Tonight we are staying in Figueira da Foz, as Sinclair has found us a cool hostel called the Paintshop to stay the night so we leave Lisbon and continue up the coast of Portugal, winding our way in and out of little coves and bays, stopping for a look and eventually lunch. The views are breathtaking!
Figueira da Foz is renown for its beach and surfing, and it also boasts one of the few casinos in Portugal. We ventured out and walked the promenade and had a great seafood platter meal. The hostel where we are staying is just a short 10 min walk to town and Anna made us feel really welcome.
So we decide to head inland as we are aiming to arrive in Hasparren, France where my mate Francoise is living and we need to be there by Tuesday. We weave our way through traditional small Portuguese villages, driving down ‘roads’ that feel more like alleyways. The picturesque pastel colored houses are starting to change and we see more stone and darker structures as we progress inland.
We bypass Salamanca and camp for the night in Tordesillas, a small town about 1 hour NE of Salamanca.
It was another good campsite; the usual high standard that we’ve come to expect. A great bit of motorway noise but you get that when you camp right next to one. As you can see, some serious ‘blogging’ time at the on site cafe was required!
What we didn’t appreciate, was that this was the town famous for the ‘Toro de la Vega’ tournament. This tournament is a medieval bull festival celebrated in the town for centuries. The bull is released into the town and hundreds of lancers chase it, trying to lance it to death. Although the government has recently banned the killing of bulls, this is widely rejected by the people of Tordesillas who are currently contesting the ban.
Oh dear – if we ‘d known this before we stopped we may not have stayed and camped. As it was, I was hopeful that Sin wouldn’t have nightmares of being a bull chased by hundreds of Spanish bull slayers!
We had a drink in the main square in town, and we felt a bit of a strange vibe. Perhaps we imagined it, but we did wonder if the recent tournament had created some dissention in the town?!? Despite being in ‘bull murdering’ territory, we found a nice restaurant on the walk back to camp, had a beautiful fish soup for dinner, then we wandered back to camp to sleep!