Reset search
Castles in Spain road trip
  • Tim Lynette Wilkins

Castles in Spain road trip

A 22-day adventure by Tim Lynette Read more
FollowInsightsInsightsCalendarCalendarShareShareBucket list
Newest first
  • Trip start
    September 10, 2018
    Tim Lynette WilkinsCastles in Spain road tripTraveler
    El EscorialView from our hotel roomLunch in the sunSegovia plaza mayor at nightSegovia cathedral at night

    Getting ready

    September 10, 2018 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    No problems with the journey , we even managed to arrived in Madrid airport with all our bags. We stopped in el Escorial for lunch and looked at the monastery/palace there. It's a huge, huge, building that is now a museum and art gallery and depositary for lots of the precious things sent from the colonies in America. Closed on Mondays though, so probably a good thing as we couldn't go in! Overnight in Segovia which is a lovely walled town, and our hotel is right in front of the castle.

    Tomorrow we spend in Segovia, then from Segovia to Avila, a day in Avila, from Avila to Salamanca, two days in Salamanca, then on to Valladolid,Valladolid to Burgos, two days in Burgos, Burgos to laguardia in Rioja, two days in Rioja (so what we will do there then?!), laguardia to guernica and Bilbao, a day in Bilbao, then home.    Read more

  • Tim Lynette WilkinsCastles in Spain road tripTraveler

    Segovia

    September 11, 2018 in Spain ⋅ 🌬 19 °C

    We had a long lie in this morning and then spent the day exploring Segovia, which is a really nice compact city with lots of great buildings to see. It's greatest fame is the Roman aqueduct which was over 16 kilometres long and went from river headwaters in the mountains and into the city via a fabulous aqueduct which is still there. It stands over 28 metres high and has 167 arches, then it goes underground under the city from one end to the other in a channel 1.2 kilometres long , and ends up at the castle. Many of the buildings along its route dug wells to access the water in it, and indeed there is one in the basement car park of our hotel.

    After that we went to the cathedral which is huge and very ornate as Spanish churches are, but I guess it was worth going to as we spent a hour and a half in there. The stained glass windows are really beautiful and mostly date from the early 1500's. They are just in the process of cleaning and restoring them, and in one case replacing one with a marvellous modern one. And then to the castle which dates in parts to the 12 century, but is mostly from the 1400's like the cathedral. It is quite small but looks as it should been the model the castle in Disneyland!    Read more

  • Tim Lynette WilkinsCastles in Spain road tripTraveler
    Castillo de Coca
    The massive moat is also brick linedMediaeval gate into CocaAvila 11C wallsA cooling beer by Avila's Puerta de Alcazar

    Moving on to Avila

    September 12, 2018 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C

    We left Segovia this morning and took a detour to see a 15C castle an hour away in Coca. It was built in 1478 by an archbishop using Arab craftsmen and so much of it is Mudejar style with geometric painting and tiles. It is also unusual in that it was built of brick rather than stone. It was pretty derelict until a few decades ago but has now been partly restored to use as a forestry college. Coca was also a Roman site and had mediaeval walls.
    After lunch we arrived in Avila where the main attraction is the complete circuit of walls built between 1090 and 1099.They are truly spectacular and we plan to walk along then tomorrow. We are staying in a little hotel in a 15C building just inside the walls and can just see the top from our window.    Read more

  • Tim Lynette WilkinsCastles in Spain road tripTraveler

    Food

    September 13, 2018 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 13 °C

    We have been eating far too much in our first few days, wanting to try the local specialties. Last night's dinner was spectacular. We ate at a restaurant on a terrace just outside the walls lit up by the setting sun.
    We intended to only order a smaller amount - 2 starters and sharing a main course but it didn't work out as we intended. Our starters were a delicious gazpacho soup and some jamon croqetas with some Argentine empanaditas. They brought us 9 croquetas and the 4 empanaditas were the size of small pasties. Both were delicious and they brought us a free appetizer of red pepper hummus too. The main course was the local specialty of chuleton -a T bone steak of veal/young beef. When they brought it, it was so huge that I checked it was a portion for one person. It was fabulous, so tasty and tender and melt in the mouth and they had already cut it off the bone and sliced it for us!. We could not finish it though we had a good try.
    Tonight we may just skip dinner.    Read more

