This week is our half term holiday from school and we have come back to Extremadura to stay in what my boys call 'Nanny's little house' which is a sweet little house in the village Orellana de la Sierra. Whenever we can we pack up the boys, the dog and whatever else we need to keep us going for a few days and make the 5 hour drive here. So, here we are again, looking forward to exploring some new places.
Today we decided to venture out to Guadalupe, a place that we haven't been to before. We had seen a little leaflet that extolled its virtues, boasted of the splendour of its monastery and generally assured us that we were guaranteed to have a jolly good time indeed should we make the effort to visit. So we did! It isn't far from where we are staying, only 40 minutes away, a mere 40 minutes of listening to the alternating soundtrack from the backseat that switched seamlessly between bickering and generally disagreeing on absolutely everything and singing along to the songs playing on the iPod with an amusing variety of misheard and 'I don't know which words they're singing so I'll make up my own' lyrics.
As we approached Guadalupe we stopped at a 'mirador' which gave us a wonderful view of the town beneath and the sight of the huge, ornate monastery was very impressive. We carried on down the road a short way and very soon arrived at the town. The old town where we parked has some very quaint and narrow streets lined with houses on wooden stilts with balconies and patios laden down with masses of potted plants. As we walked along we realised that even though the streets were narrow and apparently quiet, cars quite often came driving along them, sometimes quite speedily and so we had to be very careful keeping the boys, who wanted to run along excitedly, at the side in case a car came whizzing around the corner.
Eventually we reached a little square that had a fountain in the centre, the monastery on one side and cafes, restaurants and souvenir shops around the other sides. The first thing we noticed as we walked up to it was that waiters from the restaurants all came out to try and entice us in to their premises. As we walked past one waiter, brandishing a menu and imploring us to stop and go into his premises another one would come up to us from the next place, and then another one from the next place. People from the souvenir shops likewise urged us to go into their shops as we walked past. It isn't the kind of thing we usually experience in such small towns and it was all a bit unwelcome. The second thing we noticed as the boys tried to go and see the fountain up close was that the sweet, little cobbled square wasn't pedestrianised as we had expected and that it was also susceptible to drivers speeding around it before hurrying off down one of the side streets. Consequently we had to hold on tight to the boys to stop them from straying out into the road.
We decided to head up the steps to the monastery and the basilica. First the basilica. Reading the rules of entry on the door we stressed to Henry that he had to be quiet while inside. "That's ok" he replied, "I'm good at being quiet". Having never actually witnessed that particular talent we were understandably dubious but we headed in anyway. We did quite well for a few seconds until Henry saw the pews facing the altar, "is it a school mummy?" he asked loudly. I explained that no, it wasn't a school, the pews were there for people who were attending services there and I reminded him to be quiet. "Stairs!" he called out loudly, his excitement echoing around the walls, as if he had never seen stairs before, as if he weren't witness to the 'wonder' of stairs numerous times every day. Thankfully the place was quite small and it didn't take long before we had seen everything that was to be seen and we were able to head back out into the sunshine. Next door was the monastery. The boys hurried up to the door and tried to push past a bemused looking man at the door. "Can we come in?" I asked him. "No" he replied, "only if you are in a group." Sam seemed a little confused as we walked away and he pointed out that we were a group, there were four of us. There was no arguing with his logic and I tried explaining to him that the man meant that we needed to be in an organised group but that only seemed to cloud the waters further and so we left it there. It was a shame though, that we were here at the door of this wonderful looking monastery but we couldn't get inside to see it. So instead we headed off to find another square that we had seen marked on the map in the guide book.
Either the square was in the wrong place (quite unlikely) or our map reading skills were very off (quite likely) but we didn't manage to find it and instead wandered aimlessly down side streets until we eventually found our way back to the square. Such efficiency surely deserved some sort of reward. Time for a drink. Avoiding making eye contact with the waiters standing outside their cafes, waiting to pounce and imploring us to go to their cafe we headed straight for one where we could get a table in the sun. The waiter brought us the menu.
"No thank you, we are just having a drink."
"Are you sure? We have some specials on today."
"No, just a drink thank you."
"What about something for the children?" (showing the boys the children's menu) "I'm sure they would like something."
"No, really, just a drink."
So the waiter eventually got the message and went to get us some drinks, but we were annoyed at being subjected to this hard sell approach yet again and the fact that he had targeted the children when he got no joy from the adults. Usually when we go to explore new towns and villages around here we get a sense of friendliness and welcome from the local people. However in Guadalupe it seemed that all people wanted from us was our money. Undoubtedly it is a beautiful place and there are some amazing buildings to be seen (but only from the outside unless you are in a group!) and breathtaking scenery but we didn't come away with a good feeling about the place and wouldn't choose to return there.
