¡Hola Espagna!

A long time ago in the mists of antiquity, I studied Spanish for a couple of years. I remember very little of it, although the quirky business of putting exclamation marks at the beginning and end of sentences has stuck with me..... hence today's title.

When you look at most atlas maps of Spain, it is quite difficult to get a real sense of the topography. This is because most of the country is a plateau. It is high enough to be 'orange' but not quite high enough to be 'brown'! However, when browsing on Wikipedia earlier, I came across this map which has layer shading which emphasises the main relief features. It might be useful for referring back to in the next couple of days.....

The plateau referred to above is called the Meseta and is more extensive and generally higher in the north than in the south. North west of Madrid in the Sierra de Guadarrama and in the Cordillera Cantabrica bordering the the bay of Biscay, mountains rise from the plateau to about 2500m while in the south, the Sierra Nevada reach a high point of 3500m well above the average height of the southern part of the Meseta. The north eastern edge of the Meseta is bounded by the Ebro valley and to the north east of that lie the Pyrennees. Three major river systems flow west and south from the Meseta - the Guadalquivir which reaches the coast in the Gulf of Cadiz, the Tagus which we have already 'met' at Lisbon and the Guadiana which flows through Badajoz (starting point for today's stretch of leg 7) and then south to the Gulf of Cadiz ....

Today's route began just across the Portuguese/Spanish border at Badajoz and ended to the north of Trujillo which is about 200km from Madrid. As mentioned above, Badajoz lies at a major bridging point of the Guadiana river. For those interested in the Spanish Civil War, Badajoz was the site of one of the first Nationalist victories in 1936. It is also remembered for a massacre of civilians which saw the deaths of at least 2000 people.

On a more geographical note, Badajoz is located at the confluence of the Guadiana river and its tributary, the Zapaton. The Guadiana has a total of 1824 dams in its basin which makes it one of the most 'managed' rivers in Europe. In the vicinity of Badajoz, a number of major gravity fed canals transfer water to irrigate land around both rivers. Below, some of that irrigated land north of the city along the banks of the Zapaton......

...and here to the east where an irrigation canal allows cultivation in the gravity-fed downslope portion of the valley but not above the canal. ...

As mentioned in previous postings, this part of Europe experiences a Mediterranean climate, although as Mark heads higher into the Meseta, he can expect altitude to make the temperatures cold. Summers, however, are hot and dry and cultivation is really only possible with the help of irrigation. Because winters and spring are rainy, when temperatures begin to rise in late February/ March, this is the season for wild flowers. by late spring the drought begins to bite and grasses and flowering plants dry up. the following image was sourced from Flickr and shows spring flowers near La Roca de la Sierra, a village through which mark passed this morning. Unfortunately he is probably just a few weeks too early for this kind of show but it reminds us that there is a very different face to the Mediterranean from the dessicated one we are familiar with in the summer....

As Mark headed north past la Roca de la Sierra, he would have noticed a steady climb into the Sierra de San Pedro across a number of low ridges and northwest southeast trending valleys. At Pueblo de Obando, a closer inspection of Google maps revealed a very interesting pattern of land use.....
a nucleated settlement with strip farming laid out around it. The image below is from the Panoramio layer in Google and relates to one of the blue dots bottom right on the image....

If you haven't yet discovered the Panoranio layer in Google Earth, I'd encourage you to seek it out as it is an excellent way of bringing those aerial views to life.

Beyond the low hills of the Sierra de San Pedro, the UNESCO world heritage city of Caceres perches above the Tagus valley. The following gives a flavour of why it achieved the designation ( you don't have to understand the Spanish !).....

The road east from Caceres leads to Trujillo and somewhere along that road Mark would have cycled past this spot and also the Guadiloba dam which looks like some sort of Chinese dragon from the air! (The Guadiloba is a tributary of the Tagus)..The rather blurry view below shows the dam with Caceres in the distance.

The road led finally to Trujillo - another historical and architectural 'gem' of this part of Spain..