Martin's Mag.

Ever since the M4 motorway crossing the River Severn was built in 1966, there has been a bridge toll. Although this didn’t stop us going to Wales for the day, or longer periods, we were less inclined to pop over for a short visit when it would cost us an extra £6 or so. Now, though, the toll has been abolished, opening up new possibilities for, for instance, brief dog-walking sorties. Here we are, more-or-less opposite Portishead. The newer bridge, the “second Severn crossing”, is in the distance.

We’ve avoided the annual trudge to the local muddy field where we buy our Christmas tree. I must admit that this is more at my suggestion than Sal’s. I’ve long suspected that she has a thing for the farmer who has the fir franchise in these ‘ere parts, ever since, a few years ago after a fruitless attempt on my part to haggle the price, I heard him whisper, sotto voce, “don’t bring your father next time”. 

So, while we were walking Lucy around Ashton Park this morning we picked up a piece of fallen tree which has now been placed in a cleaned-up carboy from the garden with some lights and minimalist baubles. No “needles” to vacuum up from the car and house; no problem with new-year disposal; no guilt about the senselessness of growing a fir tree for a few years solely to cut it down to transport it into our homes to support our tat for a week or two. Bah!

A new “walk” for us (that is, a documented, publicised route rather than just going where the fancy takes us with a map or local knowledge) is the Bristol Skyline which, perhaps not surprisingly, follows the high ground around Bristol, mainly to the south of the city.

A colony of greater horseshoe bats lives here near Claverton Down, south of Bath.

It will be one hundred years since the end of the First World War in a few days time. Local school children have made this river of poppies, out of bottle tops, on the space in front of our house.

A crab sandwich on the beach at Beer in Devon on what could be the last day of our sporadic Indian Summer. It’s traditional.

14 Sept 2018. Apart from a chorus of insects (cicadas?) and owls, our night in the pine forest was free of disasters – both natural and unnatural. We drove a mile or so south to Lariño and parked by the sea for breakfast and other early-morning functions.

We had noticed during our time in Galicia and earlier, what looked like hard-core hikers, and had discovered that most of them are walking the Camino de Santiago (in English, the Way of Saint James). This (as everyone but me seemed to know already) is a network of pilgrims’ ways leading to the shrine of the apostle Saint James the Great in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. People were walking in groups in what looked like well-organised operations with trucks moving luggage from one stop to the next, or on their own often setting up a small tent overnight in the corner of a camp site. Typically, these journeys can take over a month, covering between 20 and 30 kilometres a day. There are many nationalities and ages. It seemed as many women as men. Many fashionable “boutique” hotels are springing up in villages en route, and who can blame them. We walked short parts of the camino, as much by accident as intention.

Santiago has some spectacular architecture but is, inevitably, very commercialised. The constant churn of travellers gives it a transitory atmosphere.

We had lunch on a mount overlooking the city then later drove south past Vigo and Baiona to a clifftop campsite Camping O Muño which we shared with a windmill.

Although there wasn’t much to do in the immediate locality we stayed here for two nights as it was a good place for a bit of R&R. Among other things, I ploughed on with JB Priestley’s Bright Day (one of my dad’s old book club books from the 1940s and ’50s which are still taking up valuable storage space in the garage) and Sal drew the windmill. [Note the sea mist for future ref.]

We walked to a nearby village and we explored the local beach with Lucy. We were now on another camino (from the south, as far away as Cadiz in SW Spain) to Santiago, and weary travellers were passing constantly with their huge backpacks and inexplicable sets of ski poles. The camino is very well-marked here with this symbol:

There is also, you will note, a helpful, and extremely precise, indication of the distance left to the pilgrim’s destination (confusingly for Brits using the comma instead of decimal point).

While we’re talking of roadside objects, we had been intrigued by strange little “houses”, mostly on domestic properties, in the Galicia region (and, as it later turned out) in Portugal.

We eventually discovered that these are called hórreos, and were used to store grain.

