Brian and Jackie Cross: Trip 6: Spain & France 2017-18

Trip 6: Spain & France 2017-18

October 2017 to April 2018

Our sixth trip and our third in Spain and then France started with a visit to Jackies dad's in Costa Blanca, a tour of southern Spain and Gibraltar and the to France for our third ski season.

Here's a map of the places we visited, click the arrow in the top left of the map and scroll down the list to see places we visited, photos and links to blog entries of that place. For more detail, click on the blog posts below:

Key to place markers:

Our overall plan:

We left the UK on 17th October and went to France and the ski apartment in St Jean d'Aulps that we rented for the 2017-18 ski season, only to stay one night and to leave all our ski and winter gear there.
We travelled on to Jackies dad and Elizabeths house in Altea-La-Vella in Costa Blanca, Spain for climbing, walking, spending time with friends and family and to housesit while they returned to the UK
Travelled to Gibraltar to housesit and sightsee on 30th November, visit Malaga, Ronda and Granada for sightseeing, returned to Jackies dad and Elizabeths on 12th December
Travelled back to the ski apartment in St Jean d'Aulps on 17th December for the ski season through to 18th April 2018.
Travelled back to the UK on 18th April

The details:

Description:
We left the UK on 17th October with our car packed full of winter ski gear, including four sets of skis and warm weather rock climbing and walking gear for southern Spain, for three days of European driving. We took an overnight ferry from Portsmouth to Le Havre, rather than the shorter Dover to Calais route. This gave us the day on Tuesday 17th October to pack the car, drive to Portsmouth in the evening on quieter roads and get a good nights sleep in a cabin on the ferry and be fresh for the 9 hour drive to St Jean d'Aulps ski resort in the French Alps. We spent a night in the apartment we have rented there and unpacked and left all our winter ski gear so we could travel light onwards to Spain.

With one further stop in Perpignan, southern France, we arrived in Altea-La-Vella on the Costa Blanca, Spain on the evening of Friday 20th October having completed 1400 miles of driving over the three days. We stayed with Jackie's dad, Richard and Elizabeth, at their house, until 30th November, climbing, walking, visiting friends and family and housesitting while they returned to the UK. On 30th November we travelled to Gibraltar for a five night housesit, spending the days exploring the Rock and city, drove to Malaga on 5th December for 2 nights of sightseeing and meeting up with friends, dropped them off at their home in San Pedro and then went on to Ronda for 2 nights exploring. Finally we drove to Granada for 3 nights of sightseeing, returning to Jackies dad and Elizabeth on 12th December. We left Altea on 17th December and drove straight to St Jean d'Aulps to take up residence in the ski apartment and commence our ski season.

We bought our season lift passes and had our first day out on 19th December, skiing right through until 16th April 2018, with just the occasional day off.

Finer details and links to blog entries:
For more details on this trip see below, it's divided into the following:

Day 0 - Alvechurch to Portsmouth Click here for map of journey