Sightseeing at 100 kmph

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Calais to Leon in 3 days. It’s hardly around the world in 80, but it’s been quite eventful. From knocking off somebody’s wing mirror in Rouen, to running out of water and showering with Volvic, but hey, what else would you expect? There’s been a fair amount of country seen, but with most of it at 105kmph, it’s not much to write home about.

Spent an afternoon in Chartres, it’s a must visit if you’re ever nearby. If you like that sort of thing the Cathedral is amazing. The pictures won’t do it justice but it’s quite stunning. Supposedly more stained glass windows than any other Cathedral in the world.

As the journey continued on a quick pace down to Spain a stop at La Rochelle (Which I always thought was a made up place in French school books) revealed a beautiful city which was not full of amazing Cathedrals or Castles but jam packed with character. Without doubt a nice place to stop for a few days to eat and drink yourself stupid. The view looking over the marina at the two chain towers is rather nice. Probably doesn’t surpise you to here that the loudest people on the marina were a table full of 12 drunk Aussies, at 3pm in the afternoon!

From La Rochelle it was down to Leon in France, only a tiny town but near a beautiful part of the coast. Spent the morning wandering along coastal nature reserves with Scooby wanting to constantly fetch sticks from the river and sea. There were a bunch of guys kite surfing which was good to watch for a while, how they jump 20 metres in the air and don’t lose their nerve and let go I’ll never know. The pictures of that have dissappeared at the moment, but I'll try and retrieve them and post them in a later entry.

The plan was to head to Biarritz from here and as the Sat Nav took us through parts of the city it didn’t look all that appealing so swiftly headed on to Spain. Unfortunately this was without any planning, and unlike the Aires in France, Spain does not have this facility in anywhere near like the volume. The iPhone app on the phone helped, as it gave coordinates to a couple of campsites, both of which were closed. It was rather dark by the time we stopped at a Motorhome site in a small town called Bermeo on the Northern Spanish coastline, north east of Bilbao. After entering through the children’s playground rather than the usual entrance, we found a space and parked up, got the satellite dish up within about 30 seconds and tuned into Sky Sports 2. Spurs v Inter Milan. Great timing! The Motorhome site was more a carpark, and seemed to be a racetrack for young Spanish moped enthusiasts, but with the Spurs game on it really didn’t matter, it could have been in Beirut. (We won 3-1 against the European champions in case you didn’t know.)

Bermeo was not too remarkable so headed west along the coast the following day and stopped fairly early to catch some of the sun in Loredo. Almost 20°C and not a cloud in the sky called for a bit of beach time!

The following day started fairly late after some rigorous cleaning of the van, and headed along the coast for a number of hours. The coastline is absolutely beautiful, far nicer than any other part I have seen of Spain in the past. It’s as green as the UK, not arid like the med coast, and the coastline is beautiful and picturesque. There is a ridiculous amount of building work going on with roads closed or part closed making it difficult to navigate through with a wide van, but we managed with only a few close scrapes. A few photos of the various bays we past are not amazing as it was a very hazy day. The overnight spot was again in a car park, opposite a beautiful bay which I forgot to photograph.

Friday the 5th started very overcast, and it was a toss up to either, continue along the coast to La Coruna, or to head inland to the Picos De Europa national park. The Picos de Europa were the final decision and it turned up trumps. Whilst the drive itself was a nightmare, speeds of between 20-30km an hour on straight flat roads due to their poor condition, as soon as we started ascending the condition of the roads improved, and their windy nature made for an enjoyable but at times hair-raising drive. By now the sun was out and there was hardly a cloud in the sky. The sights were stunning and the ramshackle houses, mixed in with beautiful villas were quirky and often quite wonderful themselves. I think there were about 7 cows which had to be ushered out of the way in the end, thankfully they didn’t much like the large tooting van heading their way. The only downside was that everything in the park seemed to be closed for the season. I tried about 6 campsites, and all the bars, restaurants and hotels were closed. So it was down to the second Leon of the trip, the old Royal City of Spain in this instance, where I have at last found a reliable wifi connection.

Please forgive me any typos or general nonsense in this entry, as my computer has crashed about 20 times it's amazing I've ever got to the end. Adios.

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