16 Sept 2018. Back on the road, we continued down the coast to A Guarda, then inland, up the River Minho valley to Valença. It was Sunday and, now the afternoon, all shops were closed in Spain but when we crossed the river into Portugal (hurrah!) it was like being at home! Everything was open and there was a German Lidl store just over the bridge! Sal is a keen Vinho Verde fan (fortunately usually in a good way) and we were able to buy enough for the next few days (the same brand as is available in our own Lidl in Portishead, but here it’s half the price).

Then back down the south bank of the Minho to Caminha where we camped close to the sea, south of the town, in another wooded site with a typically international clientelle. Apart from Portugese and Spanish there are usually Germans, French, British and some Italians, Swiss and Belgians. We like the Dutch. They have quite an individualistic and non-competitive attitude to camping. Their campervans or motorhomes seem much-loved and often sport a quirky home-made adjustment or addition.

17 Sept 2018. Walked into Caminha, bought supplies, drank coffee, ate cake, etc.

18 Sept 2018. We decided to go inland, as the east coast, both in Spain and Portugal, had been prone to early-morning and evening sea mists, which were bringing the temperature down compared to towns a few miles inland which were hitting 30°C and more. So we got up early and drove down the coast to Viana de Castelo, at the mouth of the Lima river, which actually looked more interesting than Caminha.

We then drove to Esposende, where Sal had stayed decades ago and remembered windmills, to see if anything looked familiar. It didn’t, particularly, but a nice modern town for a beach holiday, if that’s your thing.

Then inland to Barcelos, with some famous gardens and a huge, bustling, market every Thursday. Sadly, today was Tuesday. Had lunch.

Then Braga, a large city which had all the usual sights: cathedral, squares, bridges, etc., but also very heavy traffic, so we didn’t stop (apart from in queues of traffic). On, then, to Guimalaes, a very attractive university town with a collonial feel. Ice creams in the plaza mayor.

Then east over the Serra do Gerês mountains and the Serra do Barrosa. Camped just outside Chaves. Warming up, the further we get from the coast.

19 Sept 2018. It’s hot. Had a good relaxing day in a raised, secluded part of the site. There was a kind of City Farm next to the site, with goats, pigs, chickens and other wildfoul and some more exotic birds (sadly in aviaries) which made an interesting hour’s stroll. Also a nearby lake which Lucy explored. And we did some washing (both us and the camper) and general airing (ditto). The site was well-run and had a good mixture of tents caravans, campers and motorhomes. Now we are more inland it is usual for no-one to speak English. Although we know a few words of Spanish, the Portuguese people much prefer it if you can at least, for example, say obrigado instead of gracias. Otherwise, we rely on the international language of mime.

Although I didn’t take many pictures, and we didn’t actually do much, this was one of our favourite sites of the whole trip.

20 Sept 2018. Tried to make an early start and drove to a nearby LeClerc supermarket to stock up with food, vinho verde (for Sal) and fuel. Then into Chaves, a pretty town. Disaster! my battered Fujifilm camera was completely dead. Neither battery worked (from which I assumed it was something more serious than the battery). Reverted to smartphone. Walked up to the castle, bought green figs, walked over the Roman bridge, bought some extremely expensive camping gas for our little outdoor hob.

Then Brigança. A slightly intoxicated local “helped” me to operate the parking meter. Walked up the hill to the very well-preserved citadel.

Many people, both recently and when we were in Porto a couple of years ago, had mentioned the spectacular upper reaches of the Douro so we wanted to try to follow the river for at least a short part of its course. With this aim we drove to Miranda Do Douro in the early evening, to a site with a view of the town.

Good news: after turning off my camera and removing batteries and sim card for a few hours, all now seems ok. If I’ve learnt one thing in my “career” in I.T. it’s “turn it off and on again”. Hope I won’t need to use the smartphone again.

21 Sept 2018. Nice, modern, cosmopolitan site. We drove into Miranda do Douro and parked just outside the city walls then explored inside. Very pretty town, and, by mid-day, hot.

Overlooking the Douro.

