As some of the previous reviewers have commented, the Coa Valley Rock carvings are situated at the end of some pretty winding Portuguese roads. The extension in 2010 to include a Spanish location at Siega Verde gave us the chance to fit in a visit rather more easily, with only a relatively short diversion off the natural route we were taking anyway between Salamanca and Caceres. Despite that, I note that no one else has reviewed this extension yet. As usual we tried to make use of all available information when planning our visit – but, as often happened in Spain, the available arrangements were not entirely as advertised!

Siega Verde is situated a few kms north of Cuidad Rodrigo on the main Salamanca – Portugal highway (A62). A prompt start from our Salamanca hotel meant that we were at the visitor centre a bit before 10 am when it was due to open, having covered the 100kms in under an hour. If you are planning to visit then check the “Horario and Tarifas” page of the Web site (http://www.siegaverde.es/index.php/horario-y-tarifas ) very carefully as the number and timing of visits varies by week and day and, outside August, they tend only to be available around week ends. The “macro-plan” for our trip had targeted Friday and the calendar on that Web page clearly showed a trip at 11 am for our Friday in Sept 2015. Unless earlier telephone or web bookings had filled it up we could expect to be ok and, although there was also a 12.30 tour as a “back up” if required, we really did need to get on the road for the 2 hour drive to Caceres to try to see that town in the afternoon and evening. The evening trips at 5 and 6.30 would be of no use to us at all.

But the visitor centre looked decidedly dead as 10 became 10.30 with still no movement! It is perhaps worth making it clear that the nearby area of rock art sites is completely surrounded by high fences and video surveillance – there is absolutely NO opportunity to see anything by oneself or by looking through protective cages. At around 10.45 someone came and explained that, for reasons which were unclear to us (but turned out later to be a lack of staff), there would be no 11 am trip and that the first was at 12.30 – and there were at least 8 people waiting. We got our ticket however (normal price Eur 6 but 4 with reduction)!

Luckily we were able to make good use of this enforced “free time” with a visit to the Real Fuerte de la Concepcion, situated 15 kms away towards the Portuguese frontier This happens to be a part of Spain’s T List entry of “Bulwarked Frontier Fortifications” (as also is nearby Ciudad Rodrigo which we also fitted in despite our loss of time at Siega Verde!) and proved interesting both in its own right and for the fact that it has been turned into a “luxury” (their description!) Hotel by the Domus Group (see http://www.hoteldomusrealfuerte.com/EN/history.html ). The receptionist, dressed as a British army officer of the Wellington era (though “he” was actually a “she”!!), was very welcoming even if we didn’t even buy a drink!

We returned to discover that the numbers for the 12.30 visit had reached the limit of 12 and the 10 Spaniards were shown a video (we saw an English version after the visit!) telling the story of the peoples who created the rock art via the concept of a “dreamed” return of one of them – quite nicely done for what is, after all, a very small “attraction”.

Morning and afternoon visits apparently go to different sets of carvings to make best use of the light but all are within 500m of the visitor centre from where one descends to a rocky river valley. Each visit takes in 4-5 locations and lasts about an hour. Our guide kindly added some explanations in limited (but perfectly acceptable) English to his Spanish ones and I don’t think this detracted from the visit for the Spaniards. The carvings range from relatively clear to quite difficult to make out and the guide used a reflector to shine extra light and bring out the markings - all were visible when one got one’s eye in (though, looking again at my photos, some of them have almost “disappeared”)! Some are done by percussion and others by abrasion and scratching, some are of shapes but most are of animals (we didn’t see any of humans though apparently there are a few) and it is this aspect for which the location is particularly famous (photos). No colouring was visible and it wasn’t fully clear even to scientists if any had been used. This was to be a holiday of “Rock Art” for us, with further visits to 2 of the Mediterranean Basin Rock Art WHS sites at Valltorta and Albarracin (we didn’t bother to revisit any of the “Altamira and Cave Art of Northern Spain” series!!). Although they all cover different historical periods and all “need” to be seen, looking back, I perhaps would place Albarracin as being the more satisfactory visit, largely perhaps because one can visit the rock art by oneself but also because of their visibility, colour and (to us at least) their artistic value. Though it should be said that, in this comparison, Valltorta didn’t have a chance because it was closed when we arrived - though we, nevertheless, had an interesting visit which I may get round to reviewing.

I did try to get to the bottom of the basis on which Siega Verda had been added to the already large Coa Valley site around 60kms away. The guide asserted that these carvings were indeed different from those at Coa but, in limited English, I couldn’t gain an understanding of why or whether this was just “Spanish nationalism”! Clearly Spain has done well to ride on the back of Coa to gain this inscription which, in a country where Rock Art sites are very common, would probably have failed to justify inclusion on its own. Both sites date generally from the Upper Paleolithic - c 20k to 15k ybp. The AB evaluation by ICOMOS satisfies itself on the fact that the Siega Verde extension does indeed bring complementary factors to the overall inscription in terms of period, artistic style and the fact that it is “open air” rather than “cave based” (the AB uses the phrase “A cave without a roof”!). As we didn’t visit Coa I can’t comment and perhaps that location still really needs to be visited by us even if I have “ticked off” the WHS itself! As we have seen all Portugal’s other WHS maybe that will have to await a cruise on the Douro in our dotage.