Tallinn, Christmas Market

One of Micky’s important little jobs on our trips away is to get up early, go for a walk and bring back a full weather report and assessment for the day ahead but without him no one else was prepared to accept the responsibility so we had to rely instead on the view from the bedroom window and when I woke and looked out it was still dark and although there was no snow there was no mistaking the rawness of a below zero cold Baltic morning.

The hotel breakfast was a lavish affair with a choice of continental or full English, or both if we were hungry enough!  Plenty of hot tea, sausage, egg and bacon, croissants, toast, cheese, ham and a variety of pickled fishes for those who were feeling adventurous.  We all ate as much as we could and when we were full we left and assembled together ten minutes later for the short walk into town.

On account of the grey skies we wrapped up in an appropriate way to tackle the bleak weather and set off for the old town and we retraced our steps from the previous night and repeated our visits to the viewing platforms overlooking the Baltic and the islands.  With one of the most completely preserved medieval cities in Europe, the seacoast capital of Tallinn is a rare jewel in the north of Europe and a precious city on the UNESCO World Heritage List.  It was once a medieval Hanseatic town and for long periods in history dominated by the Germans, the Swedes and the Russians and even today contains lots of influence from those days but as we walked we could tell that there was a uniqueness to the place, a bit like Riga but at only roughly half the size certainly very different.

Tallinn is a city with a long and proud tradition dating back to the medieval times and it was first recorded on a world map in 1154, although the first fortress was built on Toompea in 1050. In 1219, Valdemar II of Denmark conquered the city, but it was soon sold to the Hanseatic League in 1285. After joining the League Tallinn enjoyed unprecedented prosperity because its position as a port, a link between mainland Europe and Russia, enabled it to grow rapidly in size and wealth and many of the City’s finest buildings were constructed during this period.  This lasted until the sixteenth century when Sweden moved in and claimed the city and during this time of Swedish rule more fortifications were added and the architecture took on the baroque style of the times.

Just like the previous evening we were confused about how to find our way to the centre of the city not least because where we were was an elevated spot with limited access to the streets of the old town.  We wandered about and corrected ourselves a couple of times before finally walking through a medieval entrance to the city and descending steps behind the city walls before finding ourselves finally at the Raekoja Plats, the Town Hall Square.

Here, in the middle of the town we had reached our objective because since 2001, from December through to the end of the first week in January, Tallinn hosts a traditional Christmas market.  This is appropriate because (although this is disputed, especially in Northern Germany) the picturesque Town Hall Square is claimed to be the site of the world’s first Christmas tree, which formed part of a ritual begun in 1441, when unmarried merchants sang and danced with the town’s girls around a tree, which, when they had had enough fun and drink they then burned down.  This would be a bit like Spalding on New Year’s Eve if the tree was taken down in the afternoon.

Today the market is included in the Times newspaper top twenty European Christmas markets and here in the square there were more than fifty wooden huts and stalls where visitors and locals were being tempted by (traditional? well maybe) artisan products from all over Estonia. Surrounding an enormous Christmas tree hung with lights and decorations, the vendors were selling a variety of original products including woolens, felted wool hats and slippers, buckwheat pillows, wooden bowls, wickerwork, elaborate quilts, ceramic and glassware, homemade candles, wreaths and other decorations.  Traditional Estonian holiday food was also on the menu such as sauerkraut and blood sausages, hot soups, stir-fries and other seasonal treats such as gingerbread, marzipan, various local honeys, cookies and, best of all, hot mulled wine poured from copious wooden barrels.

We stopped for a drink and paid over the odds in a restaurant on the edge of the square and then left and walked through the market towards the south side of town.  Here there were men and women dressed in medieval costume handing out lucky coins and trying to encourage us to dine in this or that particular restaurant.  Some of us thought there must be a twist involved and fearing an obligation refused to accept the coins but Kim and I took a chance on a con and took ours and it was all completely innocent of course.

