Sunday, 21 August 2011: St-Jean-Pied-de-Port
We finished packing up Vinnie and sorting out our last bits and pieces before leaving the family and heading down south to the border with Spain and a small town called St-Jean-Pied-de-Port. This town is at the foot of the Pyrenees and is 8kms from the Spanish border. We find a campsite nearby with a pool and as it is extremely hot have a swim and then a nice dinner out under the awning with our new chairs and table. The only downside was the flies – they seemed to have come out of the woodwork and were also the horrible bitey ones. On the shopping list – fly swatters.
Monday, 22 August 2011: St-Jean-Pied-de-Port, France > Olite, Spain
Up relatively early and Scott picked up our pre-ordered baguette from the front office. We had a big brekkie made up some sandwiches and drove into St-Jean-Pied-de-Port for the Monday morning market. This market is geared towards local produce and was full of local cheeses, meats and a local cake. We did some sampling and bought a divine local cheese that was just so tasty it melted in your mouth.
We walked back into town and headed into the old town walled quarter which is full of cobbled streets with the houses filling their balconies with lovely bright flowers. This is a departure point for hikers attempting the Santiago de Compostela which is in Spain and there are a few shops and hostels geared towards them. We walked up to La Citadelle which is at the top of the town via a very rough (and [presumably slippery) cobbled path. The Citadelle was originally constructed in 1628 and is now a school and closed to the public. It is an awesome building and gives you fantastic views of the town and the surrounding countryside. On arriving back into the town we visited the Eglise Notre Dame du Bout du Pont which is accessed via the Vieux Pont where you can get some great pictures of the houses and architecture.
At the end of our sight-seeing we popped into the local Carrefour Market and found everything we needed, including tofu (for the first time in France), this is one of the best supermarkets we have been too, plus it had incredibly cheap fuel. We had planned to head back to Col du Tormalet, but instead looking at the distances to drive etc, we thought we would head to Olite in Spain.
So off we went and were soon across the border, which we only knew because we stopped to top up fuel and were asked some tourist questions. So much for Scott getting his passport stamped here in Europe. The drive across to Spain was beautiful and steep with the fantastic scenery of the Pyrenees. All too soon this started to change as we headed into the plains of Spain and particularly the Navarre region.
The drive in Spain seemed to be through very industrialised towns and not particularly inspiring so we are hoping things will change. On arriving in Olite, we park in the local car park as we were unable to follow the sign to the camping ground and there is no Aires de Camping here. We walked into the town centre. Olite started in approximately 1147 and is surrounded by medieval walls that take you into the town centre. Of course it is siesta time and the tourist office doesn’t open for another couple of hours. We therefore spend our time wandering around the renaissance and baroque palaces and streets and past the Palacio Real, stopping for a quick drink near the church of Santa Maria (13th century gothic church) and on the dot of 4:00pm we were in the tourist office door. On getting the map we continued to walk around the town, but this time knowing what we were looking at. It really is a lovely town with several plazas’ and quite a lot of interesting monuments which have been well preserved.
We decide to move to the Camping de Olite campsite which looks really nice from the front. Of course by the time we get to our campsite it is way down the back on a dusty piece of ground. Nevertheless we stay where we are and after a latish afternoon snack we headed back into Olite through the 2km shortcut in-between the grapevines and almond grove. We were hungry and wanted something to eat so we walked into the main town square and sat and watched everyone wander by. There are lots of people walking around or sitting in the bars drinking, but a total lack of food being served. We walked to a couple of the restaurants on the map and they don’t open until at least 8:30, so we settle on the Restaurante Asador Pizzeria which did meat and pizza and walk a few more times around the town centre and along the surrounding walls before heading back to the restaurant. We got there and again nobody seemed to be eating, so we thought we would have a drink, so had a lovely glass of red wine which came with some cheese tapas. Eventually a couple of people sat down and we took the plunge and grabbed a table. Scott ordered a Lomo Parilla and I had a vegetarian pizza with ensalada mixta and papas fritas. We had some more wine and the ensalada mixta and papas fritas came out as our starter, in the meantime Scott was keeping an eye on his giant slab of steak slowly cooking on the parilla. When the rest of the meal eventually came it was absolutely lovely and for a total price of EUR39 for four glasses of red, two main meals and two starters. If this is the price of things here in Spain we are going to be very happy.
We stagger back to the camp site in the relative dark hoping we were going in the right direction.
