{"id":34299,"date":"2019-03-14T18:18:58","date_gmt":"2019-03-14T18:18:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ourtour.co.uk\/home\/?p=34299"},"modified":"2019-03-15T07:26:59","modified_gmt":"2019-03-15T07:26:59","slug":"storks-and-art-in-los-barruecos-caceres","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ourtour.co.uk\/home\/storks-and-art-in-los-barruecos-caceres\/","title":{"rendered":"Storks and Art in Los Barruecos, Caceres"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Zagan the autocaravana <\/em>is a bit confused. He’s back at Camping Caceres (N39.48857, W6.41279<\/a>), having been out for a look around Los Barruecos Natural Park. He’s confused because he’s not sure he’s ever left a campsite and returned the same day before. We’re not sure if we’ve ever done it either; once we’re in a campsite that’s it until it’s time to leave. When we checked in we planned to stay for a couple of nights to clear the laundry backlog. However, the campsite offers a fourth night free if you pay for three, so we thought we’d have a last little ‘holiday’ before starting the trip to Calais. Our ‘chunnel’ home is booked for two weeks time, which seemed like an eon when I was working and writing my ‘out of office’ email ready for a holiday, but now it seems incredibly short.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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No apologies for the number of bird photos today – Jay’s Dad loves to see what we’ve spotted on our travels, especially when it’s something like these blue winged magpies that you only find in Spain and Portugal.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The campsite is about 4 miles from the city of Caceres. Normally we’d be getting the bikes off to cycle in, or catch the bus for a look around. However my knee is still iffy, and Jay has already been around the old town on a run (he’s out on a 22 miler as I type this) so we decided not to bother with the town. The city looks beautiful, from the photos on the wall in the campsite restaurant, but we’ve seen a lot of similar-looking places around Europe on our travels from hill-top Tuscan towns like Montepulciano<\/a> in Italy to the coastal delights Trogir of Croatia<\/a>. Instead we headed out to see some natural beauty at the Natural Park Los Barruecos, which is just a few miles away from the town. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Natural Park Los Barruecos<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As we drove towards the park every tall structure such as church towers and communication masts had a stork’s nest as a hat on top of it. It looks like there is a lot of good luck in this part of Spain! Malpartida de C\u00e1ceres, the town next to the park, is in the region of Extremadura, which to me sounds like a Harry Potter spell, but the landscape of Los Barruecos was more like something from Game of Thrones (in fact part of season 7, a great battle between the Lannister and Daenerys Targaryen armies was shot here).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Fortunately for us it wasn’t dragons flying over our heads, but storks – loads of them.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This park was declared a Natural Monument in 1996. Its large granite rocks, carved by time, contain many nests of white storks and other birds. We only managed to walk the short route down by the lake to the main rocks and back, but it was great to be out and about. The weather had turned a bit cooler (only 17\u00b0C – we’re in for a shock when we get back to the UK), and it was quite windy, so we took shelter behind a concrete car embedded in a concrete box and watched the storks fly in and out of their nests gathering twigs. As each one returned the others would all clack their beaks as if applauding the landing, it was wonderful to see and surprisingly noisy to hear. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The car and box were one of the pieces of contemporary art dotted around the park, which also contains the Vostell Malpartida Museum. Opened in 1976 by the German artist Wolf Vostell (1932-1998), co-founder of the Fluxus movement and video art pioneer, the museum is in a former 18th<\/sup> century wool washhouse on the edge of the lake. I have to be honest here. I loved the Painted Rocks in Tafroute, Morocco<\/a>, lots of the exhibits in the ARoS Modern Art museum in Aarhus<\/a> and visiting Salvador Dali’s house<\/a> in Port Lligat (not so much his museum in Figures<\/a> though), so I’m not sure why but I just didn’t like this work. Maybe it’s because I only saw the stuff that was outside, plonked in amongst a beautiful part of the world. Whatever it was I just didn’t get it or like it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jay on a rock and the concrete car and box
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