Tues 16 Oct Portsmouth end of France Spain trip 2017

Tuesday 16 October

 Final day of the trip
Not the best nights sleep, but comfy bunks in the cabin nonetheless and a lukewarm shower in the morning. Catching up with news from friends in the UK on the ferry , thinking about commitments at home and realising it was finally the end of our holiday ! We travelled from Portsmouth to Shrewsbury at 2.15 pm today. Signing off for now....

Some Picos de Europa - on a walk from Brez

Andy considers the ceiling workmanship

Monday 15 October Santander

Monday 15 October

Penultimate day of the trip the whole morning was spent locating a garage to fill the van up with diesel and then go shopping at Aldi 's in Santander's rush hour. We boarded the ferry at 3.15pm after a long wait. The swell increased as we moved out to sea (after effect of cyclone Leslie at the weekend) and I started to feel distinctly nauseous, an all too familiar sensation. We went to our cabin (no window but a large mirror gave out a good illusion of light) where the rolling and heaving sensations were easier to manage. We watched Jody Whittaker in episode 2 of Dr Who. Andy got up at 4.00 am to watch the passage between some islands and the mainland at Ile d'Ouessant. I didn't.

Escalator over the hill in Santander!

Sunday 14 Oct Comillas to Santander

Sunday 14 October

A disturbed night due to high winds and heavy rain from cyclone Leslie (sweeping the Iberian peninsula overnight) we packed up and made our way via the coast road heading for Santander, the ferry port.We stopped off at Comillas so that Andy could see Gaudi's El Capricho building for himself, it was Sunday , a public holiday weekend and very crowded with Spanish coach tourists , but beautiful none the less . We drove through Santillana del Mar said to contain three lies, it's not by the sea, there is no Saint linked to the town, and llana which means plain is incorrect as it is on a hill .... We arrived in Santander at 5 pm, in good time to walk up and down the very steep hills surrounding Santander harbour (with the help of moving staircase escalators and lifts) to reach and walk around the brand new contemporary art museum for 2 hours .It was opened in June 2018 and can be found next to the Marina; Centro Botin looks like the Debenhams shopping store complex in Bham city centre, and the Sage Centre, Gateshead as it looks like a spaceship, and is covered in circular shiny metallic discs) (8€ to get in,€5 concessions) Cristiana Iglesias' massive iron structures were very impressive and Tacita Dean's video based on JG Ballard's short stories was mesmerising. A pizza and to bed in the quiet free Aire with services based on the University complex (15 places and full ) 35 mins walk from Santander harbour.

Centro Botin

El Capricho  - upstairs in the servants' room

El Capricho

Sat 13 Oct San Vicente de la Barquera

Saturday 13 Oct

Moved the van this morning to take up a pitch overlooking the sea with a fine view over the estuary Walked into San Vicente de la Barquera about a mile. Lots of motorbike groups passing noisily through, using the very long bridge which straddles the wide estuary. We covered our ears. We walked up to the old quarter and witnessed a society wedding taking place in the church at the top of the hill , piped by a Cantabrian band complete with bagpipes, all very glamorous. Andy went body boarding in the afternoon, whilst I sat on the beach and watched a surfing lesson being given to a group of beginners in front of me and applauded them when they managed to stand up finally in the surf, albeit for a moment. We ate a welcome veg lasagna and shared an apple pie at a cafe near the campsite in the evening. Amazing views over the estuary at night!

San Vicente at sunset

23 arches on the bridge

Fri 12 Oct San Vincente El Rosales campsite

Friday 12 October 

Up to Fuente De, for Andy's other big goal this holiday, a cable car ride up to the the top of this mountain 2000 feet up ( I thought my friend Theresa is definitely not going to like this).  We queued for an hour and got chatting to a delightful Spanish couple who were helpful and friendly and keen to discuss bigger issues, eg independence movements and their implications.  We all finally discovered the cable car was shut for the day due to high winds, not opening for the rest of the day.  I breathed a sigh of relief, Andy a bigger sigh of disappointment.  We decided to cut our losses on this public holiday weekend in Spain on this Christopher Columbus day and head for the beach. We packed up and made our way to Comillas, a smart coastal town housing El Capriche (Gaudi's design), the place was heaving with tourists so we moved onto San Vicente de la Barquera further along the coast and booked into a family surfer campsite El Rosales , sandwiched between a sheltered beach suitable for swimming and a very popular surfers beach.  A very tiring day, good to be on the coast 23 degrees and warm enough to sit out at night again 

The old cable car cabins - replaced a couple of years ago when we last failed to get up it!

