Saturday: Cycling in the clouds

Today started out rainy, and stayed rainy until lunchtime. We started out of Cervera with a long climb into the mountains. It was supposed to be the scenic route but it's a little hard to appreciate the scenery when your eyeballs are busy being pelted with raindrops.

We reached the grand altitude of 1413m at one point today, not so hard to believe as it was preceded by an enormous climb. After that, the road dropped down into the valley of the Carrion river and things got easier. We stopped at midday for some lunch - we didn't really want to stop as we were damp and didn't want to cool down too much, but also very hungry. So we found a sheltered spot during a less rainy interval and got out the brie and baguette. (yes I know, but given the choice between French and Spanish cheese, what would you go for?) I began to change out of my damp stuff into thermal wicking gear, and just as I was pulling on my legwarmers, the sun began to show through the clouds for the first time that day. Of course. We were able to appreciate the scenery a little more after that.


They have the loveliest cows here. They have sweet faces, fluffy ears and there are lots of babies around at the moment. We saw lots today, roaming freely over the mountains and valleys, and heard even more as they all wear bells. You can nearly always hear at least one - sometimes it feels like you're being stalked by cows. We found one cow happily munching leaves off a bush at the side of the road. She heard us, turned her head and gave us the guiltiest look we have ever seen on a cow. I'm not sure what she was doing wrong, but I think we caught her at it.

We reached Guardo at about 2pm. The signs to the tourist office neatly veer you off away from the town centre and towards a nice well-kept modern looking fountainy area. The office was closed, so we followed signs to the town centre which, to put it politely, is a bit of an Aldershot. Lots of cheap nasty looking bars and cafes, run down buildings, closed businesses, and unlike the other towns we've seen here, completely lacking in charm. However, we managed to find a cheap pension, got our menu del dia for lunch (which included bunny rabbits) just in time before everything closed, then some nice pizzas in the evening.

Friday, day of rest

Well if you people in offices get to spend your Fridays drinking beer and surfing the internet, why shouldn't we take it easy too?

We weren't quite ready to get back on the road this morning, so we decided to put in another day at Cervera to get another menu del dia for lunch, allow my washing to finish drying and generally gear ourselves up. Besides, we had been wanting to leave early this morning but in our excitement yesterday at having some internet access, we completely forgot to go grocery shopping.

We have been treated very well in Cervera - we had some nice cakes for breakfast, were well fed again today at lunchtime, and the place we're staying in is really nice, the lady who runs it is very sweet, she even took my damp washing off the windowsill this morning and reappeared with it this evening, all dried and ironed. It is actually a hostal we are staying in, not a hostel - there is a difference. For the benefit the nice young gentleman who asked what a pension was, and anybody else who is interested, here is an explanation of the various types of accommodation.

We had nice pizza for dinner. We're on our way again tomorrow morning, honest.

Thursday 28th September: Menu del dia

Today was a short one. It was going to be longer, but we both felt like we were cycling through treacle - probably a combination of poor nutrition over the past few days, and quite a long day yesterday.

We stopped in Cervera around lunchtime and got ourselves a room in a hostel (which is nicer than the word "hostel" would suggest, it's just a nice little room with the skin of a dead goat on the floor). After freshening up a bit, we headed out to where we'd seen a sign for "menu del dia" for 8 euro - and had the meal we had been waiting for the past four days. A huge vat of noodle soup from which we were allowed to refill freely, followed by an enormous plate of chickpeas with vegetables and various meats (including a large hairy lump of pig fat which we ignored) - we stuffed ourselves silly, and then had to choose desserts. We didn't know what any of them were and the waitress was having trouble trying to explain them to us - so, bless her, she just brought out one of each for us. THAT was the meal we needed! Menu del dia seems to be what we need - very good value, includes drinks and bread and everything.

Tomorrow, instead of taking the boring straight road west out of Cervera, we're taking the scenic mountain route. Hopefully our legs will be ready for it.

Wednesday 27th September: Fruit Sandwiches

dgym

Apart from the beginning of the day our route has flattened out a little. There were even some stages where we made some progress. Tonight we finally found an open campsite and even had a decent meal. We met a lovely Yorkshire couple also camping here and joined them for dinner. No one seemed particulary impressed with Spain as a touring country but we are now looking forward to Portugal even more and we know one good campsite and restaurant to go to, which is great as they are just as we come in. Another week and we will be there.


hel

Last night we had fruit sandwiches for dinner. The restaurant that had been open in Soncillo when we arrived, had closed by 7pm. The owners of the shop over the road sent us down the road to a restaurant that was supposedly 1km away. At 500m away, there was no sign of it (and the next day when we headed further down that way there was still no sign of it) so we went back into town, by which time most of the shops had closed and we were only able to buy bread. Combined with our standard payload of kiwis, pears, olives, etc. we were able to make ourselves a fine dinner. Pear sandwiches is surely what posh people eat at dinner parties, right? The food of gods.

