We can't quite believe that a week has already passed on our road trip,but when we look back t all we have packed in so far, I also can't believe it has only ben a week!
The Picos de Europa mountains of Northern Spain
Having no plans apart from 2 ferry booking for our road trip, we were excited when someone recommended the Picos De Europa to us. It is a large mountain range, only an hour away from Santander.
Our first stop was just outside the small hamlet of Poncebos, we parked up for the night in their overflow carpark that allows motorhomes to stay (or at least tolerates it to stop trampers everywhere in the village). We had the most beautiful vistas from every window, a truly awesome place to stay.
We did 2 stunning walks from here over the 2 days we stayed, including the infamous Ruta Del Cares which is a 26km hike in total that follows a canal that has been literally dug into the mountains. The route takes you along a pretty perilous looking gorges with steep drops to the side where they had carved the path. The canal kept disappearing into the mountain. It was built in 1916 to carry water from the River Cares for use in hydro electric generation at the Camarmena Power Plant, the path was made more accessible in the 1940’s so that workers could have better access for canal maintenance. We found it thoroughly fascinating.
It is an out and back hike along the gorge, broken up by lunch in the very quaint village of Cain. It was like doing 2 separate hikes as the views were quite different once the sun had moved around. We had set out with the thought that we would probably only go about 7km before turning back, we are so glad that we didn’t as the last 5km towards Cain were certainly the most scenic (and scary!)
After 2 nights, we moved further around the park with the intention of driving up to the Covadonga lakes. We got as far as the Basilica de Santamaria before we came across road barriers, seemingly the road is closed to vehicles for the summer months and the only way to access the 2 lakes was to catch the bus from there. Having visited many mountain lakes over the years we decided we would save our €18 Euro’s for another day. Instead we found another amazing park up for the night, had a picnic by the river then went for a hike back up up to the Basilica for a bit of an explore.
For an area that we had never heard of, we had the most fantastic first few days in Spain. It helped quench our thirst for the mountains, without the several days journey down to the Alps and was every bit as stunning.
Life on the road again
After several months of house renovating, it felt so good to be out on the open road again with no plans, just an ultimate destination of Caen in 5 weeks time. We love living in the van and find that our stress levels (which since early retirement are not that high anyway) drop, we sleep much better (I am averaging over 11 hours a night) and we are far more active as we are always in the outdoors.
Personal space issues
I have come to realise that life amongst the motorhomes in Europe come with certain issues of personal space. The Aires and carparks that allow you to stay have an expectation that you park in an orderly way in the bays provided, not across several of them and that you should not really have camping behaviours like tables and chairs out. Fair enough for a free spot for the night. What totally befuddles me though is the need to park in the tightest spaces when the area is almost empty. We arrived early at our park up and were joined by a few other motorhomes who parked dotted around the area. When we went to bed at 10pm, there were 5 of us in a carpark with around 100 spaces. At about 10.30 a van pulled up leaving just one bay between us, not a problem as we could still have a little space in the morning. At 11pm, another van squeezed into the one space between us (all 94 other bays are still free!) then proceeded to open and close sliding doors and have loud conversations until midnight. By this point, having woken me up, I was desperate for a wee, so I used our emergency bucket, stormed out the van to tip it in a bush, glared at them, as I SQUEEZED past them to get back in the van then slammed the door. The bemusement on their faces was photo worthy and they did slump off to bed pretty soon after that. I thought they had got the hint, however when we opened the van side door in the morning to pack up, they had got their picnic table and chairs out and were having breakfast. We had literally about 30cm of space to get in and out. Riled again (I don’t think I did much for English/Spanish relationships) I shook our 2 door mats from our door steps and swept the van out into their breakfast before we drove off.
All Creatures great and small
We love it when we come across different animals and creatures on our travels and so far we have found plenty. The mountain goats around the Picos are plentiful and really tame, it is very clear this is their area and they will not move out of the way for you. A little scary when there is a sharp precipice below. There also seems to be an abundance of cats, I fell in love with one, who had the bluest eyes I have ever seen and loved being stroked.
Beach life on the Northern Spanish Coast
I am not sure what we were expecting from the Northern coast, but we were surprised by it’s ruggedness and the similarities with The Cornish and Welsh coastlines. The meadows on the cliff tops are still green and lushes and there are lots of hidden coves and sea caves. The campsite we stayed at just outside of Santander had its own private beaches, we even managed to do a little rock pooling. We visited a few beaches along the coast right up to the French border, having a swim wherever we could, not quite as cold as the Yorkshire coast, not as warm as the gulf coast in Florida!
Cultural sight-seeing in Bilbao
Lots of people had said that if we are in that area that we needed to go into Bilbao and visit the Guggenheim Museum. We made a strategic plan to get into the town before it got busy and escape by lunchtime, which seemed to work. We parked a good mile down the river as we were not sure about parking Nelson if it was all multi story carparks.
The atmosphere was lovely with musician lining the river banks (some better than others!) and lots of statues and murals painted on the sides and doorways of buildings. The museum itself was just stunning. The closer you got the more details you noticed and the area was surrounded by outdoor art installations such as the giant spider and the living dog made up with flowers. Being absolute heathens we did not go into the museum, we just simply enjoyed the atmosphere surrounding it.
A bustling weekend in San Sebastian
Our last stop off in Spain was San Sebastian on the French borders. We arrived to quite a chaotic Saturday afternoon and battled our was through the town to get to the campsite. Turns out it was the French Premiership rugby semi finals with back to back games and over 45,000 fans in the city! We used our strategy from Bilbao and waited until the next morning to explore. WOW, what an amazing and beautiful town it is. The old town was just waking up and every corner we turned had a spectacular building at the end of a picturesque street. Our photo’s could not do any of this justice.
What border crossing?
Today saw us transferring from San Sebastian and crossing over into France. We had our passports in anticipation of border control, travelling on the AP-8 toll road. There are toll booths at the border, as you change to a French toll road and there was a very uninterested French police van at the far end of the booths and that was it!. We quickly paid our €2.90 and drove off, not that we have anything to hide, but anything official like that makes me nervous.
So, our travels continue in France now. We were going to travel into the Pyrenees for a few days, however it is on hold at the moment due to quite a dire weather forecast in the mountains. We have booked onto a campsite near Biarritz for a couple of nights and we will reassess and go where the good weather takes us
Have a great week
Jackie and Richard
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