A mosque-cathedral, Howard and Hilda abducted

Frites cooked for us by our Belgian neighbour under his awning in the rain. A lovely treat; we said goodbye and thank you to our friends at the campsite at Penarroya-Pueblonueova including mama, who I think was extolling me to wear socks. I was ‘kiwi-style’, wearing flip flops in the rain to save getting my shoes dirty. 

We set off with no water in the truck as we didn’t want to fill our tank with the non-potable water pumped from the nearby lake. We drove off in the rain, the satnav set to Cordoba, with a via point of a Lidl supermarket.  Lidl had goodies galore, some Lidls have an array of upmarket items and I have trouble restricting myself. I popped a packet of whole candied orange slices dipped in dark chocolate into the trolley along with some truffle pasta. There was a whole aisle of pick and mix frozen seafood, I only chose the peeled raw prawns. It all seems too hard dealing with full crustaceans in the tiny kitchen now that daylight and the weather is against us. Shame. Stuart assigns himself the task of perusing the wine selection and choosing his staff of life - bread.

Inside mosque-cathedral

We parked in a free carpark and walked alongside the river to the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba.

It ranks with me as one of the best buildings I have visited, along with the Taj Mahal in Agra.

It was originally a Christian church built in the mid 700s, recycled as a mosque, but in 1236 consecrated as a Catholic church. Later there were alterations to create a beautiful chapel in the middle of the mosque that brings light into the interior of this enormous building. It is the only place where you can worship Mass in a mosque.

Stepping into the mosque-cathedral was awe-inspiring; double rows of striped arches - red brick alternating with white stone set on a forest of 856 pillars. Islamic style candelabras hang from carved beams, lighting an eerie but striking atmosphere. Outside the rows of pillars are replicated with rows of orange trees in the former Muslim ablutions patio.

A street so narrow, only a tiny car can fit - others scrape on the kerb

We picked our way back to the truck through the old Islamic and Judaic quarters, one road was so narrow car tyres scrape along the curb on either side. I took a photo of a tiny Kia following a disabled scooter - just the right size.  

On the way to Seville the rain stopped and we passed endless fields of olive and orange trees, the land was refreshed by the rain and the fields had lost their dusty look.

Seville

The aire we stayed at in Seville is conveniently located across the river from the centre of town but talk about ugly! 

It is also a loading area for cars on transporter trucks, the strong perimeter fence keeps out windblown rubbish, street dogs and other undesirables. The wifi is hopeless and the showers cold.

Seville

Sevilles inner shopping area had lots of shoe shops, that don’t have that big close down period, only re-opening when I am too tired to be bothered. I found the shoes I wanted, then had to cart them all around the Real Alcazar (royal castle). The Alcazar is very Islamic in style with lots of intricate details, gardens and orange trees. We got lost a couple of times and had to ask for help to exit, battling through thickets of selfie sticks.

The Alcazar is next to the largest cathedral in the world, in the plaza horses and buggies wait patiently to give (sell) rides to tourists. After seeing the castle, the cathedral is all too much, tomorrow would be another day. 

As Christmas is only a month away, sellers of nativity scene paraphernalia had filled temporary shops in the main plaza near the cathedral with their wares. The scale of nativity merchandise on sale made Stuart shake his head. It is a new concept for him. There were items like tiny hams, baskets of lentils, herds of sheep, shepherds, all like those model railway dioramas. The item I liked best was a scooter carrying Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus - a donkey and cow are in the sidecar.

Real Alcazar, Seville - photo credit Stuart

The following day was not so good, after having a bad sleep with an insomniac truckie waterblasting his truck at 2.00am we cycled into Seville. Intending to see the worlds largest cathedral we locked Howard and Hilda together while we stopped for a coffee. 

Returning to the railing all that remained was our cable lock cut cleanly. About 20 metres away was a police car, we tapped on the window and the good-looking young man carefully marked the place in the book he was reading, and shook his head. We are to report the theft to the National Police but there is no hope of rescuing Howard and Hilda.

We didn’t feel like visiting the worlds biggest cathedral then and set off for the long walk back to collect Chausson and head for the coast. The aire had been recommended by someone we met at Honfleur in France, right by the beach and close to tapas bars. It was more like a campsite catering soley to motorhomes with electric hook up, ablutions and good wifi. Alfonso greeted us as he greets all prospective campers, showing us a large sunny grassy plot and giving us the run-down on the local amenities. We think he must have ESP or a little camera in his office as he is quick off the mark making sure potential customers don’t slip away. (we don’t have a lot to do at the moment!)

