Vive La France

We took 5 hrs to drive up from our campsite in Riaza, Castillia y Léon up via the coast to St-Paul-les-Dax, which was about 20mins inland from Biarritz. Our new campsite Les Pins du Soleil was very nice and welcoming with it's one small but lovely and refreshing pool. By the time we reached their we were all very very sweaty and in need of decent food and a swim. That evening we headed into town and enjoyed huge portions of moules frites.





The next day we headed to the coast to join our friends the Chants at their much more luxurious campsite where we went to the beach and splashed for hours in the pools, Callum even taught himself to do a backdive. We enjoyed a delicious BBQ courtesy of our hosts and finally after joining in with the mini-disco ( which basically involved watching the kids do aerobic dance moves to euro-pop music in the heat and under spot lights) we waved goodbye to our friends and made it back to our campsite just in time before the barrier shut. Everyone slept well after a very tiring but extremely enjoyable day.

We awoke the next morning with great relief to a change in temperature and mainly clouds which heralded our day off. Mooching round the site and doing a bit of shopping and washing was the most taxing part of the day.

Next stop was a long drive up to the Dordogne area of NE Aquitaine.


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Location:St-Paul-les-Dax, Aquitaine, France

Segovia

After Avíla we decided to have a quiet day and we went to visit a local beauty spot. This involved driving down strange roads, the last one being an unmade road of about 2km in length, ending in a car park. The scenery was bleak level with very little vegetation except for the occasional field of sunflowers, so much muttering could be heard in the van about wether we were going the right way! However eventually we reached the car park and in the blazing sun we made our way down the path to the Ermita de San Frutos which is a ruin of an old monastery that served a defensive fort built on the bend over looking the early part of the Duratón River as it cuts through a steep river gorge. The view was well worth the effort and we looked down on swooping birds of prey and enjoyed seeing the monastery. The hard part was walking back up hill in the heat to the van (which was like an oven). On the way back the back to the campsite we had a lovely traditional Spanish lunch at a restaurant in Sepúlveda.

The next day we ventured forth again to the old city of Segovia one of the main cities in the Region. We saw the delights of the old Roman aqueduct and walked the 30 mins to the citadel which was a fairytale castle with a mixed history. Inside we saw the kings chambers and where they would have stored the money and a large room dedicated to the history of artillery as it was used as an artillery school. It really made me think of Sharpe films! Richard made the tour of the castle more interesting by pretending with Callum to be knights returning from big battle that they had won and asking permission to see the king. Apparently the king rewarded "Sir Callum of Westrow" some land, a castle, servants and lots of gold.

We also ventured up the 157 steps up the high tower to look over the beautiful landscape and also met a lovely couple from D.C. who took a rare family photo.



I think what impressed me the most was that Callum made it back to the van without whinging despite developing some nasty blisters and the extreme heat. Richard was barely coping with the heat either, but after we all had an ice lolly from one of the many shops in the old city, we all felt much better. Segovia really is a lovely city and worthy of a mini break in it's own right.

We returned back to camp that night ready to leave Spain and venture back into a country where we have better language skills, so early the next morning we packed up and headed for France.

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Location:Riaza, Spain

Castles and Calimari

So our first few days in Spain were interesting ones. We crammed in a lot of history to keep Richard happy! First we headed down to Avíla for the day. although this was a long drive (2 hrs each way) it was totally worth it. Avíla was an old walled town and the walls and old city are still preserved today, including a number of beautiful old buildings including the cathedral and several churches and a bastion.
Finding the place where you could get onto the Walls was quite a challenge and by the time we had walk around finding it, it was 1.15 and very sunny! But the excitement of walking along the walls and climbing up the steep stone steps to the watch towers cancelled out the heat.




CJ and Richard had fun with their sword fighting practice and I enjoyed the amazing views over the town and to the surrounding hills. In the photo above, all the red houses are within the city Walls and the opposite wall can be seen in the distance. This is the width of the city and it is about twice that in length. It really is a massive walled city and quite understandably a UNESCO Heritage City.
We also visited the cathedral and Callum's catholic school education paid off as he was very well behaved and even wanted to light a candle, except that here the church has modernised and instead of a real candle, you 20c will by you a lit flickering LED fake candle.

We bid farewell to Avíla and made our way back to Riaza, with Callum enjoying watching Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone on DVD.

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Location:Riaza, Spain

Leaving Home

After weeks of steady preparation the Jacob family were off on their first long trip in our little camper "whitey-von-snuggle", a 1994 Toyota Hiace Japanese import.
We were headed to Spain and France and decided to take the longer slower but more relaxing route of going by ferry from nearby Portsmouth, to Bilbao with Brittany Ferries. The trip takes 2 nights so we left at 22:00 on Sunday arriving amazingly on Tuesday morning.



It had been a crazy few weeks of packing and adjusting and fitting last minute items like insect screening, electric fan and baggage netting. Finally we were ready and with a last check to ensure we hadn't shut one of our cats in somewhere, we headed East to Pompy, stopping at Port Solent enroute for dinner.
We were checked in early and as these always do, it took an age to get on the boat. You have to cross some rippled metal ramps that shook the van silly no matter how slow you drive, but at least we knew we were properly stowed in "ship-shape" fashion.

Whilst on the ship we were lucky enough to have the benefit of some neighbours of ours only a few cabins away, so Callum had his friend Gregory to play with in the afternoon. The children were happily entertained by the ship's party games, quizzes, balloon modelling and the highlight for Callum, meeting Pierre the Bear. There was even a salty swimming pool on the top deck. After a full day of racing around the boat we said goodbye and everyone had a good night's rest before heading off to their separate campsites in the morning.

We were off to an area of Northern Spain called Casitllia y Léon, staying at a fabulous camp site on the edge of a small town called Riaza.

The campsite was large but with plenty of space and had a little shop, restaurant, children's playground and access to the town swimming pool. The shower blocks were very clean and there were even child bath cubicles, which had a mini bath set at adult waist height for washing small children. Interestingly there was only 1 washing machine which was never in use as the Spanish seem to prefer using the special sinks and hand washing their clothes.

That evening we headed into the village square, Callum on his bike (his new skill acquired days before we left) , and manage to get some dinner despite our dreadful lack of competent Spanish. We were initially a bit thrown by the different meal times in Spain. Lunch 2-4pm and dinner is 9-11pm! But we soon adjusted and settled into our first night in our little van, our home for the next three weeks.

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Location:Portsmouth, UK