Bye Bye Madrid. Today, Rosie and The Operator are driving to Porto in Portugal. It’s a 5 and a half hour drive with a couple of stops along the way in Ciudad Rodrigo and at the Santuario de Nossa Senhora dos Remedios in Lamego. Its a big day so we are hitting the road nice and early!
Our car has been parked in our apartments parking garage all ready for our 0700am start. We would rather pay for an extra full days cheap rental and be able to be off early in the morning than wait for the rental office to open at 1000am or backtrack to the airport and collect a car on the day we leave.
Now fingers crossed nobody has parked in front of us in the garage. The parking garage for the apartments is tiny…first in first served and not enough single spaces for everyone’s car…so, if all of the parks are full, its perfectly legit for another car to park in front of you, effectively blocking you in.
…..as long as you leave your handbrake off and a wedge under your tyre so the person you have parked in front of can roll the offending car away so you can get your car out. Then you roll the car back to where you found it and re wedge it. Serious!
The Operator was lucky to park when most of the garage was empty….he thought long and hard about where he was going to park much to the bemusement of the apartment manager who didn’t think their system was a problem. The Operator chose a great spot where we couldn’t be blocked in and could get out nice and easy. Now to call the lift for the car. We have never done that before!
Driving along the empty motorway the Spanish landscape was as flat as the eye could see, interspersed with brown dry plains of harvested crops and then green lush areas of grazing horses and cattle. The houses clustered in small villages were boxy, simple and crumbling, made of stone the colour of the earth, always with a huge church bell tower hovering over the rooftops.
Ciudad Rodrigo was our first stop of the day to stretch our legs and get our first coffee fix of the morning.
This small fortified town of 12,000 sits perched on a rocky outcrop looking down over the Agueda River. The town, founded in the 12th century was a key border fortress back in the day on the road between Salamanca and Portugal. This position made it extremely important in the middle years of the Napoleonic Peninsular War and is well known for the great battle where the Duke of Wellington breached the walls by cannon fire and took the besieged city in 1812 after 10 days of bloody fighting.
This town is a sleepy hollow full of fading glamour and crumbling riches from an earlier time. Remarkable majestic buildings line the streets of a town inhabited by the elderly who open late in the morning and barely offer a smile.
The streets were eerily quiet as we walked around the town and the brown sandstone buildings merged with the brown countryside in the golden mid morning light.
Rosie and The Operator wandered along half of the 2 kilometer 12th century defense walls that still surround the town, stretching to peep over the top or bending to look through a window/cannon hole in the wall.
An abandoned bull fighting arena lay in the shadows of the walls alongside other closed, overgrown yards of industry.
The Roman Bridge glinted in the sunshine and it was a nice quiet stroll to stretch the legs before we hopped back in the car.
The only noise being made in this town were from the birds….The Operator thinks they are storks. Huge long legged birds with massive unruly twiggy nests. See below on top of the turret, the birds were nesting on top of everything in this town and they all seemed to be calling one another in a bizarre guttural beak clattering way.
Leaving Spain, the land and the countryside changed so dramatically when we crossed the invisible border to Portugal. So did the rules of driving in this new country. We needed to register our car as being in Portugal as soon as we crossed the border. We could do this quickly and electronically by pulling into a toll bay and not even getting out of our car.
Punching in our details through the car window, a camera then took a photo of our number plate to go with our information, a sticker was spat out which we put on the windscreen and voila. Our car would now be recognized by Big Brother in Portugal and more importantly to them….our credit card was all set to receive the automatic toll fees that we had just agreed to pay as we travel through the country. It was all very painless and efficient!
This is Lamego, we pulled into a carpark here because Rosie was hot and wanted to peel a layer of clothing off. The Operator got out of the car and did a lap around the car park to stretch his legs. He came back and said to Rosie….I think you will want to see this.
Oh yes, yes indeed. Another beautifully well kept European graveyard which was just astounding in its beauty. We didnt have much time to wander around as time was short today and Rosie was on a Pilgrimage.
Yes, Rosie is on the pilgrim trail. She has always had dreams of doing a Spanish Pilgrim Walk, but never really fancied the extended multi day walking part. Today Rosie can realize the dream of being a Holy Pilgrim and all she has to do is climb 686 steps up to the Sancturio de Nossa Senhora dos Remedios (Shrine of our Lady of Remedies) in Lamego in Portugal.
This is where it all starts, on the edge of the town center looking down the avenue into Lamego, spin around and you are looking towards the goal of the Santurio, perched high on the hill.
The staircase that leads up to the church is part of the Pilgrim walk that extends the length of Spain and Portugal to reach The Saint James Way and its final destination, the Holy church of Santiago de Compostela in Northern Spain.
It’s a damn hot spring day in the full sun as Rosie and The Operator start climbing the staircase, Rosie is feeling the Holy Spirit the higher she ascends….The Operator reckons its more like lack of lunch and dehydration.
On the way there are plenty of rest stops on the various landings that look back over the town below. As we walk across the landings to start the ascent on the next set of staircases there are huge beautiful, blue hand painted murals made of tiles outlining the story of the revelation to Mary she was going to give birth.
The tiles are so detailed and delicate looking and make for a great place to stop and catch your breath. Mind you, there are no seats on the landings…a Pilgrim isn’t supposed to stop and rest on such a short journey me thinks.
As the church got closer and closer the higher we climbed, it just got more and more beautiful. Rosie is so glad she took this wee detour, it is a real gem of a stop.
At the top, the view back over Lamego and the countryside was spectacular!
The sun was at its highest and hottest point of the day and Rosie took refuge in the cool church to cool off and reflect on my small achievement and all those over the hundreds of years that have gone before me. Thank goodness I wasn’t walking the rest of the way to the top of Spain!
As we drive on, deeper into Portugal the landscape becomes rolling, more fertile, cultivated and green. Terraces have been cut into the hillsides that get the all day sun and grapes were cascading down these hillsides from which the famous wines and ports of this country will be made from. Welcome to the Douro Valley.
It was a fabulous drive and we were excited to reach Porto, park, and meet Antonio our OTT amazing, crazy and incredible apartment host. He was just fab and told us totally everything we should know about his city and where to go and what to do just like a local!
His mama cleaned the apartment, which was spotless, and she had baked us a delicious welcome chocolate cake. Plus, his papa brews his own Port and left us a welcome bottle of that too!
After the long drive, we went out for a quiet dinner nearby and then had the chocolate cake on the balcony looking over the rooftops and listening to the squawking wheeling seagulls while Rosie re acquainted herself with the famous Portuguese beverage she has not partaken in for the last twenty years due to one night of overindulgence long ago.
Well, Rosie can say, papas port was delicious, Rosie is back on the horse and as for mamas chocolate cake, it was sublime! Tomorrow we head out and explore Porto, Rosie is already wishing she had booked more time here, it looks amazing!
