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| Terrugem to El Encinar - 199 miles |
A quiet night and we
got our early(ish!) start after breakfast and a quick service of the
van. We're in no great hurry but it's nice being able to cruise along
at a comfortable speed and keeping a good rate of fuel consumption.
Sticking to the N road
for the moment to avoid the toll section, we passed through Elvas, a
nice border town whose main claim to fame is a four-level Roman
aqueduct running for over 6km. There are also some other interesting
ruins so we have made a note to come back here in the future for an
exploration.
On our various trips
we've never been to Portugal when it hasn't rained at some point. Up
to now it looked like this jinx was about to be broken, but no, as we
entered Elvas (still in Portugal if only just) it started to rain.
Not a lot but we needed the wipers so it qualified. Record unbroken!
Once we had crossed
into Spain, where it's significantly cheaper, we dropped into a fuel
station to top up and get a baguette for lunch, also to put our
timepieces forward one hour. Of course we're going to have to do it
again tonight because the clocks go forward, losing us another hour!
At Badajoz we took the X100 (no idea why it's an X, just a good
single carriageway like many others) which took us cross country
before joining the non-toll Autovia del Plata which will be our
companion for a couple of days.
It's called del Plata
probably because, as we've mentioned before, much of Spain is a
plateau of over 2000' amsl and this road runs across it from SW to
NE. On it's way it passes through several smaller sierras with
mountains high enough to have snow on their peaks, but not at our
level of course, although we did touch 4000 ft on one of the several
passes.
However there are no
service areas or even parking places so we pulled off the autovia at
Plasencia to find somewhere to stop for lunch. Nice enough, if a
little uninspiring, we found a place outside a closed factory out of
the way for an hour before rejoining the A66 headed for our planned
overnight stop.
There aren't many
campsites in this bit of Spain and only a couple of aires but we
noted one just short of Salamancar which was a bit early for us but
we knew there was nothing else for quite a long way. So TomTom led us
to a quiet but large car-park with a designated area for motorhomes
and some basic facilities. With room for at least 30 vans along with
2 other units we didn't exactly over-extend the facility.
Much as forecast, it's
been a bright, if partly cloudy day and certainly quite warm enough.
We'll probably be close to the French border tomorrow night if all
goes to plan, well on schedule.
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