To Plasencia

April 22, 2024

I awoke this morning to the thought I should have had yesterday if we hadn’t been in such a rush and focused on whether Rachael should bike with one brake or get a ride from Janos. It’s pretty stupid to have had Janos drive her to Monfragüe yesterday, drive back to Trujillo, and then come back over the same road again the next day to pick her up and drive her the rest of the way to Plasencia where we’ll hopefully get her pads replaced at a bike shop. If we’d thought about it, it would have made much more sense to book a room in Plasencia for last night so he could do it all in one go and not repeat the same miles. I could have ridden in the car with them, or biked it over two days or even one longish day.

And it’s not like Janos just had today free to do what he wanted anyway. They have to relocate to the apartment they’ve found in Trujillo for the next four nights, and Suzanne is still in the middle of her health emergency. So thanks again Janos for your great generosity, and our apologies for being so slow-witted.

My ride begins as yesterday’s ended, with a bike north to Monfragüe. It’s another beautiful riding day and I enjoy seeing it under different lighting conditions, and it gives me a second bite at looking at those cliffs hoping to see something new. And there is something new, but nothing so dramatic as another eagle or black stork sighting. It’s a tiny bird that briefly lands on the rocks below me and stays put just long enough for me to grab a blurry but adequate shot. A rock bunting - another lifer, and a bird I’d never heard of until I googled the one quick shot I managed before he flew off again.

Looking down on the switchbacks to the Vid Arroyo, a descent I’m sure Rachael is happy not to be riding with one brake.

Looks steeper and scarier than it actually is though. I tested it out and biking with one brake is manageable, but it’s obviously better and safer with two.

The rock is so much more colorful in this morning’s light.

Salto del Gitano and the Tagus River. Its wide and slow-moving here because this is actually the upper end of the huge Maria Oriol Reservoir, impounded by the hydroelectric dam at Alcantara.

Nothing new in the sky at the moment, but it’s still a great show.

Crossing the Tagus, I get a better look at about a hundred bank swallows (#221) than I saw when I was here last night. Pretty convincing shot, don’t you think? Also though, I see that I caught twenty or more swifts up in the sky that I didn’t notice at the time.

Crossing the river, there’s a gradual climb up through oak and pine woods on the other side of the canyon before the road generally levels out about eight hundred feet above the river. It’s a colorful ride on top, through another dehesa landscape with the roadside lined with lavender and rockrose before dropping sharply to Plasencia on the Jerte River, a major tributary of the Tagus that joins it near the dam at Alcantara.

Looking up the reservoir, we can see a higher damming of the river, the Torrejón-Tietar dam.

After gradually climbing through oak and pine woods for the last four miles, I come to the top and look back along the Mavecino arroyo.

The best shot I’m likely to get of a woodchat shrike, so I might as well quit after this one.

At the top, the roadside is lined with wild lavender and rockrose.

Gum rockrose (Cistus ladanifer), a pretty but aggressive invader that’s taking over former pastures and farmlands.

Pretty hard to get jaded by scenes like this.

Plasencia and the Jerte valley come into view.

It’s a pretty steep drop into Plasencia at the end of the ride, another spot where we’re all happier having Rachael riding in the Skoda rather than gripping her left brake.

I’ve just entered town and am about a quarter mile from the hotel when Rachael calls. She’s just arrived herself and Janos has dropped her off near the hotel at the nearest spot Janos could find parking, and she wants help with her bike and baggage when she checks in. Pretty good timing! A minute later I see Janos driving my way. He stops just long enough to roll down the window and wave goodbye, but soon some cars come along and he has to move on.

We get ourselves checked in to our spacious quarters at the elegant Alfonso VIII hotel, and then I immediately walk up to the nearby Plaza Major and find an outdoor table for lunch. Later I’ll walk back up there again, this time wheeling Rachael’s bike to the shop where Rachael’s made an appointment. Its a relief when they take the bike and brake pads (I’ve brought both rhe dislodged ones plus replacements) and say to come back in an hour. They take my phone number and say they’ll call when they’re done, but they don’t. After sitting in the plaza for an hour getting increasingly anxious that there’s a problem I finally walk back, and the repaired bike is waiting for me to pick it up. Either they forgot about the promised phone call or there was a misunderstanding, but in either case it’s all good. I ride her bike back to the hotel testing out the brake on the way, and it looks like the team’s been made whole again.

On the Plaza Major, a nice spot for enjoying my lunch.

