Sunday 9 October 2016 (DAY 3 in Spain)  7.30pm

Well, today has been very interesting! We have seen something I never thought I would ever see! A Spanish town with no bar! In 46 years This is something I have never encountered. Let me start at the beginning, we checked out of the wonderful Parador in Alcalá just before noon. We were in no rush, Bar/restaurant Villabamba he turned that car on a time and headed in. Apparently we were lucky as they only opened reduced days and hours for the winter. Yikes! It is coming on winter here, the trees are changing and there is a bit of a nip in the air. Lunch was spectacular. A lovely setting and excellent food. After a lazy time we drove just over 1.5 kilometers to our hotel.

this is a day with a stop at a spa, before we head up to San Sebastián. Our drive was uneventful with a stop for a Bitter Kas in Alcalá del Pinar. A tiny town whose claim to fame is La Casa de Piedra. A house carved out of an enormous rock, by hand no less. It took 20 years and uncountable tools, as you can imagine. A poor man started this incredible work in his spare time, after work in the 1920s. He carved out a dwelling with several rooms to house his family. It has windows and balconies and is quite remarkable. Google it for all the details , there is too much for me to write here. Anyway , we continued on to Soria and beyond. Old territory for us. We used to do this run frequently when we lived in Elizondo back in the early 70s. The roads were much worse then and went through every little pueblo. We kind of miss that, Medinaceli, the Dimar town where they dried the cod for bacalao, Soria where we always stopped for a bathroom and refreshment break. The highway bypasses much of that and as we have been through these towns in recent years we decided to press on to our ultimate destination and lunch! Paul was getting a little antsy and hungry, he is always hungry in Spain, so when he spotted theThis is when the fun began. We followed Carmen Garmin faithfully and as often happens with her we were in a deserted street with no sign of a hotel. A very small, empty town with the occasional old man with a walking stick! Let me be clear, we are in the middle of farmland and a preserved forest area, there is nothing here but some ancient dilapidated buildings. How can we not find this hotel? After a chat with the old gentleman with the walking stick we found the Hotel Teratermal our spa and bed for the night. In I venture….. empty, I ring the bell, no response! Damn, now what? Then I saw the little note, “reception closed from 2 until 4”, but it is after 4!!!! Things are not looking good!

North of Soria it felt like Arizona!!

After a while a nice guy drives up, smiling, “you have a reservation?” Meanwhile Paul is driving around looking for nonexistent parking on the street. To make long story short, we have a room with a circuit of steam room, Turkish bath and massage etc. at 8 pm with dinner to follow. Off up to the room for siesta time. Very spare room with minimal furnishings but it is okay for one night.  After Paul’s nap and my little bit of recreation on candy crusher, we decided to take drive around and see if we could scare up beer or a wine!

Posting this NOW with more describing the Turkish HotTub Experience and dinner Sunday evening.

I left you wondering if we found a drink and the short answer is….not then! We are about 30 kilometers from Soria in a very rural area, there is farmland and forests and very old, underpopulated villages. It is a story  that is repeating itself over and over in Spain. The young people leave and all that are left are the old. It is very sad. A whole way of life is disappearing. Houses are empty, though it does appear that some are being renovated. There are a lot of large house around the town. Perhaps they are holiday or weekend homes , who knows, but no bars or restaurant that we can see , apart from the one where we had lunch and that is on restricted winter hours and is now closed! The one bank in town is only open on Tuesday and Thursday from 11 to 1.30! Now that one really floored me! The cheese museum and gift shop were also closed.

Okay,  back to the hotel and our host José María kindly supplies us with a beer and wine and reminds us that our circuito starts at 8pm! Off upstairs to don the fluffy white robes and flip flops. The adventure begins! Turkish steam room, cold shower and jacuzzi, steam room, cold shower, jacuzzi…..aaah! After a while we became a bit bored and departed for our full body massage on the magic massaging bed! Yikes! I felt as though I had been pounded and tenderized by clubs!

Dinner at 9.30 in the dining room was a solitary affair! There were others in the hotel and they found somewhere to eat! Our meal was excellent, solomillo for Paul and bacalao( fish) for me. José Mari told us that the hotel is owned by the municipality and he runs it. It is the only way they can save the old buildings and bring tourists in. It is a walker and hiker destination, so if you like the outdoors this is the place for you. By this time it was pushing 10.30 so we headed up to sleep the sleep of the dead.