10th April: La Rochelle to Escalona
Having learnt our lesson the hard way, on Day Two we consulted every means of up-to-date navigation available to us: Simon’s iPhone and the trusted Google Maps on my reliable Androids phone! Obviously, nothing as solid as a road atlas. They went out of vogue years ago and are probably out of date as soon as they roll off the printing press anyway. A little bit like ‘Satellite Man in the Know’ in Simon’s car who had probably missed out on an update or two…
To ensure a timely arrival, our next Airbnb host – Tarja from Finland in Toledo – had lavished us with plentiful advice on how to reach her home via ‘the scenic route’ and thus avoiding getting trapped in or around Madrid. Rather than putting Toledo as our final destination, she suggested using exotic sounding locations such as Vitoria-Gasteiz, Burgos, Valladolid, Segovia, Avila as waypoints… ‘May add more miles to your journey, but the scenery will make up for it.. providing you get here before dark…’ she had tagged on.
Somehow I got the better part of the deal on our trip; navigation was mainly in the hands of modern technology, and I was relegated to being passenger, a role I embraced with plenty of gusto… I love road trips!! Trains, buses, cars. Gazing through the window at ever-evolving landscapes. The greens and yellows and pinks of a budding spring. The curves and folds of gently sloping hillsides. The crags and peaks of rugged, snow-capped mountains. Plains that stretch as far as the eye can see. And the South of France and Northern Spain did not disappoint with the rapeseed fields in bloom, vineyards stretching upwards to catch the sun, the Pyrennees still clinging to their winter robes… It’s that part of Spain that most tourists never lay eyes on taking flights to the more popular beach resorts to soak up sea, sun and sangria…
The biggest drawback of mostly sticking to motorways was that taking photographs was nigh on impossible. Just as the next amazing landscape unfolded, a line of trees would block the view… Cars and lorries would whizz past just as I pressed the button… The foreground blurred into the haze of an impressionist masterpiece, leaving just the distance razor sharp. I did my best whilst the windscreen slowly but surely filled with splatters of insect adding their finishing touches to my digital canvas.. Luckily the odd heavy shower along the way, washed the most offending blotches away. Anyway, as befits a road trip, my photographs show plenty of road…
‘Simon,’ I pleaded, ‘on our way back, we must try the B-roads. We can actually stop to take photographs…. and it will also be a lot cheaper…’ The French motorway system is terribly efficient but its use comes at a sizable cost with every few miles yet another toll booth demanding a hefty Euro contribution to the upkeep of the network… Even so, when speed is of the essence, there is no alternative and the drive from La Rochelle to Toledo would take us around 9 hours, the best part of a full day allowing for regular top-ups of solid and liquid refreshments, as well as much needed rest breaks.
As we neared our destination, Google Maps suddenly drew a blank. Tarja’s address was nowhere to be found in Toledo. After a few frantic attempts to get hold of her, she finally replied to fine-tune her information. ‘Try Escalona instead,’ she urged, ‘Toledo is the name of the province’. How were we supposed to know… Not only was Google Maps more obliging after receiving further instruction, it also shaved off a fair bit of mileage from our day’s journey. We would definitely arrive before the onset of darkness.
Tarja lived in a lovely house, in the middle of nowhere. A brand new estate next to an abandoned and desolate golf course built at the height of the economic boom of the noughties and now providing luxurious living at a fraction of the intended cost… And as for the golf course?? Left to the dust of time whilst nature was happily reclaiming its territory. Perfect for Tarja with her brood of dogs and a horse…
Still, we were not in any mood to try out the golf course and headed into Escalona, in search of dinner. ‘Too early,’ the restaurant owner shook her head. ‘The chef only starts at 8 pm. But you can have a drink whilst you wait…’ Of course our Spanish left a lot to be desired but with a bit of French, our imagination and plenty of hand gestures we got the gist.
So we had our drinks first, accompanied by tasty tapas. The shape of things to come.
Lieve Round The World 