Tuesday, 23 August 2011: Olite, Spain > Mutriku, Spain
The weather is baking hot, so instead of staying here another night, we decide to head back up to the mountain region and discover a bit more of the Basque area and coastline, so actually headed up past San Sebastian and onto the coast road going past Zumaia and Deba. By then the driving was getting a bit tiring due to the windy roads and also it was no longer hot it was in fact drizzling. The drive on the map looked like it went along the coast; however it was mainly in a green tunnel with lots of trees and only glimpses of the ocean. We did stop and take a few photos of the cliffs. We stopped at camping Santa Elena just on the outskirts of Mutriku. Be warned this is not a campsite for motorhomes, or biggish ones. We struggled to get into a campsite and ended up at the front of the campsite with the other motorhomes who too were having problems. We put out our awning as it was raining and headed to the local bar to watch a bit of the TV and also use their free wifi. During the night we had to get up and use tent pegs to stabilise the awning and close all the windows etc as the weather really started coming in bad.
Wednesday, 24 August 2011: Mutriku, Spain > Lekeitio, Spain
We left the campsite in the drizzle again and headed along through the ocean drive. If it doesn’t improve we will switch onto the motorway. We make it about an hour up the road coming across a town called Lekeitio which luck would have it has an Aries de Camping, so we pulled in and walked into town. Lekeitio is on the central Basque Coast between San Sebastian and Bilbao and has a fantastic old city full of cobbled streets, tiny little shops and bars and a huge Iglesia de Santa Maria de la Asuncion which is one of those typical Spanish churches with huge intricately carved nave.
The drawcard at the town is apparently the beaches and they are certainly very nice, immaculate and raked to within an inch of their lives. The water was also very warm. There are wooden boardwalks at the top of the beach with lots of showers etc. There is also the view of an island which you can walk to when the tide is out and if Scott had agreed to take his shoes off we would off.
We walked into town and find a bar which was set up with tapas and glasses all ready for the rush, so we grabbed a couple of chairs and while all the tapas had anchovies in them we managed to scrape off enough of them for me to sample and they were delicious. Eventually we headed back to the Aries and had a siesta – as they say, when in Spain do as the locals. As it started to get dark we headed back into the town, but as usual the restaurants don’t open until it is so late, we couldn’t be bothered and went back to Vinnie and made our own dinner. It is quite at the Aries, which is a great thing.
Thursday, 25 August 2011: Lekeitio, Spain > Comillas, Spain
Up early and out to buy our bread and hopefully find the supermarche open as well for a couple more supplies – finally in luck and we have jagged the magical time of day when some shops are open for trading hurrah. Back to Vinnie with our food and off on a day of sightseeing. We have elected to get back onto the motorway as the coast route isn’t that fantastic and we head to Castro-Urdiales. To get there we have to navigate the Bilbao by-pass. This is like a giant bowl of spaghetti, there are roads, bridges, flyovers, tunnels etc all going around the mountains surrounding Bilbao. We thought we might stop but once we got there figured we may never find our way out, so we continued on.
We arrive at Castro-Urdiales at lunchtime (well for us it is lunchtime) and thought we would stop. According to the Lonely Planet this is a medieval town. Unfortunately what it doesn’t say is that is has a one way system, impossible to get motorhomes through and when we did we couldn’t find any parking whatsoever, so we gave up and headed through to the other side of the city. So not a promising start to sightseeing. We pulled off into a small town and had our lunch and noticed one of our headlamps has blown, so Scott went in to get a replacement and finding out it was EUR24 for one bulb made us think we would turn them off and wait. We only paid EUR7 for the other bulb the day before.
Next up was Santillana del Mar which again sounded beautiful, being described as a medieval jewel in a perfect state of preservation. We looked for a parking spot to no avail and you can’t take cars into the actual town centre. We headed for Camping Sentillana which is just on the outskirts on the way to Comillas and got a campsite for EUR30 (the most expensive so far on the trip). However, it had been raining heavy here and the spot we picked turned out to be a wonderful muddy bog and we got stuck. Another guy came to help and eventually after much pushing, and using the doormat to get some form of traction we got Vinnie back onto the driveway, got a refund and continued on to Comillas hoping our luck was about to change.
It was now getting relatively late, so we pulled up into the local car park and thought we might camp there for the night, but the parking inspector said you couldn’t so we went back to Camping Comillas and got a spot right on the beach side. It had been raining here as well and a lot of the campsites looked very boggy and you could see where even some of the cars had had some trouble. We picked a relatively flat campsite and that was it. As the campsite is on a cliff overlooking the beaches we had a fantastic view and even though the Lonely Planet says you have to book for a minimum of five nights, we are only staying for one night.
We walked up into the old town centre which is a pleasant cobbled walk (stopping for at the local helador for a quick icecream) and of course has the fame of having one of Antoni Gaudi buildings, Capricho de Gaudi. We went to the supermarket got some dinner for the night and had a jug of sangria in one of the restaurants near the plaza who also gave us some tapas to try.
