Monday, July 09, 2007

We popped into Portugal for a cup of tea

A little while ago I mentioned that Maggie may be interested in a job in Albacete. As it turned out the project she had applied to, with the British Council, where native English speaking teachers are placed in Spanish state schools, eventually offered her a job in Ciudad Rodrigo.

Ciudad Rodrigo is in the province of Salamanca about 730kms from our current home in Alicante and just 30kms from the Portugese border. We went to have a look his weekend. It was a ten hour drive with a couple of coffee stops and two hours of traffic jams around Madrid. We came back via Toledo but that was farther and took just as long.

Splendid little place, a walled city with lots of monumental buildings in the historic centre and a small modern town outside the walls. About 14,000 people and, according to the "electoral role", two Britons. The Duke of Wellington passed through as he chased Napoleon out of Spain. One of the few times we Brits have been on the same side as the Spaniards.

The school looked a bit rough though.

We strolled around, ate local specialities, watched a wedding in the cathedal, went to the "urinal" museum. People were uniformly helpful and friendly. On Sunday, as a bit of a detour on our way home, we really did pop into Portugal and buy a cup of tea.

There are a few pictures here

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