A Spanish Road Trip (with a visit to Portugal)

David and I were having a hard time choosing where to go from Madrid. We decided in order to stay as flexible as possible with our plans for the next six weeks, we would rent a car and explore Spain a bit longer before we bought a flight anywhere. As a bonus, Portugal is so close by we could zip over and see a new country.

Manuel gave us lots of advice about his favorite places along our drive, and with his recommendations as our guide, we set off for our first destination: Salamanca. Along the way we stopped at the Gardens of the San Ildefonso Palace (you had to pay to go inside, but the outside was free and still very impressive. Besides we like being outside better anyway!)

We made it to Segovia at sunset, just in time to get some beautiful photos of their ancient Roman aqueduct.

They had set up a stage in the plaza next to the aqueduct for student performances in honor of “El Día de los jovenes” or National Children’s Day. Speaking of things that make kids happy… some say the Castle in Segovia is the one the Walt Disney symbol is based on, but apparently that’s up for debate.

We bought way too many sweets and cookies at a pastry shop next to this Cathedral in Plaza Mayor.

We also discovered the old Jewish quarter (there aren’t many Jewish business left here, so we had our first Pakistani food since arriving in Spain).

We checked into our hotel in Salamanca just before midnight. We’d had such a long day and visited so many cities, somewhere along the way we got confused and thought it was Saturday instead of Friday. Because a lot of things are closed in Spanish towns on Sunday, we thought we’d better go see what Salamanca was like on a Saturday (even though it was actually only Friday) and so we visited the busiest street, which was indeed packed!

Here’s David eating the, “sweetest sweet thing I’ve ever sunk my sweet tooth into” (from Segovia) It was sweet surrounded by sweet filled with sweet.

With all that sugar in his blood, we had to go for a long run. It was really cold so this was also a good way to see the city without getting frostbite.

Over our shoulder is the famous University of Salamanca

One of many playgrounds in Spain that are also filled with simple exercise machines for the elderly (although the ant is made for kids and apparently people who want to do pull-ups.)

A high school with a very fancy-looking entryway

Just before we went out to dinner that night, I talked with my dad on the phone and realized (with his help…) that it’s Saturday (again) and not Sunday like David and I thought. So we gain a whole day of our lives back! Luckily we’re able to change our AirBnb reservation in Portugal, which we made thinking we’d arrive in Porto a day later than we actually would.

Getting to Portugal was another long adventure.

It snowed for the first half hour of the drive (our first snow sighting in Europe).

One of our not-too-shabby views.

We stopped many times along the way in small medieval-looking towns like Bejar, Alberca, and Ciudad Rodrigo (where we had a picnic).

Below is another quite old-looking school. Some nearby graffiti reminded me of some of the drawings I’ve seen in student journals (although I believe it may have been done by an adult who never learned proper manners in school!)

Elementary School, Bejar

David’s museum (“museo” en español) was closed in Bejar

I find my second-favorite animal in Alberca

Do things look old to you? Or kind of disneyland-ish?

We were very confused about the tolls on the highways in Portugal. Apparently there’s a big sign when you cross the border from Spain—we saw it but weren’t sure how we felt about following it off the highway (Since it was just a big sign that said “foreigners”). We later learned “Foreigners” is where you get your “Fast Pass” to pay the electronic tolls, which look like this:

If you have a Portuguese license plate, but don’t have a fast pass, you go to the post office to pay your tolls. I tried this, and had a very interesting conversation in which I spoke Spanish and the woman who worked there spoke Portuguese. The languages are fairly close, so we understood each other enough for me to learn I couldn’t pay our tolls there like everyone else does because we’d rented our car in Spain. We also couldn’t rent a Fast Pass device from them because we didn’t have a Portuguese mobile number. We could’ve called the toll company to ask their advice, but the pay phone at the Post office was broken. So no luck, but some interesting Portuguese practice!

It’s an hour earlier in Portugal than in Spain, so I got to “sleep in” my first morning (like when we turn the clocks back in the Fall). I was very excited to have my first eggs for breakfast because in Spain they pretty much just serve toast as breakfast.

A technique I developed when traveling in Latin America (land of “batidos” ie scrumptious smoothies): to create the most delicious smoothie flavor, you must drink your two different flavors halfway down and then combine them.

The women who owned the AirBnb where we were staying sat us down with a map of Porto and wrote in or circled all their favorite spots. So we had our work cut out for us over the next few days.

We saw Livraria Lello, one of the most beautiful bookstores in the world. It is especially famous because it was frequented by JK Rowling when she was living and teaching English in Porto. It’s said it provided inspiration for her Harry Potter books.

Another good example of life inspiring literature is that the students in the University of Porto wear capes very similar to the ones JK Rowling had the students at Hogwarts wear.

Other sites we saw included:

Blue and white tiled churches (Porto is known for this style)

A San Francisco style trolley 🙂

The Church of San Francisco (many churches, plazas, towns, and schools in Spain and Portugal are named San Francisco after Saint Francis of Assisi). Can you spot the trolley again?

Sunset at the Clergies Church and Tower- 240 steps up to see this spectacular view!

Students on a field trip. They wear the same safety vests as SFPM kindergarteners!

Da Terra, Best Vegetarian buffet of my life:

Porto storefront gets ready for wintertime and an ice skating rink goes up in one of the main plazas:

Here we are on a run down to the Maria Pia Bridge, the oldest bridge in Porto, designed in 1877 by Gustave Eiffel, the builder of the Eiffel Tower!:

We enjoyed the colorful and often whimsical graffiti all over Porto:

We also kept hearing about the specialty of Porto, called “Francesinha.” On our way out of town we stopped at a restaurant to finally sample this delicacy. Francesinha is a sandwich that originated in Porto. It is usually made with several types of meat (but I had the vegetarian version) and then it’s covered with melted cheese and a thick tomatoe-y sauce.

Maybe one of my readers will successfully recreate this delicacy! I’d certainly never seen it on a menu until I traveled to Portugal. On that note, I’ll have to save the second half of the road trip until the next post, because it’s time to go search out some dinner for myself.