After an excruciating journey due to the fact that we oldies tend to trust ten-year-old paper maps more than the latest constantly-updated SatNav, we crossed the Douro at the Bemposta hydro-electric power station (where we had lunch)…

… then continued to Ledesma, on the Tormes river, back in Spain (temperature in low 30°Cs). Two historic bridges, here shown in black and white for no particular reason.

Not far, then, to Salamanca, the UNESCO World Heritage site and University town, and capital of Castile and León. Plenty of history here, but, after fighting our way through the city traffic, we found a camp site a few kilometres north. Although a bit noisy (there was a main road close by) we found a quiet corner.

22 Sept 2018. Salamanca. I first came here in 1981 when, among other things, I spent a long evening with a German called Thomas, trying to find a restaurant that would serve him with a vegetarian meal. Our requests were met with incomprehension then incredulity. He had to settle for a ham omelette which was, at the time, the closest Spain could get to a meat-free meal. Fortunately for me (as I stopped eating meat a few months later) things are much easier now.

Probably partly due to the many students and academics, and tourists, the city is a lively sophisticated place with, now, plenty of vegetarian, even vegan, restaurants. Thomas would have no problem today.

From Salamanca we drove north-east, by-passing Valladolid. We last by-passed Valladolid in 2010.  One day, Valladolid, one day…

Then we followed the River Odra (a distant headwater of the Douro) up to Castrojeriz, a pretty town with a castle on a hill. Very hot and a good location for a couple of days R&R. Nice young couple run campsite, quite a few Brits getting worried about rumours of “reverse polarity” on the site! It’s a camping thing; nothing to do with “Return to the Forbidden Planet”.

Castrojeriz, it seems, is on yet another route to Santiago, and there were a few hostels and wooden chalets, of varying degrees of luxury, dotted around the town. There were several American groups, all a bit happy, clappy and high-fiving. The view of the well-restored castle from our camper was spectacularly illuminated for about ten minutes at sunrise. Sal painted it, but at a different, less theatrical, time of day:

We walked around the area, including bits of the camino. From the castle the effects of a long hot Summer can be seen on the plain.

24 Sept 2018. Starting to think about the long journey home. We went through the city of Burgos then stopped at Ventue, a village still on the camino, for lunch.

On, then, through the Rioja region, passing through Logroño (the capital) and up the western end of the Pyrenees mountains to Pamplona. We decided not to honour Pamplona with a visit, due to their ridiculous annual alcohol-fuelled “bull run”, a practice which I won’t dignify with any further comment.

Then over the border into France, joining the motorway near Bayonne. Another fifty kilometres or so to Dax in Aquitaine, a spa town with a campsite by the river, populated by almost 100% French, all apparently there to “take the waters” in some form or other. It was quite late and we (all three of us) were knackered.

25 Sept 2018.  Although taking a pet abroad is a lot simpler than it was with our previous dog, Archie, you still need to have a vet administer tapeworm tablets before returning to the UK. [This may change next March when we start to experience all the benefits of Brexit.  I’m joking, obviously.]  We thought that, rather than wait until we got to northern France where the weather wasn’t so good to get Lucy “done”, we would find a vet here so we’d have no delays crossing the Channel. This was slightly more complicated than expected (mainly because vets not near the channel ports are not up-to-date with current legislation) so we actually ended up spending a day more than we had intended in Dax. But we needed a rest prior to the long drive north, so it didn’t matter.

Still hot. Dax seemed quite nice but didn’t jog any memories. Les Français don’t allow camping to disrupt their domestic routines, with full sit-down multi-course meals, cutlery, crockery, etc. Even single people will lay a full table before sitting down with, usually, a glass of wine or beer. “All things in moderation” seems to be the rule, with the emphasis on All.

26 Sept 2018. Finally have Lucy’s passport updated so she can come home with us. She disgraced herself at the surgery by barking at everyone who came in. No blood spilt though, not even the vet’s. Supplies bought at E Leclerc supermarché.

27 Sept 2018. Long drive through lovely countryside to Limoges, when we took the motorways to Chateauroux and a nice site by the river Indre. Apart from many campers and motorhomers there were also builders working on local projects.