  • Tim Lynette WilkinsCastles in Spain road tripTraveler
    Avila walls
    Lynette on the wallsBasilica of san vincente, interiorBasilica of san vincente - exteriorCathedralCathedral

    Avila

    September 13, 2018 in Spain ⋅ 🌙 22 °C

    Avila is worth the visit for its spectacular walls. Built in 1098 straight after the reconquest from the Muslims, to protect the city the walls totally enclose the whole city and are truly unique. We spent most of the morning walking around the top of them, with great views, Including straight into our hotel room! Walking back through the length of the city afterwards we realised that we were walking along one of the branches of the Camino de Santiago, something that I was never going doing to do, and now have done at least a small part of. We then went to see the basilica of san Vicente, which is a really nice, quite plain 12C church in Romanesque style, and then lunch in the sun. After a siesta we went to the cathedral, which must be the ugliest cathedral we've ever seen! The outside is very heavy and crude, mostly in dark grey stone, and with no redeeming features, it more resembles a fortress than a church. Inside it is grotesquely decorated, even for Spain, and is in two styles; a earlier Romanesque stone which is white and red limestone, called bloodstone, that looks like someone has splattered dried blood all over it, and a later gothic style using the dark grey, rather brutal looking stone. Overall not somewhere we would rush back to. Avila in general we did not warm to as much as Segovia, though the food has been good.Read more

  • Tim Lynette WilkinsCastles in Spain road tripTraveler
    Walls of avila from the next hill
    Brutal end wall of avila catherdalOur roof terrace in salamancaSalamanca cathedral at nightView from our roof terrace

    Avila to salamanca

    September 14, 2018 in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C

    We had a gentle morning in Avila and then set off for Salamanca. It's just a hour and a half away and the roads, as they have all been, were very good and empty of traffic. We have rented an apartment here for three nights, it is modern and really good, and just 15 minutes walk over an old roman bridge into the centre of Salamanca. The city is bigger and busier than Segovia or Avila and has a huge student population (Natalie was here on a school trip). Going out to eat in the centre was crowded and busy, and the food sadly was the poorest we've had so far.Read more

  • Tim Lynette WilkinsCastles in Spain road tripTraveler
    Roman bridge
    The old and new cathedralsOrnate facade of the cathedralCasa de Las conchasAstrological and astronomical ceiling painted in 15CPlaza Major with stage set up for concert

    Salamanca

    September 15, 2018 in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C

    We have 2 full days in Salamanca so we decided to split our sightseeing into gentle bouts. This morning we crossed the Roman bridge into the centre of Salamanca and visited various buildings of the University, Plaza Major and the central market. We decided to buy food in the market to cook for dinner, partly to avoid the tourist crowds but mainly to try some of the tempting local produce. It has been a hot 31C today with no breeze so we came back to our apartment and had lunch on the roof terrace in the shade.Read more

  • Tim Lynette WilkinsCastles in Spain road tripTraveler
    Recent carving of imp eating an ice cream on cathedral. Finlay?
    13C frescoes in the old cathedral15C altarpiece in the old cathedralDinner on the roof terrace

    Saturday afternoon

    September 15, 2018 in Spain ⋅ 🌙 22 °C

    After lunch we took a break from sightseeing to track the Barnet football and GB Davis cup tennis. Not a good idea. When both matches were at 1 - 1 after tense play we went back into Salamanca to visit both the old 12C and new 16C cathedrals. The new is massive but unimpressive with gaudy side chapels and little of interest. However there two little things that are fun - when the front was being restored recently the stonemason carved a spaceman and an imp holding a icecream into one on the pillars! The old however is a much more elegant space with some beautiful wall frescoes. We came home and cooked a delicious dinner and it was warm enough to eat on the roof terrace. We eventually won the tennis match but sadly Barnet lost, ending their run of wins.Read more

  • Tim Lynette WilkinsCastles in Spain road tripTraveler
    Beautiful stained glass window
    Milwall v leeds i thinkAltar pieceThe churchCeiling, and tims head!Cloister

    Salamanca Sunday

    September 16, 2018 in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 25 °C

    Visit this morning to the museum of art nouveau and Art Deco which is housed in a fabulous art nouveau palace overlooking the river. It was built by a wealthy industrialist as his home which he filled with a splendid collection of objects. These days it's a museum, but still full of wonderful things, and very much my style, including a big collection of Lalique glass. The river frontage is completely covered in huge bright stained glass windows. Sadly they don't allow photography inside, but I did manage to sneak a pic of the windows.

