Month: September 2021

It’s typical isn’t it. You wait all trip for a World Heritage site and two come along together. The Silver Machine is parked up at a municipal car park on the edge of Cuenca, beside the Huécar River, approximately 100 miles South East of Madrid. It’s €12 per night for basically nothing. You can use the car park toilet, but then again so can anyone. The reason we’re here is that it is so close to the city centre. The good news is that it’s only about 10 minutes away. The bad news is that it’s all up hill and close to vertical.

Getting here was quite a journey. On paper it is relatively straightforward, even though we had to go round Madrid. Straightforward, that is, until Miss Google Maps launches you into a sat nav adventure. As a result of congestion around the west side of Madrid, Miss GM decided that an alternative route was more desirable. Should we go for it…..Yeh….course we do! We don’t know if the detour was any faster, but we can say with a high degree of confidence that it was certainly spectacular. It was steep and had hairpin bends all the way to the Puerto de Navacerrada at almost 6000ft! We had to go into 1st gear to get round the hairpins and when we eventually got to the top skiing was being advertised! Off course, the views were great too.

Cuenca was established by the Moors around 714, as as a fortified hill top town, with a castle and 1km surrounding wall. It is dramatically situated on a Rocky promontory between two gorges shaped by the Huécar and Júcar rivers. Although Cuenca has now spread out in all directions, and the castle no longer exists, the historic centre: the Ciudad Alta, remains largely unaltered and many of the alleys follow the original footprint as laid down by the Moors. I am sure you could spend days exploring these ancient streets and still not find all the little nooks and crannies.

The colourful Playa Major, is the centre of social life in the old town, and is where the Cathedral is located. We had a couple of beers here in the evening on our last night, and it was busy with couples, families or groups of friends meeting for a drink and chinwag. Of course as we headed home about 8.30 those coming out for an evening meal started to appear. We have no idea how the Spanish can eat so late.

The Cathedral, completed in 1270, was the first to built in the gothic style in Spain, but has been altered considerably since then. I think we were taken aback how big and how beautiful it is inside. Particularly striking is the way the sun shines through the very modern stained glass windows, and throws colourful patterns of light across the floor and onto the pillars.

Cuenca is probably best known for it’s Casas Colgadas, or hanging houses, which are without doubt the most photographed feature of the town. They huddle together on the cliffs above the Huécar River gorge giving the impression that they’ve grown out of the rock on which they stand. I certainly added to the tally of photographs, but nothing can capture the wow factor that these houses have.

Again, like just about everywhere we’ve been so far on this trip, there are some safe and spectacular cycling routes. From where the motorhome is parked, the CUV-9144 follows the River Huécar and for over 10 miles, climbs gradually out of the spectacular gorge. Returning we were able to pick up another road which follows the edge of the gorge and back to Cuenca though the Ciudad Alta. This was the best route so far on our trip and a great way to sign off on our time here.

The Silver Machine has landed at Valencia Camper Park approximately 7.5 miles inland from Valencia. This is us on our way home now. We are heading to the ferry at Bilbao for an earlyish Friday sailing. We stayed the night here a couple of years ago, as a stopover on our way to Benidorm, and always planned to come back for a couple of nights so that we can visit Valencia.

It’s pretty much a campsite but intended specifically for motorhomes. The pitches are a bit narrower than you would prefer but it has all the facilities you would expect from a campsite, including swimming pool, bar and free wifi. The staff are really nice and very helpful. The train into Valencia is only five minutes walk from the site and you can buy tickets at the site reception.

On our way here, after leaving Cuenca, we stopped off for a night in Albacete and have just spent the last two weeks in Benidorm. It’s difficult to say much about Benidorm that we haven’t already said so…..we’re not going say too much about it.

We stopped in Albacete because it is almost exactly halfway between Benidorm and Cuenca and it was in the guide book, so it seemed a reasonable place to stop. We parked up in an eight place aire in the corner of a larger car park in the University district of the city. The Aire has, although free, all the basic services and was almost full.

Albacete has been described as one of Spain’s least interesting cities, which might not be entirely unfair. It’s has a very pleasant, safe feel and the high numbers of students in the cafes and bars gives the city a bit of a buzz. We had a wander to the cathedral and back, through the town centre. Just our luck of course that the one thing we were going to visit was closed all afternoon.

Albacete I am sure would be a nice city to live and work in but for a brief visit….it’s really not that interesting.

