Four and a Half Weeks in Spain

The solo portion of my trip was a learning experience both about solo travel and car rental, not to mention driving.

My one major mistake was to rent an apartment in the city center with parking in the city center. That meant that I had to drive in and out through a series of very tight one way streets every day. Nerve wracking but oddly fun. But on the last day I drove out as the police and officials closed off streets for a bike race I didn't know about. I went the wrong way down a couple of one way single lane streets at the direction of the police in my final escape. That was simply scary. I do wonder about tickets for that.

Also I found Google directions more reliable than the Garmen in small towns. In future I may leave Garmin behind and take a mount for the cellphone instead.

To be continued. . .

I don't think I've ever been either as wet or as lost as I was my first day in Segovia. Getting from the airport, to the train station, and on to the bus for the last leg into town all went swimmingly. So did the getting to the apartment from the bus stop. It's just that in the latter case I mean that swimming might have been drier. And that's when I noticed the drawback to being highly map dependent in the rain alone, no one to hold an umbrella. It was to wet to even think about using the phone (I will take a waterproof case for it next time) unless I was under one of the few overhangs. It wasn't very useful in Segovia anyway. The tightness of the streets confused it and it always thought I was a block or so over from where I really was. The TI map I picked up before heading out disintegrated rapidly. I was tired and jet lagged and not thinking clearly. I should have just taken a cab.

My raincoat kept my upper half dry, and the pack cover did its job. But my jeans got wet, heavy and cold. My shoes sloshed. My glassed fogged.

In the end I called my landlady from the Plaza Mayor (only about three blocks from the studio apartment) to rescue me which she very kindly did.

I took a hot shower and laid my clothes out to dry and the world looked brighter, figuratively and really. The rain broke. I followed my landlady's good directions using a new dry map with which she had stocked the apartment to get to the supermercado, stopping on the way for cappuccino. It didn't begin to rain again until just as I reached the apartment groceries in hand.

That evening I walked out and photographed the town in the rain. It was beautiful. And it was dry under my umbrella.

In the morning, I walked down over a dusting of newly fallen snow, to the rental car agency. The woman at the counter had even less English than I have Spanish, which is saying something. But we managed. I drove my little Smart-For-Four onto the street and parked it, set the GPS for the apartment and called my landlady. She had agreed to drive from the apartment to the garage with me. Garmin navigated just fine. My landlady directed me to the garage which was about 15 blocks away by car and about a half block by foot, such is driving in Segovia.

The garage, unlike my apartment, had a fantastic view over the hills away from town. Parking there involved parking outside the garage. Using a key to open double doors. Chaining the doors open. Backing the car into a tiny space.

I went back the apartment gathered a few things and headed out for Turegano and Pedraza de la Sierra. After getting the car back out of the garage and driving out of Segovia life got easy. I enjoyed driving especially on the little roads leading to the smaller towns. Parking was free and easy in dirt lots below. I walked around in a slight drizzle taking pictures of tile roofs covered in snow.

I quickly developed a pattern of getting up early and walking a part of the nature trail that runs around the outside of old Segovia. One morning I walked under the castle coming up under the cathedral. Another day I walked up to the Jewish Cemetery where I saw hot air balloons launching. Another day I walked along the river and came out below town. Another morning I walked up the aqueduct to the end. Then I'd have breakfast and drive out to sketch and photograph. In the late afternoon, I grocery shopped, made dinner and walked Segovia.

I also began to discover the big difference between travelling alone in the U.S. and travelling alone in Spain: talk, or lack there of.
Very few people I met spoke any English beyond food and directions. My Spanish is no better. I ran into few if any other tourists in my little towns. Segovia and Avila were full of Spanish tourists.

There was another difference too, a nice one. People go out of there way to be kind and helpful to single middle aged women traveling alone in a foreign country.

After my harrowing drive out of Segovia on the last day, I went to Salamanca via Zamora. There was some kind of rally going on in Zamora involving red flags, speeches and firing guns in the air. Part of it was going on in the plaza above the underground parking lot next to the TI. The woman the desk was helpful about sights, but unable to explain what the group in the plaza were there for. Walking to the cathedral and castle, I passed more groups and more speeches. It remains a mystery.

I arrived in Salamanca just in time for another deluge. Fortunately I was arriving by car and the parking was in a garage under my apartment and just outside the city center. Easy peasy. I walked over the Roman Bridge into town immediately as the I wanted to see The Art Nouveau Museum my arrival day was the only day during my stay that it would be open. It was small and fantastic. The building itself is a marvel of Art Nouveau glass.

