Blogs from Aragon, Spain, Europe - page 7

The one thing about being on the road and traveling in this manner is that sometimes you wake up and wonder which hotel/city/place you are in today. Well , I am in the same place as the day before. Huesca. Woke up early this morning , 07.30 and will write down and post yesterdays blog before the impressions fades from the mind. Tuesday started off as all other days have, with fantastic sunshine. I had been a bit worried because the evening news was full of pictures of thunder storms, especially in the Pyrenees. I was in no rush to start the day because I had made the decision to stay another night here in the Hotel. This meant that I did not have to pack all the bags and could leave most of the stuff ... read more

A triplet of historically appropriate greetings from the next stop on our travels – Zaragoza, the capital of the province of Aragon. And what a surprising little gem this place is. While not likely to replace a number of Spain's tourist hotspots, Zaragoza is a quiet achiever, and we have had little difficulty occupying ourselves during our five days here, albeit we have not been going at it at a cracking pace either; like the town we have been quietly achieving. Within our first 15 minutes here we were introduced to the main elements that define Zaragoza – from our arrival at the huge Delicias transport intermodal (aptly described in the guidebooks as “Space age but sterile”), our taxi ride past the Aljaferia castle – the northern stronghold of the muslim empire built before the Alhambra ... read more

Pues nada, oye... que me voy a hacer el Transmongoliano!!! Probablemente, a muchos de vosotros os sonará más la palabra Transiberiano, pero en realidad, lo que voy a hacer los próximos días va a ser un una parte de la mítica línea férrea rusa para luego bajar por Mongolia y llegar hasta Beijing. Antes de nada sería recomendable explicar el por qué hago este viaje y cuándo me lo empecé a plantear en serio. Y las explicaciones a este respecto son un poco difusas. Sí que recuerdo que hace tres o cuatro años leí un diario de viaje de unos chicos que habían hecho el Transmongoliano y luego, en el mismo viaje, habían seguido por Nepal y demás. Aquello me dejó impresionado. Jamás me había planteado hacer un viaje tan largo, no tanto por el número ... read more

Tuesday we were sad to say goodbye to Manny’s hospitality and farm house, but were soon on our way to one of our favorite campgrounds in Villagorda. We traveled about 500 Km., an energetic undertaking for our first day out. We traveled thru lots of heavy rain showers and have taken note of very few campers on the roads that we are traveling and it may be that we are between seasons for Motorhomers. On Wednesday, before we got on the road and snce we had the facility available we did a quick wash down and clean out of the MH. On the way to Valencia we encounter a major traffic que which turned out to be a police roadblock, complete with shotgun toting Guardia Civil. They were inspecting chosen vehicles looking for whatever? Upon our ... read more

Brendan and I picked up our Wicked Van on Tuesday. We were all organised and got to the pick-up spot 10 minutes before the arranged time of 10am. Every van that came around the corner we eagerly waited... "Is that ours?". Slowly time passed... 10.30am, 11am, 12noon and still nothing. We were calling the guy but he wouldn't answer. Eventually when the Wicked Office in London opened at 1pm our time we got on to someone! There was a problem and our van wouldn't be ready until 4pm. What a waste of a day sitting in cafes just waiting. We were gutted! Finally we got our van called "Muscles". Muscles came with no fuel so first stop = fuel (€60). Second stop = groceries. Third stop = camp grounds. We had found on the internet a ... read more