Benidorm seems to have become our go to place when we want to chill for a while in somewhere that’s familiar to us and get some decent cycling in on roads we know well. It’s also a chance to catch up with many of the people we’ve met over the years.

We’re here in Camping Villasol again, but earlier than usual, which means the temperatures, averaging about 24 degrees through the day, are higher than we would normally experience and at night they are bordering on unpleasant. You have to sleep with all the windows open in a bid to keep the temperature down.

It’s also probably busier than usual, certainly the beaches are, and because it’s warmer the bars and cafes along the beach front stay open much later. The recent changes to internationally travel have certainly opened things up for Benidorm.

On our last day we had torrential rain, but apart from that, the two weeks we were here were absolutely gorgeous. This meant that the cycling was really enjoyable but we had to set out earlier in the mornings to avoid the higher temperatures. We even found a new hill to climb on the Serria de Bernia, the mountain range behind Altea. We were looking for the Fort de Bernia, which we never actually found, but instead found this 3 mile climb, with a gradient averaging 12.5%. We really did need the electric bikes to get to the top of this one.

The higher temperatures also meant we could go for a swim in the lovely pool in the campsite, which we’ve never felt inclined to do before. Although it feels cold at first, it was really refreshing and seemed to cool you down nicely for the rest of the day.

Anyway, enough of Benidorm. We had a great time as ever, but it’s time to move on. It’s 7pm and we are currently sitting outside finishing off this episode of the blog. The temperature is a bit cooler tonight, which is good, and we’re looking forward to the sights of Valencia tomorrow.

Segovia, is a really special place, and it has the badge, World Heritage Site status, to prove it. It’s a walled town, built on a rocky promontory, about 50 miles north of Madrid and it’s very popular with Spanish tourists. This is the first city we have been in this adventure you could actually say it’s busy with tourists,. particularly large tour groups, and they are almost all Spanish people.

We arrived here on Thursday after driving, mostly motorways, the 75 rather flat miles from Valladolid, and plan to stay four nights. The Silver Machine is currently parked at Camping Viaduct , a nice, relaxed site whose owners speak good English which, embarrassingly, is quite handy. The site has a small shop, bar and small swimming pool and believe it or not we didn’t use any of them. Since we’ve been here we’ve had some good neighbours from Belgium and Ireland. It’s good to chat about where your from, where you’ve been this trip and where your going next.

The centre piece of the city is the Roman viaduct. Built in the 1st century, it was still in use until the late 18th century

By coincidence we found the start of it as we were walking into the town centre and followed it all the way there. Since we were walking down hill, the viaduct got taller and taller until we reached the centre which, as you can see from the photos, the viaduct completely dominates.

It’s a real pleasure just wandering around the narrow streets, brimming with interest and with something different to attract your attention around each corner.

We followed the massive city walls, enjoying the great views, all to the Alcazar, which seems almost Disney inspired. Although there has always been a fortress on this sight, the castle you see now was built in the 1800’s following a fire in 1862, clearly with style in mind rather than defensive properties.

The cathedral, dating from 1525, is the last gothic cathedral to be built in Europe. It is sited on one side of the large and impressive plaza major. The cathedral forms an impressive silhouette, which can be seen from many parts of the city and countryside beyond, and inside the high vaulted ceiling provides a light and airy feel.

As ever, we managed to get some great cycling again, heading for the Palacio Riofrio, a royal hunting lodge, on Saturday. An excellent bike path took us 5 miles out of the city onto quieter roads. On Sunday we found another Via Verde to explore giving us some great off road action.

Again we really enjoyed our stay in Segovia. In many ways it was everything that Avila was not. The old town was astonishing, yet few British people have heard of it, the bars and restaurants are excellent, and plentiful, and the cycling was great. What more could you want……Forever onwards.

The Silver Machine is parked up at Parking del Palacio de Congresos, looking up at the massive walls of Ávila. Since we left Burgos four days ago we’ve stopped off at Palencia, then Valladolid, before arriving here. We’re only in Avila for 24 hours and the forecast isn’t very good. Luckily when we arrived the weather was fine, which allowed us to get out and do a bit of exploring. This is just as well as its now 8.30 in the evening, it’s dark, it’s been absolutely chucking it down all evening and the promised lightening has been truly spectacular. Don’t think we’ll be seeing much more of Avila.

