Spain
Spain

Any port in a storm

Although Zamora had not endeared herself on our arrival, we were sorry in several ways to be leaving today and hope to return sometime. Storm …

What do you mean, SNOW?

I can confirm that the Cava was indeed good, which is more than may be said about the weather. The rain it did rain, and oh, how it rained, all night, and the wind it did actually blow a little… Wild enough to keep us awake for hours. 

Mr L and Nell went out at 08:00 and then came back to bed to warm up. When we woke up again later, I remarked on the snow – which I could see piled up on the skylights.  The response I had was not the one that I had expected: “what do you mean, snow?” Yes, the accumulation had occurred in the time that we had been snoozing warming up. There had been no snow earlier in the day,

Anyway, we had slept through what must have been a really heavy snowstorm as there were inches of the stuff lying on the ground despite its being so wet. 

I gather that snow is not a common occurrence in these parts:

 

No photos of the snowy landscape from me I am afraid but there is this

and see  here and here. Why they are the same image, I don’t know as I took two and thought I’d shared one to one place and the other elsewhere. Clearly not functioning well today.

We were due to leave Zauratz today but decided that it was best and safest to just hang out here until the weather improves. It’s not much of a hardship… although I have now rotated through all four desserts offered on the daily menus and will need to start again.

The plan now is to wait for the weather and then to move on further than we would have done today and in fact to make  a long trip to another campsite rather than find an Aire. Let us hope that the coming showers are as good as the ones here… and I don’t mean the snowy ones.

Hola, estamos en España!

After twelve weeks in France, and with just about 2,950 miles on the clock, we crossed the border into Spain this morning. The mileage thing is a bit iffy as I was so busy trying to spot the border sign that I missed checking the mileage until we had gone a few clicks further down the road.

Our first toll road went quite smoothly and we coped with the booths on both sides of the border. There were some obvious differences once we arrived in Spain.

On the French Motorway
In Spain

So many signs, so incomprehensible! So many tunnels. The scenery however was stunning and so were the enormous birds flying overhead. Some kind of Kite, I believe.

We arrived at our destination bang on midday but of course there was somebody in Reception. In France we would have to hang around until after lunch before seeing anybody.

We settled onto a nicely even pitch looking out to sea. The sea is however a long way down.

Our view

We checked out the facilities. Gosh, such luxury after the French campsites; Toilet seats! Paper! Handbasins! SOAP!!!!! Shower cubicles with room to turn around in. Best of all, everything is clean. *sigh* All of the facilities are open too, and that includes the bar and the shop. All of this convenience is going to take some getting used to!

We lunched at the bar on site – there is another bar adjacent to the site, so we have a choice. The daily set menu costs 11 Euros for three courses with bread and a drink – we had a bottle of Spanish cider (extremely different from its Norman and Breton cousins.)

Crumbs!

After lunch we tackled the walk to the beach… all 450 steps. Then we failed to find the shops, had a beer and were entertained by the local bird population, which I fed with dog treats, then walked back to the steps and climbed all 450 of them again.

The steps to the town

We can do it all again tomorrow, only this time with shops, I hope.

On the prom in Zarautz
We met this wee chap on our way back up the cliff

While we are in Spain our French SIM card allows us very little in the way of roaming data. Updates may be sparse and intermittent. For now the campsite here offers free wifi but later, who knows. I am working on ways to update using less bandwidth but for now expect fewer images and less burbling.

We are here for three nights at least. No idea whatsoever what will come next!