Route During Week One

The planning that has gone into this trip is massive, we’ve thought of little else for months but when the day of departure dawned, as is always the case Janette feels nervous at the prospect of the great unknown and Nick is invigorated and fearless.

The ferry isn’t until late in the evening and there’s only so much hanging about at home you want to be doing once you’re all set so we leave early for Portsmouth thinking well get something to eat on the way. We find nowhere except the ferry terminal snack shop and Janette ends up eating the first Pot Noodle of her life - she had felt quite proud that she’d go to her grave not having eaten that particular brand of junk food - it grieves her to admit it was ok! 

The ferry is great, boarding is easy, all the staff are lovely, our cabin is good and the dogs’ kennel better than we were expecting.  Janette has stocked up on sea sickness tablets but feels fine and the journey (about 33 hours, Portsmouth to Santander) was a fun experience.

Santander

We arrive in Santander to mist and rain - yuk!

Our first stop is a campsite just a few kilometers outside Santander - Virgen del Mar.  This was just intended to be a functional stop to enable us to do all the necessaries - fill up with gas, and diesel and do a supermarket shop - without being faced with a long drive as well. 

What a surprise it is! The coastline is wonderful, with far-reaching views along the dramatic cliffs, and huge waves crashing in, we love it here.  

Frias, Spain’s smallest city

Next stop, over the mountains to Frias, Spain’s smallest city.  A real beauty of a medieval city cut into the rock, very dramatic and yet gentle at the same time.  We meet an English couple here, Louisa and Steve; Louisa’s family is from Frias going back generations and she and Steve are restoring the old family home.  They are so kind to us and we spend a great evening with them in a local bar.  The next day we go on a beautiful walk to a waterfall at Tobera through the peaceful countryside. This is a place we will visit again and although it is still early on in the trip we feel that this place will be one of our favourites.

Elciega

Elciega is a village in the Rioja region and we’ve read that it’s a good place to go to do wine tastings.  Of course, we arrive there on Sunday afternoon and by the time we’ve got ourselves organized, everywhere is closed!  Not to worry, we pass an open door and there are sounds of jollification from within so we stick our heads round the door.  We find ourselves in the tasting room of a bodega, it is closed to visitors and the noise is just some locals having a drink together,  the barman kindly gives us a tour of the caves and then we taste the wine and discover that the fact that none of the locals speak a word of English and we don’t speak Spanish is no bar to having a great evening!  We buy a case of wine which we are valiantly working our way through.

A visit to the vet is next on the agenda as we have to have the correct paperwork to get the dogs into and out of the countries we are visiting, this will involve eight visits to vets in four different countries by the time we’re finished!  We have a short stop in Logrono for this, and then on to Arnedillo.

We stay in the aire at Arnedillo, high up above the village with spectacular views of the mountains and of the vultures effortlessly gliding by.  We walk a short way on a footpath into the mountains but of course, Nick doesn’t want to retrace his steps and prefers the plunging over the mountain edge option which certainly wipes the smile off Janette's face!  There are natural hot springs in Arnedillo but it is cold and windy and not conducive to getting wet so we pass on this one, unlike the naked bather who gave us the full benefit of his attributes! 

We had initially planned to travel westwards through the far north of Spain and down along the west coast of Portugal and we will do that one day, we may even travel back up that way.  The beauty of motorhome travel is that you can change your plans on a whim and we decide to head for the east coast of Spain and the warmth of the Med. This will require a few stops on the way as we want to take things slowly and savour this wonderful country.

The first stop on this part of the adventure is Zaragoza, a city Janette loves and Nick isn’t so keen on.  Janette thinks it has beautiful architecture, a lovely old town with great tapas bars, really efficient trams, and great city cycle lanes; Nick thinks it 's a bit scruffy! 

We stay one night in Zaragoza and move on, agreeing that so far, the places we have liked the most have been the more remote and rural.  We are headed for Beceite, a campsite in the mountains.  The approach through the village is hair-raising with plenty of hairpin bends and steep gradients - stress levels are not helped when we meet a lorry coming the other way!

Beceite is another gem.  In the summer it attracts numerous tourists but we are the only ones on the campsite - a place hidden away in the hills above the village and run by a young couple who welcome us warmly.  We explore the village which is a maze of narrow streets and houses with balconies so close you could reach out and touch your neighbour opposite. As has been typical of our experience so far, the village is very quiet, almost deserted but we find a bar and you can’t say fairer than a cold beer on a sunny afternoon.

Our concern, as we head southeast to the Mediterranean coast is that aires and campsites will become much busier with motorhomes seeking the sun, we’ll see.  What we don’t want are massive motorhome car park experiences, if it proves to be like that, we’ll head inland.

The Mediterranean at the Ebro Delta

We crossed the mountains today and reach the Mediterranean at the Ebro Delta. This is an amazing landscape, made up of land reclaimed for rice growing and also of marshes which are home to many varieties of birds including huge flocks of flamingos stopping over on their way south.

The Mediterranean meets the land here and a dip is irresistible for Janette in the lively (and cold) surf which is strong enough to knock you off your feet.  Nick and the dogs raise their eyes to the heavens at such foolish behaviour. 

The mountains have been a constant presence throughout this trip, sometimes grey and austere, other times a rich red but always we have been amazed by the natural forces that have bent and twisted their strata into improbable positions.  They remain as a backdrop to this flat land and the sunset behind them is a thing to behold.