Viva España

Finishing off in Alvechurch before heading to Spain:

Brian got up early on Saturday to join a Parkrun in Solihull, his first in five years. It went quite well, came 7th in age class with a time of 30 minutes  19 sec. This was at the start and notice the lady in  the pale blue top with a wheeled frame. She has done 360+ Parkruns, is in the 85-89 age category and, although not running, she was quickly walking aided by her wheeled frame and did a time of 56 minutes. That's the attitude to have!

His flu jab was fine, as was my Covid booster, though having bumped into John that morning for him to complain he’d got ‘Moderna arm’ I wasn’t happy to be told that’s what I was getting. “It’ll be the big needle” comforted the vaccinator, not! The injection point was a bit sore, but the following day I had about 8 hours where everything, including my skin, ached. Small price to pay though.

On the ferry to Santander, hang on, it's blustery!

Friday was quite a ‘John’ day, I bumped into him in Barnt Green, Brian went up to the motorhome storage with him, to introduce him. He is leaving his car in Ted’s space for two months while we are away and he is in China doing the Winter Olympics. What Brian thought would be a quick visit took a bit longer as John was very excited not just by the old BBC Eagle towers that I used to use, but by the old Scanners that he used to work on. We then collected him to take him in to Birmingham for my ‘works’ Christmas balti. 15 people, 9 used to work there, 2 still do and 4 ‘hangers on’. I think a good evening was had by all.

We had quite a nice inside cabin with en-suite

Saturday I spent the day with mum, first to Webb’s garden centre, midway between us and Droitwich, where we met Jan, Liv and Kelly for coffee and chat. Had a bit of a shop and went off to the craft centre where her hairdresser is to get her all ship shaped. Saturday evening was with Rob and Alex, which was lovely. Alex had suggested getting a take out, but when I explained we were going to be a bit curried out, she said she’d cook, which was lovely. It was a no work day, which was not what had been planned, but Rob had had an operation on his back on Thursday, so was meant to be resting.

Jackie tries out the exercise machines on deck

Sunday I had a haircut, mum and I went to look at a very cold craft fair at Forge Mill. They were brave and hardy souls. Then out for our second curry, train to Erdington to meet Manu, Crystal and Pete at their local Indian in the working men’s club, which really didn’t look anything special. Along with Helen and Ian we had a lovely meal, all selected by Crystal, even though it wasn’t in Chinatown. While on the train I’d been looking at Facebook where someone had posted that their ferry, Santander to Portsmouth had been cancelled due to the impending storm. What did this mean for us? Apparently the boat was making its way back, early, so we might be ok. Still keeping everything crossed, that we still didn’t need any tests to enter Spain so just the paperwork to do 48 hours before arrival.

Our campsite in Bilbao. High on a hill, it has amazing views over Bilbao city - except today. We backed in, away from the (no) view as all the pitches were very waterlogged and we were a bit afraid of getting stuck in mud. Big Ted is not good at grip on mud, as all the weight is in the back, making it a bit light on the driving wheels at the front (at least we have snow chains to get us out of trouble - we've used them twice before when stuck in mud). The wheels were as close to tarmac as we could manage and we got off OK. Torrential rain and high winds overnight made us want to head to the Mediterranean pronto!

Monday beginning the final preparations, for us, shopping for Elizabeth and getting mum sorted as much as we can. Just to keep us topped up, another curry, with the Monday Club boys, and Jill. Another lovely evening.

To the Portsmouth to Santander ferry:

This was  the view next morning, there's Bilbao!

Then, finally, it’s Thursday. The sailing is at 22.15 so plenty of time for paperwork and getting it printed at the library which didn’t open till 14.00. Not a bad journey, though the last bit was dark, wet and windy. Pretty much what we were expecting for the crossing. Two nights, arriving at 08.00 on Saturday morning. We took seasickness pills, just in case, but felt absolutely fine, at the very least, they helped us sleep. I really enjoyed the crossing, breakfast and dinner were included on the Friday, there were lots of new movies to watch, space to sit and chill with a crossword, fab. The roughest bit was actually the first night, through the Channel, once on the Bay of Biscay we were absolutely fine, much, much better than expected.