 Actually it was approaching lunchtime and therefore, because of the nervousness of finding somewhere that Sue and Christine would approve of, a potential crisis time in a new country with unfamiliar cuisine.  Without Micky the anxiety was all mine and weighed heavily because traditional Estonian Cuisine has developed over centuries with Germanic and Scandinavian influences and some of it is not for the faint hearted and certainly wouldn’t suit Sue’s delicate dining preferences.  For a girl who turned her nose up at a plain fish salad in Portugal I was certain that she wouldn’t like sült, a sort of jellied meat dish made from pork bones, trotters and heads, or the marinated eel, Baltic sprats, sauerkraut stew or even the Christmas specialty of verivorst or blood sausage.   There was no real need to worry however because although Estonians speak fondly of their traditional food they are no more likely to eat it on a regular basis than in England we are to order pease pudding, jellied eels or brawn and the according to the menu boards displayed outside the pubs and restaurants had a good selection of acceptable offerings.

Tallinn, Estonia

This year we have spent a lot of time in Western Europe and especially Spain but in December it is time to go East and visit a Christmas market and despite being disappointed in previous years on visits to Slovenia and Austria, which had been full of cheap trash from the far east, we remembered that the market in Riga in Latvia had been very good so we chose to return this year to the Baltic.  Having visited Riga several times in recent years we looked this time for an alternative destination and settled on Tallinn in Estonia.

When the Baltic States of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia made their accession into the European Union in 2004, few people were even remotely aware of where the mysterious sounding capital cities of Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn actually were.  Up until the end of the 1980s, and the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, these countries were subsumed in any World Atlas into the smear of scarlet that represented the USSR and these once great cities had been hidden behind the Iron Curtain for so long that they had disappeared from the consciousness of many of their Western neighbours.

Even after they were restored to independence the view of most people was that many years under the jackboot of communism rendered them greyer than an Old Trafford sky on the first day of an Ashes Test Match and they didn’t feature on many travel itineraries.   But Estonia has caught up quickly, it has more internet access than any other EU country, is the birthplace of the internet application Skype and in 2009 it was ranked sixth in the Press Freedom Index, which is an annual ranking of countries, compiled and published by ‘Reporters without Borders’ based upon an assessment of press freedom records.

http://www.skype.com/intl/en-gb/

Estonia is located in the North East of Europe (the most Northerly of the three Baltic States) and South of the Gulf of Finland, which separates the country from Scandinavia. It has nearly four thousand kilometres of coastline and one thousand, five hundred and twenty islands in the Baltic Sea. It is one of the smallest countries in Europe (148th in the world), and although it is larger than both Belgium and the Netherlands the population is a little over 1.3 million.

Whilst Estonia is a member state of the European Union it hasn’t met the economic criteria to join the Eurozone and this is a country that makes financial transactions in thousands rather than tens of units so for the first time since Croatia in June we had a wallet full of unfamiliar notes and were enjoying the self deception of feeling like millionaires.  The currency is the Krone and is represented as Eeks so Christine was probably going to have more fun than usual!

It was a mid afternoon flight to Tallinn, which meant with the two-hour time difference that we didn’t arrive in Estonia until just after seven o’clock.  Because we were flying due east we had flown deep into the night and once outside the cabin there was an icy blast from a spiteful wind that was blowing sub-zero temperatures around the Lennart Meri Airport (named after the second President of the Republic) that made us securely fasten our jackets and pull our hats down over our ears.

Thankfully it didn’t take long to get through passport control and the attentive police sniffer dog and make our way outside of the small airport building to find the best way of getting into the city.  It wasn’t any warmer outside the arrivals hall as the wind forced its way under the canopies and sent the cold air searching into every corner.  As we wanted to get there as quickly as possible it was a bit late to queue for a bus so on this occasion we broke one of our normal travelling rules and took a taxi for the four kilometre journey to the city and to our hotel the Von Stackelberg just on the edge of the old town.  Two taxis for the eight of us because this was a holiday club trip, which was sadly one member short because Micky had had to cancel due to family business.  Fellow founder members Sue and Christine were in the group and so were Mike and Margaret who had been with us before (Salzburg) and there were two new faces this time, Mike and Helene.

