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Another Trip to Spain

st13phil

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It seems like 2010 was the year for roadtrips to Spain what with ***, DRUK and Carnut13 all driving around the place. While Angie and I have toured Spain a few times on a motorcycle, September saw us do our first trip there on four wheels when we took her SLK over and toured around a few Paradores.

For those who haven’t heard of them, Paradores are a publicly-funded chain of luxury hotels dotted across Spain. Now, the thought of a nationalised (i.e. state-owned) hotel chain sounds like an anathema to most people in the UK and conjures up images of the dire railway hotels that used to be owned and operated by British Rail where staff disinterest and lack of service were their USP. Fortunately that image couldn’t be farther from the truth as far as Spain’s Paradores are concerned and the best way I could describe many of them is something along the lines of “luxury hotels meet English Heritage buildings”. Not a perfect analogy, but you get the idea.

Some in the UK think they were Franco’s idea, but they weren’t. While the chain expanded significantly from 40 to more than 80 establishments during Franco’s 1960’s tourist boom, Paradores were not Franco’s baby, pre-dating his rise to power by quite a few years. In fact the whole thing started in 1910 when hotels were practically non-existent in the country and the Spanish government gave Marqués de la Vega Inclán the project of creating a hotel network to provide accommodation for tourists and improve Spain’s international image. Things sometimes move slowly in Spain and it was some 16 years later before the first tangible results were seen when in 1926 De la Vega Inclán kicked off the construction of a hotel in the Gredos Mountains. King Alfonso XIII chose the location personally and work began in August that year on what was to become the Parador de Gredos, completing on the 9th of October 1928 with its inauguration by the King himself – hence the sign outside each Parador today: “Paradores Nacional de Turismo desde 1928”. A flurry of activity throughout the 1930’s saw a raft of monumental buildings converted into Paradores including Oropesa (1930), Úbeda (1930), Ciudad Rodrigo (1931) and Mérida (1933) but external events were to bring a halt to the rapid initial expansion.

During the bloody Civil War many of the buildings comprising the network were damaged or used as hospitals, but the idea was sound and building an economy around tourism was one of Franco’s main strategies for expansion so their future was assured. After the expansion boom of the 1960’s, the next major expansion took place post-Franco in the late 1970’s with another flurry of conversions and new builds and then in the 1980’s a number of hotels from another publicly-owned chain (Entursa) including what is now one of their flagship hotels, the Hostel de San Marcos in León, became part of the Paradores network.

Angie and I have stayed in many Paradores over the last few years and if you like the idea of staying in a Mediaeval Castle dating back to the 9th-century (Cardona) or a 17th-century Ducal Palace (Lerma), then these are the hotels for you! As this was our first Spanish touring trip on four wheels we deliberately chose places we hadn’t stayed at before and, taking advantage of travelling in a vehicle with aircon, we headed farther south than we would have done on a bike at this time of year. Starting with the 12th-century Monastery of San Pedro de Villanueva at Cangas de Onís in the Picos de Europa, our itinerary continued south through a 15th-century palace and castle at Oropesa just south of the Sierra de Gredos, and on to a 16th-centrury renaissance palace in the monumental city of Úbeda. Returning north we moved on to an 18th-century convent built over the remains of a temple to the Concord of Augustus in Mérida (itself the former Roman capital city of Lusitania), and finally to the 16th-century Hostel de San Marcos in León. Five Paradores, 16 nights and almost 2,600 miles: here are a few of the sights we saw.

Here’s the Parador at Cangas de Onís (actually, it’s just up the road at Villanueva). This part is the old Monastery

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Most of the accommodation is in a newly constructed building built of similar stone and in sympathetic style to the Monastery, connected to the old building by this covered walkway. The glass structure to the left of the picture is actually a pyramid-shaped skylight providing light to the restaurant which is built under the hotel

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The weather is often variable in the Picos but we were blessed with sunshine when we took a drive up the AS-260 from Arriondas to the Mirador del Fito. This isn’t what I’d call a particularly great driving road, but the views from the Mirador are fantastic. Here are a couple of views of the Cordillera del Fito

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…and another from the viewing platform looking out towards Colunga

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Are we in Switzerland? No, this view is from the AS-251 near Faya de Los Lobos just south of Nava