Afterwords I headed for the Plaza Mayor and groceries. But the grocery was closed, not just closed now but closed for renovations. The sign had addresses for the nearest grocers, but the streets named were not on my map, or at least not on the part of my map that actually had street names. I asked for help, may in hand, and got more than I bargained for. A middle aged couple, who spoke no English walked me all the way to a grocer in the pouring rain.

In the morning Salamanca was dry and beautiful.

On the way to Caceres I visited a couple of mountain towns in the Sierra de Francia. That was interesting mountain driving. The towns were half timbered and picturesque.

The transition to Caceres was interesting. My landlord did not really speak English, and I don't have much Spanish. I wrote in English, he responded in Spanish. I kept asking for directions to the parking garage. He kept saying, call when you reach town. I finally just said, look I can read Spanish, but I can't understand it over the phone. You obviously don't really speak English. The phone is of no use to us. I need an address for the garage. I'll text you when I'm there. That worked. And he brought alone a friend who thinks he speaks English. Anyway, it worked. And once again I was in an apartment just outside of old town with a parking garage underneath.

Caceres is everything that Avila is but better. It has an intact medieval walled core completely walled. But it isn't so touristy. There is just one cafe in the whole inner core. There are few cars and few hostels. It really feels as if the middle ages never ended there. At night it's beautifully lit. Just outside the medieval core there is a beautiful Plaza Mayor and narrow twisting streets full of shops and restaurants.

From Caceres, I spent one day visiting Merida and one day in Trujillo. Merida does have marvelously Roman ruins. The theater is amazing. The Roman museum has a fantastic collection. But as a city it lacks charm. It is hot and dirty going from one ruin site to the other. I have marvelous pictures, but it wasn't my favorite day.

Trujillo, on the other hand, was just my thing. Like Caceres, it's old town is quiet and relatively untouristy. It's full of beautiful churches, the walls are intact, the plaza mayor charming. All this plus hill and fantastic views of the countryside. Did I say I liked it? I met a couple from the Netherlands there and probably talked there ears off as they spoke English and were willing to talk. We were traveling in opposite directions, so we had useful information to share.

Thanks for posting this report. And your account of arriving in Segovia in the rain is exactly I get so upset when people say stupid things like "Why are you worried about rain - you won't melt." When your maps disintegrate and your clothes are soaked, you're miserable, even if you haven't melted.

When I arrived in Spanish cities on my last trip, I usually took a taxi from the bus or train station to the hotel. It wasn't expensive (under €10), and the time and hassle saved was well worth it - even when it wasn't raining.

Thanks for the trip report. I will be going to Spain in November! Can't wait. I have an awesome Eddie Bauer raincoat that folds into a pouch. It is great at keeping me dry. That would be my upper half. From high hip down I get soaked. Why is that manufacturers have quit making raincoats that cover the behind? So often when I add an umbrella it just blows all around or inside out, anyway. I'm not asking for knee length, just a bit longer, PLEASE! We are going to use a car for just a few days in Spain. Any comments on the driving?

Harald: Yes I should have just taken a cab. In future, that's my rainy day plan especially if alone.

Jules: I was planning on waiting to sum up driving until after the second car rental, but I'll do it now instead. First of all, it's not that bad, really. Driving is driving mostly, and Spanish drivers are no worse than American drivers. I drove the speed limit this trip. This did not make Spanish drivers any happier than U.S. drivers would be. I mitigated this by pulling over whenever possible.

As long as you read up on it before you go, the signage is clear and easy. International signs are great. I used the Wagoners' Driving in Spain ebook to prep before going. https://www.amazon.com/Driving-Spain-Everything-need-know-ebook/dp/B01N4D5BXG They have pictures and explanations of all the common signage and good descriptions for navigating roundabouts, as well as standard speed limits.

There are differences. First of all the roundabout is everywhere and much more common than the stop sign or traffic light. Roundabout clusters in which your do one after another without ever getting up to speed between them are common. I learned to love them. If you aren't sure where you are going the roundabout is for you because if you don't know which exit is yours, you can just continue going around until you do. They are also easy legal u-turns. Learn the rules and you too will love roundabouts. That said, some big city permutations of the roundabout are startling, such as roundabouts with streets bisecting the middle of the circle governed by traffic lights.

Second, the line for stopping at traffic lights will be way, way, way closer to the intersections than you are used to. They are so close that you can't see overhead traffic lights and must rely and the side lights.

Spanish highways and freeways are fantastic. They are in good condition and better signed than I'm used to. Some extra signs I'm not used to include the sign that tells you you can use a particular exit to cross over and reverse course, signs telling you the speed limit on turnouts and side roads so you know before you exit, the international sign for wind gusts, a variety of intersection signs, the toll road sign (making it easy to avoid these) and the freeway sign.

