A Round Trip of Inland Spain, Part 1

31st January, 2000 - Elche to Mérida

We set off in bright sunlight and headed first for Elche, just south of Alicante.  Since we had been up and down this bit of coast many times by now, we took the motorway for speed.  Our interest in Elche was just to see the famous palm forests that our guide book mentioned.  However, the first sight of any interest turned out to be the locomotive on the left, displayed on the northern ring road.

A little further along the ring road, we could see the remnants of what must have been a huge plantation by the Moors.  Our guide book suggested that they are still the town's chief industry, but to us they looked a little run down and unkempt as the picture on the right shows.  Nearby we did, however, find a park somewhat better kept, next to a children's road traffic training area.   We left Elche and headed north and inland.

In preparing this journal we reviewed over two hours of video that we recorded and, by now, we are forming overall impressions of Spain.  The first is that the sights are at least as much dominated by past warfare as anywhere we have seen and that church power had been very evident in the past.  On our travels at least 50% of the time we were within sight of formidable castles, towers or other fortifications, many of which seem well preserved.  We have had to cull from our snapshots many of these and church scenes to try to bring some balance.  The second is that a large part of the land is inhospitable and strewn with rocks, boulders and small stones that make agriculture difficult.  We have seen, particularly in La Mancha, that there are large fertile plains not dissimilar from those in other parts of Europe, but they are fewer and further apart.

We had been concerned as to whether we could reach Mérida in a day as it is over 300 miles from Benidorm and only the first 100 or so is motorway.  In fact, the Spanish road system has improved dramatically in the last few years and we (and the Spanish more so) were able to travel almost as quickly as on motorways.  In the whole trip we saw very little traffic, except on the main roads.  Many of the roads looked as though they had only been widened and resurfaced in the last two or three years.   One problem this raised is that very little thought had been given to tourists and their cameras and we had to drive on past some of the most magnificent views because there was nowhere to stop safely.  Any time we did, on a deserted stretch, traffic would appear and we presented a danger.  As we had mentioned in respect of Portugal, there is a tendency for these superb new roads to end with a dangerous drop onto the rough stony ground to the sides, making it impossible to get off the road without risking tyres and chassis. 

In many places, sections of the old road and narrow bridges were visible, though only infrequently were they turned into lay-bys, as is the practice in much of the rest of Europe.   They did, however, bring home to us how much different our trip would have been just a few years ago on the much narrower and more winding roads. 

We followed the Rio Guadiana for some way and then headed west, over the mountains, and into Extremadura.  We have, from time to time, seen Guardia Civil roadside checks though on nothing like the scale in Morocco.  So far we had never been stopped and felt sure they actively avoided foreign cars as they must be more bother for them.  Just a few miles into Extremadura, on an empty road, miles from any town, we rounded a bend and could see a check point some way ahead with a posse of Guardia.  Perhaps because they had had no customers for some time, they beckoned us in, long before they could have seen we were not Spanish.  They were a friendly enough bunch - even the one with the sub-machine gun - and one of them was delighted to practice his English on us.  They only wanted ID.  It did bring home to us how important it is to carry our passports and driving licences.

Perhaps distracted a little by the check point, it was David's turn to make a navigational error following the N430 at a point where, inexplicably, it changes to a minor road.  It may be that when the Mérida was upgraded, a different route was chosen from the point where it became a minor road to the point where it crosses the Rio Guadiana again.   All of this would be of little importance except that they removed the bit of the old N430 where it crosses the peak of Santa Catalina and forced us to follow minor roads to Orellana, where we could next cross the river.

As often is the case, the detour was rewarding, if somewhat hairy, as we crossed high peaks with hairpin bends on a road barely wide enough to pass cars on, but along which juggernauts approached us taking up all the road.  On more than one occasion, we had to take to the verge which on these old style roads do not have the precipitous edges.  As we approached Puebla de Alcocer, we could see the fortified town of Esparragosa de Lares looming high above it.  Here we were re-introduced to storks which we had not seen since leaving the Algarve.  A large old farm with many chimneys had been colonised by storks.  From then on until Segovia, storks had taken over the highest parts of buildings and even power lines.

