Fermoselle

All thoughts have been washed out of my head by the rain - torrential, incessant, making you feel cold and damp in the car type of rain. Dare open the window to take a picture of the countryside and it drives itself into the tiny parts of the camera lens - annoying rain. Put on your raincoat to get the picnic out of the back of the car type of rain - and still get soaked. Have a bird pointed out and only see a huge raindrop or a shiny puddle. However, there were one or two flurries of unexpected ornithological activity when we had a good view of our first Cuckoo and Hoopoe, looking out.

No - there wasn't anywhere to pop in and get a hot broth and warm up by a log fire. We drove through what appeared to be extraordinary medieval film sets, reminiscent of parts of Dartmoor... but more extensive and more medieval looking. You'll have to use your imagination as the rain made it difficult to take many pictures, especially of the weeny, rain drenched isolated villages.

We eventually arrived at Fermoselle, and what I believe is a beautiful little town close to the valley of the Rio Duero and the Portuguese border. It was raining very hard when we crept through the tiny little streets in big Sylvia, using the hopelessly out of date sat nav and pictures taken on my phone as a guide. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't. La Casa del Regidor is merged into the stonework of the narrow medieval (again) streets and parking is in the nearby square. Pelting rain swept us into the Plaza Major where we were directed into the last parking spot by a tall dark and handsome stranger, who turned out to be our new patron, who had been waiting for us - in case we didn't find a space. Most towns seem to have a Plaza Major, in the same way that we have a Fore/High Street. 

I'm currently tapping away in our latest abode, which is rather grand in a restored granite door frames style (restoration funded by European Community) with huge pieces of what would be ugly furniture anywhere else. We have a sitting room and dining room to ourselves and the rest of the building at the moment. We are going to have to engage in a food/drink related Spanish conversation foraging activity later, as there's nothing but water here - probably rain and not tap.

A glimpse of Dartmoor-like scenery

Taken through the car window in the rain. There are more pictures, but it's time to get out there and explore - rain or not.

Miles and miles of stone walls

We saw these in every village

My language practice shifted into unknown territory at breakfast (tomorrow) where I found out that the above structure has something to do with the castration of bulls. A new subject for my vocabulary list.