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Published: January 23rd 2023
Good to find two chargers available at Havant.of the adventure. Our first time travelling to Spain via the ferry crossing, Portsmouth to Santander (Bay of Biscay in late January!) and it will be our first time driving an EV in Spain. We've had our Skoda Enyaq since the end of September last year and it has already taken us on trips from our home in East Anglia to the Lake District, and Scotland, and we are getting used to planning for these longer journeys. The plan is to take about a week driving via Bilbao, Valladolid, Madrid and Murcia, before arriving at our destination near Mojacar.
As I write the outside temperature is -4C so we're really looking forward to some warmer weather as we drive further and further south.
The journey down to Portsmouth went pretty much as planned; caffeine top up for us and a battery top up for the car at Havant, followed by an early evening meal at Gunwharf Quays, Portsmouth and then onto the ferry. We got our coffee ok and the car battery did get charged but not as much as we’d hoped. The 50kw Instavolt charger only delivered a maximum of 30kw, but we were reasonably happy that
The Spinnaker, Gunwharf Quayswe had 110 miles in the battery - plenty to get us to Bilbao for our first overnight stay in Spain. What we hadn’t factored in was the amount of battery used just queuing to get onto the ferry. We should still have plenty of charge to get to Bilbao when we dock, but will probably top up in Santander, just to be on the safe side.
Boarding the Brittany Ferries “Galicia” ferry was very smooth, and our cabin, home for 2 nights is well designed and comfortable.
Day2 We took some anti nausea pills last night as a precaution and we were very pleasantly surprised to wake up to relatively calm seas. That may change as we get properly into the Bay of Biscay but so far so good. Having said that, although the cabin is very modern, there were a lot of creaking sounds during the night (Shiver me timbers!) which prevented us from having an undisturbed nights sleep. Breakfast was taken in the Commodore Lounge and we were treated to the sight of a large pod of common dolphins swimming past the ferry. The rest of the crossing continued to be very
smooth and our worries about the Bay of Biscay proved unfounded - a day spent reading interspersed with walks around the deck and enjoying the onboard catering. Ear plugs took care of the nocturnal creaking noises.
Day 3 An early start - breakfast at 5.45 am and off the boat at 7.00 am. The first aim was to find a public charger so we set off using the ‘Chargepoint’ app to find an Iberdrola rapid charger cunningly hidden in the car park of an Audi dealership and a good 100 yards away from where the Chargepoint app seemed to indicate. The charger had a notice indicating it was only available during the working hours of the dealership. Unlike the public chargers we have used in the UK, we couldn’t simply tap a credit card but had to go through the Iberdrola App to get charged up. A very helpful Audi salesman helped us through the lengthy registration process and after topping up the battery we headed for the centre of Santander for a walk around and a caffeine top up. The journey to Bilbao was fairly straightforward and our hotel is within walking distance of the Guggenheim museum
- spectacular on the outside despite the gloomy January day and amazing inside.
Day 4 Bilbao to Valladolid (198 miles) First charge of the day in the pouring rain at a street side charger on a busy street and immediately before a set of traffic lights. Iberdrola really do put their chargers in some strange places! Having filled up on caffeine at breakfast, we opted to sit in the car and read our books. Once charged up to 80%!w(MISSING)e were confident that we had more than enough to get us to our planned recharge en route at Burgos. We hadn’t factored in the mountainous terrain which ate up the charge fast and range anxiety started to kick in, but this was when I really learned the value of driving conservatively (i.e. not alway putting the foot down!). The motorway was fast and not very busy, but we didn’t see any working chargers at the few service stations that we called in at. We arrived at Burgos with just 15 miles in the battery. The Iberdrola charger was on a petrol station forecourt which was adjacent to a big shopping centre, and the rapid charger was already occupied!
We had no option but to wait, so we had a picnic in the car, waited for the other car to fully charge and then we had another 40 minutes to get our battery back up to 80%! (MISSING)We got a lot of reading done today! Fortunately, the next part of the journey was on much less hilly motorway, and we arrived at our hotel in Valladolid with a good 80 miles still in the ‘tank’. And the best news yet - the hotel has an EV charge point in their underground, private car park (10KW, untethered) so we won’t need to waste time tomorrow before setting off for Madrid finding a public charger. Lessons learned today
Know the geography of the route - hills make a big difference
You can conserve battery by driving a bit less fast!
