The Aussie Nomads Motorhome Adventures: July 2012

Santiago de Compostela

From Portugal we travelled north west into Spain to visit Santiago de Compostela. During our years in France we travelled over several routes which led to Santiago coming from south Germany through the Vosge mountains, from the north east of France through the towns to the south and from Holland through Utrecht. It was nice to finally see where the paths finished.

On the way there we passed many walkers and cyclers of many nationalities. Once in Northern Spain the route wanders in and out of small villages then onto the main road which is marked so motorists are aware of the walkers.

Once the town is reached the way is marked by the scallop shell which is seen on the many paths through Europe that lead to Santiago .

We walked around and were amazed at the huge number of walkers and cyclists of all ages.

The Square was crowded with people arriving all the time. This guy was exhausted and so was his dog.

This is where they come.

Most of the people coming here have a shell on them somewhere.

There are rules for doing a pilgrimage to Santiago, the walkers must walk for the last 100 kilometres and cyclists the last 200 kilometres. Ten groups out of the 12 we spoke to had walked or cycled all the way taking several months to do thousands of kilometres.

We met this couple at the caravan park, they had cycled from north Holland. She said her first stop today was to buy some new clothes as she had been wearing the same two outfits for three months.

From Santiago de Compostella we went further North.

A Coruna

In the year 61 BC Julias Caesar reached A Coruna. The Tower of Hercules was built in the 1^st century to guide boats sailing towards the British Isles. It is the only lighthouse of Antiquity that is in operation tody. The original lighthouse had a ramp around the outside so horses could take the wood up for the fire beacon. The light house today was built in 1788 around what remained of the Roman lighthouse. The memory of the outer ramp is in the form of an ascending diagonal band that forms a continuous line from top to bottom.

San Vincente de la Barquera
It was time to head east and our overnight stops were usually by the coast. One night we stopped at San Vincente de la Barquera with a group of surfers on top of a cliff. There were 10 vehicles and 8 nationalities; we had a good fun night.

To get to the beach one walked down a steep path to the water. Kevin went for a swim and I just walked down. It is much easier in Scarborough to have a surf.

It is always amazing to us from the flat side of Australia to see Ocean with extensive mountain ranges so close. This is the Pico which is very popular for hiking.

We met this young couple and stopped for a chat. They were walking to Santiago from Holland with their dog who had special panniers and carried the sleeping bag sheets. He carried 2 kilo and looked like he was enjoying the walk.

Tapia Casariego

Another town we stopped in was Tapia Casariego, a beautiful fishing village and also known for its surf.

We walked around the harbour to watch the fishermen bring in their catch and sort out their nets.

While walking back to our campsite a different way we came across this shop but it wasn’t open so we couldn’t find out the connection.

Then we came across this monument. I guess it was a surfing accident.

We had a chat to this man who came from South America as he walked through Tapia to Santiago.

Leaving here the road is passing over viaducts all the way.

This is Basque Country and the signs are in two languages which means the navigator must pay attention or the driver gets tetchy, ie “Why cant you understand the sign? . You know everything”.

As we passed through this town I thought these houses must cause problems if you came home a little under the weather. Uhmm!! which one in mine!!

The coast is still very rocky as we made our way to Bilbao. This campground has a fantastic view over the Atlantic.

BILBAO

We called into Bilbao to see the Guggenheim Gallery. Well actually, the building as Modern Art is not Kevin’s thing. What a fantastic building.

The sculptures in the forecourt were interesting.

I am not sure hat the girls are up to.

I think the floral cat had the most admirers. It was made from living plants with an automatic watering system tucked inside.

Now off to Pamplona our last city in Spain.

PAMPLONA

Pamplona is the capital of the ancient Province of Navarre. It is a beautiful walled upper town with a river surrounding the walls and the modern town stretching out into the distance. It is famous for the most famous of the running of the bulls through the streets of old towns during the San Fermin festival.

