Scenic Spain

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Hi all

Well we've been on the road now for 81 days and covered over 2700 miles and loved nearly all of it, you'll see from this blog that northern Spain gave us a few problems. We had intended to spend a lot longer here but the lack of open sites and ADS's meant that we were very limited on where we could go, but we made the most of it as you'll see.

Monday 27th September
The first things that struck me as we crossed the border into Spain (although there isn't any visible border these days) was the obvious changes in building appearance and shop names, but it was the writing on the road signs that changed dramatically, these weren't written in Spanish they were in Basque, we were now in the Euskadi region of Spain, the Basque area. The Basque language is very complicated and seems to use a lot of X's, Z's and Q's making the pronunciation very difficult indeed.
We spent the first night at an ADS in San Sebastian which from our quick walk around the ADS area looked very nice. It was then onto the next stop, I'd read about a nice place on the coast north of Bilbao called Mundaka another surfers mecca, (either a Lonely Planet or an AA key guide book are priceless when travelling) so off we went.
As we headed west the motorway cut between the mountains to the south and skirted the sea to the north on some amazing roads which were never boring and gave us some great panaromas on both sides, we eventually turned towards Mundaka passing through a town called Gernika Lumo, (more history ready) it was here in 1937 during the Spanish civil war where the Basques protested against General Francos dictatorship, not happy Franco decided to get his good mate Adolf Hitler to test his new bomb carrying aircraft and blitz the town centre, he did so at the height of the protests killing more than 2000 and levelling the town. Years later Pablo Picasso was commissioned to paint a picture of the massacre thus creating his best known piece of work Guernica.
The site at Mundaka wasn't the best but it was next to a great beach which is at the mouth of the estuary making a great bay for surfers and swimmers, we had a great couple of days here mainly on the beach but also visiting the small harbour town for essentials.
We then moved onto Bermeo, not far from Mundaka but a place to shop and stock up, we stayed at an ADS which was more like a busy car park until it cleared at 11pm. We walked around town that afternoon and felt more of the Basque presence, as it was a larger town the Basque flags and Athletico Bilbao (their team) shirts hung from balconies and windows everywhere, it was a little unnerving and a relief to leave Euskadi the next morning.
We decided not to head for a specific site this time but to drive the coast road into Cantabria and see what we found, the problem was nearly all the sites we found were closed, until we got to Camping Derby at Loredo, guess what, yes another surfers mecca, the site was tatty but again it was on the beach and it did have a decent bar (always helps). Loredo sits on the east side of the bay of Santander which was visible from our site and was a very nice little town with a few bars and shops. Now we spent 4 nights here (not the original plan) the reason for this is as follows: the first 2 days and nights were excellent, weather was great, sea great and I got to sit in that bar and have a few beers watching Spanish footy on the big screen for once, the next 2 days and nights not so good, you may have seen some reports of bad weather in the Atlantic on the news, well we got a full blown hurricane storm for 2 nights, the wind and rain was like nothing I've experienced on land before (I've been in some bad storms on offshore rigs) but this were relentless, I never slept for 2 nights as the van rocked and swayed to the point that it seemed it could tip over at any point and I had to stay awake just in case something happened, the kids were scared and I was very worried but we stuck it out and apart from being very tired escaped harm, not like a number of tents and awnings around the camp-site that either collapsed or blew away in the night.
We eventually left Loredo under blue skies and no wind (thankfully) and took the short journey into the Cantabrian hills and a site at Valle de Cabuerniga. The site was actually in a village called Sopena and close to the villages of Teran and Cabuerniga, in all three places it was as though time had stood still as the buildings were from another age and the many derelict houses around were being restored to their original designs. Whilst here we took a cycle ride along the river Saja and we even took a dip when the temperature hit 30 degrees, whilst having a dip Harry got swept away by the strong current and was 'saved' by Dan, he is now forever in Dan's debt or so Dan says! (it wasn't really that deep only knee height but not when you hear Dan's version). We ate in one of the local tavernas in Cabuerniga and whilst sat outside some old women came out on her balcony above us and started throwing walnuts down at us, we think it was a friendly gesture but we're still not sure. This area is a great place to cycle and walk but the weather again spoilt my plan to climb the nearest mountain (much to the kids relief) so the kids chilled out and I spent a day sorting stuff out in the van and ironing all the clothes........see it's not all sun and surf!