The medieval city walls are said to be the best preserved in Europe and the main reason we came to see Ávila. At 2 kms long, with 87 turrets and 9 gates they were believed to be almost impregnable. For €5 each you can still walk on them for over 1km and get a real sense of their scale and strength.

The cathedral is very unusual in that it forms part of the wall and gives it, well part of it at least, a fortress like appearance. A mottled red and white stone has also been used in some parts giving it a rather striking appearance.

The town itself is nice but, I found it disappointing. I was expecting a maze of narrow ancient cobbled streets with fascinating buildings. Instead, apart from the main square and a couple of the main streets it just seemed a bit dull.

We only had time for one more visit and chose the Inglesia de San Vicente. Situated outside the walls but still close to the cathedral, the church is described as Ávilas most important Romanesque church. The Cenotaph of the Martyrs Saints, showing the rather grizzly martyrdom of Vicente, Sabina and Christeta, when they were stripped and tortured, is the large, unusual object to the right of the main alter.

Despite having a great couple of days in Palencia, sadly we will always remember it for the place where we discovered there was water leaking in the roof window, at the front of the van, above the spare bed. We were just about to drive off when I noticed a drip falling onto the passenger window sill. When we took down the bed to investigate, the quilt and mattress were absolutely soaking and drops of water were still appearing on the frame despite it having stopped raining 12 hour’s previously. The water can pool up on the roof around the window and we assumed that that was why it was still dripping. We took the van for a drive to get rid of the water and the dripping stopped. We also got the mattress and quilt dries out pretty quickly in the sun. We now have a large low plastic storage box under the window to catch any drips but mysteriously despite some very heavy rain it hasn’t happened again. Anyway we’ve the MoHo booked into Perthshire Caravans on our return.

It’s a very good aire in Palencia, the “Area de Autocaravanas”, capable of taking motorhomes of any size. It only a short very pleasant walk to the town centre, through a pleasant park and across the Puentecillas, a 16th century bridge, contemporary with the cathedral.

The cathedral, nicknamed “the unknown beauty” is the main attraction of the town. The unusual feature in the cathedral is the crypt, dating back to 673, and is the only surviving example of a Visigothic Martyrium. The “Aqui” signs on the pews, are a real sign of our covid times.

Although there was nothing to really stand out for us in Valladolid it is a very pleasant and colourful city and well worth a visit. The aire: the Area de Valladolid” is only a 15 minute walk from the centre. It’s was nice to wander around the narrow streets filled with shops, bars and restaurants.

Interestingly, Fernando and Isobel were married in the Palacio Vivero, and made Vallalodid their capitol, after finally driving the Moors out of Spain in 1492. Christopher Columbus also died here in 1506, apparently alone and forgotten.

We made a point of visiting the Palacio Vivero, the cathedral and after discovering its existence by pure chance, we just had to have a couple of beers in the Aberdeen Pub. Although very pleasant, don’t think the owners had actually been to Aberdeen, or indeed know where it is!

We’ve just spent the last 4 nights in Burgos in a Campsite, a pleasant and leafy 30 minute walk along the River Arlazón, from the town centre. It’s a very pleasant site. As well as the basic facilities it has a swimming pool, shop, bar and restaurant with ample seating inside and out. At €20 per night, using the ACSI discount card it’s good value for money.

The bar and restaurant are very popular with the locals, especially on a Sunday when it is almost impossible to get a seat on the large sunny terrace. We ate at the restaurant on Saturday night and at €14 each for the menu del día, which included a bottle of wine, was excellent value for money.

Burgos is the provincial capital of Castile and Leon and is a very pleasant and relaxed town. It played an important political and military role in the Middle Ages and most recently Franco made Burgos his base at the start of the Spanish Civil war in 1936. It has a population of about 178,000 and is one of the major towns on the Camino De Santiago. Driving here we regularly saw pilgrims walking towards Santiago whenever the path came close to the road. You had to feel the deepest respect for them…..they still had about 400 miles to go!

Approaching Burgos from the river path there are a number of bridges you can cross to enter Burgos but our guide book suggests that you should approach the town by crossing the river on the bridge of Santa Maria. This leads you through the to the beautiful Arco de Santa Maria, the only reminder that Burgos was once a walled city, into the old quarter and the cathedral beyond.