If possible, charge up the night before a long drive
Day 5. Valladolid to Madrid (131 miles)
Spent a lovely morning exploring the centre of Valladolid - the original capital city of Spain and the birthplace of the Castilian language. The sunshine more than made up for the single figure temperatures as we discovered beautiful historic buildings, an impressive statue of Cristobal Colon, aka Christopher Columbus, and of course some excellent coffee shops. With the car battery charged up to 80%!,(MISSING) we set off after lunch for Madrid. The first half of the route was entirely on a very quiet and fast n-601, with very little in the way of hills, to deplete the battery. After we joined the motorway and started to climb up into the Sierra de Guadarrama the battery started to deplete fairly rapidly and alarmingly, a result of the steep assent and possibly the zero temperature outside. At the highest point, the traffic was slowed right down by a pair of snow ploughs deliberately blocking the road where the snow was starting to lie. Fortunately it was a very thin covering and the road had been well gritted. After just a few minutes of holding back the traffic they let us go, and it was pretty much downhill
all the way to Madrid, and still with just under 20%!l(MISSING)eft in the battery to our great relief. After checking into our hotel in the Ciudad de Imagen just outside Madrid, we found the local public chargers, not easy as they didn't show on Chargepoint, the app we're using to find public chargers in Spain - the good news; lots of them and none occupied, the bad news - time to download another app, register etc before working out how the Endesa machines work. Tomorrow the plan is to abandon the car and take public transport into Madrid.
Day 6. Madrid Our first car free day. We took the metro into the centre of Madrid and armed with a guidebook did our own walking tour of ‘Bourbon Enlightenment Era Madrid’. This took us past many of the magnificent palaces built by the Bourbon Spanish royal dynasty. En route there were visits to coffee shops, tapas bars etc to provide much needed rest and sustenance. We even fitted in a visit to the Botanic Gardens and the Parque del Retiro. It was after dark by the time we got the metro back to the hotel and my phone
app tells me that we walked about 18km today - my feet agree!
Day 7. Madrid We used the metro system to get into the centre of Madrid again this morning and after coffee and tostadas in a beautiful old bar in Plaza Angel, we made our way to the Prado museum. Having bought our tickets online the night before, and booked a specific entry time we were able to skip the long queue. If the Guggenheim is all about modern art, the Prado covers from the 12th century to the early 20th century. We spent a good three hours exploring the three floors and many rooms of paintings, some sculptures and a collection of treasures that belonged to one of the Dauphins of France. A 15 minute walk took us back towards the impressive Plaza Mayor, where we went in search of some tapas, cerveza and madroño - a liqueur made from the fruit of the strawberry tree. Madroño is served in small containers like shot glasses but made of a thin layer of wafer lined with chocolate.
Day 8. Madrid to Murcia Knowing that we had about 400 kilometres to travel today, and that
the first half of the journey wasn’t well endowed with public chargers, we decided to charge up to 100% at the Endesa chargers nearby. The map also showed quite a lot of hills en route and we were determined to avoid range anxiety if possible. On first connecting to a rapid charger, it was only delivering about 7kw - a very slow charge. However, at 8.30 am it suddenly went up to over 20 KW - is this to make use of solar power I wonder.
The route out of Madrid was tortuous - a network of motorways, long tunnels and busy traffic. One wrong turn caused us a bit of stress, but fortunately the SatNav got us back on track fairly swiftly.