Our Taxi driver understood and spoke perfect English and he gave us a brief history of the city and the tourist industry, made some dining recommendations and gave us a weather forecast all in the space of fifteen minutes until we arrived at the hotel.  The Von Stackelberg was an old building that had been completely refurbished and the reception was cozy with a bright modern style.  After a complimentary drink we found our superior Zen room on the third floor and were delighted with the view from the window of the city and the floodlit castle.  Although it was cold outside the room was warm and comfortable and so too  was the basement bar and restaurant where we reassembled together after a few minutes of unpacking for a first drink in Estonia.

The waitress was keen that we order food but we didn’t have time for that because we wanted to go to the city for the market and some sightseeing so we explained this to her as best we could and then set off into town on foot.  We passed underneath the floodlit walls of the Toompea Castle, the home of the Estonian Parliament, and then below the tower of the Aleksander Nevski Russian Orthodox Cathedral and on to an elevated part of the town where there were viewing platforms that looked out over the northern half of the old town, the city port and the Gulf of Finland beyond that.  It was half past nine and the place was strangely deserted, perhaps because it was Sunday or maybe because it was just so cold but there were no signs of any restaurants and as we weren’t sure just how to get to the middle of the old town we worried about running out of time so all agreed that we should return to the hotel and eat there.  A couple of years ago we arrived late on a Sunday night in Riga and everywhere was closed like this so this seemed like a good idea.

Back at the Von Stackelberg the friendly waitress in the black uniform that matched the contemporary hotel décor was pleased to see us and after preparing a table took our orders and served us with beer and wine.  The food didn’t take long to come and it was tasty and filling and we congratulated ourselves on a good decision to return to the warmth of the hotel basement rather that wander about aimlessly in the chilly back streets and alleys of Tallinn old town.

Salamanca and Valladolid

We arrived in the UNESCO World Heritage city of Salamanca just after midday, easily slipped into an underground car park and made our way into the city.  On every visit to Spain I seem to be visiting a new World Heritage Site so when I counted them up I was interested to discover that I have now been to sixteen and that is over a third of them.  In 2005 I visited Barcelona in Catalonia and saw the works of Antoni Gaudi and Palau de la Música Catalana and the Hospital de Sant Pau. Then in 2008 I saw the Historic Centre of Córdoba,  the  Caves of Altamira in Cantabria, the Old Town of Santiago de Compostela and the Cathedral, Alcázar and Archivo de Indias in Seville.  In 2009 in the motoring holiday around Castilian cities I visited the Old Town of Segovia and its Aqueduct, the Historic Walled Town of Cuenca, the Historic City of Toledo and the Old Town of Ávila.  

It was still misty even though the sun was struggling to break through and we walked through cobbled streets and buildings of rich caramel coloured Villamayor stone directly to the centre of the city.  Then around the University buildings and visited the public library and after that the centre of the city and the inevitable Plaza Mayor where because it was too chilly to sit at a pavement café groups of men were wandering around deep in conversation discussing the important matters of the day.  It was a good Plaza, not the best, but still worth a visit and when we had finished admiring it we left through a stone arch and looked for a bar and somewhere for lunch and we found what we were looking for just outside the square so stopped for tapas and a beer.

As we ate an old lady passed by selling sprigs of rosemary and I didn’t know why until later when I looked it up.  Rosemary, apparently, is widely thought to be a powerful guardian and to give power to women and is therefore it is used by many people to ward off evil in the home and bring good guck in family Matters. If I had known this at the time I might have bought some to see if it might improve the weather because the mist wasn’t shifting when we left and went to visit the cathedral.

I should say cathedrals because Salamanca has two, an old one and a new one that are joined together into one massive structure.  We paid €3.50 each for tickets to visit and then commenced a tour of the towers and the balconies that involved an awful lot of spiral staircases.  It was a spectacular building and well worth the money but it was a pity about the weather because the drab overcast sky and persistent patches of mist spoilt what would certainly have been spectacular views from the top.

After the visit we returned to the streets and walked to the 1^st Century Roman Bridge across the River Tormes, which was flowing west towards the Embalse de Almendra that we had visited yesterday and then we abandoned Salamanca to the mist and returned to the car.

