On a mission, to get to Bordeaux, we’ve raced across the North of Spain
It’s been a hectic dash eastwards as we head across the North of Spain for a chance to see Bordeaux before we return home for Christmas… although we’ve spent almost a decade visiting the Gironde each summer, we’ve never seen Bordeaux!
So we’re desperate to put that right now especially as the Christmas Markets are in full flow… both here in Bordeaux and further up the coast in Nantes and Angers.
Having loved the chance to finally see Santiago de Compostela earlier this week, we’d plotted a course along the Northern Spanish Coastline…. past Gijón, Ribadero & Santander. This family roadtrip across Europe for over 400 days has taught us that the last parts of any journey are often fraught with tired children who are eagerly anticipating a chance to reconnect with grandparents and friends back home… so we try to do longer journeys on the way back anyway…
But this journey also needs to be a fact finding mission as we intend to return and see this amazing coastline in the summer months. Full of small towns waiting to be explored the coastline has been bathed in winter sunshine that has made it a beautiful series of drives past wide sweeping bays, over expansive bridges that stand high over their surroundings and even the chance to see the wildlife of this region with large birds of prey swooping down across our views…
The one place we’d really wanted to see was the ‘Picos de Europa‘ with it’s amazing turret like mountains. Straddling the 3 main regions of Northern Spain (Asturias, Cantabrisa & Castille and Leon) it can boast of 2,600m peaks and perhaps Europe’s deepest caves including Torca del Cerro. Sadly, the chance to grab another family hiking adventure will have to wait until next June, but we hope it can match the likes of Gorge du Verdon or Mt Etna’s hikes.
For those also travelling in a motorhome, you’ll know the perils of travelling ‘out of season’ with most campsites shut and even the majority of aires pretty deserted…. however if you want a tip, we were impressed with the small Ribamontán al Mar aire just outside of Santander (near Somo beach).
We tend to use great facebook sites (such as Motorhome Adventures) for ideas, but we also have the trusty CamperStop book/ CamperContact app to dip into too….
(Having visited San Sebastian earlier in our journey, we’ve not stopped again on this part of our European Roadtrip, but if you wanted to see what we thought of it last time, then see our previous links here & here)
As we try out new places to stop (campsites, aires and wild camping) we then hope to add these to our growing list of ‘ebooks’ with places to stay across Europe (like this ‘France by Motorhome’ here) or on our growing Spain Country Guide…. (visit our motorhoming tips page here)
Santander
so where did we park the bus for the night?
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