Tuesday 18th September- Portsmouth

The weather didn’t look particularly promising for our ferry crossing to Bilbao, the wind was blowing a gale and there was rain in the air! I had heard that the best way to avoid feeling seasick is to have a full stomach, and as you may know I will try anything once, so this sounded like a great idea! Therefore, after dropping our overnight bags in our cabin, we headed to the restaurant and had a full english breakfast.  What a great way to start a trip!

This particular ferry is the economy version, so there is not much to do except sleep, read and watch movies on your i-pad. I caught up with the penultimate  episode of the  BBC T.V. programme The Bodyguard on i-player, how am I going to find out what happens in the end? Can someone e-mail me the last episode next Sunday?

The crossing started off fairly rough but calmed down on the Wednesday morning the closer we got to Spain. The weather got so bad at one time that Jane had to leave a half glass of wine, now that shows you how bad it was!

Land ahoy!  Unfortunately our cars and caravans were on an open deck exposed to the elements. It is amazing how much sea salt your car can get covered in during a 36 hour ferry crossing!

So much so that after pitching up the vans the very next thing we had to do was wash and polish both cars and caravans.

After all the hard work was done it was time to get out and explore. I can’t get over how quiet the roads are, we drove along the main coastal road and hardly saw a car, if it stays like this for the duration of the trip then the driving will be stress free. However I am sure as we progress further south everything will get busier.

The first town we visited was Santillana del Mar.

This is a lovely town with cobbled streets (not ideal for flip-flops!) This was more than just a tourist attraction as people lived and worked here so there were very few cars as it was only the locals that could use them within the towns limits. One thing I liked about the shops was the signage, this was all very discreet and a far cry from some of the chain store shopfronts that you can get in some U.K towns!

Our next stop was for a stroll along the beach at San Vicente de la Barquera.

This place was not only very quiet (except for quite a few surfers!) but beautiful as well.

Jane asked us for a funny pose, we couldn’t think what to do at first then it came to us like a “Bolt” out of the blue!

The surfers waiting for their next wave look like seals waiting for their next fish!

The water wasn’t really that warm, just warm enough to get your toes wet!

Into town for tea…………….

…………………and a stroll along the prom!