Once on the road, we planned to top up the charge twice - first planned stop was at Saelices where the Chargepoint App told us there were two rapid chargers. When we arrived only one charger was there and it looked like workmen were in the process of installing the second. Another new provider, Wenea, so another app, another registration process but we couldn’t get the charger to work! Fortunately, we hadn’t made much of
a detour and we continued to the next Chargepoint just south of Honrubia. This time lucky - 3 Iberdrola Rapid Chargers as well as about 10 Tesla chargers and all in glorious sunshine. We had coffee and a light lunch n the adjacent services while the car battery topped up and were soon on our way with enough in the battery to get us to Murcia. However, we saw that another Iberdrola charger was available further down the road at Hellin, and decided on another pit stop. Amazingly there was another Enyaq at the other charger there, but the Spanish driver was clearly stressed as his car wasn’t charging and he called out roadside assistance. Fortunately we had no trouble. It turned out this was the third charger that the other driver had tried with no success, and he concluded the problem was with the car. The roadside assistance man suggested he try the connector we were using, and as we were happy with our top up, we obliged - and it worked. Another lesson learned - even if it looks like a machine is up and running it might not be! Our hotel in Murcia has EV charging in
the car park so we should be well topped up for the final day of travelling tomorrow to Almeria. The daytime temperature got noticeably better the further south we drove reaching 14.5C and feeling very pleasant in the bright sunshine. The scenery was beautiful, and noticeably changed from the greenery of the north (and occasional snow) to a much more Mediterranean landscape in the south.
Day 9. Murcia to El Pueblito de Alfaix With the car well charged up over night, we headed to Cartagena for lunch. It is noticeably warmer in the day, and it was very pleasant walking around the port area, and the narrow streets with plenty of cafes, and people sitting outside, enjoying the sun. After a light lunch, we started on the final stretch - 125km to our final destination in Almeria and no need to charge the car en route. We’ll be staying here at El Pueblito for about three weeks, and I may not update the blog every day. Hopefully no more scarily narrow and steep underground car park ramps to negotiate for a while…..time to relax and enjoy the sunshine.
Alfaix We’re coming to the end of our
stay in Afaix, and it has certainly been relaxing. With on site car charging facilities there have been almost no charging stresses or range anxiety and we haven’t had to use a public charger for nearly three weeks. The only slight stress has arisen from sharing the on-site charger with one other car, a PHEV. I have taken to leaving a note on the dashboard of my car indicating when it will have finished charging (the machine doesn’t show this unlike most public rapid chargers) but the PHEV driver doesn’t do this, so when we need to charge up we have to keep checking to see if the machine is free. I think the PHEV driver maybe had exclusive use of the machine before we arrived, and did’t need to show consideration to other EV owners. I have advised reception here that this is an issue which could become more common as the number of EVs on the roads increase.
The journey home is going to be more of a challenge than we had bargained for. Almost as soon as we disembarked from the ferry at Santander we received an email informing us that our return crossing had been
cancelled. This came as a huge shock as there are normally only two crossings a week at this time of the year and none of the alternative crossings suit us. Having been very impressed with Brittany Ferries on the outward journey, to say that we are now unimpressed is a massive understatement. Having carefully considered all the options we are now faced with an approximately 2000km drive north to Calais, and we have booked the Eurotunnel, having somewhat lost faith in the reliability of ferries. We plan to leave Alfaix first thing on Monday morning and hope to be back in the UK the following Friday. Every cloud has a silver lining - we can now learn all about public EV chargers in France as well as Spain - and it looks like several more Apps will be needed on my phone.
The Return Journey Day1 Alfaix to Cambrils We wanted to get a good number of kilometres done today, so lot’s of motorway driving, heading north. There seemed to be plenty of charge points en route, and we planned some likely places to stop. The first stop at about 180k at Granja de Rocamara was ideal
- just off the motorway, two Iberdrola Rapid Chargers, and both available. While the car charged we stretched our legs and headed for a street side table at a cafe for coffee and tostadas. The motorway up as far as Valencia was lovely and quiet, and the early successful charge may have lulled us into a false sense of security. Around Valencia, the motorway got very busy and we had decided to do as many k’s as possible before the next charge, so the battery was down to 9% by the time we eventually found the Iberdrola chargers tucked behind a Burger King as Mas Camarena. What made it more difficult to find was that despite us putting the Iberdrola charger into the Skoda Sat Nav, the Sat Nav took it upon itself to also direct us to a different charger. The fact that several of the roads were closed causing diversions and confusion with two routes on the Sat Nav probably resulted in a few more kilometres than necessary and a fair bit of stress. We don’t know for sure but it looks like when the battery is very low, the Skoda Sat Nav tries to take you to
the closest public charger. This would make some sense if the charger that it tried so hard to take us to was actually in operation. With the battery charged up again, we headed for our overnight stop, a hotel in Cambrils, chosen specifically because it has an EV charger, and we were happy to see that the charger is an Endesa one, same provider as we used in Madrid, so we have the App. Unfortunately, we just couldn’t get it to work and neither could the hotel handyman, so the car is charging at snails pace on the ‘granny charger’ and we are going to have to start the day tomorrow by driving to the nearest Iberdrola charger instead of heading straight north. Tomorrow looks like being another long day, but it should take us over the border into France.