28 Sept 2018. Getting a bit colder now, so pressing on through Orleans and Paris. Our camper is two metres high but has an awning on one side which is about 2 centimetres proud of the roof. Going through Paris, following the SatNav, we were suddenly plunged into a three-kilometre tunnel which was, apparently, only two metres high. As far as we can see, all the paint is still intact, but it was a hairy few minutes. We got to Dunkirk early evening and did our traditional Auchan supermarket shop for wine, beer, cheeses and various French delicacies, then caught the 10:00pm ferry.

29 Sept 2018. Terrible early-morning journey from Dover as many motorways closed for maintenance with very poor diversion signage. Got home about 4:00am. 3388 miles.

4 Sept 2018. We got an earlier-than-booked ferry from Dover.  On our way south we detoured for a couple of nights at an old favourite, Bagnoles de l’Orne, in Lower Normandy.

7 Sept 2018. Then a site by a lake north of Bordeaux. Lots of young-ish people on some sort of team-building course.

We spent the next day in Bordeaux.

Then drove to Salles, in Aquitaine, and had a pine wood to ourselves, which Lucy thought was fabulous as she didn’t need to be on her lead and had plenty of sticks to chase.

9 Sept 2018 Distant lightning during the night, which turned to rain just as we were getting up. Stocked up (food, drink and petrol) at local Carrefour, then long drive into Spain and to Saunces, west of Santander. Supper of prawns and lots of white wine courtesy of earlier shopping trip.

Saunces, Spain

10 Sept 2018 Continuing along the north Spain coast past Bilbao we glimpsed, from a motorway, a ruined church in a cornfield and turned back to find it. There was also a great beach. This was near to the town of Llanes, I think the beach was at San Antolín, but I’m not certain.

We drove on via twisting roads to Luarca and a campsite called Las Cantilcles, run (for the last fifty years!) by a German woman, with her German/Dutch son.

11 Sept 2018. Large German and Dutch contingent among campers, presumably due to the owners, who expressed their sadness re Brexit. I felt obliged to apologise for the short-sightedness of my kinsmen.

Early morning view of Luarca from camper.

We walked into Luarca, a very pretty “working” town with a nice harbour and broad beaches. Was shouted at by a man for taking Lucy onto beach. Pretended not to understand.

12 Sept 2018. We continued to drive west along the north Spain coast, stopping for supplies at local “agricultural” supermarket. Lunch in Mondoñedo. Then to A Coruña. We tried to find a site in Santa Cruz but got hopelessly lost, mainly because new roads had been built since our old map was printed. Finally settled for a site run by a woman in a bikini. Not in a good way, really. We had a good view of the local beach which belied the quality of the site itself. Also, as we discovered later, dogs were not allowed on the beach. Seems to be quite common in Spain, unfortunately, although plenty of people have dogs.

13 Sept 2018. We left the site and walked to the area known as Santa Cruz which had been so elusive yesterday. The main feature of Santa Cruz is a bay with an island connected by a pedestrian bridge to the land. Not to be missed.

After walking around the island we bought supplies in the town of Santa Cruz then continued the drive westward through A Coruña and inland to Carballo and through stunning scenery to Cee on the west coast. From there, south through Ezaro towards Muros. Sal had identified a couple of camp sites, the first of which was closed and the second, in Lariño, looked boring with no views, so we went back up the coast for a few kilometres to a huge beach with pinewoods behind the dunes and, after a stick-throwing session with Lucy, “wild” camped in the sunset.

Will we survive? Will we have to use hitherto untested in-house sanitary “arrangements?” Will we ever get to Portugal?

See Part 2, coming soon.

We stayed in Folkestone so as to be ready for a morning sailing from Dover to France.  Folkestone is quite a nice, quaint in parts, town, but looking rather tired these days, unlike in my childhood when it was popular with well-to-do elderly people, prompting the classic slogan: “Dover for the Continent; Folkestone for the incontinent”.