Where's Bertie? He's at an Aire in the town of La Palma del Condado. Exact location: 37.38412, -6.55796.
Weather: Wall-to-wall sunshine, but a bit cooler (18 degrees).
Mick arrived back from his run this morning just in time to see me driving off. A bit alarming for him, as I'd assured him he didn't need to take a key and I would be there when he returned. He correctly surmised that I was only going to the service point, and that is indeed where he found me - getting ahead of the mid-morning rush.
Back to our parking spot for Mick to have his breakfast and get changed, then we were off. I'd been in two minds whether to include La Palma del Condado in our itinerary, as my main aim for the next few weeks is to find places with undulations, and I reckoned La Palma would be flat (in all honesty, I've not paid enough attention to the map to know that the other places I've put on the list will be lumpy; I'm just assuming that as we move further inland we will find hills), but as my legs are not quite ready for hills yet, it was to La Palma we came. First, though, we made another quick pit-stop at the same petrol station as we'd visited on our way into Umbrete.
It's normal at no-cashdesk petrol stations in Spain to have to nominate the value of fuel you want before you fill up. We've become accustomed to looking at the price per litre, working out how much capacity we have, and doing the calculation before going to the payment screen, and on Monday we wanted €80. The problem was that there was no option between €60 and €100 (there is also a 'full' option, but there's a reason we don't chose that one). So, on Monday we put €60 in, then this morning thought we may as well swing by to put the other €20. I'm sure the attendant recognised us, but he wasn't to know that we had only driven 2km between the two transactions.
It was only 40km to La Palma, so we were here by late morning, but having given Mick the choice of looking around before or after lunch, he chose the latter. We thus walked around a completely dead siesta-time town again. But, like Umbrete yesterday, what a smart place! The style of architecture didn't strike me as typically Spanish either, such that if I'd been abducted by aliens and dumped in La Palma, I wouldn't have immediately thought 'Oooh, I'm in Spain!'.
Typical town centre street - they like their wrought iron hereabouts.
First square we stumbled upon
Main square with another impressive church (closed)
Just around the corner - big imposing buildings in every direction.
Service Point at the Aire, complete with ET-bearing mural.
Weather: Wall-to-wall sunshine, but a bit cooler (18 degrees).
Mick arrived back from his run this morning just in time to see me driving off. A bit alarming for him, as I'd assured him he didn't need to take a key and I would be there when he returned. He correctly surmised that I was only going to the service point, and that is indeed where he found me - getting ahead of the mid-morning rush.
Back to our parking spot for Mick to have his breakfast and get changed, then we were off. I'd been in two minds whether to include La Palma del Condado in our itinerary, as my main aim for the next few weeks is to find places with undulations, and I reckoned La Palma would be flat (in all honesty, I've not paid enough attention to the map to know that the other places I've put on the list will be lumpy; I'm just assuming that as we move further inland we will find hills), but as my legs are not quite ready for hills yet, it was to La Palma we came. First, though, we made another quick pit-stop at the same petrol station as we'd visited on our way into Umbrete.
It's normal at no-cashdesk petrol stations in Spain to have to nominate the value of fuel you want before you fill up. We've become accustomed to looking at the price per litre, working out how much capacity we have, and doing the calculation before going to the payment screen, and on Monday we wanted €80. The problem was that there was no option between €60 and €100 (there is also a 'full' option, but there's a reason we don't chose that one). So, on Monday we put €60 in, then this morning thought we may as well swing by to put the other €20. I'm sure the attendant recognised us, but he wasn't to know that we had only driven 2km between the two transactions.
It was only 40km to La Palma, so we were here by late morning, but having given Mick the choice of looking around before or after lunch, he chose the latter. We thus walked around a completely dead siesta-time town again. But, like Umbrete yesterday, what a smart place! The style of architecture didn't strike me as typically Spanish either, such that if I'd been abducted by aliens and dumped in La Palma, I wouldn't have immediately thought 'Oooh, I'm in Spain!'.
I’m enjoying your photos and commentary.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if you're someone we know (Google seems to be going through a phase of making comments anonymous seemingly at random), but either way I thank you for the comment. Always nice to have some feedback and to know that someone is reading.
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