We saw this sign in another town in Northern Spain and guess this is another one of the towns.

We had a great time in Pamplona walking the route of the running with the bulls, called the Encierro, which was the route taken by the bulls from the coral outside in the lower town up to the Bullring where they will fight later in the day.

The route is all on cobble stone streets, around sharp corners with some roads having wooden railings to jump behind and others having no cover at all. A lot of shops are selling the white trousers and shirts with the red accessories, a sash or a bandanna, apparently a requirement for running. I bought the scarf just in case we decided to stay here longer. The whole run only takes about 2 minutes, maybe we could last that long.

We learnt that the uphill run is the most dangerous as the bulls have shorter front legs than the back and makes them more powerful running up the hill. Lucky I found this out as I would have decided to run uphill if I was going to run with the bulls.

The Encierro museum was fantastic with historical photos and videos. It also has a simulator so one can try running to a video and a taxidermied bull. My are they huge! Once you see the size of the bull and the videos it is a wonder anyone runs with the bulls.

After the bulls run through the streets they end up in the stadium where they wait unknowingly until they face the matador that afternoon to be dispatched with a sword in the neck after being weakened by several sharp knives in their hide, or if they are lucky maybe they will dispatch the Matador. Several years ago we went to the bullfights in Madrid and spent the whole afternoon watching the gruesome spectacle in the hope that the bull would win.

After wandering through the streets we tried the Tapas and wine in a couple of bars then made our way home quite late at night. I did have some great photos to put in here but somehow a gremlin or maybe it was the wine made them disappear from my camera.

I do have this photo of us in our runners costume but we decided not to dirty or bloody it by running.

The next day we had a lucky escape. Not from a bull but from extra zealous parking police. We were camped overnight in the wrong place. Thank goodness they woke us up at 7 am to tell us to move which we did promptly. Another motorhome wasn’t so lucky they ignored the warning and wheel clamps were put on that one.

Still in the mood to look around we heard there was to be a fiesta and march so back into town we went. It was the 500^th anniversary of Spain taking over the country of Navarre and had a great time watching the march. The police were in abundance but all seemed pretty peaceful.

The red banners were from each town in what was Nafarroa or modern day Navarre.

There were all sorts of marchers in the parade, we were not sure of what it all meant.

After a while the people on the stage started to call for independence

And the crowd got restless and when we started to get surrounded we thought we had better get out of there.

Then we headed back through France to Calais and onto the ferry back to the UK.

From Coimbra we took the road to Viseu then before heading to Porto I was reading a pamphlet which mentioned Aveiro as the little Venice of the north. So we changed direction and took the Toll Motorway for the first time since arriving in Portugal. There wasn’t a ticket machine as we entered the motorway so we thought we would be paying at the end of the route.

The motorway had some very steep ascents with signs we liked as it showed a fast lane, one with the minimum of 70 and a slow lane for plodders, not that we let Harry know he is a plodder.

The descent signs were mostly in Portuguese.

But a bit worrying when we started to see them in English as well.

Then we were into arrestor bed signs

Also on the way down we started seeing these signs and thought that we must add these together to pay at the end.

The storks are very happy with their new nesting platforms when they come to visit.

AVEIRO

As we came into Aveiro I also saw some cameras and thought “No problem with us we never reach the maximum speed”.

Then it was time to leave the motorway to find our camping spot for the night. Funny we thought, we cant see any toll booths to pay our fees.

After a bit of wandering around streets we followed another motorhome into the Motorhome area of a park alongside a canal. As we pulled in we saw the police pull up the motorhome in front of us and wondered what they had done. Was it speeding? Were they getting a ticket? We waited behind patiently and next thing they came down to us.

“You have been on the Toll Route without paying” they said and very quickly we said “Yes we have but there was no where to pay”. “Don’t you know that Portugal has an electronic system and it is all prepaid” said they.

