Where's Bertie? He's in an Aire in the town of Minas de Riotinto. Exact location: 37.69620, -6.59734.
Weather: Sunny, but only around 14 degrees and with a cool breeze.
I'd read that the Aire here in Minas de Riotinto tends to be popular and full by lunchtime, so we stuck to the usual plan and arrived at around 1030. So often we are lucky, but not today. No room at the inn and no sign of anyone moving (and all bar two vans were Spanish, so more likely to be here for the long weekend, rather than northern European visitors who are likely to move on any day of the week).
Across town we headed to check out a car park listed on Park4Night. Not to our liking was the answer (the kids with a substantial slingshot were particularly offputting!), but I made use of the adjacent supermarket anyway. Coffee and a crossword allowed us to procrastinate over the 'what to do now' question, then we headed back to see if any spaces had opened up at the Aire. Maybe they had, maybe they hadn't, but with a constant stream of motorhomes arriving, it seemed that spaces would be taken as soon as they were vacated.
Once again, we parked just up the road whilst I surveyed our options. The decision: we weren't going to visit Minas de Riotinto after all, but were heading off to another town 11km further north.
"There's a space!" Mick suddenly exclaimed. He'd just seen one motorhome pull into the Aire and two pull out.
"Quick!" I cried. Down the road we hared with haste, and straight into a free space. Jolly smug we felt for the next half an hour, until two Spanish vans left one after the other and it was an hour before their spots were taken. I don't know how many other vans have come and gone for the rest of the day (several dozen, I would say), but there are currently 15 in this 13-space Aire, and another four parked along the road.
Mick's cold has hopefully reached its peak, as he's not been feeling well today, but he was still persuaded to join me for a 2km stroll straight after lunch. Such was his lethargy, that he didn't even ask me what it was we were going to see, the answer to which would have been this:
I'd seen a photo of this hole in the ground before arriving in Riotinto, but there was nothing to give scale so I had it in my mind as being the size of a small Roman amphitheatre. Then I did a bit of reading and discovered that this is the largest open pit mine in Europe and at one time was the largest in the world, measuring 1.2km long, 900m wide and 350m deep. The water now covers a significant amount of its depth.
Our figure-of-eight walk to and from took us through the Barrio Ingles de Bella Vista: the English Neighbourhood. The engineering of the mines and associated railways was carried out by British Engineers, who built a neighbourhood to house its workers. The houses are big and grand, and apparently the one that's open as a museum is very English inside, but from the outside nothing shouted 'quintessentially English'.
Depositing Mick back at Bertie, I continued for a walk around the town - except I didn't find much that was town-ish (a few bars, a few shops, but nothing that made me think I'd found the main area - assuming there is one). I also didn't stumble across the mining museum, nor any signs pointing me towards it.
I did find this mural
I'd like to visit the mining museum, even though it is apparently all in Spanish (I know enough Spanish now to get the gist of what I'm being told, at least in writing), but Mick's state of coughing and spluttering is such that it would be impolite at best for him to be in an enclosed space with strangers. So, I either go by myself not at all.
I don't even know if it's open tomorrow, on the public holiday, with their website not being so useful as to list opening hours. We'll see what the morrow brings.
Weather: Sunny, but only around 14 degrees and with a cool breeze.
I'd read that the Aire here in Minas de Riotinto tends to be popular and full by lunchtime, so we stuck to the usual plan and arrived at around 1030. So often we are lucky, but not today. No room at the inn and no sign of anyone moving (and all bar two vans were Spanish, so more likely to be here for the long weekend, rather than northern European visitors who are likely to move on any day of the week).
Across town we headed to check out a car park listed on Park4Night. Not to our liking was the answer (the kids with a substantial slingshot were particularly offputting!), but I made use of the adjacent supermarket anyway. Coffee and a crossword allowed us to procrastinate over the 'what to do now' question, then we headed back to see if any spaces had opened up at the Aire. Maybe they had, maybe they hadn't, but with a constant stream of motorhomes arriving, it seemed that spaces would be taken as soon as they were vacated.
Once again, we parked just up the road whilst I surveyed our options. The decision: we weren't going to visit Minas de Riotinto after all, but were heading off to another town 11km further north.
"There's a space!" Mick suddenly exclaimed. He'd just seen one motorhome pull into the Aire and two pull out.
"Quick!" I cried. Down the road we hared with haste, and straight into a free space. Jolly smug we felt for the next half an hour, until two Spanish vans left one after the other and it was an hour before their spots were taken. I don't know how many other vans have come and gone for the rest of the day (several dozen, I would say), but there are currently 15 in this 13-space Aire, and another four parked along the road.
Mick's cold has hopefully reached its peak, as he's not been feeling well today, but he was still persuaded to join me for a 2km stroll straight after lunch. Such was his lethargy, that he didn't even ask me what it was we were going to see, the answer to which would have been this:
Standard shot
Panoramic shot
Our figure-of-eight walk to and from took us through the Barrio Ingles de Bella Vista: the English Neighbourhood. The engineering of the mines and associated railways was carried out by British Engineers, who built a neighbourhood to house its workers. The houses are big and grand, and apparently the one that's open as a museum is very English inside, but from the outside nothing shouted 'quintessentially English'.
Depositing Mick back at Bertie, I continued for a walk around the town - except I didn't find much that was town-ish (a few bars, a few shops, but nothing that made me think I'd found the main area - assuming there is one). I also didn't stumble across the mining museum, nor any signs pointing me towards it.
I'd like to visit the mining museum, even though it is apparently all in Spanish (I know enough Spanish now to get the gist of what I'm being told, at least in writing), but Mick's state of coughing and spluttering is such that it would be impolite at best for him to be in an enclosed space with strangers. So, I either go by myself not at all.
I don't even know if it's open tomorrow, on the public holiday, with their website not being so useful as to list opening hours. We'll see what the morrow brings.
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