Early today we reached the grand height of 1020m before dropping down into the next valley. It's pretty amazing to think that since leaving Bilbao, we had climbed over a kilometre.

Most of today was valleys. We stopped for a picnic by the River Ebro, which included the most revolting cheese ever made. it was sweet and yellow and had a nasty aftertaste and absolutely no redeeming features - I wish I remembered the name so I could recommend you never buy it. Even Poland didn't sink to such cheesy lows.

We encountered a bunch of English people shortly after leaving Soncillo, they were gathered outside a pub in a neighbouring village, looked like some kind of car club as there was a bunch of posh-looking cars parked nearby with "GB" stickers on. We don't see many English people on our travels so we said hello, and one by one they overtook us as we climbed up the hill, some honking and waving.

We reached our destination of Aguilar de Campoo at about 5pm. One good thing about Spain is that this is not too late for tourist offices to be open (in fact, they're often only just opening after siesta). So we found out that there was a campsite 2.5km out of town, and headed for that. What the lady in the tourist office failed to mention was that it was more like 4km out of town, half way up a mountainside. At least it was open... Fortunately the campsite had a restaurant so we didn't need to go back down for dinner.

We ended up camping about three spots away from a retired Yorkshire couple, Cynthia and Frank, who were staying in a camper van and making day cycling trips around the area. Frank came over to chat as we were pitching up, told us that there were loads of red squirrels around and that the restaurant had a menu de dia at 8:30pm that night. That's the kind of information we like! We saw some excellent squirrels - too dark and too far away to take pictures unfortunately, but they were lovely. They make little chirpy noises as they wave their tails around, it's very sweet. At 8:30 we headed for the restaurant and had dinner with Cynthia and Frank, in what was the best meal we have had since getting into Spain (well, OK, compared to "salty plateful of grease", "nibbling on tinned sardines" and "fruit sandwiches" you can't really go wrong, but it was nice).

It's nice to occasionally run into somebody who speaks your language, and they certainly seemed to be having an interesting time travelling the world with their camper van. Nice to find somebody else who agrees about Spain being very difficult for food. Apparently Portugal is much easier, and we were enthused by descriptions such as "piri-piri chicken everywhere" and "the cakes are lovely". We also went away with a campsite and restaurant recommendation (mmm wild boar casserole) for Braganca, which will be our first stop in Portugal in a few days time.

Tuesday 26th September: Vertical kilometre

hel

We're quite high up, although not quite sure how high. On Monday we travelled from Balmaseda to Espinosa de los Monteros, where we found a campsite, tried to camp, but for some reason or other, were not allowed to. (See, we are actually trying to use our new tent, just not having much luck). However, they did have cheap rooms at the campsite, (it would have been even cheaper if Dgym hadn't inadvertently pretended we were over 30), with free wifi in the room. Pretty nice.

Today we didn't come very far, at least not in the horizontal plane, and got to Soncillo, where we are staying in a very nice guest house. Vertically, we've come quite a way. We've had a lovely descent or two but also climbed a fair bit - over all we have gone up. The sun is pretty harsh, we're grabbing shady spots wherever we can and getting through a lot of suncream.

The eating situation is slightly awkward, they don't seem so keen on it here. It seems to be a choice between nibbling on raciones and sandwiches in a bar, not really a sustaining meal for a cyclist, or going to a cafe and having platos combinados - described as potatoes, eggs and chorizo, for example, but turns out to be an extremely greasy salty plate of fried egg & chips with chorizo. We did find a proper restaurant last night but it was about 25euro a dish, way out of our budget. We're getting by anyway, and supplementing the bar food with tins of sweetcorn, olives and lots of fruit.

There are a lot of flies up here, which is pretty annoying, they seem to gather particularly in the bars and eating areas. (Right now I would really like to sit down to a nice big roast dinner without flies swarming around my head).

The views have been lovely. We've been cycling past / around a set of mountains which are covered in forest, and topped by sheer cliff faces - which, at the start of yesterday, seemed a long way off and very high up. They now seem pretty close and not so far up at all. It's hard work climbing up, but the views are spectacular and very much worth it.

The cycling experience is similar to France - we get lots of people waving at us and saying hello, and drivers honking their horns in encouragement (at least I hope it's encouragement). The people are friendly, we know pretty much no Spanish but that doesn't stop anybody chatting to us! We had a nice chat with a deaf-mute bloke this morning, actually the most coherent conversation we've had here, as he was obviously good at using alternative means of communication.


dgym

Today we did a bit more up and a bit more down. After one climb we were actually looking down on the tops of the cliffs that had seemed so very far away and so very far up yesterday. Unfortunately the town we ended up in was very small and we failed to get any food before finding out that the only restaurant shut early and was staying shut. We made do with what we had - pear sandwiches. Not a great ending to an otherwise very pleasant day.