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Here are a few shots taken in the Desfiladero de los Beyos south of Cangas de Onís. This 10km long gorge cut millennia ago by the Rio Sella is renowned as one of the most beautiful gorges in Europe. Unfortunately the weather decided not to play when we drove through the gorge, but even in brilliant sunshine it can be quite dark in places because it’s so deep and narrow

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Not far from Cangas is Covadonga, home to a shrine commemorating Don Pelayo’s defeat of the Moors in 772 which marked the start of the Reconquista. Here’s a statue of the man

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…and here’s the rather impressive tourist-trap church

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Finally, we can’t leave Cangas without a picture of the pretty Roman bridge with it’s Asturian crucifix hung in the central arch

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Great text and great pics.The Paradores are special.
I drive to Spain twice each year and vary my route as much as possible.
Sometimes west coast,sometimes east coast and sometimes thru the central Pyrenees. A beautiful country regardless of route.
Thanks for the posting.
Regards
john
 
Great writeup and photographs. I too have stayed in the Paradores and think they are brilliant.

Out of interest, what camera and lens did you use for the pics? My exif data link doesn't work on this forum.
 
Thanks, guys. I'll try to post up some more pic's from the trip later today.

The camera is a Canon S90IS which performed brilliantly and is proving to be a fantastic "walking around" camera. The shots here are taken from the jpg's (rather than the RAW images) and have been resized and sharpened a bit for display. I also tweaked the geometry on the one of the church at Covadonga because it was taken at very wide angle.
 
I was about 10 days behind Phil and it looks like he got the best of the weather

We both used Brittany Ferries to Santander and I can thoroughly recommend that route; Very easy on and off the boat and so organised on the Spanish side. The Roads are traffic free and very well surfaced so driving is a doddle
 
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Part dos ;)

I had originally intended our route to Oropesa to start with a drive through the Desfiladero de los Beyos to Riaño and then pick up the motorway network south of León but decided instead to first head west towards Oviedo and pick up the AP-66. The views from this motorway as you climb from Pola de la Lena to the Túnel de Negrón are spectacular and make the modest toll fee actually worthwhile. Not every motorway climbs to over 3,000ft and these photos were taken from a rest area near Telledo at that altitude

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Once through the tunnel we took a detour along the CL-626 alongside the Embalse de Barrios de Luna. You can just make out some traffic on the motorway on the far side of the reservoir

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..and here’s a view from the other side of the dam (I wouldn’t fancy living down there if it sprang a leak!)

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The rest of the journey was motorway all the way to the walled city of Ávila and then we picked up the N-502 over the Puerto de Menga and Puerto del Pico. This is a great stretch of road with the climb up to Puerto de Menga being mostly wide, open, sweepers with good visibility which provided an ideal opportunity to enjoy the SLK’s performance :D

Here are a couple of views from the Puerto del Pico looking over the Sierra de Gredos. Towards the bottom left of the second shot you can catch a glimpse of the old Roman road. Oh, and the descent through those bends is as fun as it looks :D

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Here’s a view of the palace Parador and the adjacent castle at Oropesa from the A-5

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We’d booked a room with a view and this is the vista over the Sierra de Gredos from our window

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The Parador’s courtyard now provides guest parking, but in 1957 it was mocked up to look like a bullring for the filming of Stanley Kramer’s film The Pride and the Passion

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The inside of the Parador is, err, palatial!

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The Castle is worth a short visit just for the views from the battlements and the towers

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Spain may be suffering greatly in the current financial crisis with 20% unemployment generally and 25%+ unemployment amongst those under 25, but they still know how to throw a party and we were lucky enough to have our arrival coincide with the local fiesta which meant plenty of bunting and lots of late-night music and dancing in the town’s Plaza Mayor

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One thing about travelling by road is that you get to see some remarkable sights. Angie and I had travelled through the Val de la Vera from Arenas de San Pedro to Plasencia a couple of times on the bike and had been amazed to pass through a small town that’s absolutely packed with topiary. Unfortunately, each time we’d been through it we’d not had the opportunity to stop and take pictures as we were travelling as part of a group, but being not too far away on this trip we made a special effort to get some photo’s. So, here’s the topiary madness of Losar de la Vera

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This is the entrance to the bank!

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…and finally, a gratuitous car shot

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Great story.

Just a quick heads up. My wife drove over to see me with the kids last week in Alicante. Someone broke into the engine bay of the Alpina and stole the ABS pump and ECU...but on first inspection it appears nothing else! Not fun driving off to find you have no brakes (other than the handbrake).

So be on your guard when you are here...
 

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