    Then on to a Dominican monastery with a carved frontage showing the stoning of st. Steven (although it looks just a like a rather physical game of football). Inside there is a massive golden altar piece 30 metres high, and a lovely delicate cloister.

    Restful afternoon, with GB winning the tennis, Hamilton the Grand Prix, and Xerez the football.    Read more

  • Tim Lynette WilkinsCastles in Spain road tripTraveler
    Castillo la Mota
    Tordesillas Plaza MayorSimamcas castleValladolid cathedralUniversity buldimg ValladolidPlaza Mayor Valladolid

    Salamanca to Valladolid

    September 17, 2018 in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 25 °C

    On the way to Valladolid we made a couple of detours, the first to see another castle which we did not expect to be open - but it was. Castillo la Mota was originally built in the 12C by the Moors but remodelled in the 15C by Isabela. It has spectacular walls and tower and looks just like a castle should. The second detour was to a town called Tordesillas which was supposed to have a pretty old Plaza Mayor but it was disappointing and dilapidated. This is the place where the Spanish and Portuguese signed a treaty deciding the world between them, with the boundary being the middle of the Atlantic, but the Portuguese managed to push the "middle" of the Atlantic far enough over that they could take Brazil as theirs!

    An unexpected bonus was another castle when we turned off the motorway to have our picnic lunch. Simancas castle was built in the 15C and became the state archive in the 16C and still is today.
    So far on this trip the countryside has been brown, mainly used for growing wheat, all now harvested. There have been many fields of sunflowers, not like Tim's 10ft ones but close packed 3 ft tall, all drying in the sun - obviously more of a sunflower oil area than olives. Today for the first time we saw cows - only a few grazing in a field, there is not much grass here. Also today for the first time we saw vines and passed the town of Rueda which grows excellent white wines.
    Once we arrived in Valladolid we did a bit of sightseeing. It is a pleasant town to wander around but does not have great 'sights'. They never bothered to finish the cathedral and it butts up against the old one in a jumble of stones. We wanted to eat early but had difficulty finding anywhere open before 8.30 but eventually found somewhere just round the corner from the hotel which was surprisingly good.    Read more

  • Tim Lynette WilkinsCastles in Spain road tripTraveler
    Visigoth church from 661 ad
    Churros and chocolateInterior of the visigoth churchChrist statue from 1931Stained glass in palencia cathedralInterior of palencia cathedral

    Palencia - on the way to Burgos

    September 18, 2018 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C

    It turns out that just around the corner from our hotel in Valladolid is the best churreria in town, so churros and chocolate for breakfast was necessary. We were then going on the Burgos but went to Palencia, about half way, for a break and found three great surprise treats. The first was a lovely Visigoth church dating to 661 a.d., and said to be oldest church in Spain, then a huge art Deco (1931) statue of Christ on a hill outside the city - over 20 metres tall, and maybe 800 metres high, it is the fourth tallest Christ statue in the world. Then Palencia cathedral which is simply wonderful. I thought - ok, another cathedral, but it was probably the prettiest cathedral we have seen. It dates from the 14 century, but it is built on Visigoth foundations, and has a crypt with Visigoth pillars. It also has lots of 14c and 15c art, lots of beautiful stained glass, and huge tapestries. A real joy to find!Read more

  • Tim Lynette WilkinsCastles in Spain road tripTraveler
    Palencia cathedral crypt with visigoth colums at the end
    14c altar pieceVestry lined with tapestriesExterior of Palencia cathedralburgos cathedral at nightTapas in Burgos

    On to Burgos

    September 18, 2018 in Spain ⋅ 🌙 17 °C

    After really enjoying Palencia cathedral we went to find our new apartment in Burgos, which was good and right next to the cathedral. So many cathedrals, maybe we should called this trip "cathedrals in Spain" not "castles in Spain"!

