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Spain


The horizontal structure in the distance is the border post, which was manned but the policeman wasn... Another view from the same place. I'm only about a hundred metres over the border but already there's a noticeable change in the build... The top part looks like a cake. According to my maps, there is no main road other than the motorway for the first 30 km in Spain so ... A vehicle inspection pit. I let it lie. It let me ride. More cows, and some masts. The road got pretty bad. It was just as hilly as the roads of the last two days but also sandy in pl... Blasting zone? This road went on for over an hour and I think the farm here was the only building on it. I think th... An old, run-down church. Ciudad Rodrigo in the distance. Ciudad Rodrigo. This is where I stopped for lunch, in the shade. A view. Another view. These planes looked like they were racing. The second half of today's journey was much much better than the first. This road was like this for ... There are a few things to see here. One is my bike. Another is the emergency phone, solar panel and ... This restaurant probably closed when the motorway on the right took all the traffic from my road. More solar panels. I tried turning the handle but I couldn't get any water to come out. The strange thing about these sunflowers is that they were all facing away from the Sun. I'm quite pleased with how this picture came out. The camera was mounted to the handlebars, where I ... I haven't seen a cycle lane since Lisbon. The old town of Salamanca. Salamanca. Salamanca. Salamanca had one of those silly tourist trains. Salamanca. The adjunct to the main square in Salamanca. Outside my hotel. This was the best place I could find to park my bike without there being a risk of it falling over. Salamanca's main square. The people in the stripey clothes on the right are giving some kind of musi... The main square. The main square. The main square. I'm afraid I get a bit snap happy here. The main square. The main square. The main square. The main square. The main square. The main square. The main square. I was experimenting with using headlights for lighting. This may need more work. Salamanca. Salamamca. I have a feeling my bike may have been pressure washed during the night. There was water sitting in ... It looks like this is beer delivery time. This was the first breakfast I got during this trip. More recycling bins. I thought you might like to see inside one. They go down a long way. The main square in the morning. There's another cycle tourist. Two of them passed me going the other way yesterday. A last view of the square. Salamanca. Salamanca. Here's one of those pedestrian crossings which shows you how much time you've got left to cross the ... A park in Salamanca.. I like how some of the buildings are done in stone which is the same colour as the older buildings i... Another cycle lane. Salamanca. An exhibition hall in Salamanca. This road seems to be the place to come if you want a car. Pretty much every make of car you can thi... Flat scenery. The old main road probably had as many bikes as cars, which wasn't very many at all. Scenery. I don't know what this used to be. The camera didn't seem happy about focusing on the mirage. A shepherd with his flock of sheep on the left, and a donkey on the right. Initially, I didn't see t... More bare brick buildings. This looks like a railway bridge being built. It's probably part of Spain's new high-speed rail netw... This scaffolding is possibly in place ready to accept the next bridge section. In Spain, where there are roadworks, the road markings and the backgrounds of the signs are yellow w... More scenery. Here's that bridge section. Some time later, I was overtaken by the front part of this transporter w... This was where I stopped for lunch. A motoray rest area, seen from the adjacent older road. The town of Tordesillas. A view from Tordesillas. Tordesillas. Tordesillas. Tordesillas. Tordesillas. I've finally found a drinking water fountain at a time when I needed some water. This house looked more interesting than any of the others in this street. The land is getting hillier again. Sunflowers! That's a lot of chairs! This bridge which I crossed is a feeder route from Madrid into the Camino de Santiago. No holiday would be complete without one of these. I must be getting close to my destination. The River Pisuerga in Valladolid. Okay, I can't go this way. Another wiew of the river. The tall building is the Science Museum, near to where I will be staying. My bike at the hotel in Valladolid. This is quite a smart one. The restaurant, the hotel and, between them, the tower of the Science Museum. I had been hoping tho ... The Science