spain 2019 family celebration

Today was tourist-in-Salamanca day. Carol and I stayed at a hotel an easy walk to Plaza Mayor which was, in turn, an easy walk to the Caballero apartment. When we stepped out the front door, this was the view to the right. This was the view to the left. And this shop was right across the street. Spain specializes in "jamon". It is a central piece of their cuisine and their culture. What the pig was fed determines the quality of the meat and it can get quite pricey. While we often have carving stations at banquets, it was common to see a jamon carving station in many restaurants in Spain. What is a little different is the disregard for disguising the origins of the meat. For example, in our culture, instead of eating "cow", we eat "beef", instead of "baby cow", it's "veal", "lamb" instead of "baby sheep" and instead of "pig", it's "pork". But Spanish carving stations...

Day 2 began pleasantly cool with a mist covering the countryside. Here's a view at breakfast on the terrace. And here is the mist burning off after we hit the road. Here are the "newly-weds". I don't remember what was special about this building but still it was a nice picture. We finally got close enough to the coast to see the sea. We saw more pilgrims, of course, and this poor guy was making the long, slow slog up the hill. Notice the seashell on the back of his bike - the symbol for the Camino travelers. And this is San Vicente, the end point for the day. Looks like a picture from a travel brochure. We had enough time to shower and head into town for food. The main street paralleled the shore so all of the restaurants were on the water. We had a nice sea-side table and appropriately enough, the menu was pretty heavy on seafood. A few of us ordered the paella as one of the choices from the fixed menu so they put it all in...

Today was the first day of the bike trip. Lara and Annie arranged the trip through Spain is More (https://www.spainismore.com/en). It was unlike any bike trip I have ever done. (My cycling buddies and I have used VBT the most often and one trip each with Duvine in 2015 to see and ride the routes of the Tour de France and this year with Backroads for a domestic trip.) There are a number of major differences in the Spain is More trip. First, we used mountain bikes and they were heavy! They had a rear rack and waterproof panniers but I still think they were heavier than my fattie.  In addition to the panniers, they had a handlebar bags that contained an extra tube and a patch kit. There was a mini-pump on the frame. It was a self-guided tour so there were no tourguides or sag wagon. You were pretty much on your own. They dropped off the bikes at our hotel so we never even met any of the people from the tour company. We met some of the people who they contr...