San Vicente de la Barquera

Thursday 11 Oct Brez Los Picos

Thursday 11 October

We rested early on and walked up to the Franciscan monastery 2 km up the hill from our campsite, getting there just before it closed for the afternoon, to walk around the austere and  simple, but beautiful gothic church which reputedly contains a piece of wood inside the altar cross from the original crucifixion (called the Lignum Christi) the wood has been dated from the same period and region. Many tourists visit this monastery to pay homage to this relic. We swam in the freezing cold campsite pool (it closes in 3 days time).  We then went for a short circular walk from the village of Brez, mainly a 2 k slog up hill and 2 k down again in the foothills of the Picos. I was v grumpy and tired on the way up and transfixed by the beauty of the scenery on the way down. So it goes... We went to the bar for a drink with our Gorge walk companions from Munster and invited a UK biker Tony (who comes here every year) who was on his own on the next pitch to us to join us.  Listening to Detlef and Ushi talk about the day the Berlin wall fell was very moving, and Tony knew the area they lived in as he had spent time in the mountains near them.

Cares Gorge

The church in Brez

Monasteria Santo Toribio

Can anyone explain what this is for? In Brez, recently rebuilt.

Wed 10 Oct Cares Gorge

Wednesday 10 Oct

Up and at reception for 9.00 am for a full day arranged tourist trip. We met Detlef and Ushi a German couple from Munster who had also signed up for the trip. A day of three parts, a 2.5 hour tour off road of the amazing countryside near the Fuente De mountain in a Toyota Land Cruiser 4x4 , in the Posada de Valdeon area, on this car trip we spotted vultures circling. These were precipitous unmetalled rocky tracks we were bumping along on, but Santos, our tour guide, was an excellent driver. We descended from 1800 m drove along a narrow tarmac'ed road to Cain and were dropped off there to undertake a 12 k gorge walk, along a narrow path cut into the side of the valley (in order to supply the hydroelectric dam in 1917).  It was simply the most amazing walk. Flat until the last 3 k which was a steady climb/slog uphill for 1 k, a real slog, and a steep rocky descent for 2 k down hill, which made u wish you had cut your big toenails even shorter that morning...as you delicately picked your way down through the rocks and scree.  We were collected at Poncebos (Santos had to drive 120k around the mountain roads to collect us there ) We went off road again on the way back, across high mountain pasture roads , crossing the Massif Orientale towards Estenama, where huge Pyrenean dogs guarded the sheep.   Very Austrian feel, I felt I was back in the land so well imagined in the children's book Heidi.  We went for a drink in the bar with D and U that night and shared family stories.

Zoom in to find the dog!

Looking back up the gorge.

View from the top of the pass - 1800 m

Tues 9 Oct Potes

Tuesday 9 Oct

Huge rolling mists early this morning over the lake and very chilly.

We drove several hours through the Picos national park, taking photographs of goats, and the Pyrenean dogs who keep the goats and sheep safe from wolves and brown bears , enjoying stunning views in bright sunlight. We had lunch in Potes, in the middle of the Picos where 3 roads converge in the district of Liebana ( means Lebanon in English ) an attractive medieval town nestling in a verdant valley. We decided to stay at a lovely campsite 3 km west of Potes , called La Viorna : we had a swim in the FREEZING cold pool before clouds arrived overhead making it far less inviting to linger. La Viorna is a beautifully maintained camp site with heavy rosewood doors and gold coloured handles in the shower/ washing up block, all very traditional , with baskets of flowers everywhere , immaculately clean , sloping site ( like everything in the Picos) you get a good workout just walking to and from the shower block to your pitch on the upper terraces , but the fabulous mountain views compensate The ruins of a chapel above the camp site (Hermita de Santa Catalina ) were worth the steep ascent , 15 minutes walk uphill from the campsite. It's an important pilgrimage point for those RC pilgrims undertaking the St James Way , and one of the most important stopping off points for them after Rome , Jerusalem and Santiago de Compestala .The chapel has three bells, the one at the very top was upside down and we speculated on why this might be but never found out why. 10 mins walk back down the hill was the Monasterio de Santa Toribio , a Franciscan monastery , with a huge car park for many coaches, it was closed when we got there, so we returned to the camp site and went for a beer and a meal at the cosy campsite restaurant The Veggie option was asparagus, lettuce and omlette, I'm getting a bit fed up of living on bread, cheese eggs, pizza and salad when we eat out Campsite staff are really friendly and speak excellent English.

