Big road trip today! We’ve taken a little side trip to see two small towns, which has set us back a little for time, but has been very worthwhile. We’ve driven through massive fields of sunflowers which stand out amongst all the pale gold grasses. I’ve made Mark pull over a few times so that I can take photos. Our first little stop was an old church, just a square room really, but in the middle of nowhere and looking very country-like. We had a quick wander, took some pics, ate a bikkie from the hotel (which I liked, but Mark was not so keen on – mind you, he could have given me his, but he didn’t) and then jumped back in the car.
As stated, we took a little side trip to see a couple of little towns along the way. The first was Pedraza de la Sierra which is perched on the side of the mountain and has a little (late 19
th century) castle that looked fabulous. The second was Sepúlveda, another town hanging off the side of a small mountain. We stopped here and went for a walk amongst the old town. We dropped into a bar for a drink, and all of a sudden it started to rain. All of the locals who were milling around the street ran into the bar, so very quickly we were surrounded by people talking way too fast for us to even get a gist of the conversation. Ten minutes later, it was all over and everyone left again. We went across the road to the bakery and there were all sorts of things on display in individual baskets. After some more bad Spanish and lots of pointing, smiling and nodding, we ended up with one of everything. It cost us a whole €3.40 and made for a great lunch. We wandered out and sat on some old steps to partake of our goodies.
A couple of hours later we arrived in Bilbao, only to discover that we had left our passorts (and airline tickets, and cash and a few other goodies) back at the hotel in Segovia. It’s not a particularly nice feeling knowing you are in one town, and your passports are in another and it’s not made any better when you ring the hotel and they tell you there is nothing in the lost and found basket. After two phonecalls, I decided I probably wasn’t quite communicating how completely panicked we were, and maybe I wasn’t describing “under the mattress” all that well either. So the lovely lady on the reception desk offered to ring and talk to them for us. We went for a walk along the river and looked at the outside of the Guggenheim to pass some time and try to take our minds off the passports. When we got back, YAY, the passports were on their way to Bilbao via courier and would be there first thing in the morning. Needless to say, our night in Bilbao was not so great, but we made up for it the next day.
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