Greetings to all, and welcome to our first blog of 2022 from Europe, marking the beginning of our 5th season of travels aboard Lady M.
Crikey! . . . four seasons gone already in a flash and a blur, and one season drop-kicked to Covid-19. There is no question that “time and tide wait for no man” (Geoffrey Chaucer).
Although we were, as always, keen to get aboard Lady M, the last couple of years has taught us a few valuable lessons, including:
- don’t take your health and your freedom to travel ‘for granted’, and
- do your best to keep in touch with friends and family.
With those thoughts in mind, we chose our route from Perth to Lady M in Wessem to allow us to spend time with old friends – one couple who recently moved to Viana do Castelo on the mouth of the River Lima (about one hours’ drive north of Porto in Portugal), and the other friend living on a rural retreat near Gaucin in Andalusia (Spain). We also decided to spend three nights in Madrid on the way from Andalusia to Wessem, having never visited this famous city before.
Viana do Castelo (northern Portugal) and beyond
Our friends wouldn’t let us catch the train from Lisbon up to Porto and Viana, so we were very spoiled by them collecting us from the airport in the early afternoon. The drive up to Viana was a great way of catching up on five years of news, and also allowed us to see the changing scenery from the drier an undulating countryside around Lisbon to the greener agricultural and forested hills in the north.
Viana was once an important fishing port for the Atlantic cod fishing industry, as well as a downstream port for agriculture and stone quarrying along the Lima River, which is an important feature of the area. The Lima River is dammed by the Alto Lindoso Dam about 60km upstream in Portugal with the resulting water body straddling the border with Spain. The river valley boasts some lovely villages and some ancient and beautiful stone bridges, including those at the villages of Ponte de Lima and Ponte da Barca.
Back in Viana, and we visited the hospital ship Gil Eannes, now a museum, and the last survivor of a number of such ships which supported the dozens of Portuguese sailing ships and their thousands of fishermen who were employed in Atlantic cod fishing near Greenland and Newfoundland from the early 1900’s to the 1970’s.
Viana also has a spectacular coastline which includes beaches ranging from beautiful sand to monster pebbles and rock pools, with popular cycling and walking paths, some of which form part of the Portuguese Way path of the Camino de Santiago from Lisbon through Porto all the way to Santiago de Compostella in the north west corner of Spain.
Viana is only about 30km south of Portugal’s border with Spain on the Minho River, which enters the Atlantic at the market town of Caminha which, like many local river-side settlements, has history dating back to Roman times.
A day trip to the nearby ancient city of Braga, about 45km by road, gave us a small taste of city life in this very rural part of Portugal – lots of historical buildings, cobbled streets and plenty of great food and coffee. On the eastern outskirts of the city is the Portuguese Catholic shrine of Bom Jesus de Monte (Good Jesus of the Mount) with a stunning (and slightly challenging) Baroque zig-zag stairway climbing 116m up to it. There is also a nearby funicular if you’d like to take the ‘civilised’ route and get some breath-taking (as opposed to breathless) photos along the way.
The highlight of our short visit to northern Portugal was a trip to the stunning Douro Valley, where we stayed overnight in a remote but very comfortable vineyard property called Quinta do Vallado, on the banks of the Douro River about 11km downstream from the Spanish border.
The Douro Valley region is a very hilly (coming from Perth, let’s say mountainous) province east of Porto which takes its name from the Douro River which rises in Spain and forms about 100km of Portugal’s north eastern border with Spain. The region is famous for the production of wine, particularly port, and also olive oil, and more recently regional table wines.
It was very special to be able to spend this time with our friends. Great company and shared some stories, wonderful local food and sightseeing too, but our week in Portugal was over too soon. So no doubt we will have to come back again and spend more time on the ground, maybe a self-guided walk or bike tour next time so that we can get in amongst it all.
Around Algatocin, Andalusia
A flight from Porto to Malaga, and collected from the airport by our friend in Spain who lives near the village of Algatocin (in the municipality of the same name), about 20km ‘as the crow flies’ (i.e. 35km by road !) south west of the ancient city of Ronda , with a great view across the valley of the Guadiaro River to the mountains of the Sierra de Grazalema Natural Park.
Wherever you travel in this part of the world, it is either up or down . . . . . there is just about nothing on the level (the complete opposite of the Netherlands)!
A couple of rainy days after our arrival stalled our initial plans for a cross-country walk, but gave us the opportunity to re-acquaint with Ronda, a city we had visited as part of a Granada to Ronda self-supported bike ride back in 2013.
We also did some food shopping in the nearby village of Gaucin, and had our first local breakfast – slices of toast drizzled with virgin olive oil, then a layer of thinly sliced fresh tomato sprinkled with salt, and washed down with a strong coffee – so simple, but Oh! so tasty – the first of a few we’ve enjoyed since then.