Smaller roads are interesting. I drove many nominally two way roads not wide enough for two trucks to pass each other. A common sign tells you who has the right of way in that situation. Another common signs that I hadn't seen before is the maximum width sign. They are self explanatory and I highly recommend avoiding this issue by renting small.

If you can help it, avoid driving in villages. If possible, park outside them and walk in. But sometimes the only road leads through a village. Consider it an adventure and drive slow. Narrow one way roads between buildings are common as are ninety degree or more turns without visibility. There are wide angle mirrors set up to solve the visibility problem. Many streets available to residents will be off limits to you. These are well signed. No parking or stopping signs are common. You will probably also discover the one lane two way street with a stop light at each end to allow traffic to go first one way and than the other.

Parking also different. Blue or green lines indicate pay parking on the street. Green in the most expensive. Look for the pay mini kiosk after you park. Libre signs on parking garages mean there is parking available, not that it is free. Paying at the garage is a little different. You pay at a kiosk just before approaching the exit. Then you insert your paid ticket to get out. You can't pay at the exit.

Bottom line, I will rent again in Europe, but, my first choice remains public transportation. Cars are only really useful for smaller places where public transport is spotty or nonexistent. --- to be continuted.

I used a Garmin to navigate. This worked fine for the solo part of my trip. But when Stephen and I rented together, the smaller Pueblos Blancos freaked it out. Its map function was fine, but the navigation function revolted, often taking 30 minutes to plot a course, or directing me the wrong way up one way streets (no I didn't follow that direction). Fortunately, we had google maps on the cell phones to compensate. Next time I will take a cell phone mount for the car. It could have been really bad if it had been just me and no way to mount the cell visibly.

The car rental process itself was interesting. I'm not sure how much it differs from the U.S. in non airport places, but it does differ the rent and return at the airport experience. The agency in Segovia had a little parking garage holding about a dozen cars tightly packed. You drive from it directly to the street. To return a car there you would have to park on the street and go into the office as there is no automatic door to the garage. It's all manual lock and key. And that is how I returned the car in Toledo, i.e. by parking it near the agency and walking in. The agency appeared closed at first because the one agent there was outside checking someone else's car back in. The agency in Seville worked just like an airport lot. In Granada at the train station we had to park outside and go in, only to be given directions to park in a public lot with a drop box. Finding that lot was stressy.

To sum up my experiment with travelling alone, the bottom line is I liked it for about eight days or so. After that, I really missed my husband and English conversation.

My purposes were various. First, I like to be gone four to six weeks and Stephen wants to be gone closer to three. Second, I like just walking small towns a great deal more than he does. Finally, I use my trips as painting fodder, so I take more photos of alleys, houses, and people and sometimes even stop to sketch. This conflicts with Stephens ability to get to the next thing. I think travelling alone for the first portion of the trip fulfilled all of these objectives. I got my fill of small places, I have a camera full of pictures, many sketches, and I was ready to go home at about the same time Stephen was.

There are a few drawbacks. First, although I like being alone (I'm introverted) on my own where I can't speak the language was eventually too much of a good thing. WIFI phone conversations with Stephen went a long ways towards fixing that. Second, I hadn't really appreciated how helpful it is to have two people when navigating, especially for me as Stephen likes to do the bulk of that. Also not having someone to watch the packs while you go potty is a pain. Finally, although I still enjoyed sipping coffee in outdoors, it's much nicer with two.

The unexpected perk was how much more attentive to a single woman travelling alone the waitstaff, clerks, ticket offices, and other places are.

I'll move on to the joint part of our trip in a bit, as this is turning out to be a novel.

Great report, thanks. Rick mentions the language barrier in his book, but once you are there it’s a real eye opener. Our tour guide told us that Franco insisted American movies be dubbed in Spanish, no subtitles, so Spaniards were not exposed to written or spoken English and it was not taught in schools. Whether this explains it all I don’t know but we found a dearth of English speakers even among the young. I got an ear infection and visited a pharmacy in Córdoba. With pigeon Spanish and a lot of gesticulation, she still wanted to give me earplugs! I was way beyond that! Thank goodness for google translate. Got my ear drops which saved the day. We encountered far more English in Portugal last summer.

So on to the joint part of our trip. I dropped the car off in Toledo by noon and was really settled in the apartment by two or so. That apartment was one of the highlights of our trip. We had a view of the military museum out one window and the cathedral from the other. get up close to either window and you could see both. We also had a porch with similar views. It was cozy and comfortable besides.

