Spain 2011, Pedro Bernardo in the Gredos Mountains

We left Talavera de la Reina without too much difficulty except that we emerged from the underground car park onto a one way street and managed to cross the River Tagus twice until we found the road that headed north towards the Gredos Mountains, but once out of the city motoring was straight-forward and the satnav lady seemed to be a lot better than she was a few months ago in Germany so we didn’t have any fall-outs!

As we headed north we began to slowly climb as we entered an area of green scrubland littered with granite boulders where the verges of the road were a riot of red poppies and yellow daisies. Ahead of us we could see the mountains and the tops were covered in a few stubborn streaks of snow in the protection of the shadows where the May sun couldn’t quite reach. We were still in bright sunshine but ahead of us the sky was a dramatic dark grey, brooding, threatening and angry.

A short way out of Talavera we crossed the site of a famous battle of the Peninsula War where Sir Arthur Wellesley (the future Duke of Wellington) won one of his most successful and famous battles. On 27th and 28th July 1809 the Battle of Talavera took place between the Anglo-Spanish army and the French. It was a total allied victory and during the fight Talavera was hardly damaged and Wellesley’s army expelled the French from the city and the surrounding area. The battle is also the setting for the fictional event of ‘Sharpe’s Eagle’ the first book written in Bernard Cornwell’s ‘Sharpe’ series.

The drive north took us into the neighbouring Province of Castilla y Leon and through the little town of Buenaventura, which was closed, and then the climb became more dramatic as we reached almost one thousand metres when we made the approach to the mountain village of Pedro Bernardo. We managed to stay just short of the cloud and the sun was still shining as we drove through several tricky hair-pin bends and into the village and easily found the Hostal El Cerro in the middle of the village on a dramatic bend in the road overlooking the valley below.

Although only two star it was an excellent hotel with a great room, a superb view and with excellent weather the ideal place for an hour or so of sunbathing on the very private terrace. After a while the grey sky started to muscle in and there was a drop or two of rain but inside there was a Jacuzzi to experiment with and relax in and after a half an hour or so it had blown over and the blue sky reasserted itself and there were good views over the rural hinterland with forests of elms, pines, chestnut and hazelnut trees and waterfalls and rivers making the town a scenic paradise.

The origins of Pedro Bernardo are not clear; the original name of the village was Navalasolana, and there is a popular local legend that talks about the leaders of two groups of shepherds, Pedro Fernández and Bernardo Manso. They started to fight and struggled to get the control of the village and finally, the feudal lord of the council came up with a solution and decided to change the name of Navalasolana to Pedro and Bernardo to achieve peace and stop the struggles between the two squabbling bands.

In the early evening we walked into Pedro Bernardo, passing first through the Plaza de Torres and then the Plaza Mayor where groups of mainly old men were sitting in groups and discussing the big important issues of the day. We walked through the twisting narrow streets flanked by crumbling buildings with precarious wooden balconies and barely inhabitable houses and we wandered aimlessly through the streets until we arrived at the church somewhere near the top of the village. It was nothing special and really hardly worth the walk so we made our way back down and stayed for a while in the main square and had a drink had a bar where there was reluctance to serve us on account of the fact that the owner and bar staff were watching a bull fight from Seville on the television.

The Hostel El Cerro was a perfect place for our first night, a rare mix of rustic charm and modern sophistication and we had no hesitation in eating in the hotel dining room. It was only eight o’clock which seemed to surprise the staff but the chef was already there (in the bar) and we tucked in to an excellent Chuletón de Ávila, an excellent cut of prime beef steak that we had enjoyed only last year on a visit to that city.

Although it was still quite early, we had been a long day and had had an early start so after the evening meal we went back to the room and sat on the balcony with a final glass of red wine and watched the stars twinkling overhead in the sky and went to bed optimistic that tomorrow would be another fine day.



Spain 2011, Talavera de la Reina

With an objective to visit all of the regions of Spain and already travelled to the more obvious places such as Andalusia, Castilla-La Mancha and Castilla y Leon it was time this visit to be more adventurous. I have excluded from that short list places such as Galicia, Cantabria, The Basque Country and Catalonia because although we have been there I have become aware that these, although part of the state of Spain, are not really Spain at all and something quite separate and different.