Leaving the city we joined the Autovia de Castilla for the one hundred and twenty kilometre journey back to Valladolid.  It was too early to go straight back to the airport so shortly after crossing the Douro for the final time and as we were passing it seemed impolite not to visit the city so we left the motorway and headed for the centre.  Valladolid is a sprawling industrial city, the tenth largest in Spain and does not feature on many tourist itineraries even though it was the city where Christopher Columbus spent his last years and died.  For a big city there was surprisingly little traffic and we followed signs to the centre and the Plaza Mayor and made our way to a convenient underground car park right below the main square.

It was late afternoon and predictably after failing to make an appearance all day the sun was breaking through now and this was good because the expansive Plaza was really very attractive and all decorated and carefully colour coordinated in various complimentary shades of crimson red and the sun settling down low in the west made the whole place feel warm and hospitable.  There was just time to walk the main shopping street, admire some fine art nouveau buildings and have a snack and a drink in a café in the Plaza before it was time to go and return to the airport.  We felt a bit rude leaving so quickly but if we fly again to Valladolid we shall pay it the courtesy of staying longer.

Back at the airport we returned the car, Kim thrashed me at cards again while we waited for departure, the flight was on time and soon we were back in the United Kingdom and on our way home and as we drove along the M11 and A14 we reflected on what had been three excellent November days in Castilla y Leon.

Sierra de Francia in the Gredos Mountains

Actually as it turned out it would have been a whole lot better if the wind had continued to blow because when we woke in the morning there was a thick mist and the city was completely obscured from view from the hotel windows.  It was all rather spooky but above it we could make out pale blue sky so this made us more confident than we really had a right to be about the day.

After breakfast it was still misty so we were forced to abandon our plans to return to Ciudad Rodrigo for blue-sky photographs and set off instead to visit the historical city of Salamanca.  Because it was earlier than we had anticipated we decided to take a scenic route rather than the direst Autovia de Castilla.  Leaving the city for the last time we took the road signposted towards Béjar in a southeasterly direction towards the Gredos mountains and in particular the Sierra de Francia, one of the ranges belonging to the Sistema Central, the mountain range that separates Spain in two.

At first the road was long and straight as it cut through a flat landscape of livestock farms and woods that were slowly beginning to emerge from the swirling mists of a November morning.  As we drove through a succession of quiet towns the sun began to poke through and the sky started to turn blue.  After a while we hit the edge of a national park with pine covered mountain slopes and then deciduous woods of alder, oak, pine and ash in splendid autumn finery that made it look like a field of gold.  The road became more difficult as we entered a series of hairpin bends with glorious views over the valleys and mountain passes below. 

I had miscalculated the driving distance towards our turn for Salamanca and we seemed to keep going forever but the journey and the scenery was magnificent and another valuable Spanish geography lesson.  Eventually we reached the road juction we were heading for and turned northeast towards Salamanca.  At first the road continued to twist and turn but after a few kilometres we dropped quickly back down to open range and the agricultural plain and started  to pick up speed and make good progress.

 We drove through fields of grazing avileña negra ibérica cattle, jet black and with nasty looking horns and occassional blanca cacereña, white and apparantly endangered but good meat.  Flocks of sheep enjoying good quality grazing grass and oak planations with Black Iberian Pigs gorging themselves on acorns in preparation for being turned into the Spanish gastro speciality Jamón ibérico.  We were enjoying good weather now but after about thirty kilometres we ran into a thick bank of fog that blotted out the sun and didn’t shift all the way into Salamanca.

 

Castilla y Leon – Rivers, Dams and Lakes

After a while it became clear that we were going in the wrong direction so after consulting the map we turned around and took a turning that we had previously missed and suddenly we had found the Embalse de Almendra, a huge cobalt blue reservoir with the waters held back by an enormous concrete dam.  The reservoir behind the dam covers eighty six square kilometres and contains two and a half billion cubic metres of water. The dam itself is more than half a kilometre wide and as a height of two hundred metres and was one of General Franco’s major engineering projects.  It was strangely quiet and felt almost abandoned and it clearly had not been working for quite some time because the water levels were so low so I suppose that on account of this there was no need to have any staff on duty.

