On Thursday morning 20th of August, I have to put the day and date in as while we are traveling, we sometimes lose track of the day and the date. We left our aire next to the castle and headed south to the town of Olmedo, 30 kms away and stayed in the aire for the day. We didn’t plan to stay overnight as that night we wanted to get to Salamanca. There was clothes washing to do, email to write and blogging to do, Olmedo was a quiet place to get these done.
After being in the aire all alone for most of the day we were joined later by another motorhome, Allen and Christine came over to say hello and we chatted for a few hours over a couple of drinks. Allen from England and Christine from America had lived in Spain for the last 13 years and were touring around while they were having a new house built in England. We said our farewells and late in the afternoon we headed off to Salamanca.

Salamanca

We arrived at the carpark about 8 p.m. and found a spot for the night, it was under some trees which meant that during our visit to town we would have some shade for part of the day. The place was busy as it must be common knowledge that it is a motorhome friendly place. The road was a bit noisy but earplugs made for a good night’s rest. At the end of the carpark was a motorhome that hasn’t moved for quite a while and could be someone’s home, although we didn’t see anyone come or go.

In the morning it was only a 15 minute walk into the old town with plenty of interesting places to see. Our camera was working overtime and it will be hard to whittle them down to place in the blog. We had lunch in a local bar off the beaten track, some tapas with beer and sangria.

Two things in the town that I remember most, a busker standing on top of his metal artwork dressed in metal clothes and trying to balance metal balls on his head while hanging on to a chair and another ball that were hanging from wires above. He was getting frustrated as the ball on his head kept falling off. He did get some attention from the passing crowd which was the purpose behind the exercise. The other strange thing we saw was on the archway of the church, an astronaut among the animals and other statues. It must be a newer addition but it blended in as if it has always been there for centuries. I only saw it as I was taking photos of other small statues in the doorway and other people had been looking at it.

Upon our return to the “Bunyip” a flyer was put on our windscreen, it was from a nearby campsite offering 40% discount and when I did the sums it came to just over 10 euros. It has been nearly 6 weeks since we have been to a campsite and with the prospect of long hot showers and free wifi it was a no brainer as what we were going to do.

We arrived late in the afternoon and spent some time catching up with things on the internet having a shower and relaxing and hearing the thunderstorm and rain come down. We were parked under a huge veranda so it was nice to have all the windows and hatches open and enjoy the cool breeze and not get wet.

Avila

We had sourced a place to park in Avila close to the town, a really large car park. We had even taken the trouble to google earth it to check it out but we had not foreseen the horse-riding event that was taking place which took up four fifths of the car parking space. Luckily a couple of spaces were still available and we had a place for the rest of the day and night.

Avila is a unique place as the walls around the old town are still intact. Unfortunately as we drove in it was cloudy and raining not making for good photos. We visited the town late in the afternoon when the rain stopped and the clouds moved on.

Upon our return to the carpark the first thing we noticed was a barrier to stop people coming in as it was full but this was no deterrent and people kept coming in the exit looking for a park, even many motorhomes. All who came in had a look, had to turn around, difficult manoeuvres for many and left again. This gave us some entertainment for a while and we were glad to have arrived when we did.

Segovia

Sunday morning and the carpark was quiet with most of the cars gone leaving about 8 motorhomes.
The roads were very quiet and we reached Segovia mid-morning finding a carpark near to the old town. Our sources said we could stay here the night but it was not a very appealing place and near to the road but very handy for our visit.

Segovia turned out to be a very interesting place with plenty to see including the world’s most intact aqueduct, a castle, a magnificent church and other interesting buildings. When we first arrived we had coffee and cake near the main square, we normally share a cake but they looked so good that we had one each. When we went to look at the castle the price to get in was only 5 euros and we were glad we did as it was very much intact and had many room displays to view.

For lunch we dropped into a local bar/café where we ordered 2 combination meals thinking that they were only small dishes. We were wrong and with a couple of icy cold beers we were very full. After spending 5 hours in the town and seeing plenty we headed back to the carpark and moved to our overnight spot, next to the towns’ bull ring. A free place, very quiet and with the bull ring as the view alongside about 6 other motorhomes. We had another quiet night and after another slow start we filled our water and emptied the toilet. An unusual, setup the services were hidden away neatly which were not immediately easy to find, set into the ground with covers over the top.

Onwards towards Madrid

We headed on the road to Madrid over some mountains and then back on the plains. The place we had sourced was a motorhome friendly carpark on the edge of town. When we arrived there was about 12 motorhomes parked, some seemed to have been there a long time. The location was near a shopping centre and the car park was parking of a hostel for people with disabilities. There was no signage indicating the parking times or any stipulations for the use and it had plenty of room, no one seemed to mind us being there. It was a 10 minute walk to the metro station and for a 2 euros each ticket it took us 30 minutes and one line change to the centre of Madrid.
More of Madrid in the next blog.

Back to the “Home Page”

Follow our Travels “Trip Map of 2015”