taraabit

September 7th 2018

The ladies felt in need of some retail therapy so today we headed to Bergerac which has a good range of clothes shops in its high street. I managed to park Homer in the centre of town next to the church to reduce the distance mom had to walk. Whilst they hit the shops I took Layla for a long walk around the back streets where she indulged in a long session of sniffing and discovering new scents.

From here we drove to Lalinde a pretty market town on the River Dordogne, I have driven through here on many occasions on our way to Sarlat or towns in the Dordogne valley such as Roque Gageac and Domme, today is the first time we have taken the opportunity to visit it and have a walk around. On the way to Lalinde, you do for many miles, drive alongside a canal which is between the road and the Dordogne river, when we arrived we found a place to park and have lunch adjacent to the canal basin.

Its a very pleasant spot, the water is quite deep as Layla found out when she fell in, the canal system was built over 150 years ago to overcome the difficulties of navigating a stretch of the Dordogne River where the water is shallow.

One of the main bridges for crossing the Dordogne is here.

On the way back home we took the opportunity to call in at Decathlon and purchase a few items, mom was intrigued by a horse in the equestrian area.

August 2nd 2018.

At 7.30 am this morning we got a message from our daughter to say that the flight had been delayed by approximately an hour, we had considered driving on somewhere else for the morning , but as it was a beautiful sunny day we decided to go for a walk. We retraced last nights walk through the vineyards and then into the village of Monbazillac,there’s a bar/tabac there, shut this morning, but in the centre there was an open air market hall that operated on Sunday mornings.

We had a look at the few stalls and bought some homemade savouries for lunch plus a goats cheese.

There are only a few buildings in the village, a church, primary school, village hall etc on the side of one building opposite the church are depicted the faces of the owners of the local vineyards.

There is an entrance into the grounds of the chateau from behind the church and we walked the few hundred metres there, we paid a long visit here last summer so we didn’t linger too long.

We returned to Homer via the vineyard and relaxed in the sunshine until it was time to head to Bergerac airport to collect my mom and Sophie, they were standing outside when we arrived which was very helpful as there was nowhere to park Homer. An hour later we were home relaxing in the sunshine.

September 1st 2018.

Tomorrow at midday we are collecting from Bergerac airport my 95 year old mother who is being escorted by our daughter, having flown in from Birmingham.

I came up with idea of staying in an aire close to the airport tonight and found the one we are staying on which is approx a kilometre from the famous Monbazillac Chateau and producer of sweet white wines.

The aire is on a vineyard called Domaine de La Lande and is a France Passion site, these are sites across France approx 2,000 in total where you can stay free and the owner hopes in exchange you may buy some of the produce, be it wine, cheese, olive oil, honey, jams, meat etc.

Upon arrival a resident on the vineyard invited us to that evenings wine tasting, an aperitif, at 6pm, we spent the time prior to that sitting in the shade of a walnut tree as it has been very warm today.

Above is a list of their wines, apart from the La 69 Passerille we tasted all the wines on the top list plus the Monbazillac 2015.

The quantity you got of each wasn’t large so thankfully there were no after effects! I purchased for Michelle 3 bottles of sweet red and 3 bottles of sweet white.

There are two other parties of English here tonight, both driving French motorhomes, one group live in France and the other couple had hired theirs here in France, so we had a natter to them, I think it’s the first time we have spoken to anyone else since last Sunday.

After an evening meal as the sun set we took Layla for a long walk around the large vineyard which seems to stretch forever.

August 27th 2018

We are now back in the French house after 14 nights away, in that time we covered 1,541 miles, spent 332 euros on fuel, 80 euros for three nights on a camp site and 24 euros for four paid nights on aires, the other seven nights were free.

It would be easy to make sweeping all encompassing comments about Spain based on our short time there, all of which was in the North, but I don’t feel qualified to do that, however a few comments based on our experience.

Firstly I have never known a nation of people who speak so loudly, as a friend commented ” they sound as though they are having an argument with themselves when they talk”. They definitely don’t need hearing aids, not a good business to be in. We found the people we came into contact with friendly, and even without a common language between us smiled a lot. The driving was consistently good, we didn’t experience one example of the suicidal overtaking the French love to indulge in, we did twice get held up in small towns when the car in front pulled up, hazards on as they rushed into the bread shop, emerging two minutes later with an apologetic wave, clutching their loaf of bread.