I had begun to suspect that this was not the glacial lake that we had been seeking, firstly because we were still in the Province of Salamanca when we should have been in Zamora and then because the lake we were looking for was a natural feature and this one clearly wasn’t.  This didn’t really matter because it was serene and beautiful, the sun was shining and the big white clouds reflected in the lake made the sky look the starting line of a sailing boat regatta and the beauty of this place confirmed that behind the ugly concrete coastal strip Spain is a remarkably diverse and stunning country.

The time was getting on now and we were hungry and thirsty so we started on the way back to Ciudad Rodrigo via Trabanca, Vitigudino and Lumbrales but there was nowhere to stop and this was the first time that I can remember that I have driven three hundred kilometres in one day without finding a single shop, café or bar that was open along the way.  Just south of Lumrbrales we stopped at the little village of San Felices de Los Gallegos where there was a castle that predictably wasn’t open but there were some nice views across the open fields and a pleasant walk around the sleepy streets and then we returned directly to Ciudad Rodrigo.

We arrived back at about four o’clock and went straight to the bar Arcos and sat at a pavement table with the first beer of the day and a couple of dishes of tapas and then we walked for a while around those parts of the wall we hadn’t seen two days previously and there was a good finish to the day when the wind dropped away completely, the clouds stopped coming in and the sky turned a luxurious late afternoon blue.  That night we ate at the Hotel Conde Rodrigo again and enjoyed another fine meal and when we returned to the hotel the sky was clear and punctuated with stars and we were confident of more sun in the morning.

Arribes del Douro y Águeda National Park

In the morning there was a huge improvement in the weather and as we sat by ourselves in the breakfast room sunlight flooded in through the large windows so we finished quickly so that we could start our drive north towards the glacial lakes of the Zamora Province.

To begin with we took a long straight road from Ciudad Rodrigo towards the town of Lumbrales and we scanned the sky nervously as it changed frequently from clear blue to patchy cloud to overcast and back again.  Once through the unremarkable little town we entered the Arribes del Douro y Águeda National Park and although the road was straight we were climbing steadily all of the time and eventually we found ourselves in an elevated position above the clouds and that is the first time I can remember doing that since I went to the top of Mount Teide in 1989 on the island of Tenerife.  Eventually we arrived in the border town of La Fregenada and then the road descended quickly and steeply through a succession of hairpin bends down towards the Douro and the border with Portugal.  The scenery was dramatic as we clung to the side of the mountain and dropped into the bottom of the narrow river valley and once at the bottom crossed the Águeda into Portugal at the same place as it flowed into the Douro.

We drove into the Portuguese town of Barca de Alva and turned north to follow the river on the edge of the National Park.  The sun was shining now and the river looked splendid as it reflected the golden yellow of the last of the leaves clinging to the trees and we followed a twisting road for a few kilometres stopping every so often to admire the views.  For one hundred and twelve kilometres the river forms part of the national border between Spain and Portugal and is a region of steeply sloping mountains and narrow canyons making it an historical barrier for invasions and a linguistic dividing line between two nations.  This was a scenic and dramatic part of the journey, across the river in Spain the river valley was heavily wooded, green and verdant but on the Portuguese side it was carefully managed with fields of olive trees and vines for growing grapes for port wine. 

The Douro is one of the most important rivers of the peninsula and has been regularly dammed to provide hydro electricity for both Spain and Portugal.  After about fifteen kilometres we arrived at one of these the Barragem de Saucelle and crossed over it back into Spain stopping at a tourist information centre that was glad to see someone and asking for directions along the way.  The dam forms part of the hydroelectric system known as the Duero Drops, along with the Castro, Ricobayo, Suacelle and Villalcampo dams of Spain, and the Bemposta, Miranda and Picote dams of neighbouring Portugal.

