Rail trail

Plasencia to Aldeanueva Del Camino

Today we left the Camino Ruta de la Plata and travelled along a Via Verde,  verde being the Spanish word for green. Just like in Australia, Spain has closed down thousands of kilometres of unprofitable little used railway lines. Unlike Australia they have poured in tens of millions of dollars to turn them into thousands of kilometres of rail trails.

This particular one is the old line between Plasencia  to Salamanca.and ran from 1896 to 1996. They have been building the rail trail from the Plasencia end and the Salamanca end concurrently although it hasn’t quite joined in the middle yet. The section we rode today is 66 km long of which we rode about half of it.

We left our salubrious hotel ( they we lovely just needs a remodel really! ) and made our way back through the industrial strip back into town to pick up the trail head. It wasn’t too long and we were greeted with a spectacular tunnel. We had to wait until 9 am to make sure the gates that secure tunnel at night were  open.

After leaving the tunnel we travelled beside the Jert river that ran precipitously below us before we came across two high viaducts that took us over the river.  Trains at some time must of got heavier. Here like at home you see the remains of the older bridge beside the newer,  thou still as old relatively speaking, bridge.

I have ridden a number of rail trails and they have there nuances. This one had a good compacted surface making it easy to ride on. We found the one in New Zealand has a higher clay base which becomes sticky and harder to ride on when wet

Even though we have e-bikes you still have pedal. We generally look ahead and consider the power needs of the day in regards to distance and elevation. The beauty of any rail trail is the gentle incline. It more efficient to set a lower power mode and steadily climb then the steeper up and downs of the highway . That includes the further you travel on the rail trail for it to achieve the incline.

Along the way were the remains of old railway stations and pill boxes. Apparently in the future they will have café.  For the moment we settled for a petrol station roadhouse that was close to the line about 20 km along. It wasn’t too bad. Greg and Grace played arcade style table soccer at a Euro a pop.

Continuing along we past olive groves and saw the mountains to be climbed ahead of us. We arrived at Aldeanueva Del Camino which was our stop for tonight.