    We went on a tapas trawl in Burgos tonight and decided that Burgos is a really pleasant place to be in the evening, especially after some good food and some glasses of wine!    Read more

  • Tim Lynette WilkinsCastles in Spain road tripTraveler
    Facade of the cathedral
    Funny clock in the cathedral - man dongs the bell - very noisyHideous altarpiece in main chapelEarliest 13C chapelMediaeval gate of Santa MariaStatue of El Cid, local hero, buried in cathedral

    Seeing the sights in Burgos

    September 19, 2018 in Spain ⋅ 🌙 20 °C

    Another cathedral - the cathedral in Burgos really does dominate the town so we started off there this morning. It is enormous, started in the 12C and added to over the centuries. It has some good parts, particularly the very fine carving in stone and wood, and some hideous bits of over decorated and brightly coloured statues. The outside facade and spires are beautiful. There are many chapels from different centuries and one of the nicest is the earliest 13C, very simple and plain. We must have spent 2 hours in there and ended up skipping bits.
    We then walked through the town to see mediaeval gates, bridges and palaces. Our next stop was the museum that contains artefrom the Roman sites at Cluni a but after we started walking round it they told us the archaeological section was closed this week. Duh.
    So instead we went to the Museum of Human Evolution that we planned to visit tomorrow. Near here they have found human fossils dating from 1.3 million years ago and this museum is a wonderful explanation of the different branches of the human tree with fossils and artefacts from each period. We stayed until it closed at 2.30. Exhausted and hungry we retired to our apartment and rested after lunch. This evening for dinner we tried the local specialty of roast suckling lamb. Yummy.    Read more

  • Tim Lynette WilkinsCastles in Spain road tripTraveler
    Entrance to the excavations
    Forehead and manible of a 12 year old. 850,000 years old.Burgos castleOne of many lifesized statues

    A trip 1.3 million years into the past

    September 20, 2018 in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C

    Woke this morning to thick fog, with even the spires of the cathedral barely visible. Thankfully it dispersed as soon as the sun came up and the day was clear and hot as usual. We drove out of town to the site of the archeological digs at Atapuerca, where a series of cave systems were discovered during the cutting of a railway. It is a dig that has been going on for forty years and shows no sign of getting to any kind of end. The caves have animal and human habitation going back 1.3 million years (that's a lot!) with a series of types of humans, including a completely new subspecies never found before. Sadly the tour around the site was all in rapid Spanish so we didn't keep up very much. Must go and get a Spanish refresher course I think!

    Back in Burgos we trekked up the hill overlooking the city to go to the castle (oh, another one!) which was founded in the 9c and rebuilt in the 14c. It was the centre of napoleon's army in Spain until Wellington came along and defeated it. No doubt with Sharpe's help - read the books !

    Then back to the museum to go and see again the finds from this mornings dig site.

    We leave Burgos in the morning to drive to Rioja. We have enjoyed this city a lot, it has a lot going for it, and the food has been excellent- always a big plus. In places you find life sized statues of ordinary people doing ordinary things, like the photo of a young lady looking out over the river. It all seems very human.    Read more

  • Tim Lynette WilkinsCastles in Spain road tripTraveler
    Camino souvenirsBurgos camino mementosStone camino scallop outside the cathedral

    Camino de Santiago

    September 20, 2018 in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C

    When we were in Segovia the road outside our hotel had brass scallop shells embedded in it, which are the symbol of the pilgrims taking the Camino de Santiago to Santiago de Compostela. The story is that Saint James , having being beheaded in Jerusalem was buried in Spain and his shrine became a centre for pilgrimage. There are now many routes of the Camino, including ones from Britain, but the major ones go through northern Spain and the Basque Country, and many go through Burgos. A minor one goes from Madrid through Segovia by our hotel, and there is even one from andulcia from Seville. Burgos has many hostels for the travellers, and the Camino is a big thing here with maps and souvenirs everywhere. Our apartment here is in close sights of the cathedral so there are scallop shells in the road here too, and lots of pilgrims trekking the streets.Read more

