Day 31 - The Big Iberian Trip - Pola de Lena

85 kms, height gained 1754m height lost 2276m

What goes up must come down and getting closer to the north coast of Spain we are finally beginning to surrender height we've held onto for the last 10 days. Crossing the Cantabrian Mountains, from Castile y León into Asturias, today's numbers look impressive. But in fact the day turned out to be relatively easy, a long way from the nightmare I was anticipating.

Climbing gently into the mountains

I spent most of yesterday's rest day in Leon worrying about today. The climb looked tough, there are few significant places to hang out, and the weather forecast was dreadful. We have become regular consumers of Spanish weather forecasts and the only conclusion you could draw from last night's was that the chances of significant rain with thunder today were high and it would get worse as we climbed. The only thing that gave us a glimmer of hope was that it was supposed to rain in León and didn't so perhaps the forecasts were a bit on the negative side. The Ruta Vía de la Plata website was also off-putting about this stretch of the route. As well as a massive climb and lightening they had me worrying about tunnels and lorries

Day 30 The Big Iberian Trip - León

99.3km 903m gained 801 lost

Yesterday we arrived in León from Benevante completing a tough but excellent day's cycling. Today we are resting up, doing some sight seeing and resting up for tomorrow and what promises to be the toughest day of trip, the day we cross the Cantabrian Mountains.

Now you can get from Benavente to Leon along the N630, it's not the recommended route, but is shorter. Christine, who prefers the straightest line between two points, had her misgivings. The promise that we would adopt a two stop strategy, one involving a proper lunch, was however enough to clinch the deal.

Day 29 The Big Iberian Trip - Benevante

68kms 700m ascent 620 descent

Benevante isn't in the same cultural heritage league as Zamora or Salamanca but it's a nice place with a Parador.

Paradors are a hotel chain owned by the Spanish state and typically located in beautiful historic buildings which would otherwise perhaps have fallen down. It's almost a Spanish version of National Trust but instead of preserving a building as a visitor attraction they preserve it as a hotel. They can be quite expensive but we noticed that with the long Spanish Easter finally starting to disappear the price had gone down so we've booked our first stay in one, here in Benevante, and have another in León tomorrow.

Day 27 and 28 Zamora via Salamanca

My last blog was from Bejar where I was contemplating completing the crossing of the Sierra​ Gredos to get to Salamanca. Well, yesterday the weather turned and after 6 days of sun we just didn't fancy a cold wet day in the clouds with thunder storms, so we caught the bus.

To be honest I've wanted to take the bike on the bus for some time and have been looking for an excuse. Guidance on how to do it is very varied on the web with most people saying you can but some saying you need a bike bag and some saying you can't. Spanish bus stations can be confusing places and at a relatively small place like Bejar no one speaks English. We called in at the bus station late on Thursday just after the bus from Salamanca had arrived. We tried to communicate with the driver and he seemed very relaxed, so we left with the impression that putting bikes in the bus wouldn't be a problem.

Day 26 The Big Iberian Trip - Bejar

65 kms 1400m climb 800 descent.

To get from Seville to Gijón along the Ruta Vía de la Plata involves crossing three east west running ranges of mountains, the Sierra Morena, the Sierra Gredos, and the Cantabrian Mountains. Today we just about got to the top of the Sierra Gredos and at 964m reached our highest point so far. We have another 200m to do tomorrow but the hard work is behind us.

Actually it wasn't that difficult. One of the benefits of following a significant road like the N630 is that it's well graded. If a huge lorry can grind its way to the top then so can a pair of geriatrics on bikes, and we never really struggled. Still it did feel good and as we zoomed into Bejar; we were buzzing and both of us wanted to carry on to Salamanca. This would have been a terrible mistake and sense eventually prevailed as the effects of the day's efforts started to kick in.

Day 25 - The Big Iberian Tour - Plasencia

Thank goodness, after last night's​ misadventure, we have arrived exactly where we expected to be and the hotel, which was easily found, turned out to be the best yet.

Firstly a postscript to yesterday. It seems I ended up in the wrong Càceres because this was the recommended stop from the Ruta Vía de la Plata website. Why they suggested staying there is beyond comprehension. It's a village with little in the way of world beating tapas and although our hotel was 2 kms away, the noise from the town's dogs kept me awake to about 2 in the morning. I haven't heard such noisy dogs since my last trip to Nepal, a country whose Buddist traditions stops them doing anything sensible with such sleep inhibitors. They definitely don't have the same scruples about animals here but the dogs made the same noise We were also slightly disappointed that the wonderful welcome from our agriturismo hosts came at a whopping cost - every tiny bit of welcome was itemised and had to be paid for.

The advantage of an early (and expensive) breakfast was that we got away in good time. Cycling across this wild-west countryside at 8-30am in the morning gave yet another dimension to Spain's excellent sunshine because it cast such wonderful light.

Day 24 The Big Iberian Tour - Casar de Càceres

So we're staying in an agriturismo just west of the small village of Casar de Càceres. The only problem is that somehow, when booking the accommodation I managed to get my Casar de Càceres mixed up with my Càceres. Instead of staying in a large town full of castles and other antiquities and, according to Christine, the best gastronomy in all of Spain, we are 10kms further along the route in the middle of field.

As you might expect that last 10kms of what turned out to be a hot 87km ride were the longest, and if looks could kill I wouldn't have made it. Despite the fact that I had navigated our way through a very busy Càceres without a hitch, there was no getting away from it, I had cocked up and missing the historic old town was a disappointment.


After yesterday's discussion about gravel, today we adopted the Roman approach to cycling and took the most direct route between A and B (or C as it turned out to be). This meant ditching some long stretches of what looked like gravel and missing the visit to Alcuéscar. We did however visit the reservoir at Proserpina where a magnificent old stone dam built by Romans still holds the water in place. 'What did the Romans ever do for me', well quite a lot if you live in Mérida.