I found this description of walking in a Tourist Guide of Exremadura in our apartamento in Cáceres. I think it fits perfectly for bike travel too.
“There is an infallible method of making a place form part of our deepest memories: walking it. The progressive change of the references in the horizon, the perception of a dimension of a slope, the feeling of going in a village for the first time. They are concepts whose meanings change completely when we feel them going on foot, when we are given the time to be conscious of what we perceive. Then, it does not matter if the route is short or long, because it becomes a slow trip, a special opportunity of paying attention to the details, for discovering what is around us.
The paths let us approach the unknown in a privileged way without being a stranger. Walking consists of making places belong to ourselves, but at the same time, making us belong to that place as well. It is forming part of nature, of the spot and mixing with the environment. It is a way of always being welcome, of acceding to some of these special places offered by those who have won its confidence.”
These words really resonated with me generally, but I think are a particularly good fit for the final stages of our bike trip, from Plasencia to Salamanca, the end of our continuous cycle that began January 14 in Tarifa, on the very southernmost tip of the Iberian Peninsula, within sight of North Africa and has taken us through many different rural and urban landscapes.
It will take me a few posts to cover the distance between Plasencia and Salamanca but the details and the surprising discoveries along the way are what keep me interested in this form of slow travel. This post is about the ride from Plasencia to Hervás, a small post-card perfect village of about 4000 people tucked away in the Ambroz River valley, surrounded by the Sierra de Béjar mountains
Our Cicerone guide to “The Ruta de La Plata” provides the opportunity to register for an account that provides online updates to this route. So we were very happy to discover that a Via Verde on an old rail bed had been recently developed from Plasencia to Bejar. Though the N630 has been pretty good with not much traffic, we love via verde rail tracks if the surface is good, and they are relatively flat.
So we departed our castle/monastery after a quick deysayuno in a nearby cafe (€20 each was way too much at the parador, when we can both have fresh orange juice, cafes con leches and tostadas for €9) and found our Via Verde a very short ride away. The plan is for it to be developed as a Via Verde as far as Salamanca and we were actually able to follow it to within 40 odd km of Salamanca. They are working on it the rest and it will be a terrific ride.
We went through a tunnel from the city and then up a short hill. There was great signage suddenly and that continued all the way along this Via Verde. We never had to wonder where we were! We had 38.3 km to cycle to Hervás and our next lodging for the night. And as you can see, it was a beautiful day!
The Via Verde was immediately spectacular, as we were elevated above the landscape and the Jerte River on the abandoned rail route of the Plasencia Astorja Rail Route, closed in 1996. Just like our Galloping Goose and Lochside Trail, these old rail routes are so special for walking and cycling as you are mostly surrounded by nature and can just drink it all in without worrying about vehicles. The rail trestles across gullies and the river have all been renovated into beautiful bridges which make for incredible viewpoints over the countryside. It’s a bit like being a bird, cruising along above it all.
Along the route at various spots were derelict stone train stations, their tile roofs collapsed, and trees and other plant material their new inhabitants. They are all of a similar design, though vary in size. Cattle grazed on steep slopes or stared solemnly at us close to the track.
We were often in old forests of Holm or cork oaks called the dehesa, a type of bio-diverse landscape that we have been in for much of our trip. Here we could see where the bark had been stripped off on some of the trees. I was curious about cork harvesting in that it seems to not harm the trees so I looked it up and it seems a similar practice to the use of cedar bark by west coast indigenous peoples.
“Cork harvesting is a centuries old practice and takes place in a dehesa, that is an agroforestry system which exists in the Iberian peninsula where human intervention is compatible with the conservation of nature, vegetation and fauna. Here, locals work hard to make the most of the resources available to them, respecting the production cycles and the environment. Expert axemen carefully harvest the thick exterior bark from cork oak trees. This cork extraction occurs every nine years, in July and August when the trees are not as vulnerable to the elements. The red cork cambium or phellogen inside must not be harmed so that the tree can remain healthy and continue to grow back bark for the next harvest. Cork oak trees can be harvested up to 15 times, starting from when a tree is 25 years old. Spain produces 22% of the world’s cork”
Sometimes the horizon seemed limitless, sometimes we caught glimpses of the distant blue mountains, sometimes we passed through rolling hills. There were beautiful sights around each curve of the path, with lots of spring wildflowers appearing. Sometimes the path was bordered with clumps of rosemary. As it always the case, photos just can’t really capture the beauty and feeling of what we felt so privileged to experience. And except for the odd day cyclist at the beginning, and at the end some elderly men with their sticks, we had it all to ourselves. This is seriously unpopulated land which makes Extremadura such a unique venture into nature. Occasionally we would see reminders of settlement long past like an old well. and of course there were endless ancient rock walls everywhere. It boggles the mind to think about the centuries of work that went into collecting the rock and building these. Hiking trails intersect with the Via Verde in various spots so there continued to be lots of signage giving distances to villages or towns.
Our cycle just continued to delight as we approached Hérvas. We really had no idea of what to expect there as except for planning our route and investigating and booking what we hope will be good accommodation, we don’t have much time to really research our destinations. A manageable cycling distance and a good bed for the night are the key factors. As we got closer to the village, we began to see snow on the tops of the mountains.
Our first views of Hervás from the Via Verde were breathtaking, looking down on the red tile-roofed cluster of buildings. It seemed another world from the city of Plasencia and the enormous monastery/castle hotel that we had just left that morning.
We whooshed down into the village and found our Casa Rural, El Jardin del Convento, on a square beside a big red church. We had had phone communication with our host en route and he had told us he was having lunch but would we there soon. Everything was looking pretty delightful and once we used the code we had been sent to enter the building, it just got better.
This was a gorgeous old residence. We found our lovely room on the second floor and realized our window overlooked the most beautiful garden. There was a large terrace stretching the width of the house just outside our room covered with an old wisteria vine that would be spectacular in bloom, so I sat out there for awhile as the sun was at a perfect angle on the garden and the steep terraced hillsides beyond. It was all pretty magical.
Our host Amos soon arrived, showed us where to put our bikes and then offered to give us a tour of the house and garden. He was a young guy in his late 20s or so, who spoke execllent English and grew up in the house with his parents and grandmother. After she died, they renovated it into a Casa Rural with 7 rooms of different sizes and a big common breakfast room overlooking the garden. His parents live on the top floor. He showed us all the rooms, including his old bedroom that is now an en suite bathroom, and told us we would be the only guests that night and to call him if we needed anything.
He manages the business with his parents and was very enthusiastic about everything. He told us his girlfriend owns the pastry shop in the village. We spent a long time in the garden talking about the different trees and plants, some common to our region like camellias, rhodos, quince and magnolias (all in bloom) and some not, like citrus. The garden was divided into different spaces by lots of box hedges and was filled with many kinds of fruit and nut trees. One tree was called a morus negra, or black mulberry which he says is loaded with enormous blackberry like fruit every summer. This region is known for its cherries. He introduced us to his father who he said looks after the garden, among other things. He really made us feel so welcome - and so lucky to be in such a beautiful place.
It was a remarkable finish to a remarkable day’s cycle and perfectly illustrated what was said in the quote at the beginning of this post - “The paths let us approach the unknown in a privileged way without being a stranger.” And that is why we do it.
Our day - 42 km. Elevation - 486 m.
This featured blog entry was written by Jenniferklm from the blog De Nuevo a España.
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