Day 16: Villadolid to Salamanca 73 miles 2615 feet of climbing

Saw this small
statuary on bridge
leaving town
this morning.

Today was one of those days on a long ride that challenges your mind more than your body.  It didn't help that it also turned out to be a day when the recovery from the past two days caught up with many of us.  In other words, another day with no legs.  But, fortunately, there wasn't a lot of climbing.

Remember me talking about the "Blue Highways" a few days back?  Today was a route along one of those.  N620 is an old two-lane route that runs all the way from Villadolid to Salamanca.  It must have seen a lot of traffic 30 or 40 years ago.  Today, there's a much newer 4-lane super highway that runs alongside of the older road.  Today, we were on that older road.  For 46 miles!

I think there were most cyclists on the road today, being a Sunday, than there were cars (and the occasional truck).  We very much had the road to ourselves.  That was the good part.

Coming into the small village (town?) of Alejos, I noticed two church steeples.  I kid you not, about two hundred meters past that traffic circle, I was already out of the town.  So why are there two, almost identically large Cathedrals right next to each other?  I tried looking the answer up on the web.  No help there.

The tougher part was being able to concentrate on the road.  When I'm riding for more than 10 or 15 miles straight on one road, I can easily drift into a fog, not really concentrating on the road in front of me or on anything else for that matter. While constant turning can also be a drag, at least that makes the rider focus on the next turn, the next corner, the next car about to come into view.

This was it for much of today.  Hay bales everywhere.  Miles of land that looked like it got a crew cut.  

Today we were by ourselves on an empty highway.  And it didn't help that I had just read an article on the New York Times website about Madonna, lauding the performer for her many landmark activities that have set such a high bar for anyone else in her field.  So while I was riding today, I kept hearing the song "Like a Prayer" playing in my head.  For miles and miles.

Jesse in front of the city hall in La Plaza Mayor.  We wound up having lunch in one of the many outdoor cafes around the plaza.  Eating local, Jesse and I shared some smoked sardines (excellent), jamon croquettas and suckling pig.  All de-lish!

We got into Salamanca early enough to so a bit of sightseeing.  We are staying in the old quarter of the city, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so there were many beautiful old buildings in and around our area.

Part of the Nuevo Cathedral of Salamanca.  Construction on the older Cathedral was started around the 1100's.  This "modern" Cathedral was started in the 1500's and consecrated in the 1700's.  Both are amazing.

I've gotten some e-mails from folks asking questions ranging from what kinds of foods am I eating as I travel through Europe to what is a typical daily routine for the ride.  So I've decided to add a series of extra blogs, one per day, that will each address a specific subject.  Yes, for those looking for more pictures, I'll apologize ahead of time.  They'll likely be a bit wordy.