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From Cairo we flew to Barcelona and then Madrid, Spain's capital. The
contrast was quite significant - Spain was a lot more "civilized"
compared to Egypt, but it was quite expensive and the people weren't
as friendly. We didn't get much sleep on the red-eye flight but no
matter, upon arrival we hit the highway right away.
From Madrid we headed north. One of the cool things about Spain (and
many other parts of Europe) is that you bump into fascinating things
all the time just driving down the highway.
The first major stop was the town of Segovia, which has a really cool
Roman aqueduct (built in the 1st century AD) running through the center
of town.
Of course, one of us just had to climb on top of the aqueduct to get
a view of the channel through which the water used to run.
The Alcazar on the edge of town was started in the 11th century; it
offers nice views of the valley bellow.
Inside the Alcazar there are many rooms filled with armor and other
fascinating things from the middle ages.
The Alcazar was the pre-eminent European center for artillery science
for several centruies and there are many wonderful examples of cannon
and other artifacts, including an extensive archive of the history of
the artillery school.
The view from the roof of the Alcazar is quite breath-taking.
Next stop - the town of Avilla. It was now time to look for a place to
spend the night and we found an available room within the old city walls,
in what used to be a 15th century palace, right next to the cathedral.
The hotel is the building on the right in the second picture below.
The best way to start a morning is with a cup of great espresso, which
we did the next day in the main square of the town of Salamanca.
The border between Spain and Portugal is easy to miss but the change in
language and culture sure was quite significant - prices are much lower
in Portugal and the people seem a lot friendlier.
The recent fires really left their mark on the countryside, almost
everywhere we went was saw swaths charred by the worst fires in
living memory.
Many smaller towns aren't really set up to handle tourism, we wanted
to spend the night in the little Portuguese town of Portalegre and it
took several hours to discover one of a grand total of two hotels in
town. The narrow winding streets and the hospitality of the locals
made up for any hardships, though.
Next day we headed back into Spain and we encountered some interesting
traffic on the road.
We stopped for lunch in Trujillo, the birthplace of Francisco Pizarro
(the conqueror of Peru). The food in Spain and Portugal was invariably
wonderful, needless to say.
The last stop before returning to Madrid was the town of Toledo, and
what a wonderful surprise it was - the old town is built on a granite
hill surrounded by a deep a gorge of the river Tagus.
There are countless tiny winding streets, ancient buildings, churches,
and of course the main cathedral is quite a sight to behold.
We'll definitely be back - we need to spend more time in Toledo and
other sights in Spain, but most of all we look forward to visiting
Portugal again.
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