I spent the afternoon grocery shopping and wandering. The following day I spent the morning on some of the sights covered by the bracelet system before walking down to the train station to meet my jet-lagged husband. I helped carry his pack and we walked up to the apartment, taking advantage of the escalators. I made him lunch and we walked around town and then along the ecological trail that runs around Toledo. It was a good choice for a jetlagged man and woman who wanted to talk, and talk, and talk.

We liked Toledo where we had two full days. We did all of the bracelet sights, the cathedral, the military museum, the El Grecco museum, and the Visigoth museum. But mostly we simply enjoyed the city. We walked the entire ecological trial over the evenings and were the last people across the river on the zip-line one evening. That was a blast. We also visited The Mariano Zamorano and bought steak knifes, and two folding knifes which arrived yesterday.

From Toledo we took the train to Seville which we also liked, though it was very different. Flat for one thing. :) We stayed just barely outside Santa Cruz on the train station side. We visited the usual places. Our favorites were the Casa de Pilatos which feels like a smaller and uncrowded version of the alcazar, the Museo Palacio de la Condes de Lebrija which has the most fantastic Roman mosaics and the Plaza de Espana. The Plaza de Espana is the most beautiful space I think I've ever been in. . We took the bus to Italica where we enjoyed the mosaics, but were unconvinced that it was a wise use of time. Without a car, I'd skip it. We went to a Flaminco dance. That was interesting, but not exactly our cup of tea. I'm afraid we liked the tourist flaminco buscar at athe Plaza de Espana rather better.

We also took an all day day trip to Jeerez to see the horses dances followed by the late afternnon and evening in Cadiz where we simply walked and had dinner. That was a good day. Both the horses and Cadiz are beautiful.

We rented the second car at the train station the morning we left Seville. We visited Zahara and Grazalema on the way to our home base, Setenil. I chose Setenil because it is close to Ronda and looked, based on internet pictures gorgeous. It is spectacular. Unlike many on the Pueblos Blancos it is set in a gorge rather than on a hill. The effect is of two hill towns facing each other. The view is always grand. It's a semitroglidite community meaning that many of the houses are built into the cliffs and one street is a natural tunnel. From Setenil we daytripped Ronda and Olvera. We also spent a day hiking outside Setenil. This part of the trip was a highlight, and really only possible with the car.

We stopped at the dolmens outside of Antequera on our way to Granada, imagine an underground Stonehinge. That was just two short stops at twenty or thirty minutes is fine for each set of dolmens. By car, or if you are staying in Antequera, I recommend them. But you won't spend enough time there to bother seeing them by train.

We dropped the car in Granada at the train station. I'm afraid we didn't do Granada justice. After the Pueblos Blancos it felt dirty, crowded, and overly touristy. We did enjoy ourselves, though it was not our favorite part of the trip. The Alhambra is indeed spectacular. It's just that we wanted the Pueblos Blancos to go on and on.

From Granada we took the bus to Cordoba where we had our only hotel overnight and our only one night stand. In hindsight, we would have done better to make it a daytrip from Seville. Live and learn. We were very glad we went though. The Mesquita was well worth the trip. We also really enjoyed the Museum of Al-Andulus Life in the Calahorra Tower.

We took the afternoon train to Madrid from there.

Our first day in Madrid was really a return to the beginning of my trip. We took a balloon ride over Segovia, followed by a day in Segovia with a train ride back. The balloon ride was our one big splurge for the trip and well worth it. Aero Tours picked us up in Madrid along with two other passengers. There were just six of us in the balloon including the pilot and co-pilot. The weather was fine and the wind took us over the city. Afterwords we did the sight I had saved for Stephen in Segovia, i.e the Cathedral. Then I took him walking on the trail under the castle and cathedral and otherwise showed off "my" city. I may or may not have made him walk my car route just to brag.

We devoted our two days in Madrid to the three big art museums and Rick Steve's Madrid walk. We also saw a bullfight. We prepared for the bullfight by visiting both the museum in Seville and the one in Ronda. We also listened to an audio version of Hemmingway's Death in the Afternoon in the car. The prep was a good idea as it gave us a better understanding of what we were watching. I feel guilty saying it, but I was riveted for the entire performance. It is like a very dangerous masculine dance.

All in all we had a great trip, and we will go back to Spain, we just don't know when. The car experiment worked and we will probably do that again in future. The packing mostly worked, though I had too much clothing. I'm still trying to figure out how to pack for both snow and 80 degree weather. We still like staying in apartments and mostly eating in.