We were very happy with the new campsite which seemed to have been refurbished since the last reviews were written. We had a good night’s sleep apart from a few wild dogs barking in the neighbourhood.
We had a fairly gentle start to the day and both had one of the lardy biscuits (mantecados) for breakfast. We did follow this up with an apple though just to feel that we had eaten something fresh!
We headed off into the city and our first port of call was the castle which has now been made into a Parador. (Paradors are a network of historic buildings in Spain which are now used for tourist accommodation. ) Fortunately in this Parador there were areas open to the public and we were able to pay €2 to go up the tower which gave us panoramic views over the city and surrounding landscape. More photo opportunities for Dave!
We then walked around the city wall and it was unbelievably quiet. We barely saw a soul and it seemed like a ghost town. When we eventually turned down into the city, however, there was a fair amount of hustle and bustle with people going about their daily business. I (Sue) urgently needed to get a new pair of trousers as the extremely old ones I’d packed now had two ever-increasing holes in places where they should not be!!! All my other trousers are summer weight as we had been overly optimistic about the weather!!! So, it was lucky that the road we were on seemed to be clothing shop alley and, after going in a couple of shops, I managed to get a new pair of jeans for €22.
We then wandered along getting a feel for the place and spotted some very artistic looking pastries in a shop window. These were heavily decorated with pastry motifs on the top and had a filling of chorizo, lomo and jamón Serrano. The guy in the shop explained that these were for a regional celebration called Lunes de agua. The pastries, called hornazos, are eaten at family picnics to mark the end of the Easter season of penitence. That made us realise why we’d seen so many people having picnics by the river in huge groups the day before. We bought a half of one for our van dinner later (a bit dry and cakey). The celebration takes place on different dates in different regions.
We had noticed when doing our research that Ciudad Rodrigo has an attraction called ‘Museo del Orinal’ (potty museum!!!) and, as it was right in front of us, we couldn’t resist having a peep. It was unbelievable just how many potties and urinals were in there. In fact, there were a total of 1,300 exhibits!!! 🙂 Quite a lot of these were English ceramics but there were also examples from lots of different countries. Many of them had little seats with removable bases and had been donated by well-to-do members of Ciudad Rodrigo society.
It was very entertaining to imagine how many young aristocrats had sat on them over the years!! The collection had been put together by a local gentleman nicknamed ‘Peseto’ because he always took a very active part in local festivals and used to attend the festivals with his family, all kitted out in suits covered with pesetas. These were also on display and look rather like the Pearly Kings and Queens of London.
We then went to the Romanesque Catedral de Santa Maria. It was started in the 12th century and finished in the 14th century. It looked absolutely magnificent and we went in, had a good look round and used the audio guide.
There was a beautiful restaurant nearby called La Canóniga which was in a 14th century building which had previously been used as a barracks for British soldiers during the Peninsular War.
The restaurant itself was very traditional. No burgers here! We had sopa de la casa, which was a typical chickpea broth with little offcuts of meat in it. I had a salad with the white asparagus, tomatoes, lettuce and squid pâté and we shared the starters. Then we had nicely presented mains which had one layer of crispy mini roast potatoes and Dave had oxtail on his and I had pig cheek. Although I was way too full I couldn’t resist the fresh pineapple with lemon sorbet, so this rounded off the lunch.
You will notice that I have written significantly more about the food than I have about the historic buildings. The Gibson family are great food enthusiasts and the first thing we always want to know is what people had to eat!!! 🙂
We went back to the van for a fairly long siesta as all that culture had worn us out. Since the weather had taken a turn for the worse and we had even had to buy an umbrella, we just chilled out in the van for the rest of the day ready for our trip to the Douro region of Portugal in the morning.
All this talk of interesting regional foods… yum! Sue, you do know that if you weren’t there Dave would be pulling up at the Drive-Thru, don’t you?
Bloody cheek….. bruthru maybe
I’ve noticed that FOOD and lots of it have been mentioned in all the blogs. I seem to remember it was also the case when Dave went on his boating experience on his own. 🤣 I’m having a “ Catch up “ evening as I’ve been really busy and have quite a few days to read and view . Xxx