I was so surprised at how clear this window and the reflection were, and had to stop for it.

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Today's ride: 25 miles (40 km)
Total: 1,111 miles (1,788 km)

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Jacquie GaudetGlad to hear Rachael’s bike is safe to ride again.
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7 months ago

Rachael AndersonIt’s great to be able to bike safely again.
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7 months ago

Suzanne GibsonSo sorry to have missed this part of the ride!
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7 months ago

Susan CarpenterWooHoo on new brakes!!
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7 months ago

John VincentI have followed with great interest both your tour through Spain as well as the Grampies through Portugal. We are from Victoria BC and bike tour in Europe each Spring and Fall. We just completed the Pyrenees tour following Jacquie Gaudette’s route through France. Fantastic. Our bikes are now in San Sebastián awaiting our Fall trip.

I am trying to determine what would be the best, most scenic, interesting, least touristy route south for our Fall trip, through Spain or through Portugal. It seems many follow the Camino routes to Lisbon. Your route was directly south through Spain. The Grampies through Portugal. Can you comment on which you think would be better for us.

John
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6 months ago

Scott AndersonTo John VincentThanks for following long, John. I’ll be glad to offer an opinion, although from our experience you’d be hard pressed to find a poor route through Spain. Do you have a destination in mind, and a time frame?
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6 months ago

John VincentTo Scott AndersonScott;

Thanks for your prompt reply. Glad to communicate through CycleBlaze. However, if you would like to communicate directly, so as to not overwhelm your comments with my remarks, you can email me directly at ebikestouring@gmail.com.

As to your question, we have two trips planned this Fall and next Winter. Andalusia is our March/April 2025 destination to beat the winter blahs here in Victoria. This is similar to your trip. As an aside we spent two weeks in Mallorca before our Pyrenees trip this Spring. Fantastic. Sorry your trip there wasn’t better.

Back to my plan. I originally thought biking the Camino Norte from San Sebastián to Santiago Compostela then south along the Coast in Portugal to Lisbon would be a good plan. From there we bike or train onward to Andalusia in 2025. However, from all my research I am not overly impressed with the route. Being coastal is nice, but it has a lot of big cities and developments that don’t appeal to us. The trail doesn’t look great either. Have you done it? So many people bike in Portugal, perhaps I am not reading it right. Must be a reasonably good place to cycle.

So I am giving thought to a direct route like yours or EV1 or Via Verde directly south from San Sebastián to Andalusia. It looks a lot less touristy, more countryside riding. I was surprised how many nice towns you found along the way. It didn’t look too boring along the way.

We are also close friends of the Classen’s and have met the Mathers. You guys do a great job positing on CycleBlaze. Thanks for that and thanks for your advice. It would be great to meet you two in person as well. I keep thinking you live in Portland or is it Tucson?

John
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6 months ago

Scott AndersonTo John VincentThere must be something in the water supply up there in BC because it sure produces a lot of cycle travelers!

I’ll send you an email so we can continue this offline (mine is scoandpdx at gmail), but a couple of thoughts come to mind if you’re starting from San Sebastián. One is that if it were me I wouldn’t bike to Santiago and head south through Portugal from there. We’ve biked in northern Portugal twice now and didn’t come away fans of it either time. We liked parts of southern Portugal a lot though, particularly the interior along the Spanish border from Marvao south. If we were taking a northern route we’d turn south at somewhere around Santander and aim for Extramadura, and then perhaps cross the border south of Merida. It’s got many quiet roads perfect for cycling and one interesting city or town after another. We were really pleased with this year’s ride all the way from Zafra to Santander, but we also really liked our route south from Astorga to Andalucia by way of southern Portugal in our 2019 tour (Vuelta a Iberia).

The other idea I’d consider is going west along the coast to Bilbao and then south to Valencia, more or less like we did last autumn (Falling through Spain) and then west to Andalucia from there. They would both make fantastic autumn tours.

We would like to meet up as well, either on the road someday or back in America. We don’t really have a home any more but we’ve been pretty consistent in recent years, flying home to Portland in late autumn to catch up with friends and pick up the car and then driving south. This year will be the same - we’re coming back in late November and are booked in Airbnb’s in Tucson for about two months before gearing up for returning to Europe next spring.

Take care, and I’ll be interested in what you come up with. And blog your trip! It’s a time commitment alright, but I’ve never regretted it. We get so much enjoyment from being able to look back.
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6 months ago