The impressive cathedral, which is a world heritage site, is the third largest in Spain with only León and Toledo cathedrals larger. The cathedrals unusual, latticed spires can be seen prominently from all over town. The main alter, the choir stalls, the star vaulted domes and the golden staircase are particularly noteworthy and the tomb of El Cid, who grew up near Burgos, is here.

It’s very relaxing to just wander around the narrow streets of the old centre, filled with cafes and bars, pass through the expansive Playa Major and onto the shops beyond. At the Puente de San Pablo, the main bridge into the city you find a statue of El Cid on horseback. Turning right along the pretty Paseo de Espolón, claimed to be one of the prettiest promenades in Spain, returns you to the Arco de Santa Maria. When we were there, an outdoor exhibition of famous paintings in poster form from the Museo Nacional Del Prado, covered it’s entire length.

Burgos, it turns out is a great place to own a bike, particularly a mountain or gravel bike. Or preferably both. We managed a fair few miles in both directions, on the Via Verde, a well signposted off road track that goes through the centre of Burgos on, well basically, forever. It was great fun. The track links all kinds of off road opportunities and we could have happily stayed here a lot longer. However, forever onwards……next stop Palencia.

Whooo Hooo! We’re finally in Spain and in an aire in Pamplona to be exact. The aire is relatively new and well organised with 35 places. It costs €10 per night which includes 2 service points and electricity. The real selling point is that it is only a 15 minute walk to the centre. When we arrived at 11am it was almost empty but by 5pm it was almost full (Only 4 places left).

We arrived today ( Tuesday) after a relatively short 105 mile drive from Vieux Boucau, a small town on the Atlantic Coast, in the south west of France, where we spent 3 nights at Camping Les Sableres.

We chose a campsite because it was time to wash some clothes something which you can’t really do in an aire. Some campsites don’t like you put up washing lines, but this one was so relaxed you kinda wonder if there are any rules at all! The campsite is enormous, almost 500 pitches, but it suited us fine because was only half a mile from the town centre and right next to an enormous sand dune, which marks the start of the beach.

Vieux Boucau, like the whole of this coast, exists solely to cater for the hoards of holidaymakers who flock here for water sports, particularly surfing. We knew about Vieux Boucau because we’ve been here before, to do a bit of surfing, with Sarah and her friend Claire, and had a great time.

It’s a new town really, expanding out of all recognition in the 70’s and it’s really difficult to try to capture the town in pictures. Whilst we were in Vieux Boucau our Scottish QR codes started to work so we managed our first beer in a pub: “Le Surf”.

Since we were here last, literally hundreds of miles of cycle paths have been built created. This clearly attracts a much broader section of the population as the terrain is flat, and the paths safe and well used. We cycled up the coast to Hossegor Plage, Capbreton and beyond, a round trip of 52 miles, 95% of which was on well signposted bike paths. The next day we cycled 32 miles inland, in a loop around The Etang de Soustans. Absolutely fabulous. Scotland has a lot of catching up to do if we are to promote cycling on this scale!

Anyway, as it turns out, we really like Pamplona.The town itself is very impressive but it’s the friendliness of the people that give it a warm and vibrant feel, we could easily have stayed here another few days.

Pamplona is an old fortress town first developed by the Roman General Pompey in 75AD. It’s massive walls crown a 1400ft hill and the old town seems absolutely squeezed inside them. From the walls you get a good view of the ‘new’ town of Pamplona, which sprawls in all directions from the bottom of the hill.

It is of course most famous, every July, for the Festival of Los San Fermines or more specifically Enciero …..the running of the bulls., but Pamplona has so much more to offer.

The large Plaza de Castello forms the centre of the city, and is surrounded by beautiful churches, a mighty citadel, palaces, museums, parks and of course the bull ring, all connected by a web of narrow alleys that are a joy to wander around. Just as well, it turns out, as there is not a lot of logic to the layout of the town and we found it quite disorienting to begin with.

The 16th century, gothic cathedral, is build adjacent to the most impressive section of the wall. The cathedral is enormous, indeed when it was build it was the second largest in Spain next to León. The highlights, for us certainly, was the main alter and choir stalls, and the delicate gothic cloisters.

The massive citadel, built at about the same time as the cathedral, is described as one of the most important structures in Europe. It’s 5 bastions form a star shape, although it is so enormous it is difficult to see that from the ground, and are surrounded by a network of walls and dry motes created to confuse and trap an attacking army. Fort George, near Inverness, on a smaller scale, was built on similar principles.