  • Tim Lynette WilkinsCastles in Spain road tripTraveler
    Fields of ripening sunflowers
    Rows of vinesTempranillo grapes in RiojaLaGuardia - our next stop with mountains

    Rioja

    September 21, 2018 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C

    Fòr most of this trip we have been travelling through brown flat countryside- the massive high Spanish plain - that is used mainly for growing wheat, now harvested. Also mile upon mile of sunflowers ripening in the sun. This must be sunflower oil country rather than olive oil. No fields of olive trees like there are in Andalusia. Just once we saw a few cows in a field but there is not much grass here for them.
    Today all that changed and as we left Burgos we encountered hills and now we are surrounded by mountains - and VINES! We have arrived in Rioja and everywhere there are vines covered in purple grapes just waiting to be made into delicious red wine. We are no longer in Castille y Leon we have crossed into Pays Vasco - Basque country and all the signs are in a strange language - a bit like Welsh.    Read more

  • Tim Lynette WilkinsCastles in Spain road tripTraveler
    Hotel at Marques de Riscal
    View of the mountain from our hotel room terracebentleycarlos San Pedro cellarMore street scupturescene into a butchers shop in Laguardia

    Bodega visits

    September 22, 2018 in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 15 °C

    On our way into Laguardia we stopped to see the winery of Marques de Riscal, which is one of the biggest and most famous Rioja names. The estate is huge and I guess hadn't suffered much from Spain's economic problems as it is beautifully maintained and has built a splendid new hotel and restaurant designed by Frank Gehry of the Bilbao Guggenheim museum fame. The building has become a tourist attraction in itself and well worth a visit. In the car park we came across a vintage Bentley on a British Bentley owners club tour of Spain and Portugal. Later in the day, in Laguardia, we went to tour the opposite size bodega. In the town of Laguardia itself, the bodega of Carlos San Pedro is family owned and operated by just seven people, with casual labour help, producing only 50,000 bottles a year. All the houses in Laguardia, including our hotel, have dug caves and tunnels down into the rock underneath them, and the bodega still uses theirs for wine making and storage. We tasted three wines there, a 2014 crianza, a 2010 reserva and a 2009 grand crianza which were all really good, and the best, the grand crianza superb.Read more

  • Tim Lynette WilkinsCastles in Spain road tripTraveler
    Clock in the main square
    Tower in the town walls14c / 17c porticoBalconies with olive and grape vine decorationBasque pipe band

    laguardia

    September 22, 2018 in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 27 °C

    We spent the morning wandering the narrow medieval streets of Laguardia, and walking around the walls. The town is so small and confined to a narrow hilltop that it only takes 20 or 30 minutes to walk around. The tiny main square has a clock that as it chimes the hours little people come and out and spin and dance. It seems to be a huge tourist attraction as the square every hour is full of tour groups standing waiting for the show. We also went into one of the churches here, which was built in the 14c with a magnificent coloured portico. This was repainted in the 17c and an extension to the church built so from then it wasn't open to the elements and now is still in fine condition. Later the streets were filled the sounds of a basque pipe group - being Celtic they seem to have the bagpipes in heritage.Read more

  • Tim Lynette WilkinsCastles in Spain road tripTraveler
    Dolmen 3000bc
    Celtiberian site from 1400 bcBodega Ysios just next to the site with building designed by CalatravaView of Laguardia from the site

    laguardia archaeology

    September 22, 2018 in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C

    In the afternoon we visited two sites just outside of Laguardia. The first was the remains of a celticiberian settlement dating from 1400 BC to 400 BC. Although there are only the low remains of walls it's easy to see the layout of the village and the streets through it. The outer walls would have been just wattle and daube to keep the animals in so they have all disappeared. At the site there is a nice little museum of some of the finds, and it was a great place to sit and eat our bocadillos (rolls) with spectacular views around us. Then on to a stone dolmen from around 3000 b.c, one of a great number all over the Basque Country, like in the uk and northern France. It took us a while to find and Google decided to send us over the hills over rough gravel track roads, and when we got there we could see the proper Tarmac road that we could have used.Read more

  • Tim Lynette WilkinsCastles in Spain road tripTraveler
    Granny meets the iguanodon family
    Some flying dinos were as big as spitfiresIguanodon family tracksIguanodon tracksGrandad and new friends

    Granny meets the dinosaurs!