The prices were good, diesel at 1.25 euros a litre against 1.45 euros in France, coffee and alcoholic drinks out were cheap and supermarket prices reasonable, especially again the alcoholic drinks. We look forward to returning soon.

Within a short time of being back I was mowing the grass around the house and then spent 30 minutes under the tractor with a lump hammer and a tin of WD 40 trying to free a bracket so that I could attach a new tow ball.

We have a few days to get on with some jobs before family arrive for a holiday next Sunday so the blog will go quiet now.

August 26th 2018

We drove 118 miles today and it felt good being back in familiar territory being able to understand road signs and ask for things in the supermarket and order a round of drinks without stress .

Tonight’s aire is a large field on the outskirts of this medieval village, it’s a great stopover place there are people here from Holland, Belgium, Germany, England and of course France, we’ve had a good time chatting to lots of folk and met a nice couple Karen and John whose blog I will be following.

La Bastide D’Armagnac is a 13th century bastide town with fascinating narrow streets with buildings that don’t look as if they’ve changed in centuries, there a few restaurants on the square and two shops selling wine and Armagnac, but other than a bread shop there are no other shops in town. It has a nice ambiance and I wouldn’t be surprised to find ourselves returning here at some future point.

Whilst we sat and had a drink the owner of the shop next door came out and sat on a chair and he had an uncanny resemblance to the face in the impressionist poster in the window.

Layla is a good ice breaker when we are travelling and often we get talking to people because of her, tonight she was playing with children and a huge dog which she teased and when it chased her she would dive under the motorhome where it couldn’t catch her, then run back round and tease the dog again.

August 25th 2018

There has been so much contrast in our journey today it’s very hard to remember it all and be able to report on it. We have left Spain and are now about 30km into France at a small village called Arette in the Pyrenees.

We left last nights aire very smoothly considering we were in a city and were soon out on the open road heading towards Estella where we stayed on the first night in Spain two weeks ago, the journey today took us through several mountain ranges gaining height and then losing it again as we descended

The scenery began to change and we were back into the areas where whatever crops had been growing had been harvested leaving stack upon stack of straw bales, we only managed to photo a small stack but some were at least twenty times bigger, there are no signs of cows or sheep so I can only assume they are for sale as winter fodder.

As we headed towards the Pyrenees we came across a reservoir where the water was an amazing blue colour, we managed to stop and park and slither down the bank to the waters edge where Layla delighted in going in and swimming and it took some doing to get her to come out.

We then headed up one of the valleys that lead to a pass over the Pyrenees, in some places the road was too narrow for a white line down the centre, we climbed and climbed until we hit the pass at the top at 1,760m high and here was a ski station where we intended to stay for the night.

Michelle made us a welcome coffee and Layla got excited at the cows wandering free with their bells clanging and there were also 6 adult pigs roaming around, then the cloud descended, the temperature dropped by about 10 degrees and visibility was reduced to 10m. We took the decision that there was no point in sitting there in those conditions for the afternoon and evening so we headed down the pass into France, after about 30k we came to this village of Arette which had a free aire with services so we decided to stay here for the evening.

August 24th 2018

We had a very heavy downfall of rain early today and I was shutting our 3 roof vents at 6.30am getting a shower under each in the process!

It had stopped when we got up but re-commenced as we set off on our journey turning away from the coast, we took this decision as the coastline ahead was likely to be very busy and we would have to travel on toll auto routes. We began to climb steadily as soon as we got going and as we climbed it began to rain heavily, as we reached the highest point at 1,101metres the cloud was so thick I could only see about 10m in front of me, but after descending for a few hundred metres the rain stopped and we found ourselves in sunshine. So the rain in Spain stayed mainly on the coast. We passed through some marvellous scenery again and Michelle attempted to take photos as we drove along, unfortunately there are rarely any places to stop.

Our stopover tonight is in Vitoria-Gasteiz a city which is the capital of the Basque region of Spain. It has an interesting medieval quarter which we visited late this afternoon, making a round trip walking just over 4 miles.

Aug 23rd 2018

This evening we are camped up on the aire Las Hazas in Cóbreces. It is a commercial aire, something we haven’t experienced before, it is well set up with electricity, wifi, shower, washing machine and a shower and cost 12 euros.