From the river their was a long climb to the top of the ravine using long raking hairpin bends with magnificent views at every twist and then once at the top the road levelled out and we took a direct route through the National Park towards the town of Saucelle.  This was different again, with lush green fields, wild animals and dry stonewalls that made it reminiscent of the Peak District or Bodmin Moor.  After Saucelle we continued to Barruecopardo where we thankfully came across a tiny garage and bought some fuel and then struck north again through the park heading for the river and the lakes.

We drove a long time without finding either through a succession of dusty little towns that weren’t expecting visitors at this time of the year and the men on street corners watched with interest as we threaded our way along the route towards our objective.  We drove through the towns of Trabanca and Almendra and caught glimpses of water through the trees but it was clear that the water level was very low and there were lots of fields that should be submerged but instead were green and lush and strewn with boulder debris and interesting rock formations.

A Washout in Portugal

It was only a short journey along the Autovia de Castilla and within half an hour we were crossing the border into Portugal.  We hadn’t brought our passports with us but this wasn’t a problem and at the border checkpoint we were waved through by the border guards who were more interested in the freight lorries that were passing through.  We were heading for the city of Guarda, about thirty kilometres away, but the closer we got the worse the weather became and by the time we arrived the city was completely obscured by grey clouds and drenching rain so we carried on by and continued our drive through a gloriously wooded ravine with spectacular views on both sides.  We were heading for the town of Covilhã but as this is one of the highest towns in all of Portugal there was no sign of any improvement in the weather as we drove into the clouds and we really didn’t fancy wandering around in the rain so we turned the car around and returned to Spain.

As we approached the border the weather started to improve and as we crossed through the clouds opened like curtains and shards of sunlight broke through again and for a few kilometres we drove in bright sunshine again and we were pleased to see the black disappearing in the rear view mirror as we returned to Ciudad Rodrigo.  On the way we stopped at a curious roadside supermarket, which turned out not to have the things we really wanted but did have an interesting section selling rifles and ammunition.

The sun didn’t last long and when we returned the sky was a milky white and it was quite cool so a little later than planned we looked for somewhere for lunch.  This wasn’t easy because it was mid afternoon siesta time so there was not a lot of choice but we found a small place down a side street that was still open where we had some tapas dishes and a cerveza.

After lunch we walked around the honey coloured streets but we had to concede that the fine weather had given up for the day and with cloud thickening all the time in what was becoming a very dreary sky we returned to the hotel where we had a drink in the bar, Kim thrashed me at cards and watched a massive rain storm that made us glad to be inside.

For evening meal we went to the Hotel Conde Rodrigo.  It wasn’t open at eight o’clock when we arrived and they told us to come back in half an hour.  It didn’t look very busy and I think they rather hoped that we either wouldn’t bother or alternatively would find somewhere else instead.  But we weren’t going to be put off that easily so after a drink in the Plaza Mayor we returned and were indeed the only customers in the place.  We were glad however that we hadn’t been diverted because the hotel served an excellent menu del dia and at a very reasonable price.

In the night it rained heavily again and there was a dramatic electrical storm and in the early hours of the morning we were worried that prospects didn’t look good for the next day.

Ciudad Rodrigo

As a consequence of a severe Atlantic storm we woke to a hissing wind and dark scowling clouds that the mountains of Portugal had failed to detain storming in from the west.  It was mean and moody but there was no rain so that was a bonus.  From the hotel balcony it was possible to appreciate just what a land of contrasts Spain really is.  This was about as far away from the traditional view of Spain of the holiday brochures as it is possible to get and it was different to from our visit the previous month to Castilla-la Mancha.  Here we were getting close towards green Spain in the north with more small farms, livestock, deciduous woods, fast flowing rivers and Portugal just twenty-five kilometres away, which was where we planned to visit later.

Breakfast was a simple affair and as we were the only people in the breakfast room it soon became clear that we were the only two guests in the hotel.  Afterwards we dressed appropriately and took the walk alongside the river and into Ciudad Rodrigo.  The sky was blue but filling up with dark purple clouds with occasional shafts of sunlight darting through.  There was a spiteful wind that stung our ears and although it was a nice walk it was along a very muddy path and we were glad that we hadn’t attempted it last night in the dark.

