This was always going to be a difficult trip.
All pointers suggested we should have scrapped our plans for a September break.
Amanda is a couple of weeks into a new role, and the pressure is intense.
After a hectic summer, I’m about to take on running the remains of the business that I’ve worked for over the past five years. The ridiculous administrative hurdles leave you wondering why anyone would bother.
It would have been so much easier to stay at home and get things sorted out.
But we’d committed to each other.
Committed to the friends who’d stay at Goldings.
We don’t like to back down.
The tour must go on.
Plymouth – Santander
A queue.
A ferry.
Last on (boring).
First off (brilliant!).
90 miles driven from home and we’re in Spain. It’s almost magic.
An hour and a quarter from the port we swing off the Burgos bound motorway and into the lush green parking area of our first stop.
A Paradore.
When you read that Spanish Paradores are state run hotels you may be put off.
Don’t be.
Every one we’ve seen has been special in its own way.
Castles. Churches. Monasteries.
Think Landmark Trust with a touch of luxury.
We’ll stay the first night at Hosteria El Convento de Mave.
This former monastery has been wonderfully converted into a boutique hotel with corten steel and glass interventions that I love, but which were subtle enough to go unnoticed.
We were soon to miss the cool calm of its cloisters, the weeping willows of its extensive gardens.
As we left this lap of luxury on Tuesday morning we joked we’d sleep in a car park next.
We did.
Bad foot. Bad head.
What happened on last Saturday’s run?
Something has left me with a very sore left foot.
Perhaps an internal bruise?
It’s always a risk running on the rough mine tracks around us. Especially dropping down to Geevor Bottoms where there are sharp edged rocks all over.
Whatever I’ve done it hurts too much to run. Hurts too much to walk.
Without exercise the black dog is strong.
Without exorcise the black dog scares me.
I learned through experience how my tough exercise regieme keeps me going. I need the routine. I need the exertion. Mental exertion from work. Physical exertion from running and more.
Movement in a van isn’t easy. I’m not a showman and stretching and doing squats in public isn’t my scene.
I must address the reluctance. After all I’m happy to look a fool in so many other ways.
Without regular strenuous movement my get up and go doesn’t even wake. Returning to these words a week or so later, and back to doing short runs, I understand the importance of good food and plenty of movement to a healthily functioning body and mind like never before.
What sort of person finds it harder to be on holiday than at work? Well, this beardy baldy certainly does.
Mushrooms with everything. Logroño.
Logroño is the regional capital of Rioja.
More important to us, it’s the national capital of mushroom pintxos (tapas).
The Logroño food scene centres around Calle del Laurel.
When Bar Soriano is open the queue is constant. When it’s not, like last night, the funghi hunters move to Bar Angel.
Punters clamour outside the bar and within.
Few of us know how to order. Minty strides in and hands over some notes in the hope of pintxos and wine.
Every ten minutes or so the cook at the shop front stops oiling the mushroom hot plate. The excitement mounts as quiet descends. He calls for assistance. Surly helpers arrive to distribute his wares. He stacks a round of bread with three garlicky mushrooms topped with a prawn, skewered in place.
It’s the only thing they serve. They serve it for several hours, twice a day.
It’s marvellous.
Worth the wait.
Into the desert. Bardenas Reales.
In the Navarra region of north eastern Spain the Bardenas Reales is a desert similar in size to Andorra.
A desert without sand.
Much of Navarra is farmed for cereal crops, studded here and there with pig farms. And the attendant stench of pig shit.
I’d seen pictures of the desert. Read the tales of spaghetti western filming.
In the already searing heat, we crested a hill just east of Valtierra, and the scene changed.
For miles a different world stretched out before us. Wind and rain weathered hills reach up to an unbreachable plateau.
There are no crops here.
We turned off a tiny road onto a dirt track for a four km bounce into the desert proper.
Summer temperatures here regularly top 40 degrees, and yet there could be snow on the Pyrenees just 70 kms away.
The screech and mew of vultures overhead is so commonplace that we have to remind each other that it’s not normal.
There is no shelter. No shade.
After photos and experiencing the warmth we retire. Exhillerated. Hot. Dirty.
We had intended to spend another night in a parking area, but the lure of shade and a shower half an hour away among the mature pines of Tudela’s campsite is too much.
We’re there now.
Hot still, but clean, with the promise of cold beer and paella in a couple of hours.
Swallow.
The Tregeseal stream that trickles down the Kenidjack valley outside St Just attracts many swallows. Often thirty or more will dart through the clouds of river flies on a summer’s evening.
Here the scene is reminiscent but different.
The large pond behind our campsite outside Tudela could have been a swamp of mosquitoes. Instead the beasties don’t stand a chance.
