WOW! And wow again. This is not the speediest of roads but my God, the views. I am crossing the Pyrenees into Spain and it is beautiful. The mountains are verdant, dotted with light coloured cattle and sheep. The wooden houses have red gables and remind me of Tyrolean chalets. This is well-worth the climb. Then lo and behold I am in Spain, the border marked by an unmanned booth. The only way you can tell you have moved into Spain is that there are Ventas and the fuel is cheaper!
Heading towards Pamplona we descend the Pyrenees and then toward Zaragoza and Madrid. The landscape becomes quite tedious with the plains stretching for miles in front. I am glad for some cloud cover as I think the temperature would have become unbearable for the boys in the back, though I have the windows wound down as far as I could allow before my somewhat streamlined lifestyle started to litter the highway.
Spain’s economy must surely hinge on road-building. There was little road that did not have a warning sign for Obras. The beauty of Spanish roadworks though is the minimal Health & Safety requirements in evidence. Not for the hombres in yellow jackets fifteen miles of cones before you get to the actual worksite, in many cases a matter of feet. In one instance the men just stood in the hard shoulder with their red aerosol cans marking something. Such a relief – I wonder what the Spanish safety record for workers is compared to the English?
The only fly in the ointment was the passing by of my planned hotel stop and there was no way to get back to it. No internet connection either, so where could I stay? Picking the next town, Valdepeñas, failed to find me somewhere to pass the night…phone a friend!
Sat nav reset to Fuengirola I’m off again. The Pyrenees were beautiful, the Sierra Nevadas was awesome. Where there had been green in the Ps there were fantastic rocky outcrops in the Nevadas. Nothing is as awe inspiring as mountains, whatever style they come in.
No comments:
Post a Comment