The path took us along the Rio Águeda, which is a two hundred and fifty kilometre long river which begins to the south in the Sierra de la Mesas, near the Portuguese border and flows through Ciudad Rodrigo and after serving as the border with Portugal for its final few kilometres joins the Douro at Barca d’Alva to the north. 

As we climbed the outside of the city walls the wind strengthened and thankfully scattered the black clouds somewhere towards Salamanca to the east and they were replaced with friendlier white cotton wool ball clouds that raced in to take their place.  We entered the city through the western gate cut into the fortifications and entered a charming place overflowing with history and character.

This place reminded me of the Richard Sharpe stories of the Peninsular War.  In January 1812 Ciudad Rodrigo was besieged by the British Army under Wellington and held out for two weeks before the French forces surrendered.  Ciudad Rodrigo was strategically important because it guarded the northern route into Spain for an invading army but it was only a second class fortress with a ten metre high main wall built of inferior masonry, without flanks, and with weak parapets and narrow ramparts.  After the fall of the city the Allied troops disgraced themselves by the wanton sacking of Ciudad Rodrigo when many homes were broken into, property vandalised or stolen, Spanish civilians of all ages and backgrounds killed or raped, and many officers were shot by the men they were trying to bring to order.

It was quiet enough today however and once inside the walls we walked to the castle, which predictably is now a Parador hotel, had a look inside and then walked around a part of the walls.  A few spots of rain forced us down into the city, past the cathedral and into a tourist information office with the heating set to an unnecessary maximum and then on to the Plaza Mayor in the centre with its warm sandstone coloured buildings, metal balconies and traditional Spanish shops and bars around all four sides.

The weather was changing by the minute and after the little shower the sky was blue with clouds that had no time to stop and spoil it because they were driven away swiftly by the wind.  It was nice enough to sit outside at a pavement café and have a drink while we planned what to do with the rest of the day.  We hadn’t seen all of Ciudad Rodrigo but we decided to leave some for another day and feeling optimistic about the weather prospects decided to go to Portugal for lunch so we returned to the hotel to pick up the car.

Castilla y Leon

A few weeks after returning from Castilla-la Mancha to the south of Madrid we were returning to Spain and this time to Castilla y Leon to the north of the capital.  We had been here in March this year to Ávila and Segovia but this time we were going further north and west, flying in to Valladolid and staying in the small city of Ciudad Rodrigo.  We had been looking forward to this because Castilla y Leon is as far away from the coastal strip as it is possible to get and is home to half of Spain’s cultural heritage sites including seven UNESCO World Heritage Sites, over two hundred castles and eleven magnificent cathedrals.  It is the birthplace of the Spanish language, which after Chinese and Hindi is the third most common language in the World just ahead of English.

We had a late morning flight and the plane took off into a crisp blue sky with scattered clouds over fresh green fields and autumn gold deciduous woods that looked as though they were lying under a generous sprinkling of brown sugar.  As we flew south the clouds increased and there was nothing to see until we began to descend toward Valladolid where they began to break into various patchy fragments and below us we could see large colourful fields, russet, grey, cream and yellow broken now and again by bottle green forests, shimmering blue lakes and occasional villages with ochre tiled roofs.

Valladolid airport is only small with limited facilities but there was a sign apologising for this and promising imminent improvements.  We collected a steel grey Seat Ibiza from the Avis rental car office and set off immediately on the two hundred-kilometre drive to Ciudad Rodrigo.

There were plenty of things to stop and see along the way but it was mid afternoon and we were in a hurry to get to our destination so we took the Autovia de Castilla and with virtually no traffic to share the road with had an easy journey all of the way. As it was Sunday and we worried about shops being open we stopped as soon as we could at a motorway service station and bought beer, wine and snacks and then carried on.   We were crossing the Meseta, the great central plain of interior Spain, which at two hundred and ten thousand square kilometres makes up forty percent of the country and has an average altitude of six hundred and fifty metres. It is split in two by the Sistema Central, the Guadarrama and Gredos mountain ranges, creating Old Castile to the north (Castilla y Leon) and New Castile to the south (Castilla La Mancha). The northern ’submeseta’ is the higher of the two at over eight hundred metres and coming from below sea level in Lincolnshire I worried that we might require oxygen cylinders.

