J’ai trouvé temps perdu! C'était en Charroux

Weather: Hot, hot, hot.  Bit of a spat over whether blinds should be shut in early morning to block sun or open to allow more air.  Time for home!

Clermont-Ferrand to Munster

Made the most of the map on loan at reception to do a lovely bike ride round ye olde quainty French villages near our site just NE of Clermond-ferrand.  First hill took us up to first chateau, closed on Tuesdays(it was Tuesday, of course) but nice pic-nic spot outside old village school.  Then we chugged on to what was billed as “probably the most beautiful village in France”; Charroux.  Spotted a very posh salon de the on the edge of the village which did delicious cakes and then we would have moved on unmoved by the village except that the owner of the S de T asked if we’d been up to the house of clocks.  Apparently this guy used to collect any old clocks mechanisms from big clocks and got them going.  He kept his collection in his little house in what turned out to be the old part of what was certainly a very pretty French village if not the most beautiful.

So on to village no 3 then 4 but by village 5 we had resorted to looking at the pictures on the information boards rather than cycling the extra metres to the chateaux/church/whatever.  And village no 6 was completely by-passed.  We had to stop at a DIY store at the village where the campsite was and it had a very tempting display of gardens chairs.  I resisted because if I had sat down it would have taken several assistants to get me up again and I would have left the chairs unpleasantly damp with sweat!

We’re now 3 steps from home on the German border in a pleasant town called Munster that does exceedingly good cakes and today we took the train to Colmar, another pleasant town that does cakes but that is also very full of tourists. 

 Two of our last stops on the way home are a bit of a trip down memory lane.

Firstly we’ll stop at a vineyard near Westhalten on the Alsace wine route.  We can park overnight there and last time it cost us €5 for the van overnight but over €300 after we’d paid for a 7 course meal and some cases of wine!!

And our last stop before home will be Amiens, home of a very interesting cathedral but more importantly home of macaroons.

So we found lost summer weather in Spain, eventually, and lost time in Charroux in France.  A good result for 4 months of very pleasant searching but the best bit by far for me was our week in L’Escala with my wonderful family!!

The fly in the ointment

Weather: rain so heavy it washed away roofs.

Plaisance

Heading off to the east of France and the Doubs country we spotted a lovely sounding campsite in the Tarn valley in our books.  Trouble is we didn’t take much notice of the “adv bkg ess” advice and when we got there after a very twisty, tiny route it was full!  On our way down to the main road I saw a little sign that said “Camping”.  We turned in and it was good. 

1.   Only 20 places.  Lashings of hot water and enough amps to run my hair dryer.  

2.   Next to tiny local open air pool but it shut at 7. 

3.   Bistro/bar in village that was also shop selling wonderful fresh bread and fruit and veg.  It also sold chicken and chips to take away at weekends.

4.   River rance running along one boundary of campsite.   Mainly shallow but places to swim in it too.

Had lunch today just below rock where kids jumped into the river

But it was a tricky trip to get there

Pathfinder White!

1.   12^th century church up above village.  Floodlit at night and we could see it through our rooflight.

1.   Extremely beautiful 14^th century hotel just taken over by new owners keen to please.  We had fabulous meal there out in the courtyard but undercover.  There was an enormous storm that took out the power and flooded the kitchen just as the chef finished up for the night.  Luckily our kind Dutch neighbours shut our windows so our beds weren’t soaking when we got back to the van

Took a photo of menu beforehand so we could trnslate it!

1.   Couple of good walks to do round local villages.

2.   Only €11.80 a night!!!!!!

So why only stay 3 nights?  FLIES loads of them on first day but finally word got round that David was an expert with the flyer swatter and they did become less of a pain.  Didn’t hear much bird song so maybe that’s the problem.  No birds to eat the flies.  Still a good stop tho.

Went wine tasting and ended up in a puddle

Weather: wasn't us that got washed away but wish we'd shut the skylights before we went out today!
Cauterets

Managed to tear ourselves away from last campsite in the Pays Basque after a final outing to a vineyard.  Unfortunately we chose the hottest, clammiest day of the year and although we took wet wipes to sluice ourselves down after cycling to the village where the owners lived they weren't up to the job.  It was very hard concentrating on what Madame was saying to us as the sweat trickled down our backs and onto the floor!  She very gratiously ignored the fact that our hands were so wet that we could hardly hold onto the glasses we were sipping and sweat was puring down our faces.  But we bought the last 2 bottles of her white wine, which an American living in Paris (huh?) told us was very prized and cautiously cycled home with it in my basket.  Just hope it tastes as good without the added tang of sweat.

