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Published: June 13th 2011
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I have to admit that I am probably not the best driver in the world.
Well let’s face it, our last car was over 6 years old and had just over 30,000 km on it. So I haven’t had that much driving experience over the last 13 years.
So the thought of driving, on the opposite side of the road, in countries with questionable reputations and less than perfect reviews leaves me somewhat apprehensive to say the least.
Driving on the Greek Islands has been an eye opener and I am not looking forward to Spain.
My trepidations are to be unfounded and I find my driving time in Spain and France less hectic than that of Sydney on any given day. Sure there will be times of frustration and moments where both of us look at each other and say; “wow, that was close” and you just have to take that extra moment when driving out of a drive way to remember that the traffic is coming from the other direction.
Driving over the north western border, from France into Spain, we travel a short distance along the Atlantic Ocean and into the sprawling city
of San Sebastian.
A long and proud history surrounds the people of this, the Basque Capital, area also known as Donostia to its local inhabitants.
Donostia is located on the southern coast of the Bay of Biscay and its tourism industry enjoys a rich and vibrant beach scene. A vast amount of the northern coastline of North West Spain is a sprawling beach resort.
We stay in a small pension Regil, virtually steps away from the main beach walkway and city centre.
For a couple of days we savour the delightful tastes of Basque cooking and Michelle has fallen in love with the concept of the Tapas. Small crowded bars saturate the old and touristic part of town displaying small morsels of food of varying styles that can be enjoyed at all times of the day (with a beer or glass of wine of course). Next to the pension we stumble upon a local bar (yes, I hear another gasp of surprise, surprise) and make this our “local” for a couple of days – Laurie & Fabien know what that’s like - and amuse the locals with our butchered Spanish.
From Donostia we traverse our
way south and west to the extremely touristic city of Alicante. It seems that the British will outnumber the locals but a huge majority during the season (but we are still a couple of steps ahead of this, at the moment). As with many of the touristic places we have visited so far, many of the stores and restaurants close for the winter months and are only just opening. For most we are some of their first customers for the season and they ask; what will the season bring. Despite the economic question mark hanging over this country most seem optimistic.
It is whilst sitting by the pool, we got a pretty good internet deal, at Hotel Castilla (the water is still pretty chilly) that we decided to head to Morocco.
Alicante to Tarifa (a ferry port to Algiers) is a six hour drive and we stay at Hotel la Torre. About 10kms out of town we are again blessed with an establishment that produces excellent meals.
Despite being a ferry port Tarifa is also world renowned as one of the wind kite surfing capitals of the world. It is also known as one of the windiest
areas on earth. This we find out first hand.
Located on the southernmost tip of Spain, on any given day you can gaze across the waters to the North African coast. Also, it is an easy drive to the iconic Rock of Gibraltar.
We will leave our car at la Torre whilst we make our short journey into Morocco and stay another night on our return. A cold beer and a nice glass of wine are a welcome joy on our return trip, from basically a dry Morocco.
Having spent the time in Morocco means we have used up little more car time than we had originally intended, so we have decided to make tracks across Spain and southern France. After a couple of nightly stops along the way we will make our way to the small Italian Village of Bordighera.
Located on the Riviera just over the French border, we will use this as a base for several days and visit the sights of Monaco and Monte Carlo.
As with many of the countries we have visited we feel that we haven’t given Spain justice, but again we have enjoyed the tastes and sights we
did see.
Better to see a little than nothing at all.
Some of our blogs will be out of sequence but we are endeavouring to catch up, hope you are enjoying so far.
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