On the Spanish side of the border with Portugal, the river Águeda cuts through granite and schist on its way to the Douro, and on the rock faces along its banks, at Siega Verde, Palaeolithic people engraved horses, aurochs, deer and goats more than ten thousand years ago. In 2010 Siega Verde was added to the Prehistoric Rock Art Sites in the Côa Valley, the Portuguese World Heritage Site just across the border, recognising that these open-air engravings form one of the largest collections of Ice Age art in the world.
What makes these sites special is that the art is outdoors, not hidden in caves. The engravings are pecked or scratched into vertical rock surfaces near the river, sometimes overlapping, sometimes showing animals with multiple heads to suggest movement. They are best seen in low-angled light, early morning or late afternoon, when the shadows bring out the lines. Guided visits are the way to see them properly.
The landscape is the dehesa of western Salamanca: rolling plains with holm oaks and cork oaks, stone walls, cattle and black Iberian pigs foraging for acorns. It is a quiet, spacious country, hot and dry in summer, cold in winter, with spring bringing green grass and wildflowers. Villages such as Castillejo de Martín Viejo and Villar de Ciervo are small and peaceful.
The nearest town of size is Ciudad Rodrigo, fifteen kilometres away, a walled hilltop town with a cathedral, a castle converted into a parador and a long military history. In January 1812, during the Peninsular War, Wellington's army stormed the town after a short siege, and marks of the fighting can still be seen. The town is a good base, with fuel, hotels, restaurants and shops.
Nobody comes here for knee-down riding. Roads through the dehesa are straight or gently curving, with little traffic and good surfaces. To the north, the Arribes del Duero offer dramatic canyon roads along the Portuguese border, and to the south the Sierra de Gata and Sierra de Francia provide mountain curves and villages of stone and timber. Food is excellent: Iberian ham, farinato sausage from Ciudad Rodrigo and roast lamb or suckling pig, with wines from the Arribes or the nearby Douro.