A less than auspicious start though - Belinda Berlingo, the campervan, developed a fault just a couple of hours before we were due to leave for Pompey and the ferry to Bilbao! The garage couldn't get the part to repair it in time so we hastily reorganised the booking, insurance, breakdown cover etc so that we could go by car! Not to mention unpack Belinda and repack Sukey Suzuki, who had never been foreign in her life but rose nobly to the occasion!
After that frantic activity, and the drive down to Portsmouth we were glad of the two night trip to Bilbao on the Cap Finistere to recover! We had a relaxing night's sleep going down the Channel and enjoyed an hour or two watching goings on at Roscoff, where we docked to change crew, before an afternoon cruise through the islands, with guardian lighthouses, at the western end of the Brittany Peninsula.
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| Fairly pickled with rocky islets! |
We'd planned to stay at our usual campsite but had to find a hotel - luckily there is wifi on the boat, so, after finding, and booking, a hotel in Aranjuez we enjoyed a second quiet night before docking in Bilbao at 7.30 and heading south, first through the mountains of the Cantabrian ranges and then the pancake flat, layer cake geology of Castile.
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| On the drive south we saw Cretaceous limestone folded and eroded into jagged peaks |
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| And then we hit the incredibly flat sediments of the plains between Burgos and Somosierra. |
The flat sediments included some bright white layers which we think are evaporite minerals, probably gypsum.
A coffee stop south of Somosierra, and then we achieved a faultless crossing of Madrid which was rather pleasing - the motorway junctions come thick and fast and it is a job for the satnav to keep up with the "keep rights" and "keep lefts" to get us in the right lane all the time! On a previous trip we had ended up in the motorway tunnels and, when we eventually got back satellite reception, found we were in the north-west of the city rather than south!
Madrid conquered, we headed on into Aranjuez and the Hotel Jardin de Aranjuez which was just across from the Jardin del Principe. We enjoyed a good leg stretch in the gardens - much needed after the drive - before a birthday dinner at the hotel's Irish Pub (the food was Spanish even if the Murphy's wasn't) rounded off with an Irish Coffee!
The gardens are extensive, stretching for around 1.5 km between the main avenue opposite the Palace, and the river to the north. They are a mix of orchards and pleasure gardens with broad, shady avenues, and orchard plots.
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| Shady avenue through the gardens |
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| The river Tajo flows past the garden |
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| complete with ducklings |
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| Pomegranate trees alongside an avenue |
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| An area of orchard |
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| Avenue of plane trees |
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| More ducks! |
All this gardening took a lot of water and there's an intricate system of irrigation channels and sluices
Next morning, after breakfast, we thought we would take a look at the Royal Palace and sauntered over there. Sadly the fountain wasn't playing this morning, so I was glad I'd managed a quick snap the previous evening, just before it was turned off.
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| Just caught the fountain playing in the Jardin de la Isla on the east side of the Palace (obviously specially for my birthday as it wasn't doing a thing next morning!) |
The next minor setback was the queue to go in and, after waiting about 15 minutes we decided that a ramble around the outside for an hour, before setting off on the drive south, was going to be as, if not more, interesting than a heap of baroque furniture and some family portraits!
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| The west side |
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| Oval Plaza on the west side |
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The west courtyard: the 16th C central building had wings
added in the 18th C |
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| More plane trees |
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| The north side by the river |
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| The Plaza de las Parejas to the south of the Palace |
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| Buildings around the Plaza de las Parejas |
And, for my geological friends, some building stones, plus a few quirky bits!
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Cement slabs set with cobbles for paving. We saw an indoor version
of this in a B&B shower in the Basque country. |
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| Hand made chain |
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Carved stone decoration - sadly so much whitewash on it that
the underlying stone was invisible! |
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| Loved this brick dome vaulting |
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| Brecciated limestone paving |
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| Palace window could do with a coat of paint! |
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| Modern granite paviers laid at an angle on a roadway |
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| A cast iron drain cover set in small limestone pieces |
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| Massive granite mixed with brickwork in the Plaza de las Parejas |
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| More handmade chain links |
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| A colonnade that looks like a perspective drawing exercise! |
The look around the outside of the Palace worked much better than trailing around its innards and it meant we could set off on the 400 km drive down to La Paz by 11am, The journey from Aranjuez is straightforward - along the long straight road through Don Quixote country, bypassing places like Valdepenas that we used to drive through, and down through the mountains on the motorway - so different from the little dual carriageway that wound down through the Desfiladero de Despenaperros backalong (and uniquely, had a restaurant accessed off the fast lane.. the view was better that side!).
Turn left towards Granada, past Jaen (must stop there sometime), around Granada and out onto the A92 for the home straight to La Paz!
We were relieved to get there, after the worrying start we had had 3 days earlier!
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