Abandoned Escusalla on Our BMW R 1250 GSA - Riding To Portugal!

We're still here in northern Spain but not for long because we're heading south to Portugal to the Penedes-Guerres National Park. It's about a 30 minute ride and the weather looks fantastic today so it's going to be a great day. Yeah, we stayed here last night in this kind of walled casa, I guess. It was really authentic and a really sweet owner. It was only €55 per night for the room and it was perfect. It had bike parking. They even put it inside. Yeah, put it inside. It's over fortification for the night. And it's in a really nice location. If you can hear, if we're silent, you can't hear anything. It's just the birds and it's a really rural area here so we should have a great ride as we travel down into Portugal today. Just stopped off for a quick coffee and to have a little look at our route. We're currently in La Baia and we've got a few points pinned on the map here that we want to see. There's an abandoned village in Acarido, which I think is one of those villages that was flooded for a dam perhaps, but you can see that it's next to the main road. Then we're going to carry on just over the border into Portugal and there's a few other small abandoned villages there, which are quite overgrown with trees, which almost resembles a little bit of Cambodia, where that famous roots are engulfing the buildings. I think there's something like that there. After we see that, maybe we're going to stop along the road, maybe cook up some lunch somewhere and then head in the direction of Porto. Not sure exactly which route we'll take, but we'll have another look when we get closer to it. So we just had four espressos and a litre of mineral water and it came to, grand total of five euros. So really good value for money in this area. So we're just going to put the stuff back in the bike and we're going to head off on the road. Here we go. We are about 10 minutes from the Portuguese-Spanish border, but we have two points on our little map to stop at first. That was a nice little coffee stop, wasn't it? I needed it. It was. It was, yeah. Four espressos later. We're wired and ready to go. Shadow's had fuel as well. We're all fully prepared. Goodness me. Okay, straight away we've got a falling rock warning. Falling rock. Here we go. It looks nice. The smell of the trees. Nice and fresh. There's definitely a chill in that air. It's definitely mountain air up here. It should be over there, isn't it? The abandoned village. It should be. Oh, what a great view. Great roads too. Look at them. Will you be switching to dynamic? Oh, let us not go crazy just yet. Acarido. This is where the abandoned village is. Okay. Somewhere in the water. Unless it is covered by water. Are we turning off here? I don't know. Let me check my phone. Let me check. I think that's the village. Maybe the bit that's been flooded is down there. Ah, it's down there, yeah, as you say. But it could be covered in water today because the water seems really high. Viewpoint of ghost town Acarido. I feel like it's covered in water today. Quite possibly. Ah, well worth it for this detour. That bridge is epic. Well, it should just be just there. Yeah, do you want to pull into this bit? Yeah. No, it's not there. I think it's covered today. We couldn't see it down this little side lane. So we're going to try and ride over the bridge and see if we can see anything over the bridge. It should just be there. It should be there. I think it's full today. I think the water's full, but still, what a stunning location. That's a bit of a failed attempt to see the abandoned village, but we've got more to come. The next abandoned village is called Escucela. Escucela. I think we're just taking the turn off now, up to it. We're going to hang on the left here, aren't we? Yeah. Yeah, down here should lead us on to some of the abandoned houses. We are here at Escucela. I think it's pronounced. Now, this place you wouldn't find if you just drove past it. It's just off the main road. It's about five minutes on some tiny little winding roads. There's a little car park here as well, so it is an official place. Yeah, you can either take the off-road route or you can drive around the back of it and that's a paved road. We're going to head in. We found this place before we left. As I say, it's not somewhere you just find, but it's an abandoned old manor house that's been taken back. Straight away, you can see the grandeur that this place used to be. These trees must have been here for at least 50, 60, even 100 years. Right, let's go inside. I think we're just entering the courtyard now. Oh wow, this place is awesome. Really cool. I need to look up the history of this place because I really don't know anything about it, other than it's abandoned. I didn't know much about this house when we arrived, so I've had a quick Google about it. This place, Escuzella, was apparently built by Dom José Martínez, who was the abbot of Marlin in the 18th century. It consists of several houses, which we're walking around now, a