After about half way we passed by Salamanca and we could see its golden coloured cathedrals standing proud and high above the city and after that the landscape began to change. We left behind the pretty coloured fields and entered a different environment of green fields and woodlands and more and more livestock.  After a couple of hours of really enjoyable motoring we came to Ciudad Rodrigo, which is the last city in Spain before reaching Portugal, a fortress city built to protect the western border of the country and as we approached we could see the walled city and its fortifications standing on a rocky outcrop in a commanding defensive position.

I knew roughly where the hotel Molina de Águeda was and as we kept an eye open for directions Kim had another navigational fluke and spotted a half hidden sign that signposted our destination.  As we pulled into the car park there were a few spots of rain but it came to nothing and there were blue skies above us as we unloaded the car and went inside to reception.  It was a very nice hotel indeed located in an old water mill on the river Agueda, elegantly refurbished and surrounded by woods and we had a good room on the front with a nice view of the river and the old city about a kilometre away. 

http://www.hotelmolinodelagueda.com/

We rested for an hour, drank the beer and wine and nibbled on the snacks and then prepared to go out for evening meal.  We debated whether to walk or drive and decided that driving was the preferred option so drove into the town and being unfamiliar with the street layout made a couple of attempts at parking before finally stopping and walking through one of the city gates into the old town.

It was a pleasant evening, not cold, but the sort of temperature when local people need to put on a coat, hat and scarf but shirt sleeve weather for those of us from northern Europe with thicker blood.  We needn’t have worried about finding somewhere to eat because there was plenty of choice and the place was really busy with families out for a Sunday night on the town.  We found a lively tapas bar where everyone was watching the ‘You’ve been framed’ bullfighting show that we had seen last month in Chinchón and the place was really hectic.  We were the only overseas visitors in the place but we didn’t feel uncomfortable and we found a table and ordered food.  Unfortunately they were so busy that they made a mistake with the order and we only got half of it but it didn’t matter, we weren’t especially hungry anyway and at least it made it a cheaper night out.

A Murmuration of Starlings

Starlings are not everyone’s favourites, especially in the USA,  but I like them.  They are gregarious birds, and while in the summer they live in small loose groups, during the winter months they join thousands of others into communal nighttime roosts, which can number several thousand birds, and then spend the day feeding in smaller flocks.  The sudden disappearance of the starlings in the winter is caused by summer roosting sites becoming unavailable which forces them to relocate, resulting in the temporary abandonment of some feeding areas.

In the wintertime, both resident and immigrant birds form large roosts, gathering in buildings, trees or reed beds.  The roosts often number several thousand, but those that gather in reed beds, for example in Norfolk, can number over a million birds.  As the day draws to a close, the Starlings return to the roost and before settling down for the night the increasingly large flock darkens the skies as it swirls around making patterns in the sky.  Although not in these great numbers I have seen several large flocks close to where I live and a starling flock like this is called a murmuration, a word that perfectly describes the rustle of thousands of pairs of wings. 

Starling murmurations are one of the most dazzling displays in the natural world, as a flock continually changes shape like a monchrome kaleidoscope.  The movement of the flock is a brilliant piece of choreograph and ornithologists have discovered that to be a member of a flock individual birds have to learn three simple rules: Steer to avoid crowding local flockmates (separation), steer towards the average heading of local flockmates (alignment) and steer to move toward the average position of local flockmates (cohesion).  This is called the flocking algorithm and was first worked out in 1986 and subsequently became important in the world of computer graphics and is used extensively in both developing games and making movies.

These huge winter gatherings are boosted by thousands of birds that come to Britain’s milder Atlantic climate to escape the harsh cold of the European continent, especially from Scandinavia and Russia.  There are several reasons to get together in the way they do, safety in numbers of course, information exchange (if some come back from a good feeding area others may learn of it) and warmth at night through roosting closely together. The birds feed up to twenty miles away from their winter roost but return each evening for company.