As dusk fell thousands of swallows, perhaps even tens of thousands, descended on the water to gorge before their long flight south.
These incredible aeronauts seem never to crash as they dart through each other’s formations.
Their chirps continued long into our sleep, yet every last one was gone in the morning.
Castillo de Loarre.
The Pyrenees kept the French at bay until they didn’t.
Then it was the turn of the castles.
The kings of Aragon and Pamplona built fortifications along the western flanks of the Pyrenees that leave us in wonder a thousand years later.
In the Castillo de Loarre the construction of the domed church roof would strike fear into its builders even today. Slithers of alabaster fill the window frames softening the harsh southern light. In 1071 its ambition must have bordered insanity even before considering the location perched on an inaccessible rock high up a mountain, miles from Jewsons.
Col de Pourtalet.
No invaders came.
And now that we’ve driven the mountain passes we can see why. Building ships to plunder the opposite side of the Atlantic must have seemed a doddle compared to taking an army through those hills.
At first we’re fooled.
The Spanish road towards France curves gently. It’s flat too.
Even when it climbs it’s easy modern motorway.
Motorway gives way to road and the crazy cyclists determined to climb the hardest passes.
At the top, the Col de Pourtalet, there’s still the feel of a real border. No intimidating checks, no prostitutes or even cheap cigarettes, but still the interesting supermarkets selling the best of both sides.
Booze by the barrel. “You’d like 3 litres of Vermouth Madame? Please, help yourself.”
Perhaps if we’d tucked into Minty’s bottle we’d have been less troubled by the descent.
For all that the Spanish climb was easy, the French side was a totally different challenge.
Tiny roads. Steep descents. Achingly beautiful views of distant jagged peaks that pull at your gaze, though you can only afford them a second before snapping your eyes back to the road.
It’s stunning.
It’s exhausting.
We stop to regain our equilibrium in the tired spa town of Eaux-Bonnes. The hotels seemed to have checked out years ago, yet still there’s a faded charm to the place.
The map suggests our chosen campsite is only 26 miles away. 26 miles, and yet an hour and a half to drive. If Google’s predicted average speed is less than 20mph you can be sure the driving will be hard.
Onward. Straight into another climb.
The van has a very loud engine cooling fan that only kicks in when it’s crazy hot.
35+ degrees. That should do it. It roars on every climb today.
We sometimes wonder why we put ourselves through the fear and the trial of these tortuous mountain drives. We could be sitting by a pool somewhere. But where would be the story in that?
Camping du Lac. Arcizans-Avant.
Two nights. A proper rest.
Worth the effort. It’s an oasis of calm.
The Pyreneenean site is gearing down to close for winter in just a fortnight.
Half way up. Half way down. Mountains surround us, there’s a deep valley below. The springs flood drinking troughs with crystal clear water.
We thought that which went before was hot?
Pau.
A decent sized city in the foothills of the Pyrenees.
But it looks more riviera than mountain town.
Rich Brits and Americans used to winter here.
I wouldn’t blame them were they to start the trend again.
Glorious old school hotels. Palm lined boulevards. Fine shops. Skiing just over an hour away. Even a Citroen SM nonchalantly absorbing the praise due to the coolest car ever made.
We’d have enjoyed it for longer were it not for the mercury nudging 40.
Aire des Fous?
Is it the heat?
Is it my imagination?
Or have we pulled into a camping spot reserved for the … let’s say mentally challenged?
Victor is moving his van again, trying the ramps in a different formation to try to achive a perfect level.
Swiss Matteo immitates my morning exercises, keeping himself hidden, but Minty is giving me updates from behind the dark glass of the van.
Victor decides that the space on the other side of us might be better.
Rostand keeps his Yorkshire terrier on his lap all evening, eventually carrying it up the road to have its last pee of the night. I decided that the little dog had gone off its legs – that is until I saw it chasing a Jack Russel in the morning.
Victor finds that the space on our left doesn’t have great satelite signal on account of the trees and so needs to drive around to find another.
When I go to the loo in the morning I find poor Jean-Charles in a state of distress having been locked in the toilet block. He’s convinced the building had taken him hostage. I’m convinced that pressing the exit button would unlock the door for him, just as it does for everyone else.
Victor is now trying the steepest space at the aire. We all know it isn’t going to work. Even Victor knows it isn’t going to work.
We may be on holiday, but we still have a schedule. We have to leave Victor as he climbs back into his cab to move yet again. “Our space was great Victor, give it a try.”
France.
France is French in a way that England can never be English.
The avenues of planes lining arrow straight roads for mile after mile.
The overwhelming feeling of space. Big skies. Big country.