Our next stop was what's called 'the gateway to the Picos' a town called Cangas de Onis to the west of the Picos, from here they run every type of mountain adventure you can think of. The route west took us again along the north coast between the sea and more mountains and out of Cantabria and into Asturia. Once in Cangas we found the ADS easily and went off sight seeing. Asturians are very proud of their area and there are many many quality gift shops selling local produce and gifts, one theme seemed to be a cow that appeared on everything from t-shirts to biscuit tins (not sure what it was called or symbolised), other gifts included local cheese, chirizo and cider, sideria's are very popular here so I bought a bottle of the local stuff and lets just say it reminded me of something from a home-brew kit from the eighties, plenty of bits in the bottom!
Now here's a history bit, Cangas and nearby Covadonga are very important in the Spanish Christian religion as it was in these 2 places that the re-christionisation of Spain from the Muslim began back in the 12th century, apparently in 2 major battles, a small number of christians defeated a far larger number of Muslims with the help of angels that came down to fight alongside them, the chrsitian king Pelayos hung his cross from the Puento Romano bridge after the battle (see picture).
After a couple of days in Cangas we went further into the hills to a site at Avin de Onis, whilst here we planned on a bit of walking, the site owner pointed us in the direction of a walk up the nearest hill which he said would give us great views back down the valley, what he didn't tell us was that almost near the top of the hill a herd of young bulls roamed free and as we approached the herd one of them took a dislike to us and basically forced us back down the hill by walking straight at us with his horns pointed at us, we gave up that day and tried again the next morning but they were at the bottom this time and again we couldn't get past so we found a path up another hill and got a good couple of hours walking around the valley.
On leaving Avin we planned a long drive out of the mountains and south inland to Leon. It had rained heavily in the night and the sky was dark and gloomy that morning so again what could have been great views were lost in the mist. We went west then turned south at Oviedo, now the route we planned south to Leon had 2 options, the local windy road or the toll motorway, I picked the motorway and was glad as that proved quite a tricky drive for a 7m motor-home in itself. The climb was over 10km long, through tunnels, over viaducts and in the pooring rain (I was glad not to be on a small road) then as we hit the top we approached the longest tunnel at 4.5km long and could see in the distance blue skies, on leaving the tunnel amazingly the skies cleared and as we drove down the other side we could see the flat dry lands ahead. After no more then 20 minutes we had left the green lush mountains behind and were driving through flat barren lands, a very stark contrast.
Leon in Castille y Leon was a nice place, we had our usual wander round and took some snaps then after a quiet night at the ADS set of due west. The flatlands of Leon stretch south to Madrid but we turned west and the next mountain range loomed large and the scenery changed again. The route we were taking is also a much travelled pilgrim route 'The Camino de Santiago' the route runs from the Pyrenees to Santiago de Compostela in Northern Galicia and as we drove we saw at least 100 people walking or cycling, the whole route is appx 500 miles long. After a stop off for lunch and a wander around Astorga (which has a building designed by Guadi, the same bloke who designed and built the Sagarda Famillia in Barcelona) we continued to the next stop at A Rua, the route followed the Rio Sil and we were soon going through more tunnels, over more viaducts and down into more gorges, we left Castille y Leon and entered Galicia, another great drive.
After a quiet night at the ADS (we were the only ones there so a bit unusual) we again set off west again. The route soon left the Rio Sil and followed the Rio Minha the main river in the area and was just like the previous day with great scenery. Our destination was Tui, a small border town on the Minha looking across the river to Portugal. We pulled into the ADS alongside 2 massive RV's both were twice as big as ours and Harry asked why can't we have one of those? Again this place was meant to have 3 vans but that night 12 turned up, not as bad as Leon where only 8 were meant to park but over 25 turned up, it seems the Spanish don't care about the rules much, in all of these places we were the only brits.
Thursday 14th October - we left Tui and after 10 minutes crossed the border into our 5th country on this trip Portugal, after the busy schedule in France and the difficulties in northern Spain we are hopefully having an easy trip down the coast of Portugal as there are loads of sites open all year, on crossing the border the sun was shining and it was 84 degrees......happy days!

Bye for now
Neil Daniel and Harry
x

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Photos

Another sunset
This time from Loredo over Santander

Rio Saja
The lads in the river next to the campsite at Valle de Cauberniga

Valle de Cauberniga
The villages around here had some unique style buildings

Puente Romano
The cross hanging from the bridge in Cangas de Onis

Cangas de Onis Aire de Service
One of our over night stops in the shadow of the mountains

Avin de Onis
The not so friendly bulls

Avin de Onis
The views back down the valley

A Rua (Galicia)
We stopped next to this river for the night

Tui (Galicia)
Another overnight parking place

Tui
The view from Spain over the river Minha into Portugal