Nice project for someone in Basque region, we'll be your first guests!

And the next day we headed further into Pyrenees.  Unfortunately we hadn't paid much attention to someone who had told us how there had been devastating floods in the area in June (too much snow - France! - June!!) but it did become clear as we saw all the debris along the riverside and then the road disappeared and we chugged up some very makeshift tracks.  Even Lourdes was affected so David hasn't got much hope of the miracle he wants happening if they couldn't stop a river flooding.

The town, Cauterets,  we're in is at the end of the road and has obviously taken a battering, but its bustling with tourists and a nice place to spend a few days.

Yesterday did what we thought was quite a gruelling walk up to the snowline (2150m). It was one of those walks where you begin to give up hope of getting to the end and at one point I decided we'd gone beyond the goal and were climbing the highest peak.  But it was worth it for the fabulous views along the way and at the summit - well it wasn;t the summit but it was what we aimed for.  By the end of the day we were very pleased with ourselves as long as we didn't think about the little children who managed to do the same walk.

We've not had wiffy for a couple of days but we'd had to drive out to the lift area for this walk so we re-positioned the van on our return and picked up telly and of course got the news about the baby.  So as the only Brits in camp we thought we'd fly the flag.

It's looking a bit washed out today as we've had the thunder storms currently sweeping across western Europe.  Good excuse to hang a round camp today and luckily they've fixed their wiffy so we can catch up.

Another walk tomorrow and then David is very bravely plunging into the raging torrent on a raft.  (Must check his insurance).

I can walk higher than an eagle (or possibly a peregrine falcon)

Weather: cooler than UK but pretty sweaty Betty

St Jean Pied-de-Port

A short blog but a happy one because we’ve settled into a very comfortable way of life in our peaceful campsite just outside the town of St Jean Pied-de-Port in the Basque region of France.  The only real excitement was when I thought my watch might have dropped into the load of washing swirling round in the machine.  The good news when I found it was tinged with worry about early onset dementia – I’d put it on the wrong wrist!

This is a really nice and very French holiday destination.  There is loads going on in the area.  Our first choice was between cow races on Monday night or the national Basque choir on Tuesday.  Boringly we chose the choir as we were too lazy to cycle into town 2ce on Monday.  And it was in the church where I finally found proper candles to light for Gary and Chris ;-)

Since then we’ve done lots of walking and cycling and lazing around.  Today was especially good as we started off with croissants for pud at breakfast, then we’ve found an “English fruitcake” to add to our lunch picnic, hard earned on a big walk today, and to top it all off we’ve discovered that we can get chips at the little bar on site that will go very nicely with the fish stew left over from yesterday.  Mmmmmm.

We keep planning to leave but something keeps coming to our attention.  In the village at the start of today’s walk we spotted a couple of wine tasteries and the campsite guy has arranged for us to go to one tomorrow.  Then we were planning to leave Sunday but I saw a leaflet for the “38e Championnat de chiens de bergers” alongside tastings and sale of local produce.  So who knows where we’ll be next week, probably still here.

Peaked and past it

Weather: need to get the uphill walking done in the morning!  Even mr "I don't sweat" could wring his shirt out by lunchtime

Picos de Europa

We'd had enough of sand in our ears so we headed for the hills again.  The Picos are so named because their needle sharp peaks were the first sight of land for Spanish sailors returning from their voyages of discovery.  Beautiful area which reminded us a bit of the Lake District with its narrow roads winding round between mountains, occasional tourist towns full of people buying tutt and campsites full of sporty families staying in tiny tents.

At our campsite we'd taken on a walk that had a signpost saying it was 7.5k one direction and 1.5k in another.  We ended up walking for 23k (but we did meet a slightly mad woman collecting 4 leafed clover who told us she was on tv and invited us to stop at her house for cider).  So we were already pretty tired by the time we decided to join in with the sporty vibe in the new campsite and do a mountain walk.  Climbing up 500 metres in the first 3km didn't sound that bad, but by the time we got back to the village 4 hours later i couldn't step up from the road onto the pavement.