Other highlights, and there were many, included walking the route of the running of the bulls to the Plaza de Torres, and following in the footsteps of the many pilgrims who passed through the city on the Camino de Santiago de Compostela. Their next main stop was Burgos, and that’s where we’ll be heading tomorrow!

We are now in Royan, a seaside resort at the mouth of the Gironde estuary, on France’s Atlantic coast. We’re here basically because it’s halfway between Saumur and the Spanish border and it sounded a pleasant place to stop.

These days, with its five Sandy beaches and large marina capable of holding a thousand boats, most people come here to participate in the large variety of water sports available, walk or cycle along the many paths or simply chill along the sea front.

It’s not an unattractive town but sadly it was extensively bombed by the allies in 1944 so most of the building you see are post war and largely uninspiring. A number of Belle Epoch villas stand as a reminder of a time when, in the late 1800’s, people flocked to Royan for sea baths. The town became popular again with artists in the 1920, including Pablo Picasso.

We cycled west along an extensive and very popular cycle path towards the mouth of the Gironde. It was only then that we realised how beautiful the coast is here with miles of sandy beaches and charming seaside resort towns.

The Silver Machine is parked up in the Camping-Car Park area of Royan approximately 15 minute walk from both the beach and the town centre. Its a pleasant, open area, surrounded by trees, and costs €14.52 per night which includes a service point and electricity. We’ve been here for two nights with only French people as company. Everyone’s friendly although our neighbours last night squabbled wih each other right up till bedtime. Fortunately they left early this morning. We could easily stay here for another few nights, there is still a bit of exploring to do, but……forever onward!

After nearly two years, the Silver Machine is finally in Europe again and is presently parked up in an aire, on an island on the Loire, overlooking the impressive town of Saumur.

Saumur is dominated by a Chateau which looms over it and overlooks the river Loire. Narrow medieval streets wind around its base filled with colourful cafes, bars and shops.

The aire, given its location, is almost full every night. It costs 13.20€ which includes motorhome service point, electricity, and free internet. Everybody’s seems friendly and there are a few British couples who are all very chatty. We are squeezed in between Dutch and French people so it’s all very multi national.

Although we had a plan to head off to Europe sometime early September, we only committed to another “adventure” a couple of weeks ago, when we finally booked the ferry from Dover to Calais.

The ferry to France, against all expectation, given the current situation, could not have been more straightforward. Our journey from Cambridge where we’d stayed the night, down the M11 and around the M25, went better than expected and because we arrived almost two hours early, we ended up on an earlier sailing.

The French Border Official stamped our passports with an air of indifference, asked “vaccinated? not waiting for an answer before handing our passports back. He would not have looked at our Vaccination Status Certificates had Christina not thrust them at him through the window of the van. After a cursory look at the top copy the papers were thrust back in our direction.

So we arrived here yesterday, hot foot from Calais, after a 5 hour drive. At 33 degrees, hot was the operative word. Doing anything seemed like a real effort. Not surprisingly today has been hot again but thundery with the occasional downpour.

Nevertheless we managed a decent cycle trip, basically 12 miles of gravel path up one side of the Loire crossing over at Gennes and 12 miles back down a quiet road. It was a real ride of two halves. Coming back we passed though some lovely little villages sporting old churches, large houses and Chateau like Wine Caves.

This afternoon we had a saunter around the town and up to the Chateau to admire the views across the town and up the Loire in both directions.

INITIALLY, because Scotland did not have a digital system for demonstrating vaccination status, to enter France, we had to apply for a paper certificate. We were also required to sign a declaration that we had not had COVID in the last two weeks. This worked fine to get us into France.

HOWEVER it also meant that we had to apply for a “French Certificate for Equivalence”, basically the QR code which would be our Pass Sanataire, France’s vaccine passport. Although this we did almost two weeks ago there is still no sign of Certificate. Which basically means NO BEERS for the Dustans!

BUT WAIT! At the eleventh hour, just as we were leaving, Nicola announced that the Scottish QR code had been developed and was available for download. Hurray! BEERS for the Dustans after all.

BOOOOOO! It turns out the QR code does not work after all. SO NO BEERS for the Dustans once again! In fact no bars, no cafes, no visits to a chateau, cinemas and theatres, in fact not much of anything!

We had planned to take our time travelling down though France, but unless something changes we’re just going to head to Spain now.