France, Italy, Croatia

June 13th - June 28th, 2017

From Spain we drove quickly through France and Italy. We needed to spend time out of the EU, so we decided to go to Croatia.

 The Tour de France in the Pyrenees - A sculpture located in a rest area along the motorway in France.

 We traveled trough many small towns in France as we headed toward Mont Blanc.

The tunnel under Mont Blanc. It is more then 7 miles long, connecting France and Italy.

Looking at the summit of Mont Blanc from the Italian side. It was a perfect day for the para-gliders, they are the little dots in the sky.

Glacier on Mont Blanc.

Bridge to the Island of Krk, Croatia.

The coast of Croatia is way to hot, crowded, and overpriced during high season, so we decided to leave and head east. Eastern Croatia is beautiful, laid back, and pretty much tourist free. We enjoyed it a lot. The first city we visited was Varazdin, located in the northern part of the country on the Drava River.

 Streets in Varazdin.

Schloss Varazdin, a castle in Varazdin.

Picturesque door.

Crinoline of Love - A sculpture for love locks. You are suppose to attach your lock and then toss the key into the town well.

Osijek is a college town in the south eastern Croatia. Osijek was a frontline city in the Croat-Serb conflict in the 1990's. There is still a lot of damage to structures in the area.

Pedestrian bridge over the Drava River.

Church of St Peter and St Paul.

Sculpture of Picasso in Osijek.

Flowers for sale in the covered market.

 You still see bullet and shelling damage to the structures around the city.

Astorga, Leon, and Picos de Europa

June 7^th – 12^th

The blogging stopped because I had trouble connecting to WiFi with my laptop. I had moments here and there, but they never lasted long enough to post to the blog. We are home now and I have bought a new laptop. The old one had more issues then connecting to the internet, so I am going to try to catch up on our trip in a series of posts. We saw a lot, so hopefully my captions will be accurate.

From Portugal we traveled through Northern Spain. Everywhere you go, people are hiking the Camino de Santiago also known as The Way of St James. It is a pilgrimage route that ends in Galice, Spain at the shrine of the apostle Saint James the Great. The route from Leon to Galice is flat, traveling through towns with large and very ornate cathedrals built for the pilgrims. 

We also visited Picos de Europa National Park. The mountain scenery was fabulous. One of my best memories is at Lake Ercina in the evening with more than 100 cow bells ringing as the cows were grazing. 

Leon Cathedral

Cathedral of Astorga Spain

Bishop's Palace

Inside the Bishop's Palace

Young storks waiting for lunch.

On the road to Picos de Europa. The mountain scenery was a welcome sight from the flats around Leon.

 Picos de Europa National Park

    

  Trail through an old mining area.

Lake Ercina - Cows wearing bells were everywhere.

The goats are amazing how they are able to walk on the vertical rock slopes.

Trail in the Poncebos area of the park.

Goats people watching.

Another trail in the Poncebos area of the park.

Fuente De tram. If you look closely, you can see it going up into the clouds. We lucked out here. It had been raining hard all night. We didn't think we would ride the tram because the forecast was for continued rain, but the weather changed and very few people were there.

View at the top of the tram.

We took a hike from the top of the tram. The surrounding mountain views were beautiful. All rock and meadows full of wild flowers.

Looking down at the parking lot from the top of the tram. The Sprinter looks pretty small, but you can see it.

Portugal

Coimbra, Lamego, and Braganca Portugal

June 2nd - 5th

Coimbra is located on Mondago River in northern Portugal. It has an old town, a large pedestrian only shopping area, and a very old university located on top of a very steep hill.

Rua F Borges - a pedestrian shopping street.

Church of Santa Cruz

Inside the Church of Santa Cruz. The wall are decorated with blue and white tiles from the 18th century.

 Mercado Municipal - the covered market. It has stalls for everything - fruits and vegetables, bakeries, meat, cheese, fish, flowers and everything else you can think of.

A very nice mural.

University of Coimbra founded in 1537.

Bill looking inside a whale at the university's science museum.

Lamego is a beautiful town we stumbled across while looking for a campground for the night. We found one on top of a very steep hill overlooking the town. This is a view from our camping spot.

This is the view you can't miss as you drive into town. It is the Sanctuary of Nossa Senhora Dos Remedios and the amazing staircase leading up to it.

The staircase has lots of terraces between the climbs.

We walked down the staircase to the town for dinner then walked back up as the sun went down. It was a good way to work off the dinner.

Evening view of the church.

 We drove through the Douro Valley to Pinhao, famous for port wine. From there we drove up into the very steep hills. The views of the vineyards were beautiful.

Braganca - We enjoyed walking around this town. It had an old town and a modern side. There were walking trails everywhere.

We parked in a free camping spot with about 25 other camper vans just below the Castelo de Braganca. The castle was a great spot for an evening walk.

Street within the castle walls. 

One of the gates into the castle.