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DAY 25 30 MAY 22 MONDAY Plasencia Spain, Province of Caceres

Having crashed last night, time for a hearty breakfast to setup the day which appears to be on the cooler side only forecasted to reach the mid to low 70s with grayish overcast but rain unlikely.

Plasencia 


Nothing major planned except we need to pick up a few groceries and hence we plan to find a Mercadona grocery store for our purchases. Google maps says there is a Hypercor larger store the south side of the dividing river in town. And so we headed in that direction. However the Ford GPS found another Mercadona store closer and showed us the way to it. We knew something was not right in this obvious small grocery store only big enough for a small town area.  The free shopping cart and the huge elevator garage-sized space for patrons and their carts were our first clues! The buttons were:  1-Calle (Street),2-Tienda (Store), 3-Parking Garage and then the elevator opened to show us a store that went the entire building block ,not very wide but it went for ever and ever!! An excellent example of multiple use buildings:  Parking, shopping, and residential, well above those levels. The Spanish are good at building underground parking lots, let me qualify that by saying some were built a long time ago and catered to the much smaller cars they had then! So, it follows that when they need a large supermarket in an ancient, medieval town with no space, they put it underground! Brilliant, problem solved!

Plasencia

 We know from previous trips to the Extremadura area of Spain that there are 3 large valleys noted for growing cherries and red peppers for paprika spice. And so, we headed north to the middle of 3 valleys to explore. Valle de La Vera. It was a very narrow twisty road we chose, seem to be doing a lot of that lately! Lots of trees laden with cherries. They sell them by the box! Close to this road is the Monasterio de San Jeronimo de Yuste, where Carlos V came for his last days. A beautiful monastery in a beautiful Valle. We have been there already, so we passed on by. Just a little down the road is a WW2 German Navy Cemetery! Now, this is not near any ocean , or even a big river, so we are not quite clear about why there is German Navy Cemetery here. David first found it some years ago when he and Joyce were exploring! I did a bit more research. Seems there are German military from WW1 and WW2. They either were from crashed planes, dead from submarines or those who died in hospital in Spain. Apparently 1988 the German Ambassador came to play tribute and put up a plaque. Interesting. There are a few photos online which show that some were unknown soldiers.

Opposite the Parador de Jarandilla de la Vera we stopped for a spot of lunch. Afterwards we found a local shop to buy some paprika spice directly from its source to take home with us. We continued exploring not returning until around 5:00PM to the Parador Plasencia.

Piornal Spain

At 8:00PM we wandered into the town center to the Plaza Major where we sought refreshment and to help choose which location would be our evening meal choice. Entremesas cold cuts/cheese, and young goat chops none of them were tree climbers as of yet!! Too much bread gone to waste but it was just what we needed!

Good choice and back for a night cap and to hit the sack by 11PM.

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