We then walked to Capricho de Gaudi which I thought was fantastic. He had used tiles of sunflowers on the outside and then designed everything on the inside to take advantage of the light. It isn’t a huge building, but you can see how well thought out things are and how he gained the inspiration of his design for this building by the surrounding countryside, I have to say I am a fan, Scott of course can’t see what the fuss is about.
We wander back down slowly meandering our way back to Vinnie where the weather was lovely that we sat outside while Scott cooked up his sausages and watched the ocean which is beautiful and flat.
We tested out a local Temperanillo wine which cost us less than EUR2 per bottle and were pleasantly surprised, it is very nice, not the same words you would use for the white wine. We are going to go snorkelling around the rocks tomorrow.
Friday, 26 August 2011: Comillas, Spain > Astorga, Spain
Up early and look outside, during the night the weather had changed completely and the ocean was made for surfing today, plus it was very windy, so we decided to move on. We walked into town and bought our baguette from the local market plus another two bottles of the Temperanillo we had last night.
Due to all the rain along the coast, we have decided to head back inland to Astorga so commenced the drive. It was very windy today and hard going, plus we are driving through the Picos de Europa which so far has the highest hills we have driven across, it felt like we spent most of the day going up. There is a Peage at the top which for EUR10 was the best bargain on paid motorways we have come across so far, but even after then we felt like we spent the remainder of the drive going up, up and up and of course watching the fuel take going down, down and down. At one point we were going downhill and Scott still had his foot flat to the floor on the accelerator and we were losing speed.
We eventually reach Astorga and pull into the Aries de Camping ground which is located near the bullring. It isn’t a very inspiring place and we decide to park a bit closer to town and work out what to do. Astorga is famous for its roman ruins and you can see the walls and the archaeological work that has been done. Of course it also the home of a Palacio Episcopal, another Antoni Gaudi designed building.
It is siesta time so everything feels like the people have been abducted by aliens and we wander almost alone, except for a few other tourists. We get into the tourist information office and the man is very helpful and speaks good English, so we are soon armed with a map and also where the mobile phone shop is, so we can hopefully get a sim card for the iPhone. The man told us that we can park anywhere in the van, so we move to a closer carpark near the roman steps and head off for some sightseeing.
As there is some sort of fiesta on, we find that the Vodafone store is closed, the Orange store opens at 5pm and the Movistar store opens at 5:30pm. We have a drink in the main plaza near the townhall and at 5pm head to Orange who have run out of micro-sims, so we head to Movistar who only do contracts, so we had back to Orange and buy an internet anywhere dongle for the computer which will cost us EUR3.5 per day when we use it, so we buy four days and the dongle and head off. We have also managed to buy a Vuelta magazine with a map and times for all the stages and can now plan where we are heading to next. After some sightseeing, we decide to try a local campsite and head to Camping La Manga in Villarejo de Orbigo where we managed to get a camp spot near the river and unpack ourselves. The wind isn’t so strong here, but it has certainly chilled down somewhat and we are back into jumpers – we are loving the European summer. It is relatively quiet here and we have dinner and watch a movie. Of course the Spanish people around us decide that 11pm is the time for dinner, so you can hear everyone starting to cook, I don’t know how you can eat your main meal at that time.
Saturday, 27 August 2011: Villarejo de Orbigo, Spain
We have decided to stay another night here as it is cheap (EUR13.20) and has everything we need. So we managed to talk to the man in the office and pay our money and walk into town along the river. The town is really strange, lots of electric shops but one supermarket that is packed. At the meat counter they were up to number 20, and Scott got number 41 – we gave up and then queued at the checkout instead for probably the same amount of time. We walked back to the campsite via the sign that said restaurant to see what was there, walking past an old man doing his veggie garden which was awesome, so much produce in a small plot of land, certainly lots of ideas for home. At the end of the road, we surprisingly found a restaurant that had some people in, so we settled in for an obligatory copa vino blanco and cerveca. We got a plate of olives and then Scott got some sort of mince balls in a tomato paste, everything was lovely as we were sitting in the sun and defrosting nicely. We noticed that they were doing lunch so after much discussion with the staff I could have an ensalada mixta with queso and Scott got to order anything else off the menu, which wasn’t targeted towards vegetarians. He settled on the squid. My ensalada mixta came with atun (tuna), so I had to send it back, but when it returned, I had the distinct impression they just picked off the tuna. Anyway it was huge and filling and Scott enjoyed his meal.
It was time to head back to Vinnie and maybe an afternoon siesta as it was 3pm. On arriving back everyone else was just sitting down to lunch and also starting to organise a few bbqs in a row, so not really sure what is going on. We had a glass of the local cidre which I thought was a bit overrated especially as you have to pour it from a great height which just causes everything around you to get splashed. The bbqs around us got lit at about 9pm and the Spanish settled down to a giant feast of meat at 11:30pm, I have indigestion just thinking of the amount of meat and the time of night.