Inside Real Alcazar

Without Howard and Hilda we can’t cycle the nearby rail-trail to the next town, I don’t suppose Howard and Hildas' new life as ‘street-bikes’ will be as cloistered as their life with us.

We are truckin on southward with the intention of going to Gilbraltar,  we had thought of parking the truck and visiting Morocco but I don't know about that, I have seen a little of India in Spain already ... 

Adios until next time

Modern nativity twist

Hilda, as I remember her

Espagne encore, serendipity and silhouettes

Farewell to the pastel de nata (custard tarts) of Portugal and hello to churros of Spain. I prefer the tarts, but dipping the crispy churros sticks into thick chocolate has a certain je ne sais quoi (or Spanish equivalent).

La Alberca Plaza

Hello also to a massive amount of air cured hams, we visited the small town of La Alberca, popular with Spanish tourists, and watched the hams being walked away under peoples’ arms. These hams hang from the ceilings in shops and are on the counters of bars, set up in a special torture device to have wafer like slivers carved off. 

La Alberca was one of the serendipitous events to happen recently, we didn’t quite throw a dice but ended up at this amazing little place with narrow alleys flanked by ramshackle houses build of stone, wood beams and plaster. The houses were tightly packed, in some places the sun would have a job reaching the cobbles on the ground. Some houses had the year of construction carved into the lintels above the door, most dating to 18 century.

Portraits on the outside of houses in Mogarrez

We drove about 7 km from La Alberca through oak forests that were showing off their autumn finery, to arrive at Mogarrez. It had similar very old houses, all neatly restored but the difference was there were over 400 portraits on the outside of the houses of past and present residents. The pictures were started in the 60s when poverty drove many locals overseas to seek work. They needed ID cards and these inspired the portraits.

Back in the truck, this time a drive across a Sierra plateau to spend the night at Salamanca. A very attractive town with large cathedral and square. The square had plaques with reliefs of the heads of past leaders, Franco was there – his plaque covered in a plastic bag because of vandalism problems. The other thing I remember about Salamanca was seeing a spaceman carved into the gold sandstone outside the cathedral door – a contribution from the last renovation period in the 1990s. Isn’t Lonely Planet helpful as a spotter’s guide?

Salamanca, view not far from where we stayed

The wind whistled across the high plateau and as we neared Segovia we could see mountains dusted with snow on the horizon. As we drove closer I got up and turned the diesel heater on, to warm up the living area in the truck. I sometimes wonder if this looks alarming to drivers in on-coming vehicles as they think I am in the drivers seat. Starting the heater when we are driving saves power in the batteries as the start up uses a lot of energy.

Aqueduct in Segovia

Segovia is a fabulous town with a huge Roman aqueduct in the middle of town – 2 layers of arches and all in pristine condition. The water from the aqueduct disappears underground and there are plaques in the streets tracing its route. The tourist office directed us to the aire in town, behind the disused bull ring, we shared it with another motorhome from GB and stood in the bitter cold wind trading notes.(We don't meet many native English speakers).

Segovia had a castle, Alcazar, in the old quarter that once again, was supposed to be the inspiration behind Disney’s Sleeping Beauty castle, we didn't go in but admired its setting on the edge of a canyon.

Alcazar, castle in Segovia

"In a bar in Toledo ...."

Not the same Toledo, this one had bright sunny skies with cool air, perfect for exploring the back streets of this lovely town. Lovely but busy – phew, we thought we were never going to find a park. The Spanish are inventive parkers – even parking over the entrance to carparks.

I was inventive with my lunch choice as well and had to have churros and chocolate to make up for the great heap of orange oily breadcrumbs with an egg on top – not at the same place of course. Stuart was safe with the beefburger.

Serendipity is the word again – we stopped at Consuegra where the satnav had her wicked way sending us up narrow back streets to get to a park that held 13 windmills and a castle. She was the small price to pay for such a fabulous place to stay. Stuart was beside himself, swarming up the hillside with his camera to catch the final rays of sun on the whitewashed walls of the windmills. 

