Northern Spain

Once in Spain we went to the nearest petrol station to fill our thirsty tank.  We had topped up in Portugal earlier in the day just to see us over the border and the price difference between these two stations was 20 cents per litre.  It adds up to a lot when you are putting in about 65 litres of fuel.  Our stop for the night was in Pontevedra where we headed to the aire on the outskirts of town.  Having left the masses of motorhomes in Portugal we were on our own for the night.

In the morning we tried to find a park on the street as we felt there was opportunity for break ins at the carpark.  We couldn't space anywhere the town as it was crammed with cars, so it was back to the car park and I went into town whilst Dale babysat the van.  Pontevedra was a nice enough place, but for me certainly didn't have any wow factor.  There were some lovely churches and buildings and I had a quick look through the provincial museum.

Dale decided he was happy to move on so we headed out to the coast from there after a lunch stop at the Monastery at Poio (which is across the river from Pontevedra).  The beaches and landscape on the coast was some of the best scenery we had seen in Spain- white sand beaches, sheltered coves and calm sea waters.

We did a walk at the National park of Carreiron, which is actually on an island, very close to the mainland, connected by a bridge.  The scenery here was fantastic (it was somewhat ruined by the lost fishing equipment that was thrown up on shore). Dale even found a dead dolphin with rope around it, which we guessed may have been dumped due to its position on the beach.

Next was Santiago de Compostela and we parked in a suburb of Milladoiro and caught the bus into town.  Santiago draws pligrims to its Cathedral and is the end of a long pligrimage route across northern Spain.  It had a very nice old town and we had a pleasant few hours strolling the streets.The region boasts its own wines, cheeses and almond cake.  We were ushered into a shop for some free trials of all of these, unasked for.  We were given a somewhat hard sell and decided not to buy the 9 euro bottle of wine on offer (just not in the budget).  The attendant wasn't too happy about this as we left the shop.

We went to Lugo, an hour and a half away for the night.  The aire is located 15 minutes walk from the old town.  Lugo has town walls which run uninterrupted around the old town.  Lugo has an impressive Cathedral and their Provincial museum was a real find.  It had an impressive collection, very well laid out.  It is located in a former monastery and focuses on finds from the local Galicia area.

We finished our visit with a walk along the wall.  Some aspects of Lugo are very good.  You can tell there has been money spent on the upkeep of some buildings, the museum and public spaces, but every so often there is a boarded up building and grafitti.  Plus, like many European countries, the Spanish do not know how to pick up dog poo. Dale: Many of them treat it like they are setting up an easter egg hunt (wrap it up then 'hide' it somewhere for someone to find later).  They either leave it on the ground, or pick it up and put it in a bag, but then fail to actually put it in a rubbish bin, littering the poo and plastic instead.

Our destination the following day was Leon.  We stopped at the remains of a Roman gold mine called Las Medinas on the way.  During the 1st and 2nd century these gold mines were the most important in the Roman empire and yielded 6,000 kgs a year.  The site is pretty spectatular.

We also stopped in Astorga, which has a Cathedral and is also part of the pilgrimage route.

At Leon the aire was opposite a shopping mall (yay).  Unfortunately there weren't many shops of interest, but there was wifi.  We have found the aires fantastic yet again, managing to stop every night in one and use them mostly for our city sightseeing.  The majority of motorhomes around are Spanish registered.  We spent a morning looking around Leon.  We didn't go into the Cathedral but the outside is stunning.  There are some remaining town walls and lucky for us when we went over to the Town Hall there was a fruit and vegetable market going on in the square outside (Saturday morning).  We bought a few vegetables and some oranges, then tried to buy some Jamon (cured pork product), a speciality in Spain.  This proved too hard with the language barrier, so we thought we would just asked how much a pre packaged amount was.  We stood waiting in line for a couple of minutes before realising that we needed to have taken a numbered ticket and wait to be called to the counter.  The two people served before us didn't do this and when we remained ignored, we gave up.  We purchased some later at the supermarket.

That afternoon was spent driving and we arrived in Logrono about dinner time.  We didn't feel Logrono needed a visit so we left in the morning to drive 1 hour to Pamplona, known for its running of the bulls festival.  On this drive we saw hikers walking the pligrimage route, about 10 of them in total.

Once in Pamplona we saw the temperature on various advertising boards as we drove to the car park.  They ranged from 2-4 degrees!  We are not used to this, considering we had two weeks of sun in Portugal!  Once parked we walked and then used the funicular to get to the town which was at the top of the hill.  We first tried to find the information centre, but after following contradicting signs back and forth round the main square, we had to admit defeat (I was rather annoyed by this stage and it was raining hard).

The rain cleared and we had a walk around the bull ring.  The running of the bulls is a 800 metre race, through the city streets to the bull ring at the end.  It is run at 8am, and follows an old traditional of bringing the bulls through to the bull ring for that night's fight.  We followed the route in reverse.  The route is straight apart from a 90 degree turn (which the information sign said caused many of the bulls to crash into the fencing) and a steep uphill at the beginning.  The turn and the steepness at the start give the runners a much needed advantage.  We also ducked into the museum which was free on Sundays to see their Roman mosiac collection.  They had a huge collection and even one that was about 8 metres square and it was mostly complete.

The end of the 'Running of the bulls'

The beginning of the run

We then drove 4.5 hours to Pau in France.  Topping up with petrol (about 10-20 cents a litre cheaper in Spain) we crossed over the Pyranees.  What a fantastic drive this turned out to be.  Approached the tunnel where the border crossing is, we had seen some snow in Spain, but coming out of the 8km or so long tunnel into France we were greeted with much more.  The mountains and villages looked lovely and it continued to snow until we dropped down in altitude.  Once in Pau you could see the snowy mountains in the distance but it still made for another chilly night in the van.