Day 5 - Ciudad Real - Rest Day

So today is a rest day. With the bike secured safely with the hotel (hopefully!), gives me a day to chill, relax and do anything but think about cycling and the long trip ahead.So I had a wander out into Ciudad Real centre to see what was about. And erm.. well not a great deal really! I had it in my mind this was some huge historic city, like Salamanca with loads of old town bits and plenty to see. But I just couldnt find any of that. It was just an average town centre with a few statues and water features dotted about. Maybe I went the wrong places who knows!

It was actually quite chilly this morning too! It feels like im much further north than I actually am! Im still quite south of Madrid really.
Vodafone Espana have, in their lovelyness decided to cut off my 3G dongle, which was giving me internet just about anywhere I went. Last month, they were having signal problems in my area and my router decided to pick Gibraltar internet service up, switched to that, and started incurring roaming charges unbeknown to me. But of course, theres no explaining that down a phone to some customer service agent whos english isnt too good - and my spanish being worse! So I was landed with a rather huge bill, which I attempted to pay but they woudlnt accept any UK Credit or Debit cards! So its back to the old fashioned way of trying to find WiFi to get the laptop online for now!

So I managed to pack as much food into me as possible and keep doing leg stretches. Walking up stairs seems to be the most achey time. But I experienced that after training too. I should be all good to get going again tomorrow.
Tomorrow will see me head East out of Ciudad Real. Im swinging east of Madrid. If I was doing this tour with other people and had more time. I would have loved to have stopped in Madrid. I need to go east anyway. If you look on the map, Gibraltar is very west of where the west coast of France starts. So the whole of Spain sees me going north east. Whereas once I'm in France I can head more dead north. Tomorrows route looks relatively flat too! My next rest stop is not scheduled until Pamplona, which is about 5 - 6 days away. Im itching to get back on the bike now!!