Goatherd dogs!

 

Monday 8 Oct Villadeciervos -Rianu

Monday 8th October

Great wildcamp site by a lake (Barragem de Valparaiso near Villadeciervos) with its own beach, but frost in the morning put us off a swim, so we set off at 11.00 am.  Wonderful scenic drive into the Picos regional park past old coal mines, our first sighting of the jagged limestone massifs. We stopped on a wild camp spot overlooking the splendid lake in Riano, fantastic views but a totally shut down soul less seasonal holiday town (relocated/ rebuilt when the original town in the valley was drowned by the reservoir. It had its own outdoor wrestling ring and a paseo del recuerde , a 15 minute  paved memory walk from the jetty to the edge of town,  commemorating important buildings / festivals in the history of the town, before it was re-located to higher ground. Plagued by flies in the afternoon and evening, and therefore an early and overlong night spent in the van.

Rianu

The wrestling ring

Sunset in Rianu. The old village, flooded when the reservoir was built, is beneath the causeway.

Sunday 7 October A lie in ,with the sniffles whilst Andy pottered about the van , a freezing cold night ( 1300 m high is the campsite we stayed at in the national Parque de Alvao ) requiring blanket and fleece for me ) We walked around a small lake 5 minutes walk from the campsite beautiful sunshine 19 C and then followed a very easy circular rural trail for 5 k, (with the help of a map thoughtfully pinned to the bird watching hide,which Andy borrowed and returned ) . Much too cold despite the sunshine to contemplate a swim .Most of the best trails are a car drive away ,but quite an amazing site with stone round buildings .Hot plentiful showers , hufe showerheads , clean, toilet paper, v helpful staff , mainly Portugese families out walking , swimming pool , all very new.Building signs however were very small on door entries and doors were not where you expected them to be , i ended up circling the ladies loo round building several times to locate the door and then a few more times round before I could be sure it wasn't the gents ! Packed up and made for the Spanish border and the NW coast Hour change in time again so parked in a wild camping spot before darkness fell ( Embelse de Val Pairaisa) approx 85 kilometers from the Alvao campsite in the direction of Leon Found a great petrol station across the Spanish border from Chaves, and filled up on LPG gas and diesel .

Sat 6 Oct Took the 9.10 am train from the tourist town of Regua to Ponicho which arrived at 10.48 ( 8€ each single ticket to photograph the Duoro valley in all its glory and in bright sunshine ) caught 11.10 train straight back ( next train after this was at 3 and nothing to do except hike and we decided that it was too hot for us to do that in the mid day sun ) to the mid point of the train journey at Pinhao ( €5 euro each ) Looked around pretty harbour of Pinhao for a while , tried to ignore the large cruise ships and the day boats hanging out there Back to Regua to pack up the van , stock up at Lidl in the nearby city of Vila Real and then on to a swish camp site costing €14.50 a night ( no ACSI accepted ) called Alvao Camping Village high up in the wild and rugged national park ( 1300 m) We were very tired when we got there at 7.30 pm just after dark and it was very cold ( all warm clothes put on very quickly )