The weather cleared and we were able to walk the 11km downstream walk along the sides of the gorge of the River Guadiaro from Cortes de la Frontera to the town of El Colmenar. The weather was perfect, the walking (you guessed it) lots of ups and downs, sometimes looking way down below to the single-track branch line railway from Malaga to Antequerra – the track passes through many tunnels as you might imagine.
Along the way we passed through the Vultures Canyon, where we were fortunate enough to see some nesting vultures – these birds are common in Andalusia, but generally only seen in the air or sometimes feeding on the ground. In addition to being remote, the canyon walls are virtually inaccessible (unless you too can fly). A well-earned local lunch at the Bar Espana in El Colmenar, then back to Cortes on the afternoon train – life’s simple pleasures!
We also managed to do an upstream gorge walk of about 10km along the River Guadiaro from the village of Jimera de Libar to the village of Benaojan. Sorry folks, no photos of this walk, we were too busy chatting and enjoying the scenery. Needless to say, it was followed by another great lunch, this time at the restaurant El Molino del Santo, which sits almost on top of the loveliest rapids on a mountain stream flowing into the Guadiaro.
All too soon, and another week has flown by, but still enough time for a farewell Sunday afternoon barbecue on the verandah, and once again the weather was just perfect.
We are, once again, very happy (and lucky too) to have made the trip and been able to spend some quality time with a good friend, learning just a little about this remote part of Spain, the food and wine, the people, the countryside – and, of course, the ups and the downs!
Tomorrow morning we catch the 07:35 local train from Cortes de la Frontera to the interchange at Antequerra, and then the high-speed Intercity train direct to Madrid for a three night visit.
A few days in Madrid
And so to Madrid – the capital city of Spain, which is located almost in the centre of the country, and is home to about 3.5 million people. The metropolitan area is quite extensive, but fortunately most of the places of interest to tourists like us are concentrated in a relatively compact area about 2km x 2km, which means that it is quite easy to do most of the sightseeing on foot, which is what we like to do.
We orientated ourselves by reference to the Calle Mayor, the main (rather touristic) road which runs all the way (with a couple of name changes) from the Cathedral to the Museo Nacional del Prado, passing many tourist attractions on the way.
Calle Mayor passes through the Puerta del Sol, another very impressive plaza where there is a statue of Spain’s King Charles III.
Most of the northern exterior of the Prado museum was enclosed in scaffolding at the time of our visit, so our apologies for the absence of photos of the building itself – and as for the inside, photography is not permitted! The Prado art museum is world class and very impressive, with paintings from the 1200’s through to the early 1900’s. According to Wikipedia it is the single best collection of Spanish art. Much appears to be of a religious nature – interpretations of the scriptures. We spent more than half a day there and could not see it all (and we were not dawdling). Francisco Goya is the most represented artist, probably because he was Spanish and was also such a prolific painter, but there are also many works by other famous artists including Diego Velasquez, Rubens and Titian, and many other less well-known but exceptionally talented individuals.
In addition to the liveliness of the Madrid and the wonderful variety of venues to eat and drink, probably the highlight of our flying visit to Madrid was a visit to the Cerralbo Museum. The museum is effectively an original display of an entire and complete aristocratic family property and its contents, in the form of the family mansion of the 17th Marquis of Cerralbo.
They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. Whilst you may find the following photos somewhat overwhelming (and possibly gaudy), the wealth of art and collectibles crammed into every part of this mansion is quite astounding.
The museum also had a temporary exhibition of glass art which formed part of a much larger exhibition ‘Vicointer 1983‘ (held at the Valencia Fair in 1983), comprising works from 130 participants from 21 countries. Below is just one of many amazing pieces we saw – where would you begin to produce something so lovely?
Because the Cerralbo collection has been built up by an extremely wealthy aristocratic family over many decades, it might be considered by some to represent the excesses of the wealthy elite. However, for the family to have dedicated the entirety of this collection to the people of Spain is a most generous gift. If you have an interest in history and in collections including suits of armour, weapons, numerous paintings (some by old masters), drawings and sculptures, chinaware, glassware, chandeliers, coins, clocks, compasses, carpets and tapestries, furniture, and a huge library which extends over two floors, then Museum Cerralbo is worthy of your visit.
Our final day, started with the traditional local breakfast, and took in the Cerralbo Museum followed by a meander around Plaza de Espana and then a late lunch at a local brewery (there are quite a few in the city).
What’s Next ?
We left Madrid on 12 May after a most enjoyable stay, and stepped aboard Lady M on the morning of Friday 13 May – fortunately we are not superstitious – she is looking just as good as ever.
In the next post we will be motoring west and south from Wessem to explore uncharted territory (for us and Lady M at least) as we head to Belgium for a few months, with the first leg taking us to Antwerp by late May.
We hope you have enjoyed these ‘stepping stones’, and until our next post, we wish you all good health and safe travels wherever your journey takes you.
Our travels aboard Lady M 