Gallegos

Day three of our Segovia walking tour and it isn’t raining! Jamie, the owner of Senderos y Pueblos, picked us up from our hotel right on 9.30 am. It seems that his company has a policy of being on time.

During the drive to Prádena he told us about his company and how it was started. It was an interesting story, and he is obviously passionate about the environment. He trained as a biologist in Edinburgh and took to the wild parts of northern Scotland. After marrying a local lady and having a couple of children he persuaded her to move to Spain, his home country, to commence a business that has now grown, after 12 years, into a successful operation. It runs walking, cycling, donkey and family tours, and only operates around the region of Segovia.

Anyway, as planned, he dropped us off at the edge of Prádena and pointed us south. I am fairly sure he thought that we were underprepared, with only two small backpacks, but wished us well.

It was very cold and windy to start with, so we were rugged up. The rain held off all day and in fact it was almost sunny when we finished. We were following the foothills, so there was a bit of ascending and descending, but we were on a pretty straight run. At one stage we were heading uphill towards the spoils of a former mining site and the wind was so strong that it almost blew Robyn backwards! Thereafter it settled down a little, to just strong. Whenever we crested a hill, or had a paddock on our left that was unprotected, the wind picked up. We watched the clouds whip over the mountains towards us, but never quite reaching us.

The track was actually quite easy and following our notes, and occasionally the GPS, meant that we were never in trouble. The highest part of the path was around 1310 m and it was 15.8 kms in total. We felt pleased with our achievement and it was nice to end up ringing the bell at our hotel, Posada De Gallegos, the best and only hotel in Gallegos.

Posada De Gallegos is a very nicely restored house, well set up as a guest house. They have obviously spent a great deal of time, thought and money into making it a very comfortable place. The sitting room and dining room were well set up, and our room was quite comfortable, with UNDERFLOOR heating! They also had a lift, ensuring that mobility challenged people can enjoy their hospitality. The only question we have is how, out in the sticks, they attract enough custom to make it worthwhile.

After settling in and generally finding our way around, we took a stroll around the village. There are some quite nicely restored places, and some new ones, of course, but it it is not a bustling metropolis. We found two bars, which was the point of our strolling, and there ordered a coffee and a beer. They had absolutely no English and we ended up with two coffees, one short and strong and the other with more milk. This made sense when you consider how Robyn tried to order her coffee, but where my beer went is anybody’s guess. It was soon sorted out, with more hot milk to weaken Robyn’s strong coffee and a nice cold beer for me.

We were the only guests at the hotel this evening. Later we found out that we were the last walkers for the season for Senderos y Pueblos. They advertise walking trips up to the end of October but when I enquired about early November they replied that would be fine. Nobody else bothered it would seem, and given the weather, fair enough!

This left us in the peculiar situation of having the restaurant to ourselves. They were very friendly, with, I think Theresa’s husband being the front of house while she ran the kitchen. What do you order when they provide you with a Menu of the Day plus an a la carte option? It was not a difficult decision to take the Menu of the Day, because the two options for the entree and main gave us enough choice. Robyn had a very nice creamy zucchini and bacon soup, while I had a salad with walnuts and goats cheese. For the main we both chose the roast piglet and potato, and dessert was no option but very nice. The local Verdejo was again very drinkable and we finished our second bottle in front of the fire in the sitting room.Read more