On this occasion we choose Extremadura to the south west of Madrid, which the guide books claimed to be the least visited part of Spain. With no convenient international airport in the Province it was a choice between Seville and Madrid and the best available flights were to the capital about three hundred kilometres away from the cities of Cáceres and Mérida.

In the week before the journey the BBC had been promising rain and cloud which was disappointing so we packed appropriately with rain coats and umbrellas and when we took off from Luton Airport on an early morning flight the sun was beginning to rise in a blue sky and we became resigned to leaving good conditions at home and flying into colder, wetter weather.

Across the United Kingdom and the Bay of Biscay the weather remained clear and then we crossed the coast of Spain somewhere near Santander and we could see the Picos de Europa mountains and the plains of Castilla y Leon and it appeared that we may have been unnecessarily pessimistic but then as we approached central Spain and Madrid the clouds began to build over the mountains and it looked as though for once the BBC was correct.

By the time we reached Madrid however there was improvement and after we had landed and made our way through arrivals and car hire the sun was winning the competition with the clouds for control of the sky and encouraged by this we left the airport and began our journey west. In anticipation of rain we had an alternative plan to drive via El Escorial and visit the Royal Palace but we had been there before and with the sun shining we stuck to our original plan to drive to the city of Talavera de la Reina in the north of the Province of Castilla-La Mancha.

It was about one hundred kilometres for this first leg of the journey and the Autovia was practically empty so we enjoyed a trouble free, toll free, ride all the way to the city, which, with the help of the satnav lady navigator we found easily and parked the Volkswagen Polo in a convenient underground car park close to the centre.

Talavera de la Reina is a city in the western part of the province of Toledo and is the second-largest centre of population in Castile-La Mancha (after Albacete) and the largest in the province, larger than the city of Toledo itself, although the more famous city naturally remains the provincial capital. This means that to a certain extent Talavera is a city with an inferiority complex and this isn’t helped by the fact that it isn’t really a primary tourist destination but we are keen to visit as many Spanish cities as possible and we were not going to exclude it from our itinerary.

We emerged from the underground car park into the heart of the city park where there were fountains and statues and leafy walks leading to the Basilica del Prado where we walked and then got confused looking for the city centre. It was lunchtime and we were hungry so we quickly orientated ourselves and then confident about the direction of travel made our way to the city centre where in one of the satellite squares we found some tables in the sun and enjoyed our first tapas lunch.

During the 15th and 16th centuries, Talavera achieved great recognition, thanks to its ceramics. Wonderful pieces of pottery and Talavera tiles are found in the main museums of the world and in the most luxurious palaces all over Europe. The city is internationally known for its products, which King Philip II used as tiled revetments in many of his works, such as the monastery of El Escorial. The nickname of Talavera de la Reina is ‘The City of Pottery’ and Mexico’s famous Talavera pottery was named after the city. We could have guessed this because after lunch we walked through the old city towards the River Tagus and our route took us past a succession of similar ceramics workshops and shops.

Eventually we reached the river which is the longest in the Iberian Peninsula and the twelfth longest in Europe. It is just over a thousand kilometres long and flows all the way to Lisbon in Portugal where it empties into the Atlantic Ocean. Along its course there are several dams and diversions supply drinking water to most of central Spain, including Madrid, and Portugal, while dozens of hydroelectric stations create abundant power. The source of the Tagus is the Fuente de García, in the Montes Universales, Sierra de Albarracín Comarca. The main cities it passes through are Aranjuez, Toledo, Talavera de la Reina and Alcántara in Spain, and Abrantes, Santarém, Almada and Lisbon in Portugal.

The water was brown and dirty and flowing freely, swollen by all the recent rain that had fallen and we walked alongside it for a while back in the general direction of the car. The sun was hot now and the sky was cloudless so instead of leaving straight away we stopped for a drink in a little café in the park where we had a beer and thanked the BBC for getting the weather forecast wrong as usual!