Before and after......

So today we are mostly resting :-). And the bonus is that we're in a free aire next to a museum with park.  And do far no other motorhomes have turned up.  So when all the families out enjoying the park  go home we've got the place to ourselves 

The basque region: where does that language come from?

And we asked why lots of people hung blue bags of paper outside their flats.  Apparently there are 2 different systems for re-cycling (maybe one basque and one spanish??) and this is how one group are protesting.  It really is a different country.

Goodbyes

Weather. Steamy

Candas

Tough times.  On Tuesday I heard about the deaths of 2 special people who had a big impact on me over the last 10 years.

It's difficult to take in news like this at a distance as I can't attend their funerals to pay my respects, share memories with other people who knew them, and check how the people close to them are managing without them.

So yesterday I decided to get cards to send to their families and friends and to light a candle for each of them. None of us are/were religious but they both lit up their circles in their own inimitable ways.

Seemed straightforward but it hasn't been.  We got a little narrow gauge train to our nearest big town (David quite rightly thought this would have been a joy for one of them) and went into every shop that sold cards.  But it seems like the Spanish only send out congratulation cards.  Every card had a happy cartoon animal or balloons on it, couldn't even find a blank card.  Never mind, there's always funky pigeon.  But turns out my laptop has given up connecting to the Internet and I'm struggling to do this on my phone, let alone choose, buy, write and address a "remote" card.  So I will have to fall back on email :-(

As for the candles.....every other place we've stopped in there have been churches everywhere.  But not here.  We tried the main town church when we were out yesterday but it was shut (!) and the only other one we found only did electric candles which I turned my nose up at.  So last night we walked along the prom to the local town and found the church there.  We crept in to find we were in the middle of a service.  We waited until the communion bit and sneeked over to the nearest set of candles.  Electric again but after much whispering over what value coins we were holding (it was very gloomy) i dropped in 50 cents as quietly as poss and about 5 lit up!  Very non specific and unsatisfactory.

But one advantage of being away on holiday is that I have had time to recall many happy shared times :-)

Very fond goodbyes to Gary Lewis Dove and Chris Dillon,

You both lit up my life

A Coruna!!

Weather: Running from Scorchio

Valdovino, near A Coruna

As the temperature reached over 35C we sadly said farewell to our lovely beachside pitch and nice neighbours and turning our backs on an invitation to a party at the campsite we ran round the corner of Spain to the slightly cooler and much much windier North coast.  We even splashed out on a toll road to get away from scorchio further and faster.  We're getting the hang of toll roads now.  At the first toll booth we stopped and wound down the window and smiled at the guy in the little hut who smiled back at us.  After a minute he cracked first and said "money" so we realised we weren't going to be given a ticket to record our starting point and paid up and moved on.

So we don't have the same fabulous sea view here but if you squint over the top of the beautiful hydrangea bushes you can still see a glint of blue Atlantic.

The wind makes this coast a surfers' paradise and we're at a sufer dude campsite.  They seem to have colonised the pitches at the top of the site where we haven't dared to go yet but we enjoy watching the parade of wetsuits and surf boards up and down past our pitch and I think the waves wear them out so much that they crash out at night rather than party.  Or if they are partying it's very quiet partying.

 But the wind makes it a bit confusing for the rest of us deciding what to wear when out.  I do try and wear my hat to conform to the smart pedestrian code here, but it keeps getting blown off my head.

We have a new BFF at the tourist info hut who waves at us as we walk past.  I think we're the only people who go in and she seemed very happy to take on some homework and translate the descriptions of some walks from Spanish to English for us.  We did our version of one of them today which included a stunning stretch of coastline with a very stylish lighthouse and the return along our local beach took us past a hotly contested Sunday football match.

So we might walk the next bit of coastline tomorrow.  All depends on whether the wind keeps us awake again tonight and we decide to move on.  But in the site's favour the wifi has suddenly started working so we don't have to do the walk uphill past our BFF to a bench on the high street, where someone has very kindly left their very fast network unprotected, to pick up email etc.  Mind you last time we went there the bench was in the sun so we used the cafe near it and enjoyed a coffee, tea and 2 croissants for the grand sum of €2 while using the free wiffy.