We had seen the modern comfortable Hotel Leman on the way in, and backtracked to it.  When we asked the room rate, we were relieved to find it was almost half the rate displayed in reception.  This gave us the idea that, out of season, the rates may be negotiable.  We ate in the Leman restaurant, which cost almost as much as the room.  We had had a most enjoyable, if tiring, trip across Spain and were looking forward to touring the Roman ruins the next day.

1st February, 2000 - Mérida to Cáceres

We awoke to find that the glorious weather of yesterday had been replaced by torrential rain.  We went down to breakfast to find that the high standard cuisine in the restaurant the previous night was replaced by grotty bar service breakfast of coffee and what passed for toast.   We sorely missed our standard bacon and egg breakfast, which is one of the great consolations of caravanning in far off places.   The hotel provided us with a map and we set off for the town, stopping first to look at the Hippodrome.  This, like others we had seen, had not survived very well and is not worth a picture. 

The theatre, which is quite well preserved, is shown far left and the amphitheatre immediate left.  The miserable weather had taxed our enthusiasm and we decided to move on after lunch at the Restaurant Naya, round the corner.

We consoled ourselves with the thought that Extremadura was supposed to be a harsh and miserable place, as its name implies.  We decided to go on to Salamanca via the Conquistador towns of Trujillo and Cáceres.  We left Mérida by the road we had entered on, pausing briefly to view the aqueduct, but a sudden burst of rain drove us back to the car and we left feeling that we had not nearly achieved what we had set out to do.

We headed north on the Madrid road to Trujillo and drove straight to the Plaza Mayor.  Despite the heavy rain, we were impressed by the grey grandeur of the town, which was built from the wealth brought back by the Conquistadors.

Above left is the Church of San Martin, in front of which stands the statue of Francisco Pizarro, the conqueror of Peru.  In the opposite corner of the Plaza, shown centre above, is the Palacio de la Conquista, which was the home of Hernando, one Francisco's four brothers who went with him on his voyage of conquest.  Many of the leaders, as well as the foot solders, that conquered the Americas were from Extremadura.   Trujillo is crammed with beautiful, if somewhat austere, buildings like those above and still had most of its walls intact.  Somehow the dismal weather seemed appropriate.

We arrived in Cáceres late in the afternoon and just managed to find a parking place in its Plaza Mayor.  We wanted to soak up the genuine atmosphere of the place and chose a Hostal overlooking the square.  As soon as we had taken the room, we knew it was a mistake, but we resolved to 'grin and bear it'.  We had a brief walk in the dark into the old town then had quite a pleasant dinner in one of the bars on the square and returned to our room.  It was freezing cold.  The bed had a bolster that might have been stuffed with gravel and there was no hot water in the bathroom, which was down a corridor. 

The bed was awful, but worse was the fact that the room was over the narrow street that traffic entered and left the square by.  Traffic lights controlled the alternating flow, giving periods of silence followed by the noise of cars accelerating.   At four in the morning the dustbins were emptied noisily. 

2nd February, 2000 - Cáceres to Salamanca

When asking for directions to the Cistern, we were at first offered the Fine Art as if this were the centrepiece, so after viewing the Cistern and tossing in the aluminium single pesetas we had accumulated, we went into the Fine Art.  The first floor contained the contemporary modern art that seems to be in gross over-supply at the moment.   We could not help noticing however that we had entered an overtly secure building, through a door that more suitable for a bank vault.  The windows were similarly highly secured and the building was well staffed, despite the fact that we were two of only four or six people in the museum.  We descended some stairs and, without any ceremony, came across the true treasures: three Picasso's, one of which is shown above centre, and an El Greco, above right.  We felt our trip to Cáceres had been a highlight, despite the awful night we had spent.  Late morning we set of north heading for Salamanca.

It is perhaps to be expected that some physical barrier must have existed between Old Castile and Extremadura, as they were originally kingdoms.  The pass between the two is no problem for modern cars and trucks, but with its hairpin bends and steep gradients would have been quite a deterrent to would be invaders.  Needless to say, various forts and castles were there to defend it. 

Once into Old Castile, we noticed a change of scenery.  As we came down from the pass to Béjar, we caught our first sight of eagles, wheeling in the sky above forested areas.  At first we thought we had seen the last of the storks and that maybe the eagles had chased them away.   The picture, left, was taken further on where the countryside seemed slightly less forbidding than bolder-strewn Extremadura.  Soon we started to see more storks again, nesting amazingly on live power pylons.

Last updated:  18/03/01