Castile – RV Travels in Europe and North America

October 10, 2018 Casceres SP

Decisions get made for you sometimes. One of our bucket list items for this trip was to visit the Alhambra in Granada. We finally felt close enough to look at buying a ticket as you must buy in advance. So when Ron logged on to the site there was only one day left in the entire month, so now we have to be at the Alhambra on October 15. So all our thoughts of heading to Galicia, or Portugal were over and we had to head south.

That being decided for us we decided to go ahead and get to Seville straight away. It was a bit of stretch for one day so we picked Casceres based on it being about 60% of the way to Seville. We drove for about 4 hours on really good freeways thru some very open plains. We also passed thru a substantial mountain range with passes at 4000 feet called the Sierra de Gredos.

The old city Casceres is a UNESCO world heritage site, due to its well preserved mixture of Romanesque, Gothic, and Baroque buildings. It also has seven towers in place that were put built by the Moors when they conquered Spain.

After checking into the campground we took the city bus to downtown, and eventually found the old town. You can see why it has been a fort since Roman times as it really sits in a commanding position over the surrounding countryside. The area is well preserved, though a modern vibrant city has sprung up around it.

The Plaza right outside the old town. We were tempted by the low prices, but opted for a good nights sleep, as dinner did not start until 830pm.

An example of Romanesque architecture with some Baroque influences.

We enjoyed walking around and taking in the sites for a couple of hours. Both of us are still feeling under the weather so in the end we called it an early night and headed back for hopefully a good sleep.

Pigs being fattened up to make Jamon (ham)under the walls of Carceres.

October 9, 2018 Tordesillas SP

Today we left the land of Pintxo (Basque) and entered the land of Tapas (Spanish). We stopped in two towns today. The first town was a planned stop to see some things we were interested in, and the second was picked based on it being a good distance to drive, with a decent place to sleep.

We spent a noisy night in the parking lot of a Leclerc grocery store in Soria. The store was located in a kind of industrial park, and had a lot of truck traffic going by. Both of us have a bit of a bug so neither one of us slept very well between being sick and the noise of the traffic all night.

Our plan for the day was to head for the town of Aranda de Duero. It is another old fortified town with a bunch of caves under it that were originally for defense of the town, but have recently been converted to wine production. The drive from Soria was easy, in general the roads in Spain are a little wider and a little straighter than France, and this results in quicker and easier trips between towns. We arrived a little before noon, found the aire and headed into town to check it out. After a quick stop at the visitors center we headed off to a Bodega that also had a cave under it that we could tour. We arrived at the Bodega at the same time as a Danish couple so we went on the tour together. When the tour was done we walked around town, and decided we had seen enough of Aranda. As it was still early we decided to drive a couple more hours.

After some research we picked the town of Tordesillas based on it being the distance we wanted to drive with a good place to sleep for the night. Our intention was to get to the campground early, and take it easy for the rest of the night. But as we pulled in the town looked interesting, and the restaurant was offering a great deal on a Asada (meat) platter for two. So we ended up walking into the town to admire the churches, and having probably our best meal so far in Spain. It was a very nice ending to the day. During the meal we ended up talking to a Dutch/English couple who raved about Portugal. We are getting really tempted to visit.

Ton really likes these trees, we think these are Spanish evergreen oaks.

October 10, 2018 Casceres SP

The old city Casceres is a UNESCO world heritage site, due to its well preserved mixture of Romanesque, Gothic, and Baroque buildings. It also has seven towers in place that were built by the Moors when they conquered Spain.

Pigs being fattended up to make Jamon (ham)under the walls of Carceres.

October 9, 2018 Tordesillas SP

Our plan for the day was to head for the town of Aranda de Duero. It is another old fortified town with a bunch of caves under it that were originally for defense of the town, but have recently been converted to wine production. The drive from Soria was easy, in general the roads in Spain are a little wider and a little straighter than France, and this results in quicker and easier trips between towns. We arrived a little before noon, found the aire for the town and headed into town to check it out. After a quick stop at the visitors center we headed off to a Bodega that also had a cave under it that we could tour. We arrived at the Bodega at the same time as a Danish couple so we went on the tour together. When the tour was done we walked around town, and decided we had seen enough of Aranda. As it was still early we decided to drive a couple more hours.