Blessed are the cheesemakers..

And others in dairy produce. This has been Maggie's running quip since I reminded her that it was the 6th Annual International Cheese Festival at Hinjosa del Duero today a village only about 50kms from home.

And International it was. There were Spanish producers, one Swiss producer and lots of Portuguese. In fact despite spending a bundle of money on cheese and wine when we got home we seem only to have bought things produced in Portugal. Everyone was handing out free samples but the Portuguese always spotted our dodgy Spanish accents and broke into very passable English which probably made the difference. We felt honour bound to buy. That and the Portuguese cheese seemed to be a bit cheaper and more to our taste whether it was made from sheep, goat or cow's milk. Lots of the prize winning Spanish cheese we tried was very hard, dry and quite sharp whilst the Portuguese stuff tended to be softer and more savoury.

As well as the country produce (there were things like honey, olive oil and liqueurs) the organisers handed out free plates full of wild boar meat and there was a display of about 20 Classic Cars that had driven in from Salamanca. Remarkably the town museum also stayed open through lunchtime. Now if they'd put some labels on the exhibits in the museum they would have cracked it!