Our grand tour of southern Spain February 14th Day Thirty-two heading back up north

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What is the route like from Riaza (in Spain) northwards to Irun, then Biarritz and on to Bordeaux in France?

We stop just outside Riaza to watch the grey dense cloud rolling down the slopes of the snow-clad peaks. An extraordinary sight – a grey blanket slipping down the hillsides. Its 2C at 0915.

We continue northwards across another patchwork quilt landscape of earthy colours. No olive trees today – vines giving way to cereals. Dry soils and rolling endless plains all the ay to the horizon.

And bulls. Big, black four-metre-high bulls! Well-endowed with horns and er….well never mind. They are littered across this landscape at regular points on little hills. You can see them coming towards you from five miles away!

It’s like the North American Badlands, except the landscape has been draped with agriculture. Sandstones, clays and limestones; mudstones and dolomites. In cuttings their bedding planes are twisted into spectacular folds , showing how mighty the tectonic forces in this area were millions of years ago.

Soaring red kites alongside the road verges, effortlessly riding the thermals. What truly magnificent birds they are. 

A landscape punctuated by agricultural warehouses and agricultural machinery plants.  We pass a wind turbine lorry convoy. Very exciting – three unique lorry loads. Each turbine blade, almost 25m in length rests on a tractor towing unit and then nothing underneath until the very end tip, which rests on an eight wheeled bogie unit. Three such lorry units in a row with escort vehicles. Exciting stuff!

Then there is a convoy of little houses – half a house to be precise being moved on a lorry with the other half close behind.

In the distance – more snow covered peaks; but before them – more extensive basins of agriculture – cereals – the stubble form last years crops still left in place to stop the soil from being carried away by the strong winds that gust across this desolate landscape. No hedges, no shelter belts of trees – just vast, vast fields! We occasionally glimpse flashes of colour on distant hillslopes – a bright green tractor towing a very shiny red tilling and seed drilling machine. Farmers already planting spring crops.

And then there are the road signs for snow and ice. And the giant emergency car parks signposted every twenty kilometres or so. Huge flat expanses of tarmac, gravel or concrete – emergency car parks the sign posts say with a huge snowflake symbol alongside. We can only deduce they are for times when the snow blizzards up here are so bad they close the roads and escort all traffic to one of these places for safety.

Before you know it, we have arrived at the northern mountain ranges of Spain.

Deep ravines, steep slopes, sheep and cattle; an alpine feel with steep pitched roofs and woodstores built along house walls. Twisting roads through many, many tunnels and across more vertigo inducing tall viaducts. This is civil engineering on steroids! Impressive road building!

In the valleys under the viaducts, some surprises. Hi tech companies – Toyota and Siemens.  Factory food processing units. And then quick glimpses of the green blue seas of the Bay of Biscay at San Sebastian. Now there’s a stop off for our next trip down.

Our transition into France at the last on the AP1 tolls is very abrupt. French police are pulling cars vans and lorries on the French side. A police officer with binoculars is scanning lorries as they enter the tolls – he is 400m further on in France. He relays messages to his counterparts at the tolls and certain cars and lorries get pulled! We are sure we will be pulled as the only motorhome around but we are let through by a very stern looking gendarme. Phew! We have nothing to hide and nothing is wrong but even so we feel guilty….of nothing!

Up past Biarritz and Bayonne and across the featureless lowlands with nothing but motorway views and flat plains of sandy soils and stunted pine ‘Christmas trees’ of varying sizes. Boring! We really miss the exciting chaotic and beautiful landscapes of Spain!

 

Arriving at Pontenx-Les-Forges, we find a camping car site about eight miles off A63 with thirty hard standings all with EHU. Under some oak trees, there is a carpet of naturally crunchy brown dried oak leaves and thousands of fallen rotten acorns under foot. At the back of the village playing fields, we find village elders engaged in an intense game of boules.  There are five other motorhomes with us tonight and one permanent live on site one with a huge awning pegged out. Electric is 6 amp. Evening sunshine bathes the area in a golden glow. It is peaceful, quiet and tranquil. 

Today has been another long drive of several hours. Easy in Spain but the A63 in France was full of lorries. Lorry drivers seem to lose their manners in this part of France! They love to pull out just as you start to overtake them; causing severe braking and loss of speed. One almost killed us pulling into a tolls area. With twenty metres to go to our chosen lane – he pulled alongside us, cut right in front of us and went into the lane the other side of us. A deliberate manoeuvre causing us much braking and cursing (well from me). Complete idiot!

You might wonder why we are driving such long distances. Surely, we shouldn’t drive more than three hours in a day? Normally we wouldn’t -  but I’m not a good sailor (ironic given I own a sailing boat) and the Santander ferry will cause me some severe sea sickness, even in benign conditions. So, we sail out of Plymouth or Portsmouth. Hence the long journeys north and south. We aim to maximise the amount of time we spend in Spain!

Tomorrow, we aim to reach Saumur in the Loire Valley and here we will have an extra day to go cycling and exploring before completing the journey to the Caen coast on Friday. We catch an early morning ferry on Saturday!

Useful information:

Route: N110 – A1 – AP1/E5 – AP1/AP8 – A63 – A10

Distance: 322 miles

Costs: fuel – 70 euros; camping car site – 12 euros

Campsite: https://www.searchforsites.co.uk/marker.php?id=46722