Understated in most things. No flash cars. Elegant, but unshowy dress. Beautiful houses that don’t shout “Look at me”.
Villages that incomprehensibly still retain the old system of giving way to the right, even on roundabouts.
Farm shops that open for just a few hours every week.
Service. But don’t expect a smile.
At the beautiful Chateau Cassaigne we hope to taste and buy Armagnac. We’re greeted by the insouciant shop keeper (who I like to think is also the lady of the manor) and told somewhat sharply that they will shut in 30 minutes. She’s not rude, but she clearly cares more for her two hour lunch break than the potential of shifting a few very expensive bottles from the shelves.
There’s a nose trainer here.
Puff a scent into your face and tell me what you smell.
It’s harder than you think.
Of 16 fairly obvious scents we each identified two. Caramel and vanilla for Minty, honey and leather for me. That’s a pretty poor failure rate.
The rushed story of Armagnac was interesting (“Come on filthy English, my lunch is waiting”), but the greater draw came from the herd of deer outside where there was no peckish madame to hurry us along.
Diesel.
Remember when, only a few years ago, our governments wanted to get us into diesels? Higher miles per gallon, that must be better for everyone they thought. In the UK diesel was about the same price as pertol, in Europe it was far cheaper. Fill up on the way home.
Then it was realised that diesel particulates were evil little carcinogenic bastards and the public needed to be disuaded from buying diesel cars.
Two relevant wars saw fuel prices soar, then the petrol price fell quicker than diesel.
In Europe there was pricing parity between diesel and pertrol for the first time.
Now though in France the situation is very different. While petrol costs about the same as in the UK, diesel is as much as 50p a litre more expensive. Today it was €2.25 a litre versus only €1.65 in Spain. Fill up on the way out. Hypermile until you get home, or to Spain!
The country imports all its diesel already processed leaving it more vulnerable to price fluctuations overseas. It’s hurting everyone.
Chez Fred and Rosie.
The brilliant Park4night app helps travellers like us find places to stay that you’d never normally imagine.
Fred and Rosie live on their fruit farm in the countryside near nothing obvious, but not too far from the river Lot. We’d never have simply rocked up at their place and asked to stay.
Once past the guard dog and through the gates we’re directed to a huge lawn and told “Park where you like, then wander the gardens and pick yourselves some fruit.”
There are super sweet tiny white and red grapes, sharp apples, pears, tomatoes of every shape. We’ve missed the plum harvest, that’s their main crop.
Equally as interesting are the pets. The old pig is bullied by the gander, but guraded by the hens. Three cats wander unconcerned by the gorgeous Alsatian who was scary when we were outside, but sweet once Rosie had let us in. A huge pond held hundreds of goldfish and a few massive koi.
We’re invited for breakfast. We’re charged a pittance. It has been a heart warming experience, and then we’re on our way with Bergerac as our destination.
Cyrano de Bergerac.
Who can blame Cyrano for hanging out in Bergerac, even if in truth he may have only passed through?
From our rough and ready campsite on the south bank of the Dordogne it’s a ten minute walk to the heart of the old town with all its bars, restaurants and half timbered buildings.
I remember the Dordogne being popular with “Our home in France” Brits in the 1980s. They’re still here. It was surprising to hear so many plumy tones.
Later in the small village of La Tour Blanche our hosts tells us there are 20 houses in the small village owned by Brits. They’re Scots themselves and have been running their B&B (Chambre d’Hote) for a decade or so.
Staying in the charming Le Patio B&B has created a timely change of pace. I’ve spent a morning using decent wifi to get up to date with taxi business, and the comfortable mattress will hopefully ease a nasty back twinge that started a couple of days ago.
Minty got some good cat love. Minty plus cat equals joy.
Minty booked the place for a taste of French village life. She didn’t know then just how good her decision was.
Le Tabac.
I’ve often written about Le Tabac, that bastion of real French life that clings on in the way of The Star in St Just.
Here in La Tour Blanche Le Tabac has so many functions. Betting office, lottery sales, tobacconist (the French mostly ignored vaping and stuck to their fragrant cigarettes), off-license, newsagent, ice-cream seller, card shop, CBD distributor and most importantly – the bar.
It’s bright with all the romance of wet fish, but that doesn’t matter. It’s so real.
Flies outnumber patrons, but patrons aren’t in short supply. Everyone is greeted by everyone. Most offer handshakes all around. A few get kisses. Young builders aren’t intimidated by manly expectations and eschew the beers for red vermouth. The gentle drunks (one French, one English) are there when we arrive, and there when we leave. Apparently one will be back early in the morning.
The barkeep is jolly.
The customers are jolly.
Vive Le Tabac. Vive La France!