The end of all this was we paid 20 euro for a three day pass and our number plate would be recognised as we passed the cameras, and if we needed more after that we would need to find the shops that had a ticket machine for casual use. I didn’t read that in the guide book!!! No wonder we haven’t used motorways. And I thought they were being nice when we had our photo taken on the Toll Route.

This is our lovely overnighter alongside the canal.

While we were getting ready to go for a walk along came this lovely painted boat taking people for a cruise of the canals.

We walked into the town along another canal

Later on our walk through the town we passed these typical Portuguese tiled houses.

This church had lovely tiles.

In the centre of town found the canal with all the tourist boats. They remind us of the Gondolas in Venice.

We found a small restaurant in the town which had set menu 3 courses for 10 euro. Amazingly one of the waiters who spoke very good English went to live in Sydney when he was 9 years and returned to

Portugal

to live a few years back. He told us the boats were traditionally used on the canals to bring seaweed into town to trade. A tiled picture on the wall depicted this.

PORTO

As we now paid to use the Toll Motorways we decided to drive straight to Porto which is the second largest City in Portugal. It was a good feeling when we saw this sign to know we had parted with 20 euro.

We found a caravan park on the outskirts with a local bus about 500 metres away which went into Porto from early morning to 11.30 at night.

Porto is built along the banks of the Douro River which flows through the port vinyards and into the Atlantic from the Porto Harbour. The town is built on several levels rising up from the river with the old warehouses now housing the many restaurants with seating along the harbour on the right bank.

The Port Cellars and restaurants and many of the old Port Barrel boats are on the on the left bank of the river which is crossed by the many bridges.

Arthur and Diana had been to Porto some years ago and said the station had the most beautiful tiling. When we got off of the bus we went into the station and it was truly amazing.

We spent some time looking around town and had lunch down by the river.

While having lunch we saw people walking along the very top bridge which we had thought was just for trains. You may be able to see tiny figures on the left near the pinkish building.

As we are very nosy and cant miss out on anything we took the funicular up to that level of the town and went to find the bridge.

And here we are starting our next adventure, a walk across the bridge.

Looking down onto the buildings it was amazing to see they all had a covering of morning glory. It reminded me of our outside toilets when we were kids.

The view from the top to the Port warehouse side.

After getting down to street level which wasn’t easy for old knees we started to enjoy the port tasting.

At Calem we found we could do a tour of the warehouse then a tasting with Fado singers thrown in for the same price so we moseyed around until it was time to go in.

The tour was very interesting and informative by the end we were a full bottle on different types of Port

The port tasting was very generous and the Fado great, I liked the 12 string guitar.

After a very full day it was time to catch the last bus home after thoroughly enjoying Porto.

GUIMARAES

After Porto we visited Guimaraes which is said to be the cradle of

Portugal

and the birthplace of the country’s first King. The town is famous for it granite block buildings. We parked Harry on the edge of town and wandered in past this lovely old area where most of the building were made of the stone block.

This tiny church was sitting in the middle of two small streets.It is so fragile it is only opened once a year for a special celebration.

Just past it we came across an antique shop with an amazing treasure trove of antiques and collectibles. There was a wooden picture of the church made of hundreds of strips of various woods.

The corner shop still thrives here. This shop selling loquats. We both remembered them from our childhood and bought a few to taste. We didn’t like them then much and still don’t but someone must buy them as we have seen them being sold in a lot of places in

Portugal

In the main square I thought it must be mens’ day out. Not another woman was in sight.

Here are some photos when we went shopping.
We have seen the legs of ham hanging in many shops. They must be really cured as they are always in the open.

The sausages look interesting but we didn't try them. I thought of our friend Nicky who loves black pudding.

I guess these fish are used in soups or fish stew.

In our travels in Portugal we have seen many versions of the charging stations for electric cars but have not seen any being charged.

THE DOURO
While in Porto we had seen pictures of where the port grapes are grown on terraces so steep they are mostly handpicked and decided to head that way before we left Portugal. So it was back into the mountains back up the River Douro.