Windmills at Consuegra

We just struck lucky because there are so few places in our book of aires to stay in Spain and Consuegra was the only one anywhere near our route. 

We are in Don Quixote country and his silhouette along with his companion Sancho Panza feature on sign boards along the way. It is wide open country with olive trees planted in endless neat rows and ditto for small bush-like grapevines. All around us large geometric dusty paddocks are being prepared for crops and farmers are adding smoke haze to the dusty look by burning cuttings. We see silhouettes on the horizon of large black anatomically correct bulls - I wonder if they are government standard issue as they all look the same. Black pigs graze under cork oak trees in bucolic bliss, however judging by the amount of pork available these must be the lucky ones.

We are enjoying a couple of days off travelling, staying in a funny little backwater with a mama as the camp warden. She speaks no English and has her customers translate for each other, a Belgian man explained the ropes to us and we in turned explained things to a German couple. She has sold me eggs, a laundry service or two and tried selling me homemade soap and, I think, the benefits of being vegetarian. I have been cornered several times - I don't understand so she repeats it all in rapid fire Spanish.

Stuart outside impressive Travel Truck

We spent an evening with the German couple who showed us the inside of their truck. Their favourite destination is Mongolia and they have visited all the 'Stans', Uzebeckistan etc
The spare wheel on the back weighs a massive 140kg, and has a special lifting device. The truck is a rebuilt Mercedes fire engine and even has ducted aircon inside. There are metal ramps on the side to make bridges for difficult crossings. Some of the roads are so bad they have had broken springs, but found the people in Eastern Europe to be helpful getting them going again.

When we get the inclination we will head south towards Seville but in the meantime we are satiating ourselves on wifi, sunshine and electricity.

Progressing to Portugal

The drive from Spain to Portugal was one of the nicest we had been on in a while – lots of green eucalyptus trees and a great road. Our destination was a really pleasant surprise as well, Ponte de Lima. The little town is named after the multi-arched (31) medieval bridge that crosses the Lima river. The town displays a great deal of civic pride with lots of statues. Apart from the usual stamping and snorting bulls and mounted cavalrymen, there are large statutes of musicans and farming folk.

A French man parked next to us was doing repairs to an oops on his motorhome with man’s best friend – silver duct tape. Stuart offered him some of his white tape to cover up the silver and act as the ‘invisible mend’, he was effusive in thanks, standing back to admire his handiwork.

Ponte de Lima, Roman soldiers crossing river

Porto – the home of port wine is a ‘must see’, and we headed to the coast to a campsite at Vila Cha where we could catch the metro into the city. The campsite was in the low season and I don’t know why, but we were sent to the end furthest from reception (ie wifi) passing all the other motorhomes. Not only was it furthest away but the access was tree-lined and narrow, Stuart steered this way and that to avoid taking out a wing-mirror or corner of the truck. Our designated area seemed to be the home for stray cats and kittens and they were always on the lookout for an open motorhome door to jump into. I love cats but these didn’t look very healthy, poor wee things, I felt bad shooing them out.

In the morning we shared a taxi ride to the metro station with a French couple. The old Mercedes had a worn out suspension and bumped and rolled along the cobbled streets, but the driver was friendly and spoke English, he promised to meet us at 5pm for the return trip.

The highlight of Porto for me was the trip through Taylors port wine lodge established in 1692 with a tasting afterwards. We were offered a chilled white port, aperitif style and a late bottled vintage.

Port is made by stopping the grape juice fermenting after about 3.5 days by adding a colourless grape spirit. This preserves some of the natural sweetness of the grape in the finished wine. The oldest port houses are British. A ban on importing wine from France had caused merchants to look further afield to Spain and Portugal and to help the wine travel better, the ‘fortification’ process was invented.

The lodge (as they are called) was up a steep cobbled road from the Douro River. The lodges face the old area of Porto across the river, with its narrow colourful houses piled on top of one another, it is full of character. It is to the lodges that special vintages are bought to be processed into various types of port, they used to travel down the river in barrels on barges but are transported by road now.

Porto is undergoing renovations and old buildings are being revitalised, graffiti in Porto has been elevated to a form of art and is used in some places as decoration to disguise otherwise ugly features. Porto still has a long way to go though to become as elegant as its sister city Lisbon, but that is just my personal opinion.

