Peníscola is a medieval town built on a rock hill between two beaches in the north of Castelló province in Spain. Birthplace of a pope and shooting location for Game of Thrones, Peníscola mixes a medieval castle with white painted houses and the Mediterranean sea as background landscape.
Spain seems to be a very touristic country. And, indeed, it is, but there are still some places that are mainly appreciated by locals and do not use to appear in the classical routes. When going back to Barcelona after our roadrip through the centre and the north of Portugal, we had to stop somewhere to spend the night. And we didn’t have to think much to choose a destination. We searched the route back home on Google Maps and inmediately decided that we would stop in Burgos. Its extraordinary Gothic cathedral was a good reason for it.
Continue reading Burgos: a World Heritage Cathedral in Spain
We are used to travel on the weekend or while our (never enough) holidays and thus we try to make the most of our trips with lots of planning and less room for improvisation. But last summer, in Portugal, we had the three things that any traveler needs to decide the destinations along the way: a car, a camping tent and a travel guide.
We had travelled through central Portugal from Lisboa to the medieval jewel of Guimarães and our next stop in our way back home was fixed at Burgos (Spain), a city dominated by its amazing Word Heritage cathedral. But we still had one night and some hours driving to reach Burgos, so we decided to open the guide and look for hotspots in the way back to Barcelona. We had heard about Miranda do Douro, a Portuguese town, belonging to the Braganza district, located in the border with Spain and next to which environmental cruises depart to sail through the international natural park of the Douro river. Moreover, the town has a municipal camping site, so we couldn’t ask for more!
Continue reading The Douro, sailing between Spain and Portugal
If you love old towns and historical sites as much as we do, you will be happy to know that there is a hidden region in Spain where you can find, among others, a city built from the old Roman town of Emerita Augusta (now named Mérida), a monastery with a wonderful Mudejar cloister devoted to Our Lady of Guadalupe (in the village with the same name) and the two medieval gems appearing in this post. That region, Extremadura, was the land of famous Spaniard conquerors of the New World. But today Extremadura still remains unconquerable to the great number of tourists that visit Spain year after year.
Our journey to Portugal led us to cross the entire Iberian Peninsula by car and to enter the Portuguese region of Alentejo from Extremadura. On that trip I realised that amazing places can be found quite close and Cáceres and Trujillo are two living examples of that which have even served as the location of Game of Thrones due to their amazing architecture.
Continue reading Cáceres and Trujillo: a journey to the medieval Spain
