Sunday 31 January 2010

Roncesvalles

Less than five weeks after his defeat of the French at Vitoria, Wellington's army was spread over a wide area of the southern Pyrenees from the coast to Roncesvalles. He has laid siege to Pamplona and San Sebastian and deployed the remainder of his army to prevent Marshal Soult from raising either siege.

There are two roads through the mountains to Pamplona. The western one is through the Pass of Maya and the eastern one through the Pass of Roncesvalles.

This weeks battlefield is the latter - Roncesvalles.

You can read about our visit at:

http://northernspainandpyrenees.blogspot.com/



Tuesday 12 January 2010

Vitoria

Tres Puentes bridge over the river Zadorra
Vitoria is a large battlefield and, unfortunately, much changed since 1813. We spent a full day exploring it by car and managed to find many locations of interest, including Tres Puentes bridge with its picnic table.
Despite a lot of preparation we found Vitoria to be a difficult battlefield to explore, largely because of a large motorway right through the centre of the field, plus a large expansion of the city itself. We managed to find all of the locations in the southern part of the field, but as we got nearer to Vitoria itself it became increasingly difficult.
You can read about our visit here: