Author: marionvermazen

Our plan today was to stop on our way to Lleida and do a canyon hike that Duke had researched. Unfortunately today is Saturday and when we got to the trailhead they asked if we had a reservation. They told us the parking was full.

We decided to drive up into the hills nearby, survey the situation and make a new plan. We had driven almost three hours already and it was still about an hour more to get to Lleida. We couldn’t find any other good hikes nearby so we decided to just go to Lleida and explore the town

We have stayed at the Parador in Lleida before. It is one of the newest Parsdors. It is built in a seventeenth century convent.

Soon after we arrived we went out and explored the town. The Parador is right next to the old castle and church that sit on a hill in the middle of Lleida.

The old cathedral was probably built from the 12th century to the 15th century over the remains of a mosque. During the war of the Spanish succession it was turned into a military barracks. It was only in 1948 that it quit being used by the military.

The cloister is apparently one of the largest in Europe

We went to the very top of the old castle ruins

This will be our last night in a parador for this trip and our last Parador dinner. The restaurant is in the former chapel of the convent.

We had one of our best Parador meals.

The deserts were especially photo worthy. They called mine Oops I dropped “el mel i mató”. I wasn’t quite sure what it would be. El mel i mató means honey and curd in Catalan. It had honey ice cream, sugar crystal paper, something like cream cheese and cookie crumbs. It was really good.

Sunday we will return to Barcelona and turn in our car.

The drive from the house in Lónguida to SOS del Rey Catolicos was less than an hour. We checked into the Parador and went out to explore the town. SOS del Rey Catolicos was built in the tenth century as a fortress to defend against the Moors.

Duke asked the people at the front desk to recommend a hike and they suggested a hike in Foz de Lumbier. The trail follows the rail bed of the first electric train in Spain. We drove to the trailhead and walked through a canyon, along a River.

The canyon is a nature reserve especially for some endangered vulture species. We could seeing them flying and sitting on the cliffs.

Our card playing spot was one of the best of the trip.

We had an excellent dinner at the parador.

We are still staying at the house about thirty minutes east of Pamplona with no internet so this will be posted probably Friday when we next have internet.

A first for this trip, we had no rain today! We drove into Pamplona, parked and then explored the town. We stopped at the tourist office and got a map with English descriptions of local sites. As you probably know Pamplona is best known for the Running of the Bulls which happens in July during the festival of San Fermín. Ernest Hemingway wrote about it and helped make it famous.

We walked the path where the bulls run, from the edge of the old town to the bull fighting ring.

Nearby is a bronze monument to the bull run.

We had coffee on the Plaza del Castillo at Cafe Iruña where Hemingway used to hang out.

And we checked out the cathedral. Part of looking at the cathedral included touring the bell ringers house in one of the bell towers.

Before we left town we went grocery shopping for food to cook for dinner.

Today we drove from Argomaniz to a house we are renting near Pamplona. The house is not quite what we were expecting but it is perfectly adequate. The wifi at the house isn’t working so this won’t be posted for a few days.

The house is right across from a warehouse and the neighborhood garbage cans.

I didn’t realize that there is a bike route across Europe north to south. Today we crossed a section of it and stopped to stretch our legs.

Since the house we are staying in has a full kitchen we decided to fix our own dinner. We went grocery shopping in a nearby small town. Interestingly the grocery store hours were 9-2 and 5-8. Luckily we got there at 5. Back at the house we had a great dinner and then played cards. As you can imagine the volcanic eruption on one of the Canary Islands is big news here. The Canaries are a province of Spain.

When Duke planned our itinerary he found a hike that we could do on this leg of the trip. The hike to a viewpoint overlooking the Nervión waterfall was about a two hour drive from Limpias. Although the forecast for the day was rain, and given that as we were leaving the skies looked threatening, we weren’t sure if we would want to hike. We decided to drive to where the hike started and then assess the situation. And of course we planned to stop at any sites we happened to see along the way.

After about an hour on the road we passed what looked like it would be an interesting church. We stopped to check it out and to stretch our legs. It turned out to be really special. The Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Oak was constructed in 1498 with money contributed by pilgrims and by the monarchs.

Inside the church the altar pieces were intricately carved and gilded and the painted decoration were bright.

Outside is an oak tree that is more than 500 years old.

A bit farther down the road we turned off at a sign pointing to a scenic view and waterfall. We found an idyllic valley.

When we got to the start of the hike to the Viewpoint for Nervión Waterfall the weather had cleared a bit so we decided to do the two and a half mile loop trail.

Along the way we passed the ruins of an old monastery church.

As we walked up to the viewpoint this was the view.

But the wind was playing with the fog and eventually we could see this.

We saw a tiny trickle of water coming out of the wall below the top. The canyon and the view were pretty amazing even if the falls was basically dry.

On the way back we saw walls and a pit where ancient people used to drive wolves into the pit trap kill them.

The road we took after the hike going towards Argomaniz took us down the wall of the canyon we saw on the hike.

The Parador of Argomaniz is another former palace.

For dinner we went to a restaurant called La Bodeguilla Lanciego in the nearby town of Vitoria-Gasteiz. The part of town we were in had a lot of big apartment blocks and it looked like parking would be a problem but we managed to find an underground parking garage near the Corté Inglés department store and only had to walk a couple of blocks.

We started with peppers, asparagus and leeks.

Then we shared a fish.

Finally we shared a steak. It came to the table very rare but they also brought us a hot griddle to use if we wanted the meat cooked further.