“The celebrated plateresque façades of Valladolid strike me as being, when one has recovered from the riotous shock of them, actually edible.” – Jan Morris – ‘Spain’
The road to Valladolid and Palencia was just as dreary as the previous roads through Castilla y León as we entered the Tierra de Campos, an expansive fertile and arable farmland area, over seven hundred metres above sea level and to the traveller a vast desolate plain with virtually nothing but flat fields and open sky.
The road drifted north through a succession of characterless towns and villages but for naturalist entertainment they were flanked by swaying verges decorated with wild flowers – regal purple thistles, rigid and erect, sunshine yellow low-level daisies, shy and demure and blood red poppies, showing off and bending and bowing in the breeze like obedient courtiers.
Have Bag, Will Travel 
2nd picture is pretty cool 🙂
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I agree, 2nd picture is cool but what no postcard map of the area this time? Another city I only know because of its football team, yo-yo like Real Valladolid – the Leicester city of Spanish football!
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Really cross with myself, I forgot to buy one. Strange city. I didn’t know about the football team but I see that they are another Real!
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I don’t wish to speak unkindly of the dead* but D&K guides always strike me as looking a million dollars but being irritatingly “pretty” rather like those maps of a town that have all the buildings drawn in them, like we have just descended from Mars and cannot envisage the visual difference between a church and a town hall.
Plus, like most guide books, they are usually singularly devoid of wit … and humour is a word that is not even in their lexicon.
As for castles and cathedrals: well done Kim! I told my dear wife Larissa that I am with that German general who said that every time he heard the word “culture” he reached for his revolver. She said “strike the word German and insert the word Nazi” and do not use such a disgusting quote even in jest”.
We agreed though – having done nigh on three hundred** in our 21 years of marriage – that these places are TRANSFORMED by a good audio guide (the sort of atmospheric ones produced by English Heritage), or better still by an actual person guiding us (as happened in Edinburgh Castle, Lincoln Cathedral, etc.)
Why did I enjoy Knossos much more than Pompeii? Easy. At the former we were in a guided group: at the latter I was alone.
Mind you, it is all academic these days Andrew. I cannot even safely negotiate the step up into the hallway of your home (as I showed recently!): so any kind of tour is out. Just cannot stand in one place for more than a minute, alas. And steep steps are out of the question.
Nice piece from you as always.
*One of the founders recently appeared in the obit columns.
** If we include stately homes too.
Kindest,
Dai
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I do like a splash of colour, Andrew. 🙂
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I like ALL the photos.
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