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With the West coast of France showing us her ugly side in the way of rain, wind and cold temperatures, this week we have continued to push south towards Spain in the pursuit of warmer weather.
We picked up a baguette as we left the town of Nantes. I’ve never noticed on my previous visits to France just how many people carry around baguettes, every town and city we drove through there just seemed to be people everywhere with them- under their arms, in their backpacks, where ever they can find room. The small seaport town of La Rochelle was to be our first stop on the west coast and we had hoped that the rain would let up in order for us to explore the docks and old city wall. However, with our jeans all but soaked through we decided to explore some of the French cuisine on offer and I settled on a ham and cheese crepe, as I didn't want to risk adding egg to it as previous experience with French food as included a raw egg on whatever food I was ordering.
Next we headed to the worlds major wine capital Bordeaux. When I was
last in Bordeaux 6 years ago we were lucky enough to happen to be there during the Bordeaux wine festival, so this time around it was good to stay just outside the city in one of the vineyard towns- Saint Emilion. Saint Emilion was a cute little town with little alleyways and lots of wine shops. Sadly the weather was still not great and we pretty much had constant rain the whole time so couldn't take advantage of the vineyards.
Our next stop was at Saint-Jean-De-Luz a fishing port town in France right before the Spanish Boarder. We were surprised to see that the beach had sand instead of pebbles, but sadly the weather was horrible so we didn't make it onto the beach. We positioned our selves in a cafe on the edge of a small square and watched as everyone went about their lives, with the odd dog roaming freely throughout the square before the owner sitting adjacent to us finished his beer and moved on.
We were woken by the 0742 train buzzing past Saint-Jean-De-Luz central station the following morning and we peered out of the window to find blue sky awaiting us. With the
Spanish boarder and San Sebastian a short drive away we said au reviour to France and hola to blue skies. I was surprised at how instantly the infrastructure changed upon entering Spain- the towns looked more chaotic, with the apartment windows lined with the days washing. The scenery was also different as we were now in the Basque Country. San Sebastian was more stunning than I imagined- a beautiful bay with mountains as its backdrop. We managed to find a free parking spot just outside the main esplanade and headed up the funicular for amazing views over the bays. We spent the rest of the day eating, drinking and enjoying our first bit of sunshine for the trip. Our delicate English skin managed to get sun burnt in the 18-degree sun. San Sebastian was full of tourists and we enjoyed the sport of guessing where they were all from before hearing them talk- Aussies are always easy to spot with what they are wearing, and the English are always the pale ones. Not sure what category we fall into with us ticking both boxes. The city is famous for its Pintxos which are Basque Country tappas- basically delicious food on
top of bruchetta. After locating a busy bar we spent the evening picking from the selection of tapas pilled high on the bar and would hand over a few euro coins as payment.
We are currently in Islares, which is a tiny coastal town about an hour west of San Sebastian. Trying to find the campsite proved to be a mission and we managed to get lost in the 3 streets of the town. We kept driving around 1-way roads and kept managing to see the same two grumpy ladies who were forced to stop and flatten themselves against the narrow alleyways as we squeezed past them for the third time. As we spotted a camper in the distance we thought we had finally tracked down the site until we notice that there was a horse eating the overgrown grass from beneath the wheel arch of the van. A few more hundred metres down the road we arrived at what turned out to be the strangest hostel, located no less that 10 km from anything that resembled civilisation. Finally our perseverance paid of as we found our best campsite yet-100m away from the beach. The beach has sand and
amazing cliffs dropping into the water that rival the beaches of Koh Phi Phi in Thailand.
The thing about traveling around Europe in a rented car is that all European number plates have their Countries letters on them- so of course everyone assumes we are from The Netherlands and can therefore speak Dutch. Today after returning from our first defrost on the beach we were surprised to find that out of a mostly deserted campsite, a caravan was making its final positioning in the shadow of our van. Turned out the guy was Dutch and said something to us in what we can only assume to be a friendly Dutch greeting. Thankfully Dutch people can speak English anyway. The campsites seem to be full of Dutch so I guess we better be prepared for more encounters! When I was in Europe with my family 6 years ago we had a French car and it was during the Football world cup, which was being held in Italy. We happened to be in Italy the day of the final (France vs. Italy) and we were literally getting insults yelled out to us on the highway by cars driving by and people
giving us the finger. The day after the final (Italy won) we awoke to find our cars back number plate had been stolen, obviously by some Italians wanting to keep a souvenir of the day they beat the French! Even the Swiss Guards tried to laugh at us for being French as we drove into Switzerland that day.
We have no concrete plans for the next week, we will just continue to cruise along the coast of Spain for a while before making our way into Portugal to continue with our quest for the sun.
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Pam Baynes
non-member comment
Sun
Great to hear from you, so pleased the sun has shown its face. It is amazing how much better things look if the sun is shinning! The photos are great...what a beautiful part of the world! Keep having fun, loads of love to you both. P & P oxox