Today we were leaving Salamanca and heading for Madrigal de la Vera, approximately a 3-hour journey of about 200kms. In between our start and end points lies the Sierra de Gredos, a mountain range which Frodo was going to have to cross.
The first part of our journey was a very dull, free autovia across to Ávila. The surrounding countryside was very flat “big field” country. From Ávila things became much more interesting as we approached the Sierra de Gredos.
We actually had two summits to get over. The first of these was Puerto de Menga at 1564m. However, Avila is on a reasonably high plateau at 1100m so the climb wasn’t a particularly big deal. The Spanish had thoughtfully arranged for a few stopping points beside the road from which to admire the view, something we sometimes seem to be missing in La Belle France.
After descending from Puerto de Menga we soon hit the next pass, Puerto del Pico at a modest 1352m. Once again, there were stopping points to admire the view. We then embarked on a descent of about 1000m to get down to Madrigal de la Vera at a much lower 375m.
As we entered Madrigal de la Vera, the turn Sally Satnav wanted me to take to get to the campsite was more or less 180° doubling back on myself. It was quite impossible so we ended up driving into the centre of town looking for somewhere to spin around. Sally tried to send me along more unlikely looking roads until I did manage to turn. With no roundabout, reversing out of a side turning was necessary. You really do have to approach from one direction and one direction only.
This campsite, Complejo la Mata, is the last of those we’d made a reservation for before departing the UK. Since the website would not take payment from a British credit card, I’d had to resort to email which had apparently worked – we were expected. We paid and were shown to a pitch.
Complejo la Mata, is, perhaps, best described as rustic. We got hooked up to the electricity but were not particularly happy about where we had been put, right beside a whole series of permanently set up units jammed on top of each other – small pitches again – looking like a shanty town. Francine went wandering further back in the campsite.
Francine found a much more appealing area, with more light and space and just a couple of units. I went and managed to ask in my broken Spanish if we could move . Yes, we could. I can’t think how the decision on where to stick new arrivals might be made. These pitches are still quite narrow but we have a field to look out over.
There is just room for our awning to be extended without encroaching on the pitch in front, between us and the field. That would actually have been a more appealing pitch for us but I was a little concerned about some lower tree branches. We’ll see.
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