Museum. I had never brought this backpack on a cycling trip before. It's very useful. Would you guess that t... All of the restaurants I've visited in recent days have been very busy late in the evenings. I'm par... Perhaps you can see why I chose this hotel.... This hotel has a pool! I get to use this bus lane. A building in Valladolid. Valladolid. Valladolid. Valladolid. Valladolid. Valladolid. An interesting building in Valladolid. What's also interesting is the woman on the left who came out... Valladolid. The birthplace of King Felipe II, apparently. Valladolid. Valladolid. The high-speed railway is going to go here. I saw quite a few cyclists on racing bikes again today. Part of the new railway. More cyclists. I'm going to go down the hill on the left. I don't known where they're going. Bye! The light horizontal line on the left is the new railway. It looks to me as if it will stop this spr... A province boundary. It doesn't look much like a railway at the moment. The writing on the door says something about hands but it's hard to tell what because the "for ... It amused me that this particular bit of ground was designated as a car park, when all the ground ne... Down again. Soon I'll be going up again. It was like this for most of the afternoon. The park in Antigüedad. I don't know what these tiny buildings are. They are much too small to be houses but the all have ch... No idea what this is doing here. This was parked at the junction of two very quiet minor roads... ... in the rest area hext to it, these two were having a proper picnic, with a wicker basket, an bot... If you thought there were a lot of sunflowers yesterday, look at these! There were quite a few children on bikes in this village, although these two only seem to have one b... The River Arlanza. The landmarks of Santa María del Campo. These horses didn't come to see me. They just watched. I'm not sure what those huge birds are in the... These sunflowers don't seem to have opened yet. Most of the village seem to have come out to watch this house being knocked down. More of these tiny houses. Those fields are interesting colours and shapes. There were some very dark clouds around today and I could see heavy rain falling from some of them. ... Funny road markings. Thanks to my new GPS, I know that this is a short cut. This is all McDonalds waste strewn across the track. I don't know how it got here but it suggests th... Burgos. Just me posing. Burgos, obvoiusly. People playing games. I passed some people earlier doing something behind a wall. It sounded like th... More games. That looks like a copy of the Chartres labyrinth. This is obviously some king of religious building.... Cloisters of the building which had the labyrinth. Burgos vista. Looking the other way, you can see straight out into the fields. This cash machine kindly offered to charge me an extra 2.5%. Burgos. My bike in Burgos. The landing of the hotel in Burgos. This is the view from my window. It's pretty good. A bride and groom having their picture taken on the bridge. View from my window. View from my window. Making a recording of the sounds of the city. It will be a while before I select a good section to u... There's another of those funny tourist trains. The train again. Another experiment with headlamp lighting. I'm not sure why I think this is a good idea. This is what it looks like as darkness falls. Another wedding party. More people on the bridge. It's handy that this room has a basin next to the desk. It means I can drink as much as I like while... Burgos by night. Burgos. One of a few vehicles which obviously belonged to the came cycling team. Burgos. Burgos. Burgos. Burgos. Burgos. There were windows like this in Valladolid too. Burgos. Burgos. Burgos. Burgos. Burgos. The glass structure on the right was one of several. I haven't yet worked out what's down the stairs... Burgos. I suppose those pilgrims must get through a lot of shoes. Burgos. Good cycle paths. This man was staring at me as if I was the strange one. This woman greeted me as pilgrims are supposed to greet each other, which I wasn't expecting. You mi... These bells were ringing while I was waiting at the lights. The way out of Burgos. A sign for the Camino. Pilgrims. More pilgrims. Yet more pilgrims. A sample of the sound that they were making as they passed me can be heard ... Modern roads and railway. Going down a valley. Scenery. At least the motion of the dust which this was producing confirmed to me that I had a headwind. I've just realised what a bad state this tyre is in. I don't know how it can have got like that; it ... The only one of these I saw in Spain. I don't know what this rope was for but it stretched for hundreds of metres along the edge of the ro... A train. I'm going