Visit date: April 23, 2017, approximately 6 p.m., overnight
On the second day, the 23rd, we left Ciudad Rodrigo, one of the most beautiful villages in Spain, around 9:00 a.m., and went directly to Portugal, where we visited several places including the World Heritage Sites (to be introduced later). to Spain. And I chose Puebla de Sanabria as the place to stay for the second day.
As always, you can check the location on Google Maps. Just above you see Ponferrada, Astorga, Leon, and the city on the Santiago pilgrimage route that I visited five years ago.
We booked our accommodation in advance in Bragança, Portugal, a town we visited before our arrival, in a Posada in the village. From there to this village, the Google Maps navigation system led us along the unpopular road, but we arrived at the village at 6 o’clock in the evening as planned, meeting some nice villages near the border.
As for parking, unfortunately there were only a few spaces inside the village and they were all occupied, so we had no choice but to park outside the village. We are used to it by now, but still this village was very difficult to find a place especially.
The old town area of Puebla de Sanabria is located on a small hill, so the village is surrounded by the foot of the hill. Moreover, although it is a small village, there is a main road with a lot of traffic nearby, and the place where I parked was on the street on the main road, so I had a hard time not only finding it but also parking there. I’ll show you the location on the map.
[googlemaps https://www.google.com/maps/embed?pb=!1m0!3m2!1sja!2sus!4v1496287093146!6m8!1m7!1sL8H9XPoS4Mvp8dkjKE4vBg!2m2!1d42.0535277214962!2d-6.632949803337823!3f233.47055164391602!4f-2.8554355477912736!5f1.1924812503605784&w=800&h=400]
However, as always, when we park our car at a distance from the hotel, we keep the luggage we take from the car to a minimum to make it easy to move around, as shown in the next picture, so even if the hotel is on a hill, we can get there without much trouble.
I already knew the location of the hotel because I wandered around the old town once. However, this is an apartment style hotel, so there is no reception.
Fortunately, there is a bar in this Posada and it was already open, so I tried to tell the person in the bar that I was staying here tonight, but he didn’t understand my English. However, when I tried to speak to him in French, he seemed to understand what I was trying to say and called me right after that. He told us to wait for about five minutes, so we waited outside the bar. This is a distant view, but it’s in such a place.
There is a stream below.
About 5 minutes later, the manager of Posada came. I guess he heard that I could speak French, and he said that he could speak French better than English, so we had a simple conversation in French all the time.
This is the room I was sent to, it was very clean. The price is not so expensive, and I can say that I chose a very reasonable place. But it’s not easy to come here, lol.
宿泊したホテル：Posada Real La Carteria (スペイン プエブラ・デ・サナブリア) – Booking.com
It was after 7:30pm when we finished the check-in and other formalities, and it was still light in this western part of Spain, and apparently the restaurants in this area don’t open until around 8:30pm, so we had a short time to explore the village.
Well, this village, Puebla de Sanabria, is one of the villages newly registered as one of the most beautiful villages in Spain this year. So, there was no information in the official guidebook.
However, it is famous for being one of the oldest villages in the province of Zamora. The origins of the village can be traced back to the 6th century, but as with any beautiful village, the population started to grow around the 11th century and it developed into a larger village, especially as a fortified city, which it is today. Even today, the highway runs relatively close to the village, so it must have been a major transportation hub for a long time.
The walls and the old castle that remain in the village are said to be the original ones built in those days. Of course, I think they have been renovated several times. But unfortunately, we couldn’t enter the church and castle because they were open until 19:00 or 20:00. So, we just looked at them. Still, it was very quaint scenery and I enjoyed it.
The only other attraction is the Plaza Mayor. Just in the center of the village, a very clean, neat and comfortable space. In addition, there are no cafes like you sometimes see in other villages, and that made me feel quiet and calm atmosphere.
It was also interesting that there were more tourists than I expected. It seems to be a village on the Santiago pilgrimage route that continues from Seville in Spain.
In the meantime, it was past 8:30pm. We went back to the apartment and went to dinner. We went back to the apartment and had dinner at a restaurant near Posada, which is a small village and you can reach every corner of the village in less than 5 minutes.
We’ll talk more about the food here in another post, but here’s a little bit about the outside and inside of the restaurant.
The wine was very good, but the food was not so good, perhaps not a good choice. I think the quality was good enough though.
No matter how strong it is, a bottle of wine is still drunk to a certain extent. It was not so cold in this village at night as I expected, but I finished the meal and went around the village to get drunk a little before going back to the inn. I was able to sleep well because I also did a lot of sightseeing that day.
