What a cool little village!

Had a nice peaceful night by the castle just north of Burgos. Then we headed further north towards Santander along a route recommended by friends Glen and Steve who had done it within the last couple of years. 

There's a little village called Orbaneja del Castillo that is nestled on the side of a canyon formed by the Ebro River. What a cool little village!

A quick stop into Burgos for another photo match up

Some of you were curious as to what it was that brought my father to Europe. He did two trips, one in 1954, and one in 1957. I'll tell the story based on my memory of events, although I might get some figures wrong. I should probably ask my mother for clarification if she remembers, but here it goes...

His mother (my paternal grandmother) came from the northern part of Czech Republic, close to the German border. She arrived in Canada by herself sometime in the late 1920's, met my grandfather, and my father was the first born (in 1929) of six children. I think the fact that his mother was from Europe probably instigated some of his ambition to see that part of the world.

Another photo match, and another fantastic overnight spot

Headed a little closer to Burgos yesterday. Made a stop along the way to see the town of Tordesillas and to match up one of my dad's photos there. Then carried on to bypass the city of  Valladolid and found a great overnight spot just east of Palencia.

So, first stop was in Tordesillas. The main road goes right by the single photo that Dad took there.

Planning for Ireland

We do the 30 hour ferry crossing to Ireland in two weeks... May 7th, to be exact. So we've been doing some planning. We're going to be there for probably two months, although we've got some flexibility. If we want to stay longer, we certainly can. From there, we'll go to either Scotland or Wales. We haven't decided yet, and it can be a last minute decision depending on how long we stay in Ireland.

The cheapest fuel in Spain!

We actually had a fair bit of rain on Friday night! Haven't heard that noise on Max's roof in a long time. I think we had a few drops the last night we were in Morocco, but that was just spitting. This time it came down fairly hard for a few hours.

But at least it was overnight, and by the time we got ready to walk back into Salamanca it was clearing up.

Salamanca is worth a visit!

We are parked just over 3 kms (2 miles) from the city center of Salamanca. We set off at 10:30am to walk downtown, do some exploring, and try to match up three more of my dad's photos.

The first one was taken from the south side of the Tormes River looking towards the cathedral.

An update on our Schengen visa problem

First off, some of you may have missed yesterday's post due to a technical error. The problem is now solved, so if you didn't see it yesterday, you can read it here now...

https://www.travelwithkevinandruth.com/2023/04/the-walled-city-of-avila-spain.html.

Yesterday, we drove the rest of the way to Salamanca. When we arrived, we got sidetracked by a big Walmart style store, and Ruth needed some new walking shoes and a few other things. So we went and did some shopping. 

The walled city of Avila, Spain

We left our nice spot by the stream as soon as we got up at 7:30am. It was only a short drive to the small city of Avila, and we were headed to a laundromat that opened at 8:00am. We figured if we got there early, we could get laundry done while having breakfast, then go explore the city.

Found a great parking spot right by the laundry, and close enough to the center that we could walk in.

Police in the middle of the night

Another gorgeous day in Spain. We left Max in his spot by the dirt road, and set off on a morning hike. We didn't really have any plans, but there are so many different trails that we figured we would just choose something and make up our route as we went along.

Didn't really plan on doing 13 kms (8 miles), but that's the way it worked out!

A gorgeous free camping spot

Our friends Glen and Steve had told me about a waterfall near the village of Riofrio where there was a difficult to access, but beautiful overnight spot. 

It turned out that we couldn't access it all, but we found an even better spot nearby!