Day 2 Cambrils to Millau An early start today, to top up the 56%!c(MISSING)harge that we had when we left the hotel, and after a short stop at a rapid charger at services not quite on the motorway, we were heading north again. Our lunch stop was just outside Girona - 2 Iberdrola chargers next door to
Puerto Del Sol, Madrid
The Bear and the Strawberry Tree Statue a restaurant called Viena - one of the best fast food restaurants I have ever eaten in. With the car fully charged, it was time to head for the French border on the east of the Pyrenees. The route, although hilly, wasn’t as draining on the battery as we feared and soon we were in France. The challenge for the day turned out not to be finding chargers, but dealing with the sudden loss of the Skoda Sat Nav as soon as we crossed the border. We stopped at the first Aire on the motorway to see if rebooting the system ie locking and then unlocking the car, would work and it didn’t. A phone call to Skoda Roadside assistance was of no help - they only deal with mechanical problems. Since there were several Ionity chargers at these services, we decided to have a go at our first Ionity charge and after connecting the cable, went into the shop where we bought a French road Atlas. We could obviously use our phones for navigation, but anyway we wanted the belt and braces reassurance of the atlas. By the time we got back to the car and disconnected the charger,
the Skoda Sat Nav had decided to work again. We had planned in a stop at a large Aire a bit further down the road, and we decided to top up there anyway, if only to experience yet another provider - Total Energies. I hadn’t been able to download the app in advance but fortunately it worked via the QR code on the machine connecting me to their website. Although we had enough charge to get us to our overnight stop at Millau, we found that the climb up to the Massif Central depleted the battery very quickly, so we topped up at yet another Aire before arriving at the hotel. The difference in public EV charging between Spain and France is very evident. Multiple chargers in France at many of the motorway services. Admittedly, there are more EV’s using them in France, but so far we have’t had to queue. Definitely a less stressful days travelling today.
Our hotel for the night is quirky to say the least, but it does have free access to a two pin charger so the granny cable is in operation again tonight.
Day 3 Millau to Vierzon With a full
charge in the battery, we started the day with a quick detour to view the impressive Millau Viaduct which we had driven over the day before. At 2.5km long it is a very impressive feat of engineering. However, with a lot of road ahead of us we soon restarted our journey north, with 110k through stunning scenery (although the mist did detract a bit from the views) to our first planned stop at Orfeuillette. Having connected the car to one of several Ionity rapid chargers, we headed across the almost deserted car park to the large services building, only to find it locked and obviously abandoned. Fortunately, there was the ubiquitous McDonalds nearby, to get take away coffees and use the facilities. After Orfeuillette, the landscape was less spectacular but still very beautiful, but unfortunately we then had to drive through several rain showers, one of which was more of a deluge. The next planned stop to recharge was at Aire des Volcans D’Auvergne and the car sat nav took us straight to a huge bank of Total Energies Chargers - unfortunately they were still in the process of being installed and were ‘hors de service’. After driving around the
services a bit we found another row of Total Energies chargers which were working and available. Unlike Ionity, which has proved so easy to use via their App, it took about twenty minutes, going through the Total Energies website to establish a connection. Total Energies appear to be installing many public chargers in France, but they don’t appear to have enabled anyone from outside France (or maybe the EU) to register on their App. Having finally topped up the battery, we were easily able to get to our overnight stop at Vierzon and the hotel had advertised EV charging facilities. This turned out to be the nearby Tesla charging station, with no less than 28 chargers! We only recently found out that non Tesla owners can use some of their chargers, so another App was duly downloaded and the car is all set for the next leg of the journey, through Paris and an overnight stop about 100k short of Calais.
