26th Feb 2016
Janet flies back to Aus, and
I head off in the rain.
With Janet’s flight back to
Aus leaving at a sensible time (1.30 pm), we had time for a leisurely breakfast
– Luckily I packed everything in the car before breakfast, because by the time
we were ready to leave, it was POURING !
How lucky were we to have had a dry day yesterday for exploring Lisbon
? We left slightly earlier than planned
(we were told 15 minutes was plenty of time to get to the airport), and it was
lucky we did – The freeway to the airport was solid almost the whole way –
Crawling at best ! Whether it was because of the rain or an accident, I am not
sure, but eventually we got through the mess and arrived there just about on
time. Still raining, so I dropped Janet off and then waited just up the road
until she texted me that she was checked in and through, and then I headed out
in an easterly direction.
I am heading down to Malaga,
to stay with some friends and hopefully see some sunshine, but I am going to
wander – No major plans, but just an easy 2-3 days. I was heading towards Cordoba, but would just
see how far I could get today, and then stop wherever. It took me quite a while to get out of the
Lisbon area – I try to keep off the toll roads, especially around the cities,
so sometimes this slows me down a bit. First
town I came to was Etstremoz, and through the very wet windscreen I saw all
these piles of rock – Turns out that this area is a big marble quarrying area,
and it has so much that in many cases it replaces brick or concrete as a
building material ! Even the streets and fountains are made from marble ! With
the heavy and incessant rain, it was hard to see much, but there were a lot of
piles of marble up on the hillsides !
Next place was Elvas, and
once again I knew little of what to expect.
But I could see this big walled city up on the hill, so despite the
rain, I decided to go and investigate a bit further. And when I got into town, I was confronted by
this enormous 4 storeyed aquaduct across the road !! So I stopped and read the guide book, and
found out that Elvas was for a long time one of Portugal’’s mightiest frontier
posts, a response to the Spanish stronghold of Badajoz just 5 kms away across
the Rio Guadiana, and is one of the most complex and best-preserved military
fortifications surviving in Europe. It was originally retaken from the Moors in
1230, and withstood many attacks from Spain over the next 3000 years. Even Wellington used it as a base in 1811
during his assault on Badajoz during the Peninsular War.
The Aqueduto da Amoreira
follows a jagged and ungainly course around the city, but is a major
engineering feet with up to 5 tiers of of arches supporting a tiny water
channel along its 7 kilometre length. It
was built between 1498 and 1622. After
admiring the biggest section for a while, I drove about 5 kms into the country
until it ended up looking more like a wall, and then seemed to disappear
altogether. So I returned to town, still
in pouring rain, and found a road up into the old city – That took me through
tiny gates in the city walls that had been built in the 17th C – I
had so much fun going through the two gates into the old city that I did the
trip twice – I couldn’t believe this was just a normal road used by people into
the old city !
However it was still raining
hard, so much as I would have loved to explore the old city on foot, it just
wouldn’t have been much fun, so I headed back out of town, passing fountains
(one with a statue of a fireman spraying water from his hose !) and then two
more forts up on a hill top – The extent of the defenses here is quite
something. Then it was on towards the
border at Badajoz.
My next goal was to get out
of Portugal without buying any fuel ! I
had filled up just a few kilometers before entering Portugal a week ago, and I
had only done 1100 kms so although I was getting low, I could keep going for a
while yet. Diesel in Portugal is about
€1.15 or more, whereas my last fill up in Spain was €0.87 per litre, so about
25 eurocents a litre cheaper in Spain, or
Aus $0.40 a litre cheaper. And
when you can take 150 litres or so on a fill-up, than means a saving of about
$60, so as soon as I crossed the Spanish border I started looking, and found
some pretty cheap fuel in Badejoz. That
put a smile on my face !
By now I was getting pooped,
and the first campsite I could see was in Merida, about another 50 kms down the
road. So I kept going and finally got
there at about 6.30 pm, by which time I was pretty tired so I had a quick bite
to eat and went to bed. It wasn’t raining when I stopped, but the ground was
pretty muddy, and I had no sooner set up camp than the heavens opened again and
I had to cook inside the van. But that
helped warm the van up because it was getting cold – When I turned in it was
about 3 deg C – And for the first time in the entire trip I actually used a
second sleeping bag over the top of my normal one in order to keep warm,
instead of wearing thermals to bed ! I
was lovely and warm as a result !!
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