We caught the metro back and there was our driver, as promised, waiting for us and we bumped and rattled back to the campsite where the staff are helpful and welcoming but with the grey weather and all those permanent caravans it is a bit depressing. I did a magazine swap however – a lovely new ‘English House and Garden’ for a photographic magazine, woo hoo, I miss seeing English books etc

Looking across Douro to Porto old town, wine barge in foreground

The weather is cooler and the way to warm weather is south and coastal but we are pressing on east and central. On our way east we stopped at Amarante, once again there are cobbled streets and narrow roads. I watched some small cars carefully thread themselves through a narrow difficult turn from a medieval bridge into a square. Then I looked from the other side of the turning and saw a sign bearing the graphic of a caravan and tent, pointing to the camping ground. Surely a mistake as there is no way a car towing a caravan could ever make the turn and other options looked hopeless as well. We continued to walk over the old bridge and saw an even bigger sign pointing in the direction of the difficult passage to the camping ground. A separate sign displayed the maximum length of a vehicle to be 5.5m, so if a Mini with a tent wanted to get to the campsite they would be ok. Such is the cruelty of satnavs and municipal officers.

We journeyed on to Peso da Regua, part of the way following the Douro river looking out at the vines turning gold and crimson on the narrow terraces that rise steeply from the river. The lines they make look like contours on a topo map. We continued to follow the Douro, passing steep fields of Chupa Chup grey/green olive trees and ended up in the Foz Cua valley that is famous for prehistoric rock drawings. Such is the demand to see the sites where archeologists are working that even in this low season we missed out. However we took advantage of the carpark outside the futuristic-styled archeology museum building and made ourselves at home for the night. The museum is perched on the edge of a cliff with a grand view over the river, precision-built drystone walls line the 2km access road and olive and almond trees cover the hills. We spent time inside the museum and came out not a lot wiser.

Overlooking terraces of vines above Cua, near Douro valley

The food in other countries is always interesting, I peruse the supermarket shelves picking up items and wondering what they are. Here, in the meat chiller there are long narrow packs of something called ‘enviserado’ - and they looked exactly like it too – the enviserated entrails of animal unknown. Portugal specialises in salt cod. This looks like a fish opened up, flattened out, dried, covered in salt and as stiff as cardboard. It is everywhere, especially on display outside shops. I had the misfortune to accidently order it in a restaurant after I thought I established that I was getting fresh cod.

Pastel de nata however is a different story - crispy pastry cases with creamy egg custard topped with a thin brulee finish. I buy two, one for me and one for Stuart – then eat both myself. Vinho Verde (green wine) is the Portugese equivalent of Beaujolais, a wine that is meant to be drunk while young and fresh. Stuart found a few of these and added them to the roaming cellar, along with a bottle of port.

Street kitten with incredible eyes, lots of street cats had Siamese traits

We have our sights set on Spain again as we have travelled in Southern Portugal before but Spain is much bigger and lots to see, so we have set the satnav to ‘allow tolls’ after swearing never to travel on Portugals minor roads again. The driver doesn’t see much and the passenger does some teeth sucking and wincing when the walls on either side of the road tower over the truck, the camber leans into some serious ditches and oncoming traffic doesn’t stay on their own side.

Cruising down the Spanish coast

Spanish Sunday lunch must be an institution. We have been trapped in a carpark surrounded by cars that parked where cars are not intended and nudged right up against us in their fervour to get off to a long Sunday lunch.

Glad to escape the melee, we set the satnav without checking the route. Herself in the satnav intended to add extra stress to our day by sending us over a steep, narrow mountain pass with Spanish lunch partakers out in force. The road seemed to go on and on, becoming narrower and steeper, Spain is a very mountainous country. Sundays in Spain are becoming our bete noir (or Spanish equivalent), but we finally popped out onto a motorway. A fog had settled in and as we travelled over massive viaducts we had no idea what the surrounding countryside looked like.

There was a steep descent down to the harbour where we parked right in front of the water in Cudillero, we glimpsing some brightly coloured wooden boats bobbing on the water when the fog opened for a minute or two. Dotted about the port walls were signs saying ‘no autocaravanas – E300 fine’. We didn’t like the idea of the fine but there were only 6 motorhomes at the port so when the local police did their rounds Stuart spoke to the Gardia about the parking and was told “it isn’t allowed - but I don’t have a problem”.

