Day 12: Caceres to Aljucen

March 1, 2025

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It always seems to come as a shock when we make the transition from an old city centre (where we always choose to stay) out into the modern surrounding city. If the old city is walled, the transition is even more marked. So it was with Caceres today. It's amazing just how much new growth surrounds the original core.

Caceres lies directly on the Camino - La Plata, and I think I must have downloaded something of that name for our GPS track. But of course one has to be careful, lest the track put you on the walking route, which could mean a unusable (for bikes) goat trail, or at least that one would be bugging legitimate Camino walkers with a fast moving bike.

In this case, I had the choice of three "Road Bike" routes - from Komoot, Cicerone, and RWGPS. I am not sure which I ultimately chose, But it clearly did not know what it was doing. Right out of the box we were thrown into what you see below:

Dodie had a look at this, balked, and turned right around. We fairly quickly found our way to the "N630". That is something we do remember Cicerone talking about in their book on cycling the La Plata. But what we found was not the stuff of idle mention. We found something fabulous! At least for today's 60 km, the road was a perfectly paved and perfectly empty de facto cycling superhighway. This is the "old road", with the traffic now being drawn to a new autovia. It's the kind of thing one might travel some distance just to be able to get on! Look:

N630 was like this the whole way. While not perfectly empty, we did note one car approximately every 5 minutes. And the road was often smoother than it appears in this photo!

There were one or two, not more, towns along the way on N630. More of a problem was how empty it was. There were perhaps some supplies at Valdesalor, but we didn't see it. Fortunately we had brought along all we needed.

N630 does warrant Camino signage, and we saw that walkers were repeatedly directed onto trails from the road. The walking route would then return to the road before departing again.

Here are some walkers where the trail is near us and the road.

This ancient looking bridge on the walking route led to a nice picnic spot for the walkers.

While we had been seeing Holm Oak and Olives during the day, we did run into some real Cork Oaks as well.

There had been signage designating this as a cycle route, although mysteriously the signs referred to times on the weekend, making it seem like no cycling on weekdays. Then in the middle of nowhere, this sign appeared. But no matter, later signs reiterated the "give cycles 1.5 meters of clearance" message, and these had no time limits.

This was the densest population of anything we saw along the way.

Lots of little birds flitted on and off the wires and roadside bushes. We were bundled up, because temperatures were around 10 degrees for most of the day. There was often enough sun, though, to warrant the sun glasses. It made it frustrating to try for bird photos, because gloves and glasses had to come off, before a camera could be unpacked. Little birds do not wait around for nonsense like that. Still, we got a couple:

A few bigger birds were also about - notably many Storks. But one we were pretty sure was a Golden Eagle, but Scott corrected our ID:

And this:

Although we no doubt could have easily made the 80 km to Merida, our planned stop was at the tiny town of Aljucen. The emptiness of the road leading in was emphasized by two closed gas stations on the outskirts of town.

The town itself looked ok, with a rather large church at its centre:

Inside the town, near city hall, murals highlight its status as a stop on the Camino:

We have shells like that, with the red cross, at home!

We shot past our booked guesthouse and ended up at the door of another one. No matter, the town is so small that the lady from the second one phoned the first one, and then walked us over to it. Inside the plain exteriors of the two houses we saw, were high quality features like courtyards, spas, and tiled surfaces. We are very impressed by our room at "Casa Rural Merida", which has building materials - like tile floors, double sinks, shower fittings, bathroom walls all of much higher quality than we have or could easily buy, at home.

Our bikes are in a covered section of this patio. In the sky above a stork was soaring, but it had soared off by the time I went to find the camera.

For tomorrow, we are in spitting distance of Merida, a place with a lot of Roman ruins. Beside looking for these, we also have another major objective - finding food! Aljucen was too small for a luxury like that!

Today's ride: 60 km (37 miles)
Total: 242 km (150 miles)

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Jean-Paul & Chantal RIFF/Hautlepiedhello dear friends
We have been following you since your departure! Enjoy this N630, a real motorway for bikes!
We were often alone for several km! We travelled it a few years ago already!
We wish you a great adventure, great encounters and above all good weather!
Chantal and Jean Paul
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1 month ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Jean-Paul & Chantal RIFF/HautlepiedThanks Chantal and Jean-Paul, we have watched your adventures as well. This time we are swinging by near but not at your place, as we go to Mulhouse and then Strasbourg. But maybe a day when we meet again will come soon. Until then we'll stay in touch with Cycleblaze!
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1 month ago