We drove a long way today on a mixture of small roads and autoroute seeing some beautiful coastline on the way, every so often Michelle sees a beautiful house on a headland and puts it on her list should we win the lottery. We stopped at lunchtime at an out of town shopping mall adjacent to the autoroute called Parque Aster, it even had a Mcdonald’s, but it wasn’t serving food even though it was mid day. We went into Carrefour and stocked up with enough food to last for a few days, when you got to the checkouts there was one queue and you shuffled forward until a screen displayed the next available empty till, good for my blood pressure because I’m normally in the one where the lady, and yes I mean lady can’t find in her handbag the wherewithal to pay and in France usually pulls out a cheque book which takes ages to process as you have to produce ID and the assistant copies all the info onto the back of the cheque.

We arrived at this aire which was a little difficult to find, the sat nav was useless, it had an hour before tried to send me over a 2m wide bridge and we are 2.4m wide! The signs in the village pointed in two different directions but thankfully with patience we found it. We set up quickly and taking the advice of the lady taking the fees set off on a walk to a viewpoint over the sea, we never did quite find it but enjoyed a long circular walk.

After an evening meal Layla was still restless so we went for another walk into the village, a bar and a shop, we saw a sign to the beach and followed the road down a steep hill. There was a beautiful beach there and Layla enjoyed a run about and paddle but it was a bit of a pull back up the hill.

The village of Cóbreces is on a pilgrim route to Santiago Compostella and has a huge church, an old ruined abbey and a new abbey.

August 22nd 2018

When we woke this morning we were surrounded by a warm sea mist that was drifting in from the Bay of Biscay, thankfully it cleared as we drove back eastwards along the coast road. At one point we turned off down a small lane to a beach that was signposted, it was a small cove with golden sand, quite small and there were several others every few hundred metres. Sadly however the road got narrower and narrower until around a curve in the road we met a bridge under the railway that was 2.5m wide and 2.5m high, sadly we would have lost the top 50cm of Homer had I gone on so I had to reverse 100m back up the road until I could turn.

We drove on for an hour slowly taking in the view until we arrived here at Tapia de Casariego, there’s a parking aire here that can take 50 motorhomes and has services so we stopped. After a coffee we decided we would stay here and go no further today, we had only driven 34 miles!

It’s another beautiful place very cornish in feel, great sandy beaches and a lovely harbour, dogs aren’t allowed on the beaches but I did manage to scramble down some rocks so Layla could have a swim, something she delights in. We have walked for miles today back and forth along the coast and exploring the town.

A few days ago we had the mysterious case of the missing washbasin plug! How it could have disappeared from a closed bathroom I’ve no idea, Michelle’s theory was she may have thrown it out when she shook the carpet!!! I couldn’t comment.

Since then in every town we’ve visited I’ve searched for a new sink plug with no success. This evening, remember Spanish shops are closed all afternoon and reopen from 5.30 to 8.30pm, I found a hardware shop like the one in the Two Ronnie’s sketch. After waiting 5 minutes for a man to buy 10 loose screws and have them wrapped, I began my attempt to ask for a sink plug.

With aid of Google translate I got a few shakes of the head and a Que? from the owner, then he had a lightbulb moment and bought me a tray of electric plugs! Confused by my no, no I showed him the screen of my iphone, he indicated for me to wait and went off into another room. He returned moments later with his reading glasses and after looking again, beamed reached down a tray with at least 6 different size sink plugs from which I chose two that looked ok and after paying two euros thirty we both beamed at each other and said gracias many times. Thank God I didn’t want hose or O’s, or fork handles. I’m pleased to say one fits.

August 21st 2018

After a reasonable night, Layla was still asleep at 8am so we had coffee in bed a real luxury.

Our first stop after 10km was at a Halfords type shop Norauto to buy some fuses as one had blown in the system we use for charging the phones and i pads as we travel, we also filled up with fuel at 1.24 euros a litre, a real bargain.

We took a dual carriageway/highway virtually all the way to today’s destination, it passed through some beautiful scenery with mountains to one side and the sea on the other.

Foz is a small town with a leisure and fishing harbour which open out into the Atlantic ocean and beautiful sandy beaches, we are parked up on a large grassy parking area within metres of the town and the front of Homer is 10m from the sea wall. The view is wonderful and changed over the afternoon as the tide went out.

This is probably as far west as we will travel this time and we will take a leisurely drive back along the coast taking several days.