Senda de Oso cycleway

Before we had set off I loaded my washing machine (black plastic box) with warm water, a few clothes and detergent. The place we arrived at had no motorhome services for rinsing the washing and I carted my washing machine around to some fishing shacks and filled the machine from a tap attached to a fishing shack. I thought I was hidden, but an old Spanish lady, smartly dressed for lunch, wanted to see the pesche (fish) in my black washing box. My small bit of Spanish didn’t help so I showed her the washing. She nodded in understanding and walked away, probably disappointed.

Lonely Planet recommended a restaurant in Cudillero, it was expensive by local standards but something was lost in lost in translation and not what we expected. In Europe bars serve drinks and restaurants serve food; as we had arrived too early at our restaurant of choice we had to kill half an hour so we went to the bar next door. I asked for sidra but was offered a 750ml bottle only. I declined but was interested to see how the local flat cider is served . The bottle is inverted on a machine and the cider is sucked up by pump action and squirted into an angled glass. The customer only take a small amount at a time – the machine aerates the flat cider which is a bit like scrumpy. It does serve a medicinal purpose however, as I described to Tim – it has the effect of All Bran but doesn’t taste as nice.

The fog never really lifted totally so the next afternoon we headed to Teverga, the terminus of the Senda de Oso – cycleway/path of bears. The trip was easy on big main roads, a nice change from our previous difficult trip. The towns we passed through are shabby looking with litter and some graffiti. The footpaths etc are not maintained and it looks like a general lack of money is the reason. The aire at Teverga was not too bad and had a backdrop of white rock mountain and lots of trees.

Our plan was to cycle from the aire end of the cycleway and then back again. It was easy peasy lemon squeezy getting to the other end of the cycleway, I don’t think my feet turned the pedals at all. That is never a totally good feeling. We passed the enclosures of the brown Cantabrian bears and I saw 4 bears who happened to be close to the perimeter fence (lunch time for bears). They look quite docile with soft brown fur and are large. We cycled through some little villages and took photos of the traditional storehouses that are still used. The storehouses sit off the ground on stone pillars and have a large plinth on top of the pillar that the actual storehouse sits on – it looks rodent-proof. Of course the cycle back to the truck was all pedal-pedal for 20km, we went back through tunnels and underneath rock overhangs. The cycleway is a disused little railway track with lots of chestnut trees lining the route. The discarded cases of the chestnut are like little squashed hedgehogs. People were out collecting the chestnuts, examaining the green hedgehogs for any shiny brown nuts inside. Autumn colours were everywhere and I enjoyed cycling through big drifts of crisp brown leaves making a satisfiying crunch under Hildas wheels.

Storehouse

Foz was next on the list, a small town on the edge of the Atlantic. Once again we had a waterfront view and there were bars and restaurants close by. We are in the off-season now and it was quiet, turquoise water was rolling in breakers on the beach and harbour walls protected the boats. Other seaside towns on the coast have the same set up. The towns we have passed through have a lot more high rise apartments than we see at home, and in this quiet season the shutters are down and there is a deserted air about them. I keep thinking that the short European holiday time leaves such a waste of resource in all the empty hotels/apartments/etc

City life, we passed through a couple of large cities – Ferrol and A Corunna which just confirmed my idea that motorhomes and cities don’t really go together. We ended up parked for the night under the Tower of Hercules in A Corunna. It was a nice spot close to the water but also close to the football stadium. The Tower of Hercules is a lighthouse built by the Romans in 1 AD but re-clad much later on.

Pilgrims outside cathedral in Santiago

Compostela de Santiago is the end of the pilgrims‘ route, with a visit to the cathedral the purpose of their whole trek. We walked into town and followed the crowds to find the cathedral. A lot of gold was glittering in this church and it was undergoing extensive renovations. Crowds were mooching around in the large paved square in front of the church, people were carrying sticks and backpacks with the scallop shell (icon of the Camino de Santiago). I heard a lot of American accents. We walked around the charming old area of the town and along some streets with restaurants displaying incredible arrays of seafood and beef waiting to be cooked. It didn’t look like budget pilgrim food.

It was a short drive before we reached our place to stay for the night and whoo-hoo – a laundromat. The laundromat was next to a supermarket so we loaded up the machine, did the shopping and came back to transfer the washing to a dryer. Within 20 minutes the powerful dryer had my washing crisp and dry. Simple pimple, we didn’t even need laundry powder, it was all included in the price.