Into Spain:

We headed to Jaca, nice in the sun but very cold at night

We’d booked an Aire near to Bilbao, that we’d been to before (location: 43°15'35.6"N 2°57'51.4"W). We just wanted to have somewhere booked, as our previous experience in Spain was that everywhere filled up on Friday night for the weekend. We knew we would have to shop as, since Brexit we are not allowed to bring any meat, dairy, fruit or veg, not that we were checked, but people were, both before and after the ferry, for what, we don’t know. It was pouring with rain and the fabulous view over Bilbao completely non existent due to the fog, it was far enough. Whether we would get off the waterlogged ground we’d worry about tomorrow. Having been out the previous Saturday and Sunday Brian had downloaded Strictly and the results show, so we had a confusing time, watching them, while mum updated us on this weeks dances.

This is the citadel in Jaca, the only surviving star fortress

Cold and wet, we’ve come to get away from that, we’ll make a dash for the Med then. Two long, for us, 4 hour driving days took us first to Jaca (Aire location: 42°34'04.2"N 0°32'42.8"W), where it was sunny and we enjoyed lunch sitting in the town square, looking at piles of snow, until the sun went behind a building. Zero degrees overnight, but clear blue sky. A minor dither as to whether to try and ski, the nearest resort (Formigal) 50km away only had 5 of 16 lifts open. According to the lady in the petrol station it snowed last weekend, it will snow next weekend, so we’ve hit the sweet spot in the middle. The journey to Jaca would have been entirely different if the rain in Bilbao had fallen as snow as we got higher and higher towards the Pyrenees. Carry on then to Creixell, just north of Tarragona (Aire location: 41°09'59.8"N 1°27'24.4"E ). An interesting journey, some fabulous roads with amazing viaducts and tunnels, and some rubbish bits of road. Clear blue sky, and then pea soup fog. Fortunately not on the wiggly windy section.

This is the Aire in Jaca and is fairly typical of continental Aires. They are dedicated motorhome areas for parking only (caravans and other vehicles not allowed). You are not allowed 'camping behavior' which means you can't get out chairs, put out your awning or even (technically) go up on ramps if it's not level (although people do). This one was free, most are although some charge, and it's a short (10 minute) walk into town. There is no electric hookup but free drinking water tap is available to refill tanks and they have a chemical toilet disposal point and this one has a drive over grey water emptying area, all for free. The thinking is you'll walk into town and spend money there, which we did, we went and had lunch at a restaurant. When we arrived it was almost empty so we parked away from everyone. When we returned we were surrounded. There were still lots of empty spaces but, for some reason, people find it necessary to park close to others rather than spread out. We've never worked out why. It means we look out of our windows straight into someone elses motorhome. You can see the people on the right parked their motorhome closer to us in their allocated space, perhaps they didn't want to feel lonely. Anyway, it's safe, free and convenient.

We were pleased to arrive though, blue skies and 17 degrees make for very pleasant days, so we’ll stay two nights then. An interesting village to look round, walks along the beach, and a 3 course Menu Del Dia with drink for €9.60. Just to decide where we are going tomorrow then.....

We did a couple of walks, here's a couple of short videos with photos: walk 1, along the seafront at Creixell; walk 2, up into Creixell old town

This is the view the other way in the Aire in Jaca. The buildings up there are in the old medieval city and were splendid to walk round with lots of things to see and lots of restaurants to choose from. We arrived from Bilbao just after 2:00pm and headed off straight into the town to find some lunch

And so to the Mediterranean and here we are in a campsite in Creixell, which is south of Barcelona and just north of Tarragona. There's few other motorhomes here and it's about 200m from a lovely beach, about 2km from the old town, we've got clear blue skies and about 16C daytime and 8C nighttime. Not that warm, but it feels quite warm and almost T shirt weather in the sun (but not in the shade!). It's €12 a night here and we have electric hookup, wifi (quite slow), a toilet and couple of showers that cost €1 for 5 minutes. There's a cold water washing up area and a laundry for €4  

The beach at Creixell

The bay and beach at Creixell from a little headland we walked to

We  walked into the old town today, lots to see and some very old medieval buildings

Including this one, it's Creixell castle first built in 1088. However only the lower bit is from that era, the bit on top, now a private house, was built much later. There were also many bars and restaurants and a couple of supermarkets. We had coffee in one bar and a three course lunch with beer at another, after having done a bit of shopping at the Mercadona supermarket.