courtyard, in which I'm stood in, and a chapel, which I haven't seen yet. I think it's through these two doors. You can really see how grand this place was. Whoever built it had to have a lot of power and a lot of money to do it, but it's got a really interesting history. It says here, legend has it that the former resident of the house, somebody named Mariquino, used to hire bricklayers from outside of the region. Then, in order to not pay them, he killed them and buried them in this very courtyard. There's another legend about a Portuguese man known as Tio Roque, who fled the Spanish police following a murder, and he found a refuge in this house. He apparently told all the inhabitants of all of the villages around that on full moon nights, ghosts would appear in the house that he sought refuge in. It's a little bit creepy. Okay, it's more than a little bit creepy, but it's also very beautiful, the way that nature is reclaiming back its place. You can see all of the ivory up the brickwork, and I'm stood surrounded by four pillars, which must have held up some kind of floor. But what an interesting history and a beautiful place to come and visit. So untouched. What's through here? We've got another room in here, and it's so quiet, it feels like you could hear a pin drop. All you can hear is a little bit of water maybe, and some birds chirping. The other thing that I find really surprising about this place, I've also lost Sean in it, is that there's no graffiti, which shows that the locals kind of respect it in some way. Sean, I was just saying on the vlog, there's no graffiti. No there's not, there's no litter or anything inside here. It shows that the locals must respect it in some way. It's pretty remote as well. All the floors are long gone, but this place must be at least 200 or 300 years old. It did say, from the article I was just reading, it's the story of Casa de Escuelo, which is about 300 years old. That's not a bad guess. Very good guess. It's crazy to think we're studying a 300 year old house. Yeah, and it's a very well fortified house, there's arrow slits everywhere. Did you see some of the chiselled names and stuff? No I missed them. Old ones, they're in the chapel at the front. Oh wow, I loved that abandoned manor house, that was really interesting. Yeah, it was definitely a nice non-touristy little addition to the day. Just going to head back now to the main road, and then we'll be in Portugal in the next 5-10 minutes. I think we're about to enter Portugal. We sure are, here it is. Here it is. Second country, third country of the tour. Here we go. For anyone that's not from Europe, that's not familiar with the border crossings over here, as it's all part of the Schengen, there's actually no hard border. We just leave Spain there, and we enter Portugal here. There's no passport stamping or cheques or anything, you're straight in. So if you blink, you might miss it, but it's very straightforward to travel through Europe. We found a little cobbled path to try and find our way to these, are they graves, Sean? They're kind of, yeah, I think so. I think this is a dead end. No, I don't think so. On the map, or does your map say something else? No, my map says dead end. Sorry. It's the castle. Oh, here they are, there's two of them. Here's a few of them. Oh, here they are. I said to you guys that we were going to see some graves next. I was very wrong. In your defence, I probably told you they were graves as well. Well, they've got crosses on the top, so I would have thought so. They do kind of look like graves, but they're just behind us here. They are apparently storehouses for grain and corn. They're on stilts to increase the ventilation, which dries the corn out quicker. And they're all put together so that they can watch over them, so nobody robs their corn. Yeah, apparently the oldest dates back to the 17th century. And there's hundreds of them. There is, isn't there? Wow. They must have fed a lot of people with the corn and grain stored here. And then at the very top, you can see maybe in the background, there's a fortification, a small castle. There are so many of these little storehouses here. All sitting on these stone stilts. It must have taken a long time to carve them all out. But they look great. You can really see how I mistook them for little tombs. That's it from Lindo So, back on the bike. We want to hit some really good roads in the next couple of hours. There's quite a few really twisty roads through this national park coming up. But I think we might need to grab a coffee. Yeah, I'm getting quite hungry. We skipped breakfast at 2 o'clock. So let's head back on the bike and see if we can find a nice spot on a nice path to do some cooking maybe. Should be good. This is one of the most beautiful rides through this valley at this time of year. You can see behind me, all of the pink and yellow bushes are in full bloom. We're also on a cobblestone road. What an incredible, incredible drive. We're heading now deeper and deeper into this national park. Hopefully we're going to