We are headed toward Portugal and made a random stop on the coast at a place called Arcade. Our site for the night is on the waterfront with a choice of restaurants to go to, but we didn’t – too hungry to wait for opening time at 8pm.

Arcade

I haven’t got into Spanish time, they stay up late, have long lunches and the shops don’t open in the afternoon until sometimes 5.30pm. By that time I am over the idea of shopping and flag the idea, I suppose it is a money saver.

We are not far off Portugal with a whole new language. Thank you is obrigada for me and obrigado for Stuart (we will see). Hello is still ola.

For clever dogs

Hola from Espagne

Village on Northern Spain Coast Lekeitio

 It is a big country with a variety of regions, a population about 46 million, but with very high unemployment. We have a few items on our list to tick off as the only place in Spain we have seen is Barcelona. Different words to get our heads used to, muchos gracious, adios, sidra, cerveza (cider and beer)

The Spanish Basque area - our first stop was San Sebastian, traffic everywhere but we found the aire with no hiccups, it was good and cheap at about $5 a night. A cycle path was close by so Howard and Hilda were unloaded to travel this dedicated cycleway with its own traffic lights and rubber lane separators to protect us from cars. Not too far from the aire we beheld the vista of a golden horseshoe of sand with people enjoying the promenade along the seafront. We continued into town and near the harbour with bright little fishing boats we chose a tapas bar for lunch. The bar was filled with noise from the bar staff shouting orders to the kitchen staff, steel troughs in the kick space in front of the bar held the empty shells of mussels discarded by patrons.. turnover was fast and furious and someone was kept busy clearing away the debris. The menu was limited and lucky for us there were illustrations on the wall of the menu items . Mussels steamed with lemon plus breadcrumbed calamari with deep fried small green capsicum, accompanied by slices of baguette made an excellent tummy filler.

Bilbao, view from bridge over Guggenheim

We filled in the time until the shops opened at 4pm by cycling around the beaches and waterfront and taking coffee in the sun - a cafe solo for Stuart and a cafe con leche (milk) for me. I spent a whole hour shopping. I was let loose on the understanding I would return to the church with the fancy crenelations on the spires to meet Stuart.

“Yes, yes, yes”, I said and headed straight to the 4 storey Zara, on the way back I checked out a couple of shoe shops then set off to the landmark of church spires. However ..... these had disappeared behind other buildings and I was lost. Panic set in – I would never be allowed off shopping again. I looked for someone who I thought would speak English and struck lucky – I was pointed in the right direction just in time to meet my deadline.

The next day was exactly the same, we all bought something at Zara, Chausson was treated to a couple of table mats from Zara Home. San Sebastian is one of the the most lovely cities I have visited. It is small, only about 200,000 which probably makes it more attractive. Elegant buildings in the town centre, a sweeping golden beach plus a surf beach. There are fashionably stylish people enjoying the promenades and parks, just sitting watching the world go by was a real pleasure.

We headed westward along the Atlantic coast, stopping at a campsite in Zumaia to re-charge the batteries (Chausson’s). The beach looked spectacular but it was blocked off due to filming of Game of Thrones. The next coastal stop was Lekeitio, a town described as a mini San-Sebastian, I will concede it had similar physical properties – harbour, two beaches .... but where were the elegant buildings/shops/clientele? The accommodation was free however and entirely satisfactory. There are cars everywhere as we make our way through small towns along the coast – more cars than people it seems, so that scotches any idea of parking Chausson and having a look-see.

Bilbao was next on the itinerary, and to get there we had to travel through Guernica, stopping to replenish stores at Lidl. A lot of people don’t like Lidl but I am a fan and always feel better returning to the truck with bags of goodies. The stores are small, easy to get around and don’t offer too many alternatives so my head doesn’t spin with all the options. Best of all they are well priced, I bought a replacement bottle of gin for about $6.50, not actually Bombay Sapphire but I am not very discerning.

The most interesting thing about Guernica was that Franco wanted it bombed and called on Hitler to help. It is believed that Guernica not only blocked Franco’s path to Bilbao but also had a strong symbolic value to the Basques (who were opposed to Franco and had their own autonomous government). Hitler obliged willingly and planes flew over conducting saturation bombing on 29 April 1937. Present day Guernica is a modern town that was built hastily to replace the ruins.

