Europe Tour 2018

So here we are 6600km later, back in Gontenschwil on 22 May and this completes our fantastic tour of Spain, Portugal and France. When we left Gontenschwil on April 5, we never imagined it would be so good, with everything working out so well. Our health and the health of our borrowed car stood up well. Ursi’s elbow also stood up to driving the 6600km (I can’t thank her enough for that). So much has happened in the last 7 weeks, it all seems like a blur. There were so many stunning towns, met so many nice people, so much spectacular scenery and so much wonderful local food, If forced to name a few favourites, it would be hard to go past Spain and Portugal, specifically Seville, San Sebastian and Porto in spite of the occasionally unseasonal weather.   The last 10days in Le Lavandou, Cote D’Azur, were a pleasant departure from constantly being on the road, living out of a suitcase. It was lovely to catch up to spend time with my sister at her holiday home. Way back then...

A relaxed start to the morning as it was a short drive to Beziers; stopping there overnight as a base for getting to Marseille the next day to meet my sister. Decided to break up the journey to visit Carcassonne, cute little town in Southern France, famous for it’s medieval citadel. The approach to the town included a McDonalds, a KFC amongst other fast food chains, which is a sign of heavy tourist and/or local traffic coming through the place. In this case, it would be the tourists because the town itself is quite small and relies heavily on tourism. Got into the town, parked the car, made our way to the Tourist Information Centre to get the customary map and info on places of interest to visit. Armed with that, we were on our way to the fortress on top of the hill. The narrow road leading to it had lots of cafes, reminding us, it was time for our morning fix. Energised, we made our way to the top and enjoyed the next couple of hours walking around the medieval fortress. ...

Got ripped off today in Toulouse, I think; just as an Indian restaurant run by Bangladeshis (who else) was about to close for the arvo, I rock up asking for an Indian Chai; they must have seen me coming, they were kind enough to make it for me and the usual decaf for Ursi at a cost of 11.30euro, all be it they served 4 cups, (2 more than I asked for) That’s serious money, but I took it in my stride, didn’t complain as I hadn’t had any for more than a week and it was the best I’ve had on this tour. Ces’t le vie.  The drive from San Sebastian was through lovely countryside; the French are not shy about charging the road tolls, mon Dieu. Drove into Toulouse on yet another public holiday (it seems like there has been one public holiday per week for the past 4 weeks in Spain and Portugal). After parking the car, checking into our studio etc., took the tram into the city on a warm sort of day. Walked alongside River Garonne into the old town with a customary town square, narr...

Took the bus in the morning, was a tad warmer than yesterday, but just, (didn’t make the same mistake as yesterday by wearing shorts) from Errenteria, a short 25-minute ride into this delightful little town very close to the French border, where one of the ways to cross the border is by a 7-minute boat ride. On arrival, made our way to a tiny old town, pretty deserted with the odd tourist about. That suited us fine. Had a leisurely walk around the cobbled stone lanes with apartment blocks on either side with beautiful balconies and the obligatory flowers and plants. They are built in long adjoining rows (not unlike terrace homes in Sydney’s inner west), but each of the many sections was very pretty. In the middle of the old town, there was a large town square centre; on the one side the old Castle of Charles V and a little further the Cathedral. It felt like as if time had stood still. Then, we went in search of Pintoxs bars and there were plenty; it was a tad too...

Today we decided to go to Bilbao, the capital of the Basque country. We took the bus from San Sebastian, which was the most efficient way to get there; departure 11.25, arrival around 1.5 hours later. Really comfy bus and got to see some of the countryside along the way. The forecast was for overcast with temperatures around 16-18 degrees. Sharad dressed in shorts, which proved to be not such a great idea. He would have been the only man in Bilbao dressed in shorts. Our return bus was at 6.30, so we had about 5 hours to explore. A river runs through Bilbao, so we walked along the river for a while and came past the Guggenheim Museum. What an impressive building this is! Unfortunately, didn’t have enough time to explore the Museum. Next was the fresh food market, but it was only open first thing in the morning, so we wandered through the Food Hall where they served the most amazing range of Pintxos. Then off to the old town, criss-crossed through, up a long set of sta...

Got up around 7.30ish - again, clear blue sky and looks like it will be another warm day. Fruit for breakfast, as most days we have good intentions to be healthy, and by about mid morning, this is all forgotten. No different today - bought some croissants on the way to the Metro station and they were consumed before we even reached San Sebastian. There we turned right instead of left and walked to the end of the far eastern beach; a surfing beach at that. This area was much less touristic and busy with the locals. The sun was quite warm, but the wind a bit chilly, so as soon as we took our jackets off, they went on again and vice versa. We only lasted about one hour before we needed our daily coffee / tea fix. And for good measure, had a sweet pastry with it. Then walked all the way to the western most beach. Sharad was chatting away to a couple of young German girls, who were walking part of the El Camino. They had started on the border of France and Spain and were on th...

Woke up to a beautiful blue sky, had breakfast, orange for me and bread, butter and jam for Ursi. As usual, Ursi made the lunch, 2 small bread rolls each filled with avocado, ham, cheese and lettuce; I do appreciate the time and effort she puts into making the lunch. Our apartment is on a side of a steep hill; there are several steps or optional elevators to take one down to the metro station, which is what we took. Within 15 minutes we were in San Sebastian. Hoards of people on the train but we found ourselves a couple of seats. The streets outside the metro station in San Sebastian were fairly deserted as we made our way to the beachfront promenade. There was police presence closer to the beach, they were diverting the road traffic as a fun run was going on. Hordes of locals lined up on either side of the street in front of the beach, encouraging family, friends and strangers taking part. San Sebastian had really put on a show to impress us; it’s a beautiful town. ...

Woke up to a clear blue sky as we made our way down to the kitchen where waiting for us was dear Ganka, who had prepared an unexpected wonderful healthy breakfast for us. She also made time to measure our body health analytics relative to our height and age. One of the results was that Ursi body age is 47 years and is married to a 71 year old. We both need to work on our body fat i.e. lower body fat and increase the metabolism. With all this new information, we are contemplating the changes we need to make over bag of chips and red wine (for Ursi), as you do. We farewelled Ganka, who is off to Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand next week and got on our way to San Sebastian a 410km drive. We stopped at a couple of places along the way, the historic town of Pedraza in stunning scenery, which retains it’s original charm; there was hardly anybody there. Next up was the town of Burgos, a beautiful town with an imposing cathedral, the centrepiece. There were hordes of people enjoyi...

Early start to the day, my turn to get the bread roll and the croissants; lot of people and cars on the street as this was the first working day after the couple days of holidays. Ursi had the bags packed when I got back, she is good at that, Getting out of Madrid was a piece of cake; stopping at a petrol station on the way was a bit of drama, Ursi missed a turn so had a bit of detour; won’t go into any more detail than that, suffice to say there was a dialogue on who was at fault. Safely made it to Segovia; got to our AirBnb apartment which was within walking distance to the historical old town. Our host, Ganka was not at home, so we parked our car and made our way on foot and within a few minutes we were in front of the imposing viaduct, which is the gateway to the historic old town. Got us a map and guidance from the tourist information centre, extremely helpful and useful. Walking through the old town, which was not as congested with tourists as some others, we were ab...