Week Two of The Campervan Adventures.

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Our blog for week two of our campervan adventure.

Day 9 29^th August 2013 Biarritz - Camping Biarritz

Today we travelled a short distance from the layby/truck stop we stayed in just outside of Tartas to the sea side resort Biarritz. We have treated ourselves to a campsite for two nights so that we can have some beach time and explore the city. Once setting up camp we went straight to the beach, which is a beautiful sandy beach with nice water, but I find French beaches a little disturbing. There are women of all ages and sizes topless, there was one lady who was playing football with her two young children and her boobs where flopping around, I was worried one of children might have been poked in the eye by her. I know it’s a cultural thing and I should not judge but it is not right. After we had enough of the boobs and sun we headed off on a bike ride to find the a supermarket, this was not an easy thing to do, but we did eventually find a supermarket (a small city one) and decided on roasted vegetables with cous cous and sardines for dinner. It was a delicious meal, after dinner we chilled out in preparation for another day of sunshine.

Day 10 30^th August 2013 Biarritz - Camping Biarritz

This morning we got up early and set off on our bikes to explore the city further. Our first destination was the bay, I had read on the map that I had picked up from the tourist information office that every day at 10:30 some seals come to be fed. Our ride to the bay did not take that long so we had some time to kill before the seals were due to arrive, so we sat and people watched, we continued to people watch till about 10:40, there were no seals coming to be fed that day (or we were in the wrong spot). After that disappointment we set off to our next destination – the light house. This seemed a lot further than it looked and it was all uphill and due to Biarritz not being a bike friendly town, I had to ride on the road, but I was brave and managed to get to the light house without any issues. We sat and enjoyed the views at the lighthouse and then it was time to go and check out the ‘undercover’ market. Steves map reading failed him on the way and we rode around the block two times, when finding the place we walked in both very excited about the opportunity of being able to buy fresh seafood and have another Rick Stain cooking session. Sadly we had forgot that we were in Ritzy Biarritz and the prices in the market where ridicules, so we walked around looking at all the yummy cheese, meats, seafood, fruits, bread and cakes torturing ourselves for a bit and then went and sat at the beach and ate our packed lunch. After lunch we felt that we had done enough site seeing and we spent the afternoon sun tanning on the beach. I will say that I am looking the most tanned I ever have, and Steve’s tan is not to bad either. Once we had enough of the screaming children and boobs at the beach we went back to camping Biarritz and use the pool (have to get our money’s worth at the camp site). That night was spent relaxing and planning our move on the next day.

Day 11 – 31^st August 2013 Birarritz (France) – San Sebastin (Spain)

Today we said goodbye to France (for a little while) and hello to Spain. We left the lovely sea side resort of Biarritz and drove to another lovely sea side resort of San Sebastian. I was very disappointed with the drive across the border, there was not a sign saying welcome to Spain or anything else to let you know that you were in Spain. I didn’t let this worry me for two long and I started to enjoy Spain, a country I grow to love more each visit. When arriving in San Sabastian we had our normal problem of trying to park, so we drove through the city and parked in a residential area which later worked in our favour as just up from where we parked was the free campervan parking. However saying that we could not park there as by the time we had explored the city and got back to Stan to move him to the campercar parking it was full, so we found a parking spot down the road, behind the university where we ended up sleeping the night.

San Sabastian is described in the travel guide as an <em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">upscale resort with flawless beaches and green hills on all sides (which is true). They also state that it is one of Spain’s culinary capitals with more Michelin star per capita, than anywhere else on the earth. Sadly we did not have the budget to experience any of the Michelin restaurants, I did see one and looked at the Spanish menu which I could not understand, this was reassuring for me and I was able to tell myself that I would not enjoy the food as I would not know what I was getting. Instead of eating very experience meals we just wondered around the city and treated ourselves to and ice cream. We both really liked the city and enjoyed just wandering aimlessly. The city was celebrating 200 years of something, we think that it may have been independence, and there was a very good vibe in the city. Unfortunately all the concerts started to late (about 10pm) for us as we are normally tucked up in bed by then, which we were that night.

Day 12 1^st September 2013 San Sebastian – 30k outside Santander

This morning we got up nice and early and went for an extreme bike ride around San Sebastian, it started off as a nice leisurely ride down the bike path (very bike friendly city) along the coast taking in a few sites along the way and then Steve suggested that we ride up to the lookout. I agreed to do this knowing that the lookout had a cable car up to it, but we are on a budget holiday so we always take the cheap and healthy option, which this time was to cycle. Half way up I regretted this, the mountain which Steve calls a hill just kept going and going, you would get around one corner and then there would be another bit to go up. A guy on a scooter overtook me but only just as it was so steep that the scooter even struggled. I was very proud of myself when I did make it to the top about 10 minutes after Steve and the views where amazing, you could see down over the city and coast line all around, I have to say that the ride up was well worth it. After I had recovered, I took a slow ride down (Some people may know that me, bikes and downhill don’t get on well and I do not really want to visit any Spanish hospitals), Steve was waiting for me at the bottom, we were going to go and do some further exploring but we thought it would be nice to have a few hours relaxing on the beach which we did. Following this we went back to Stan, had some lunch and hit the road. We are spending the night in a layby about 30k outside Santander.

Day 13 2^nd September 2013 Santander (via a little detour due to me getting us lost ) – Pentenansa

I was starting to think I was getting better at the map reading however this is not true, today I took us on a detour that was not necessary, we were 30k from Santander but I missed the turn and we ended up doing double the drive. However we made it to Santander, a very picturesque port city. We spent the morning (late morning by the time we got there) wandering around the sites and then had some lunch in the park. Following this we went up to the beach area, where Steve was a good boy and went running, I was lazy and sat on the beach. Lucky as just as Steve returned a grumpy policeman told Steve he was not allowed to park in the beach car park, he did not give any explanation as to why we could not be there, we may not of been ready to leave Santander at this point but we took it as our queue to leave and headed to our next destination. Picos de Europa (national park) for some walking in the hills. We planned to drive to the campsite that we had researched from Santander but we changed our plans and are spending the night in a picnic spot on top of the hills outside of a small village on the outskirts of the national park. I wish I was better at explaining things so that I could tell you how beautiful this spot is. I am going to enjoy a glass of wine and admire the beauty.



Posted on Wednesday 18th September 2013 - due to internet (free wifi) being hard to find when free camping and at campsites.

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