Zamora

Crossed the Roman bridge across the Tormes from the Salamanca parador for the last time – why do we have no Roman bridges left in England and the Spanish seem to have so many?  (I think the one Hadrian built across the Tyne at Newcastle lasted nearly 1000 years, but there’s certainly no trace of it now).  It was chilly and there was a thin rain, but by the time I’d got off the bus and back en route the rain stopped.  North of Villanueva there were a few vines but it was still mostly corn and some maize waiting to be harvested.  Passed a few huge mobile sprayers that irrigate the land in the dry summers – one of them was almost half a kilometre wide.  By the time I got across the Duero via a (12^th century, Romanesque) bridge into Zamora at lunchtime the sky was virtually cloudless. 

Dropped my rucksack off at the parador (2 nights for one offer now at  €55 a night in a 16^th century palace

with perhaps just a few more suits of armour than needed to make the point) just over the bridge, and strode on 10kg lighter through the really almost aggressively ugly architecture of the outskirts of Zamora towards Montemarta.

Back in time for a late siesta and then out to dinner where it seemed the entire town was watching Spain play Portugal at football.