To be a pilgrim, you need a pilgrim’s passport

Weather:  even the Atlantic has warmed up enough for me to do more than 4 strokes.  Mind you David hasn’t been in at all yet!

Muros

What do you think these things are?  My guess was hen houses and David thought they were for interring the family.  Actually they were used to store food pre-fridges!  Excitment is mounting, we're planning a bike ride out to the biggest one on the world tomorrow, if it's not too hot

and we love these upside down trees:

Loving this campsite.  We are right next to the beach and can hear the waves as we drift off to sleep, and all for the grand price of €14 a night for the pitch including electricity.  And the food in the restaurant isn’t bad either.

That was just the starter!

We’ve not done a lot because it’s so relaxing here but today we cycled into town for the bus to Santiago to see what everyone has been walking to.  We decided it must be a bit of an anti-climax after all that walking.  It seems like you queue up at the Pilgrims Office when you get into town and they check you have enough stamps from churches, town halls or Police along the way and then you get a certificate and that’s it.  But we did our bit and went into the cathedral and the crypt then found a nice restaurant for a long lunch and some top quality people watching before catching the bus home.  To be clear, that's top quality people-watching, the people were of very variable qaulity.

Don't rouse the codger

Weather: Scorchio!
Rias Baixas

Before we waved bye bye to the magnificent Monicaaaaaa, we thought we should try and reach the local nature reserve.  We plotted a route that involved "caminos tradicionales" especially covering the last part of the route between the village at the end of the road and the lake we were aiming for.  Slightly worrying in that neither Google maps nor Viewranger (which plots walks and bike rides) showed the last part but it was on the tourist info map.  We reached the last outpost and a very friendly lady advised us not to use the camino tradicionale from her village as it would be too steep with the bikes and sent us back via more villages and cam ts.  At each village a happy local would nod as we asked for the next part of the c.t. and wave us straight on.  As we plunged through  fly infested forests and carried the bikes up and down rocky mountain tracks it became clear that the locals were more than happy that someone other than them was keeping it tradicional!  So 3 hours to get to this lake and we were too tired to find a proper beach or do more than flop on the rocks and eat our lunch.  Only took 45 mins back by normal roads!!

Exhausted and unimpressed

So, glad to spend time sitting down, the next day we set off for our next stop on the NW coast of Spain.  We needed supermarket essentials like British tea and cheddar so were happy to spot a Planet Carrefore en route.  This is always good as it means langoustines with our gin and tonics, asparagus with our fish supper and strawberries for pud.  But we paid the price as the van was too high for the car park barrier and we had to park up a hill.  Carrying the bags back to the van felt like we were contestants hauling ton weights in the World's Strongest Man competition.  (David gave me a guest entry to the event as a one off!)

When we arrived at our campsite we seemed to be in the middle of a go cart race and the site was heaving.  But we found a quiet spot and settled in commenting on how much there was going on for the kids.  Despite the fact that the site prided itself on being run on eco friendly principles this involved having the radio on in the block at full volume night and day, shipping in ponies for pony rides and running a scrambling session (as in motor bikes) which unfortunately ran on a track just behind us as we settled down for our tea at around 9pm.

As it cooled down we turned in but at around 12.15 heard children's voices.  It seemed like the kids club included a night time activity for 10 year old that involved walking round our part of the site with torches.  I drifted off but David was awake until well after they finished just before 1.  Then at about 3.30 a couple of teenagers decided on a game of hide and seek and football!!  By 6am I had had enough and switching on David's mobile to take photos with as evidence (clear thinking heh?) I put on my dressing gown and stalked off to reception to try and find a security guard.  There was no one there but I did have a long, one sided, conversation with a Spanish lady who was as cross as me (I think it was about the boys but it might have been because of the loud music in the toilet block).  So I walked up to the cabins to confront the boys.  When I spotted them I gathered my dressing gown firmly round me and drew on my extensive global vocabulary saying firmly "Por favour, shhh".  As this didn't have the hoped for effect I took out the mobile to take a photo.  After several moments I realised that I'd switched on David's mobile but picked up my switched off mobile.  So I just had to pretend to take a photo whilst the boys watched me totally bemused.  The noise carried on til 8.30am.