to have to cross that ridge soon but the road knows a sneaky way through. There was some kind of game being played in this village. I think the game involved throwing a metal disc and trying to hit the wooden pin. One of the winners. After the prizes ahd been given, a few people decided they wanted another go. Pancorbo, where the river has carved a way through the ridge and now several roads and a railway fol... Pancorbo. There's the river. It's a small thing to have cut through such a big ridge. Pancorbo. Pancorbo. Pancorbo. The Camino goes up across the fields just to the left of the sign. The railway at the bottom, then the National road, and then the motorway cutting across the white se... A railway tunnel. One of the road tunnels. Lots of engineering around here. The River Ebro in Miranda de Ebro. Miranda de Ebro. Miranda de Ebro. It has more greenery than anywhere I've been before. I have just enetered the Basque Country. A village. I'm trying to get to Vitoria but obviously not by the route recommended for cars because these arrow... Scenery. The same again. I didn't really mean to include both pictures. This road goes on for about 4 km like this and then turns into a track too narrow to drive down. As ... The end of the wide road. I think the narrower road ahead may be a dead end. I went down between the... I never found out what this building was. The lower language is Basque. Now, I am going the recommended way so this milestone disappointed me because the one a few hundred ... This industrial estate went on for miles. Snow-topped mountains. Flats in Vitoria. Everybody seemed to live in flats in this city. I didn't see any houses at all. Ho... A cycle path up the middle of one road. Flats. Look how wide this road is, from the buildings on the far left to the ones in the middle. The grass is very green here. I'm rather glad it's Sunday, otherwise I would have been just a few minutes too late to get into thi... Vitoria. Cycling is obviously big in this city, like everything else. I didn't realise until I got here that this hotel has five stars. Would you like to see the pillow menu? More of Vitoria's flats, seen from my hotel window. This hotel has bike parking. The start of a cycle route along a disused railway line. I didn't expect to see this parked in a street like this. A bridge from when this was a railway. Scenery. A truck working on the new railway. Donkeys. I think that's last year's hay propping up one of the piles. There must have been a bike race up here. A dam. I think this pool belongs to the local sailing club. Hello, cows. Scenery. Cows sheltering from the rain. This was the only sign I saw for a summit, even though I've been a lot higher over the last few days... There are a lot of rules about what you can do on this path. A tunnel. Inside the tunnel. One of the towns along this valley, which I am now following all the way to the sea. I think this may be a new section of the cycle path being built. There's the cycle path. I keep losing it, and then seeing it like this and wishing I was on it becau... More scenery along the valley. I went over that bridge. I didn't go through this tunnel. The typeface on the foreground building seems to be frequently used for the Basque language. In the ... Overlooking the beach in Deba. Deba. Deba. Deba. Deba. These might possibly be pilgrims. The Camino comes somewhere near here. Deba. Deba. Belgian tourists. That's a big pipe! Piggy! That looks like a big ship being built in that shed. In the town of Zumaia. I like the signs after the tunnel questioning whether headlamps are still needed. I once saw a discu... This was the only chance I got to stop and take a photograph in Getaria. Getaria. The beach in Zarautz. That end of the beach looks busy. Just a restaurant. An impressive motorway cutting. A ceramic factory. Another group of pilgrims, I assume. One of them looks like a monk. There's that Basque font again. The town of Lasarte-Oria. Lasarte-Oria. A campaign against ETA, I think. I still haven't managed to get away from the Camino. I wish I could have some of that fruit. Oh, look. There's a place to park a sub in San Sebastian. San Sebastian. San Sebastian. You can have this picture with tourist... ... or without. San Sebastian. San Sebastian. San Sebastian. San Sebastian. You can order at a machine here. That's handy because it lets you know everything that's available. This is a busy restaurant. A cycle route in San Sebastian. San Sebastian. San Sebastian. The outskirts of San Sebastian. My bike at the hotel in Irun. The front tyre went flat just a few hundred metres before I got here. ... I don't like the look of the socket on the left. These tyres are no good for me. A last view of Spain. The far end of this bridge is in France.