Monfrague

Ignore what your Sat Nav tells you and take the EX-208 from Plasencia to Trujillo; not the quickest, but actually the most direct and certainly the most picturesque route. Although this short trip represents only a tiny part of the extraordinary Parque Nacional de Monfragüe, it is still a wonderful introduction to the astonishing level of birdlife with dozens of eagles, vultures and other birds I have never even heard of, still less spent hours watching as they circled on the thermals above me. I realise I will never be a wildlife photographer, due primarily to my impatience, for even here you need to wait ages for the relevant bird to come into range with the right backdrop, pose etc.; and it helps to have at least a 400mm lens, which I do not possess. Ah well, at least the fighting bulls pose calmly, although bizarrely they all seem to back away as you approach. For aficionados of The Story of Ferdinand, there are also any number of placid looking bulls, resting under their respective cork trees, sniffing the flowers!