The worst bit was that as we dobbed them in at reception on our way out, I said I thought they were too young to be there on their own but we were told that their parents were in the next cabin.  I guess we're just not chilled like the Spanish!

So we've run away to a campsite by the beach.  Its not that quiet at the moment but we can always sleep on the beach.  :-)

In my therapeutic outpouring I forgot to mention that David was admired for his physique by the receptionist at our "Monica" campsite.  If it had been the receptionist at this site who looks vaguely (ok very vaguely) like Penelope cruz, I might have been concerned, but she was more of a Deidre from coronation street :-)

Monica the Magnficent

Weather: Looks like it's snowing but it's seeds flying everywhere
Puebla de Sanabria

Moving slowly towards the top NW corner of Spain we made a lucky stop at a campsite frequented by Monica the Magnificent.  She is only 1 and a half but has a superbeing's personality.  Which reminds me, the tourist office suggested that we could visit the "Museum of Big Heads" but unfortunately it is only open at weekends.  So we are entertaining ourselves by watching Monica's dashes to the football court chased by mum or dad (who is the spitting image of Otto the school bus driver from The Simpsons).

We were rather worried when we first set up camp because someone had left their dog in their car and it was a very hot day.  It was just lying on the parcel shelf at the back and David gave them 10 minutes grace before assuming his RSPCA persona.  Fortunately before that happened I re-checked and discovered it was a stuffed toy.  But always ready for action David is contemplating the stronger powers (and better car) he would get as a Police Special if he moved to Spain.

Puebla de Sanabria has a lovely old town and the inhabitants seem very keen on their bread and cakes which is always a good sign.  Probably about 25% of the shops are bread shops!  But today we're going to test one of the restaurants, maybe not choosing the local speciality of pulpo.  And then a little wonder round to check out the different places the locals find to hang their washing.  Ingenious.

Then a nice long bike ride to the local lake tomorrow to burn off some of those calories.  But I'm going to make sure this one is one proper roads.  Some of the time on our bike ride yesterday I thought we might have been following contour lines on the map rather than a proper route.  There were a few sniffing the mattress moments.  But we did finally emerge at a little village with a church:always a good place for lunch, although the swifts that had their nests under the ledge weren't happy about us being there.

Fields of Gold (and red, lots of red)

Weather: a great drying day, shame I didn’t do the washing!

Bilbao:

Need to read the map better.  The campsite was on the BAY of BISCAY, not known for calm weather although even the campsite owner was despairing that it hadn’t stopped raining since January.  First night felt quite snug after David reminded me that a lot of people camped alongside us would be catching the ferry the next day but we didn’t have to.  I enjoyed being safe in our little tin can after that, being buffeted about by wind and rain but with the option to stand on solid ground.

Because the weather was bad for all of Northern Spain we had decided to visit the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao to pass the time (not a particularly admirable reason).  So we donned wet weather gear and stood at the bus stop for the trip on 3 buses into town.  And we stood at the side of that road for 25 sodden minutes before deciding to swap culture for sun and rushing back to check out of the campsite before 12.   A quick internet weather check and we were off.  So no report from the Guggenheim I’m afraid, but we will try again on the way back.

Castrojeriz

Joined the hordes of pilgrims or “peregrinos” in a little town on the Santiago way.  There are coachloads of them, or walking train carriage fulls in school terms.  It’s a strange place to stay as most people here are just staying 1 night but it’s actually quite a nice little town.  The only bad moment has been attempting to eat the cod-like fish we bought at the fishmongers.  Yeuch! Ended up having ham salad instead.  And the 20 mins we spent at the butchers was a bit of an eye opener.  Sheep’s head anyone?

So avoiding the lame and limping pilgrims we did a couple of bike rides yesterday amongst the fields of barley and vast swathes of poppies.  David really enjoyed it but I’m afraid I have not been converted to mountain biking especially when the sign points straight down through a field with no discernable track!  All to the constant soundtrack of David whistling "To be a pilgrim".

We climbed up to the castle on the first afternoon only to find it was boarded up!