Autumn 2024

Monumento Natural Los Barruecos then Béjar - 12 October 2024

12.10 - National park - Los Barruecos - then Béjar overnight

Peaceful overnight in Aljucén. Started raining about 6am - then full on thunderstorm. Nothing better than being in bed and listening to it.

After servicing Dave, Tintin drove about an hour this morning, stopping off en route to fill up with diesel - another €90!

Today is National Day of Spain - so a holiday (always 12 October - doesn’t matter it’s the weekend!) and we weren’t sure how many places would be closed - so fueled up when we saw the place was open.

I had a couple of places on my wishlist for today - but only managed one!

The Monumento Natural Los Barruecos is described as “a stirring world of beautiful boulders piled high along the shores of pretty natural lakes and with important (and picturesque) breeding colonies for white storks” Also epic battle scenes in episodes 4 and 5 of season 7 of Game of Thrones were filmed there. Some articles say the lakes are fake…

We tried to park in a few places which weren’t suitable before finding the coach park where the lovely donkeys were. Two were being taken off somewhere in a trailer.

We walked to what we thought was the information centre. Really surprised that it was open, and also that the lady spoke English! We were given a map.

Basically we did the short 1.5km walk, then the 4km walk - then walked some more! Nigh on 10,000 steps.

We spent ages trying to take photos of the Iberian Magpie. None were good enough - so taken a copy of a photo to show!

My Merlin app also said we heard, amongst others - cetti’s warbler, Sardinian warbler, spotless starling, common sandpiper, Thekla’s lark and Eurasian blue tit. Who knew!!

“The granite boulders were formed from a plutonic extrusion millions of years ago, which have been fractured and shaped by erosion.”

I’ll let the photos do the talking!

There was loads of evidence of 💩 - but we didn’t see any big beasts!

After lunch we drove back the way we came. Saw lots of horses and stork nests - but no actual storks whilst we were there - shame.

Tintin then drove for another two hours. Really boring! We remember this drive from 2018! There was a diversion off the motorway for probably about 5/6 km. Roads weren’t particularly busy, and varied greatly in quality 😉

I’d wanted to visit Trujillo - but would have been too late really. Another medieval town with a huge castle/alcazaba - so decided we’d give it a miss. The Alcazaba didn’t open until 17.30 - but maybe because of the public holiday it was closed?…

We’re at Béjar. Feel left out. Seems like every Moho has a couple of dogs! The Spanish guys next to us have the Mum (who barks at everyone!) plus a tiny puppy - so cute. Haven’t got a clue what the man was saying - him talking in Spanish, me in English!