Picasso was moved to create a painting titled Guernica – the original hangs in Madrid while a copy is in the entrance hall at UN Headquarters.

The aire in Bilboa was high above the city with a fantastic view. We could just make out the Guggenheim. At night it looked even better and we kept the windscreen blinds open so we could enjoy the view. We took the bus into town and walked along the riverside and visited the exhibitions in the Guggenheim – not really my taste but I did like the massive steel sculptures. After the visit I was feeling under the weather with a cold and told Stuart I would make my own way back on the bus.

Spanish parking, and the #58 bus couldn’t get through. The bus driver was unconcerned and after some tooting he switched off the engine and got his lunch out. The other passengers disappeared and I was dying to get back and just lie down and hadn’t a clue how to get there. After my panic attack I figured another #58 bus would surely come along, and after quite a while one did.

The last night we spent in Bilbao there was a large bush fire on the opposite side of the valley, it spread as an ever increasing ring and it seemed to take a long time for the fire dept to get it under control.

On the road in the Picos Europa (mountain area)

Leaving the Basque area behind, I set the satnav to take us to an aire at Cabarceno. It was just beautiful with a small lake surrounded by trees already changed into their autumn colours. Not a total surprise, as I had read about it, was the very short walk to look at what was behind the aire. A herd of 13 elephants were scattered over a large grassy area in a disused quarry. Stuart saw the matriarch trumpet “meeting at the waterhole in five” and the rest of the herd came running.

Cable cars were spread across the park and we glided over elephants, hippos, baboons, zebras, antelopes, big cats, lots of brown native bears .... the park was beautifully set out, the animals had lovely large natural surroundings, there were 14km of roads for the paying public to drive on. I have never seen such a wonderful place for captive animals to spend their time. The bears had a huge area, some ponds to lie in and natural caves to hide in, the babies were enjoying play-fights and they were undisturbed by us gliding overhead in the safety of a cable car. We saw less than half the species the park kept.

View from campsite

The weather forecast was good which is important for a trip to the mountains, we are off to see the Picos de Europa, one of Lonely Planets ‘must see in Spain’. Winding very slowly through deep gorges we saw a few Mastif-type dogs with thick coats and large spiked collars watching their flocks. They all looked bored and probably dreaming about the luxury of chasing sticks and balls. One didn’t seem to care that one of his charges was sleeping on the road, “it is only a goat” he said, “the sheep are more valuable”. The spiked collars are H&S equipment against wolf attacks.

The Picos are dramatic spiny grey rocky mountains that look a little like the Dolomites in Italy. We are really lucky that the weather is warm (shorts out again) and the trees are ‘Arrowtown in autumn’ but on a bigger scale. We spent a night camped outside a monastery that houses the holy relic of a chunk of Christ’s cross and features the nailhole that passed through Christ’s left hand. It was actually a massive bus park, no one was at the monastery the morning we tried to look in, only someone selling lottery tickets (a back up option?). It must be the most unpopular aire we have stayed at, great view though.

At nearby pretty Potes there was a milk vending machine in the middle of the town. As I walked up to it an electronic voice instructed me IN ENGLISH how to use it. Spooky – it was like weighing tomatoes at a flash supermarket, the scales only showed red vegetables to choose from, did the scales colour-detect and the vending machine face-detect?

Moving along as we do we are leaving the mountains, last night we came down a torturous route from a fabulous spot to a small aire (4 places). The 4 places were full so we slunk to the other side of the carpark area to join about 50 Spanish motorhomes with the same idea as us.

Pyrennes and the Basque country

Chausson in the Pyrennes

There is a narrow area of land between Spain and France that stretches from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. The Atlantic side is home to the Basque people and the area is called Pays Basque (Basque country). The middle and Mediterranean part of this area is the Pyrenees. The Pyrenees are less developed than the Alps and really very beautiful with 3000m snow capped peaks, streams, lakes and forests.

The transition between the flat agricultural land we left behind in the Toulouse area and the beginning of the Pyrennes mountains was quite swift. We were soon driving through villages that looked as if they could have been in Wales, grey stone houses with grey slate roofs.