Friday 5 October Woke at 5, freezing cold couldn't get back to sleep , decided another day in Porto with the crowds was more than we wanted to handle so we set off to Regua, and then followed the river Duoro road from Regua to Pinhao to see the scenery in the upper part of the Duoro valley ( another UNESCO world heritage site ) beyond the reach of the day cruise ships Trip from Porto to Regua,scenery - beautiful ! Very few laybys to stop for photos Regua- a tourist stop off for the cruise ships ,a wine museum strange mix of agricultural town , cruise ship stop off, day trip jaunt Found an Aire 10-15 walk from Regua centre with services, decided to travel on to Pinhao , but town was rammed ( public holiday )so we drove back to Regua and parked on a playing field under the bridges where previous MHs had dumped their toilet contents, not pleasant and a bit smelly Spoke to J and K , and S , gratefully to bed at 9 pm. Quiet night ,despite being parked under 3 bridges and dogs complaining

Thursday 4 October Short nights sleep, lot of traffic noise from 5.30 am Not feeling too well this morning , so we took a while to get going Caught a nearby river taxi across the Duoro (€2 euros each , each way ) walked a long way through an derelict district with many building works going on in hot sunshine All the old style trams which sped by filled to capacity Went on a short enjoyable 50 minute boat trip called the 6 bridges tour , ( one of them built by the same person who went on to construct the Eiffel tower, in exactly the same design) up and down the river,Porto is beautiful from the river .Some children shouted go home at us , waving like mad .I had a lot of sympathy for them, Porto itself seemed rammed to capacity with many coach tours and their leaders. It's very hilly here and as I still wasn't feeling well enough to do a lot of walking , we took a hop on hop off bus tour as a way of seeing the city , big mistake, the traffic was congested, traffic lights halted us every 10 minutes, a 2 hour round trip took 3.5 hours! and Porto does not readily lend itself to a bus tour ,lesson learned ! Home again to an early night in the van

Wednesday 3 Oct Unusually , Orbitur San Pedro de Mielos camp site allows you to check out at 5 pm.instesd of the usual 12 noon Went for a short downhill circular cycle ride through the forest ,past the tallest eucalyptus tree in the forest next to the campsite , and followed the river stream until we reached the coast and cycled back along the red coastal cycle track , we stopped off at an idyllic beach bar and watched a donkey drink from a freshwater stream entering the sea ... The coast is one long beach with lots of wild camping spots for motorhomes Weather remains hot in the day 31 but cooler at night ( duvet back on ) and it will cool down to British temperatures at the weekend We went for a swim in the wonderful pool,had a late lunch , services replenishing stop and left at 3.45pm en route to Porto ,a really enjoyable campsite day , often the only people in a large beautiful clean but freezing cold pool Camped up in a docks car park in a fascinating working class district of Porto , everyone sits out in front of their houses in the evening , I remember this happening on rare sunny evenings in my childhood ! Ate out at a restaurant nearby on the first floor level with views out to the harbour , very efficient waiter , I chipped a tooth on a piece of grit served in the salad .Expensive salad it will turn out to be . The corn bread they serve with meals is delicious, brown spongy, nutty taste . Pateis de nata and creme leite our favourite Portugese desserts

Tuesday 2 October Cycle ride down to the coast road across bumpy cobblestones ( ouch ) to access the off road cycle path , which runs along the sea front , views of crashing waves , until it enters miles of forest, some blackened and destroyed in last year's fires Afternoon relaxing reading by the pool , Andy went for a short run and we finished the day watching the sunset at a different bar . We would recommend coming here, although it's more peaceful out of season the friendly campsite managers told us

Monday 1 October Officially the start of the winter season in Portugal and it's an unprecedented 31c We drove to the second UNESCO world heritage site in Portugal Monasterio de Batalha 20 k inland from the coast, this is the biggest gothic cathedral in Portugal , housing the tombs of King Pedro and his wife Ines (who he secretly married when Prince , and she was swiftly murdered by his father King Afonso IV as a threat to the throne) Spanish Romeo and Juliet theme. We arrived at Sao Pedro de Moel, a small cove with lots of closed down smart holiday apartments in the late afternoon, to find a top quality Orbitur 3 star campsite with a beautiful swimming pool / sunbathing lawn and shade and sparkling clean facilities for 18€ per night, only a 5 minute walk from the beautiful beach ( too tricky for us to swim although some body boarders managed it ) It reminded me of Polperro and Port meirion combined , very attractive though built up , we had a beer at a beach cafe and watched the sun set , day of rest tomorrow