Day 4 Vierzon to Fresnes Lès Montauban Off to a good start this morning with a full charge and an improvement in the weather. After our experience of allowing the battery to go very low a few
days ago, our new policy is to plan to stop for a recharge when there should still be around 100k in the battery. The difference between the distance to destination and what the car says we have in the battery has proved to be the most useful figure to keep an eye on. You could start a journey with 100k over and above what is needed but this will reduce considerably if there is a lot of uphill driving. We also routinely keep to about 100km/hour and drive in Eco mode on the motorway to conserve battery.
With this in mind, the first stop was at what turned out to be a ‘park and ride’ south west of Paris. There were plenty of Ionity chargers available and we were able to get reasonable coffees from the machine in the bus waiting room. We used the time waiting for the car to charge up to carefully plan a route through Paris. With various options, the car Sat Nav seemed to have changed it’s mind from when we checked the route last night, but we decided the first route was preferable, going up the east side of Paris. This involved several
Cerveseria Alemana, Madrid
Apparently Ernest Hemmingway was a regular motorway interchanges, and required both of us to remain alert. The traffic was as expected very heavy around Paris but mostly going fairly slowly which helped us deal with the many changes of direction required.
The next planned stop to recharge the battery was about 70km north of Paris, at a large Aire. Total Energies were the provider, and we sealed ourselves for another hassle obtaining a charge. Sure enough, unlike with Ionity, there was bit of faffing around, until I tried the Chargepoint RFID card that I had obtained prior to leaving home. It worked! Why are there so many ways to achieve the same thing, even with the same charger provider? What was impressive was that it was obvious that Total Energies were again working on installing many more chargers on the site.
Next stop was our overnight hotel at Fresnes Lès Montauban, with EV chargers onsite. Time to get to know another provider (and another app) - Freshmile. There was a modicum of faffing until we worked out how to use this one.
Day 5 Fresnes to Home Leaving Fresnes after breakfast, it was an easy drive north to Calais. The
Iberdrola chargers at Honrubio
Iberdrola has so far proved the easiest and most reliable chargers to use. plan was to fully recharge at Cité Europe while we did a bit of last minute shopping but unfortunately we couldn’t find any chargers near the shopping centre. Instead we topped up a bit at an Ionity Rapid charger at a Holiday Inn at Coquelles and then went shopping. We wanted to ensure we had plenty of charge to get home after the Eurotunnel crossing, so having done our shopping we headed to the Eurotunnel terminal a bit earlier than originally planned and found that we could get onto the earlier crossing. Another top up for the battery at a Tesla charger at the terminal gave us a bit more battery charge - there were other chargers available but since I had the Tesla app already and there were plenty of chargers available we thought we might as well save ourselves the hassle of using yet another different charger. Just as well we did, as boarding for our earlier departure was announced soon after and we didn’t get the battery up to the level we wanted, but a short stop at Folkestone services sorted that, thanks to a Gridserve charger (back on familiar territory). We thought we were on the
home straight now, but after over 3000km driving in Spain and France we came to a complete standstill on the M25 at the Dartford crossing due to an earlier accident, finally getting home a good 2 hours later than we expected.
So now we are home - tired but with a feeling of having achieved something extraordinary. Would we do it again?. As with any longer journey in an EV planning is key and fortunately that is a challenge that we were happy to take on, although not so happy that Brittany Ferries caused several more hours of planning than we had bargained for. I really wouldn’t want to do the drive from the South of Spain to Calais in any vehicle again, but I would certainly consider driving an EV in Spain if the ferry could be relied on. As for France, the public EV charging network is already way ahead of the UK and very visibly expanding so I would have no qualms about taking the Enyaq there again.
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Helen
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What a great adventure
Looking forward to following you on your journey to Almeria and seeing all the sights, especially as it gets warmer! I have not been to Portsmouth for several years and it is nice to see the Spinnaker lit up. Good luck and hope you have a smooth and enjoyable experience