come across a few more waterfalls. But wow, look at this. Currently riding on the N307. What a spectacular road this is. It's a very seldomly used road as well. We've not had much traffic here at all. Views are fantastic. And you're just hugging this cliff face basically. Lots of curves. Scenery is fantastic as well. We drove through a lot of interesting little villages on the way up here. They looked like they hadn't changed for a hundred years. A very scenic ride and lots of interesting places to go through at the same time. Definitely check this one out if you're in northern Portugal. This road doesn't seem to end either, does it? Every corner reveals a new section of great curves. Exactly. It's a good quality value for money road on your distance here. So it's worth the detour. Oh look, down there there's some like blue pools. I think if you've got the energy to hike down there, I think you'd be rewarded with a nice cool bath. We're just driving over the dam now, you can see. Ugly concrete structure but beautiful surroundings. Also looks like there's quite a few offshoots of gravel tracks. Can you see down there too, Sean? Yeah, there's one down there. It'd be a nice camping spot as long as you don't unleash the water while you're down there. You might get splashed. We've just turned off and taken a small pass again, heading through the mountain towards a place called Gares. And we just keep climbing and climbing. These mountains are so rocky, aren't they, Sean? They are, this is the M533. And that looks like it's been man-made but I think it's natural. That's amazing. So we've got this road for another 12km before we'll hit a small town maybe and hopefully we've got some supermarkets and some bars we can stop and have a drink. Slight change of plan, we don't need to go to the supermarket anymore because we've just driven past this little picnic spot here. It's really good, the sports jungle in Spain has tons of these picnic spots. Em's resumed her yoga position on the table there. She's preparing lunch for us. And the best thing about this stop is there's some fresh running water. And it is ice cold. Needed that, it's almost 30 degrees here, pretty hot. It's like the perfect day, isn't it? Absolutely perfect, blue skies. Epic roads, blue skies. No chance of rain, fantastic, couldn't ask for anything more. Vents open, camp, cooking out here with such great facilities everywhere. It's a dream destination for that type of a thing. That's your lifestyle, it's great. I was starting to doubt that we'd picked the wrong time of year to come here. I was as well. But it seems we've gone a little bit more south and the weather has turned fantastic. Alright, let's get the primer stove on and get coffee on. Coffees, food, lunch, everything. I've just left Em at the picnic site cooking up lunch. And you see these guys over here just chilling out by the stream. Look at the horns on them, I don't want to get too close to these guys because I don't really want to be on the delivery end of those. Absolutely beautiful. Lunch slash breakfast slash dinner is served. It's pasta with crumbled up tofu and some veggies with some tomato sauce. We're going to dig in and eat that. And then I think we're going to ride a little bit more towards a waterfall with a lake and maybe see if we can see that. And then we'll make a plan for this evening when we finally get there. The walls are looming, keep caving in on us Waves keep forming, keep crashing in my thoughts When the time's right, we're gonna get all that's good When the time's right, oh When the time's right Get inside this dream that we've always had Gotta get inside that dream when it's all said When the time is right Gotta get inside this dream When the time is right We're stranded and beaten, reaching for helping hands We may be defeated, but we'll see the make amends When the time's right We're gonna get all that's good When the time's right Get inside this dream that we've always had Gotta get inside that dream when it's all said When the time is right We're gonna get all that's good Gotta get inside When the time is right We're stranded and beaten, nothing left to do Stranded and beaten, waiting to see this through Let's go in search of that waterfall Low centre of gravity heading down this waterfall section Did you really just walk down that with breeze? I've got metal grips underneath these Look at me! Do you need a hand? I'm quite grippy This waterfall better be worth it Oh wow Okay this is our last stop of the day It's Cascada da Fecha de Barra da Zavala I'm butchering it, it's the beautiful waterfall in the national park We'll put a link I think, it's easier than remembering the name But yeah, it's been an awesome day Just finishing off here, it's really refreshing And then we're gonna head back on the road and head to Porta So this will be the last of our national park for today That's us finished with northern Portugal for the moment We're heading further south now And tonight we'll be in Porto So catch us in the next episode for our city tour of Porto