to about 6-8˚ at night and about 18˚ by the afternoon. We stayed nine days there, surrounded by
extinct volcanoes and acres of tomatoes growing in poly-tunnels. While there we made the most of the
opportunities to cycle, walk and swim (in their heated, covered pool!). Some of the volcanic rock is very colourful –
yes these colours really are natural!
Most days have been gloriously sunny and we drove to the nearby
town of Bolnuevo where the cliffs have been eroded into huge extraordinary shapes.
We also drove up a single track road to a fort that was used in
the Spanish civil war where we found two of the largest guns we have ever seen.
On the landward side the fort looked more like a stage set for a
film.
A thirty-five minute bus journey took us into Cartagena – the home
town of Hannibal – for a day. It was
already an important port by Roman times but the many Roman remains are buried
below the not very interesting more recent buildings. Many sites have been excavated and some
incorporated into museums. The most
spectacular of them still visible above ground is the Theatre.
Travelling west brought us to Almeria where there is a splendid
castle that we saw last year so we by-passed the town and headed for a caravan
site right on a small beach. (That's us in the foreground).
Walking up into the coastal hills we saw mouflon – wild sheep normally
found in the high Pyrenees! Who knows
how or why they have come here to the coast but they seem happy enough.
Yesterday evening a school of dolphins swam past close inshore but
I didn’t have time to get the camera out!
After a couple of days here we plan on going a little further west
before heading inland. This morning the
temperature outside was 10.6˚, 20˚ higher than on our first morning in France!