Cirque de Gavarnie

The forecast was good, and as promised the weather was clear and sunny when we left the pretty village of Arreau. The mountains were outlined clearly against a purple-blue sky and the peaks glowed orange in the sunrise. We set off early on hairpin bend roads via a couple of mountain passes before arriving at the Cirque de Gavarnie. My mouth opened and a word of shock was uttered when we rounded a corner and saw the Cirque – it was stupendous, too hard to photograph though. A giant wall of grey rock shaped in a semi-circle topped with a fresh dusting of snow from the night before hung before us. It is like a huge theatre curtain, dripping with melt water that feeds streams and waterfalls. The walk up to the cirque was brilliant. The soft light shone through the silver birch leaves that were taking on their autumn colours. The light breeze had the leaves shivering on the branches and little confetti-like bits were blowing around.

After spending a night in the mountains, we rattled and rolled the insides of Chausson on another hairpin bend road to Cauterets to see the Pont d’ Espagne. We didn’t know what the Pont was – a natural bridge or something? We passed alot of signs pointing the way and were looking forward to seeing the prize at the end of the bum clenching drive. We were greated by an enormous carpark (more expectation) but couldn’t see any of the advertised chairlifts running.

As the lifts were not running, we walked a 4WD road up and up to the Blue Lake. After 2 hrs we came back down a narrow stony path, it was then we saw signs to “Pont d’ Espagne”. The Pont was an old humpbacked stone bridge crossing a deep rock chasm. We could have walked right past without knowing. That sight ticked off, we hit the road again, and drove on yet more hairpin bends, some about 360 degrees on our way to Lourdes. We drove over Tour de France messages painted on the road as encouragement (?) to the competitors that had cycled the route some months previously.

Blue Lake near Cautarets

The campsite we stayed in set the scene for Lourdes itself with its down at heel appearance. Tacky souvenir shops lined the streets in Lourdes selling Madonna shaped bottles for you to fill with holy water. I did fancy one of these, you screwed the crown off the head for the opening, but value for money, the 15 litre plastic jerrycans would capture much more holy water. We went into the Sanctuaires Notre Dame de Lourdes, that had a large impressive church as its centrepiece. I eyed the vending machine inside the church selling medals for 2Es, but then my eye was caught by the very large candles for sale outside. I like candles. There were alot of people visiting on this rather drab day, ranging from some being wheeled in wheelchairs to large Chinese tour groups, however all nationalities seemed to be represented.

Enough of Lourdes, I had got the washing done in the campground with a short lived heart-in- mouth moment when the washing machine flashed all kinds of message to me, but none of a visionary nature. It settled down and did what it was supposed to after I tried pressing various buttons over and over. 

 It was a big drive to St Jean Pied du Port, we are really in Basque country now. Mountains and hills hove in the distance, some dusted with snow. St Jean PdP is a walled town that is the last stop in France for pilgrims headed for Santiago de Compostela in Spain. The river Nive cuts through the middle, and the town is surrounded by ramparts with a couple of historic ‘portes’ (gates).The scallop shell is the motif of the pilgrims and we saw this repeated lots of times through the town. There were backpacker type places where we could see bunk beds through the windows for pilgrims and cheap menus for pilgrims.

St Jean Pied du Port

We visited a few typical Basque villages, some had a fronton (an open concrete court where the national sport of pelota is played. Pelota involves hitting a hard leather covered ball against a high wall with either your bare hand, a bat or long basket attached to the hand. It can be really dangerous due to the speed of the ball. Beret wearing gentlemen, and signs in both French and Basque are other clues we are not in France-regular.

Pelota court in Basque village

We hovered on the Spanish/French border, unwilling to make the change in countries again. We had an unfortunate experience with blown fuses in the truck caused by a faulty laptop charger. Things started bad then got worse, the 12v outlets wouldn’t work, then we discovered the internal lights and bed motor wouldn’t work ..... after Stuart tried the logical remedies we contacted the Chausson owner group on Facebook and simultenously Stuart and a helpful member figured the fuse mystery out.

Off to Spain, the GPS was programmed with a destination in San Sebastian and an LPG station as a via point. Long story short – we went wrong, ended up on a toll road, then were headed back to France. (We forgot to cancel the LPG via point in the satnav). Luckily big distances weren’t involved and we found some LPG which runs our fridge, cooker, and hot water, phew – we were down to 2 litres.

Espagne, here we come.