    September 23, 2018 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C

    120 million years ago the plain south of Rioja was a flat swampy wetland, home to many herbivore dinosaurs and so also the carnivore raptors. As these dinosaurs walked in the mud , it dried, was covered by later sediments and fossilised. Their footprints can still be seen today as the sediments have eroded. We drove around some of the sites and to a small interpretation centre. It was blinding hot out in the hillsides but I've never seen anything of dinosaurs before so well worth it. In many places they have put up replicas so you see what the creatures that made the prints looked like. Many of the tracks are from bipeds, in one case a family of two adults and a junior iguanodon, but there were also tracks of giant quadripeds such as saurodons.Read more

  • Tim Lynette WilkinsCastles in Spain road tripTraveler
    View of Rioja vineyards from Laguardia
    View from the viewpoint!Tiled panel in Laguardia of Picasso paintingHenry Moore sculpture in peace parkAnother sculpture in peace parkStained glass window in Bilbao station

    Final day of road trip

    September 24, 2018 in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C

    We left LaGuardia this morning for a longish drive to Bilbao. Our first stop was at a viewpoint up the mountain but it was in the clouds and drizzling so we didn't get much view. So far this trip we have been really lucky with the weather. We had only had a couple of short light showers. Yesterday was very hot 33C but today struggled to reach 20C and feels decidedly chilly. Our next stop was in Guernica to pay our respects before continuing to Bilbao where we have dropped off the car. We now have 2 days in Bilbao before we fly home.Read more

  • Tim Lynette WilkinsCastles in Spain road tripTraveler
    Exterior of the museum
    Spider sculpturePuppyLight installationSculpture of ironsHuge sculpture over all the ground floor

    Guggenheim museum

    September 25, 2018 in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C

    This spectacular building sits on the river front in the heart of Bilbao and was opened in 1997 to a Frank Gehry design, and is probably the reason most people come to Bilbao. We spent all morning there and it is certainly worth the visit. The building itself is created from huge sheets of thin titanium and shimmers and glows in the sun. Inside the exhibition spaces are huge, and perfect for modern sculptures and installations.

    Outside sit some sculptures like the huge spider, and a puppy made out of fresh flowers which was supposed to be temporary but so big was the outcry when the time came to take it down that they decided to keep it and water and maintain it. Our favourite piece was a light installation of pillars of red words that flowed up to the ceiling. After a while you realise that the wall behind it acts like a reflection in a pool of water and backs of the pillars, with blue words, are reflected back to you. Then you see people walking out from behind between the pillars and you see that you can walk through and view it from behind.    Read more

  • Tim Lynette WilkinsCastles in Spain road tripTraveler
    Bilbao river front
    Main square at nightArt deco railway stationArt deco buildingCathedralCathedral interior

    Bilbao

    September 25, 2018 in Spain ⋅ 🌙 13 °C

    As first I thought that Bilbao didn't have anything going for it - a fairly boring city without any sites other than the Guggenheim. After a day and night I see that I am mistaken. Not great sights but a really nice friendly city that it's easy to feel comfortable. It reminds me a lot of Xerez. We looked at the cathedral , another one, but it is small and rather like a working church, and without the usual Spanish heavy decoration. Tomorrow a quick trip to the archaeological museum, a final long lunch and then to the airport for home. It's been a great trip, but I think I'm ready to go home. Until the next one!Read more

    Trip end
    October 1, 2018
  • 2025© FindPenguins
  • Home
  • About us
  • Group Tracking
  • Press
  • Terms
  • Privacy Policy & Cookies
  • Help Center
  • Legal notice