On the Road Again!

With there still being 4 months until we set off for Plymouth and the long ferry to Spain, I have been thinking about some more routes and places to visit. The first two nights after arrival are booked at Caravanning Oyambre and then we start the touring part of the trip. I don't want to be driving everyday nor do I want to be doing huge mileages each day. I have a rough plan to take in some of the Roman places etc between León and the coast. Letting Google Maps plan a route from Oyambre to Potes and then Ayamonte on the Mediterranean. From Zamora it zig zagged into Portugal and then back into Spain. A bit of tweaking, adding a few places of interest and it came up with this. Why Ayamonte? We have seen it a few times in vlogs and it looks a nice place to have a few days rest and recuperation. This will be the end of the first part of the trip. Between C and D there are other places to see.  It's only an idea though.

Spoke too soon about last meal in Mérida. Claire ill in the night. Usually that's my job. Luckily I was able to add a night here tonight and cancel the Badajoz hotel. A visit to the pharmacy along the road to get some pills was easy enough with Google Translate's assistance. "¿Me pueden dar algún medicamento para la diarrea?" It was after lunch when we got out with Claire feeling better we set off for Badajoz. In hindsight we might not have needed to cancel the hotel. Better safe than sorry. Parked near Alcazaba and went in the tourist information centre. It started to drizzle as we walked the Alcazaba walls. From up here you can see across the rooftops to the river and down into the Plaza Alta. As we sat having a drink it started to rain hard and we sat it out. It didn't last long and we continued our walk and back to the car. Pano of Plaza Alta A stop for an in-car picnic before heading back to Mérida the longer prettier way. Evening in. Claire tired after illn...

Not long now. Airlines & Luggage With budget airlines charging almost as much for a case to go in the hold as they do for a human to occupy a seat on the plane I followed the advice of a well known travel writer. The advice? Book hand luggage only first of all as the baggage price is at its highest at this point. As the flight date gets nearer this price tends to drop and although still an "extra" it can save a lot of money. So that's what I did. Will it work? Will it buggery. With less than a week to go I logged into "manage bookings" on the outward leg of the journey. The flight is operated by Iberia the Spanish national carrier. I can add a bag for €15. Very reasonable. Before booking I logged into the "manage booking" page of British Airways for the return leg. The flight is actually operated by their partner. Iberia! Loads of information about additional baggage but no "add a case" button shows up. Unlike many big companies there...

Another juggle. Day 1 - Flight out to Madrid and Trujillo Parador to stay 2 nights. Day 3 - Mérida and stay 2 nights. Day 5 - Badajoz - one night Day 6 - Cáceres - two night Day 8 - Back to Madrid and flight home. Using this Rough Guide to read about the places to visit. To give us more time I have dropped one of the overnights and doubled up at Cáceres. Three weeks to go. Update 12th May 2018 Email British Airways. the return flight has been re-timed to be 1835 instead of 1805.  Not that it matters as we have to have the car back at about 1530.

Michelin 576 A few days sitting at home looking at the Michelin Map 576 and getting a "larger picture" of the trip means yet another update to the routing. All the hotels for the first night have been either too far to the north and way off the path between Madrid and the first Extremadura stop at Trujillo.  So yet another review using the map to see where places are has been helpful. I have changed the first night stop again. That's what is quite good about booking.com ! The chance to plan and chop and change as need be. The biggest change is that I have decided that when we arrive in Madrid and get the car, it will be about 3.30pm so instead of an overnight on the way we'll go straight to Trujillo. I logged into the Parador website and "modify booking" didn't work. Luckily, they had a chat option and a nice lady called Viktoria changed the booking to make it a day earlier. That of course freed up another day in the week. A bit of shuffling around and I...

After a look through the Rough Guide to Spain and then TripAdvisor a rough plan was established that we should do a clockwise circuit around the central region of the region. The distances involved in this trip won't be too great so we should have time for a good look around without too much driving about. I have booked another Parador in Trujillo for two nights. On the booking sites there weren't too many hotels available for our dates. I thought about an anti-clockwise trip around the circuit but that didn't help. So a quick trip to the Parador.es website and I signed us in there. I booked another hotel  in Mérida ,  Again for two nights. This one a little less luxurious but it looks very nice. As we have seven nights to play with, the above leaves two to book.   So I have gone ahead and booked a single night in Badajoz and the last night in Cáceres.  These are also decent looking hotels. We will have to get used to the standards after the Paradors.  That wi...