Turn around when possible

Santander to Plymouth, then to Dawlish, 45 miles, Crofton Country Holiday Park, £12 per night, 1 night

Dawlish to Buxton, 237 miles

The ferry did not leave Santander until 6pm, so we had a day to fill. Our plan - do some final shopping in the morning, park Maisy at the docks in the early afternoon, then spend a couple of hours exploring Santander. The shopping trip required a bit of preparation, partly because Spanish supermarkets are increasingly fortifying their car parks with 2 metre high sun shades rendering many unsuitable for motorhomes. Mercadona now have more stores where parking is problematic than not. We also wanted to find a Dia as they have the best selection of interesting wine and good discount deals. The answer, after a brief perusal of Google maps - nearby Torrevega - in one small area, easily accessible from the motorway, was a Mercadona, a Dia, and a Carrefour hypermarket - perfecto! 

So we bought the eatables from Mercadona, drinkables from Dia but skipped Carrefour. The additional cargo meant a bit of a reorganisation in the rear garage allowing me to do a quick stocktake of the on-board wine lake, which in fact is rather smaller than usual , more of an estanque than an embalse. Around 65 bottles or so, at least 20 or 30 fewer than our typical end of  trip haul. I think the appalling exchange rate curbed our wine buying enthusiasm. Still, it's an interesting mix of French and Spanish wines we are exporting home. Perhaps it will last us just as long, these days I can't quite demolish half a bottle a day with impunity, a couple of glasses is my limit and even then I need a booze break every so often or I end up 'unwell'. This is very annoying as Gill is utterly unaffected, so I have to sit watching her quaffing away merrily while sipping mint tea. How feeble is that?

We arrived at Santander in the early afternoon, booked in, then wandered off to explore the city. The main square is only a few of hundred metres from the ferry port. Santander is not the most charming place we have visted in Spain. It is not horrible, a typical small port I suppose; tawdry apartment blocks line the harbour by the ferry terminal, though there are some stylish older buildings scattered about further along the promenade near the Jardines de Pereda. By Spanish standards the central streets are quite narrow so the main shopping area feels a little cramped and claustrophobic. Conversely, the large square next to the city hall, Plaza Ayuntamiento, has a bleak, windswept look more normally associated with British urban spaces. It exuded a god forsaken atmosphere like Manchester Piccadilly on a drizzly Tuesday in January. Maybe the lively bits of Santander are nearer the park and we missed them. There weere lame attempts at Christmas cheer going on with an ice rink and some seasonal tableaux. Perhaps endishness sullied my impression of the place, we did find a cafe in the end which served us our last two cortada for the foreseeable future. Four o'clock approached. Time to embark, people wearing hi-res waved their arms at us and muttered into radios; soon we all had duly trundled aboard. For the first time in years we have no future travel plans, nothing to look forward to, no wonder we are feeling glum.

Ready...steady...  

A skating rink had been installed in a small plaza - the unseasonably mild weather conspired to turn into a piscina.

Keeled over Christmas tree - an apt emblem for our mood..

The ferry itself seemed to have Tardis-like qualities in terms of being much bigger inside than it appeared from the outside.

As we boarded, it looked quite compact

inside it was huge - and really quite empty - off season it must surely run at a loss.

Loading was complete more than an hour and a half  before departure time. We spent the spare time exploring on-board facilities, then tried to find an outside seat where we could enjoy the warm late afternoon sunshine. On-deck benches seemed in short supply. Finally we found an empty one  at the stern near the helipad. It did not take long to discover why it had been left vacant. It was next to the dog exercise pound, so any hope of  watching sunset in peace was constantly interrupted by a chorus of yaps, woofs, barks, whines and the occasional plaintive howl. If you travel by moho you have to resign yourself to tolerating other people's pooches. Because it offers relative freedom compared to renting a house or staying in a hotel, motorhomes are much loved by dog owners. This trend is augmented by a grey haired propensity for multiple pooch ownership which I can only assume is some kind of displacement behaviour prompted by frustrated parental instincts. Even if you find most dogs pathetic creatures - which I do - you simply have to learn to live with them, and nod and smile politely when otherwise sane and sensible fellow travellers decide to explain to you the remarkable abilities of their particular furry friend. "He knows what I am thinking." intimated one fellow traveller struggling to unload a top-loading washing machine with one hand while clutching a brainless looking miniature long haired Yorkshire terrier with the other. "That's remarkable." I agreed.

The dog owner pound.

We were  entertained briefly by a Spanish frigate leaving port. The ship's company were drawn up on the aft deck. As the vessel headed out to sea it gave a long blast on its horn - I suppose some kind of embarkation ceremony was taking place. I have developed certain pre-embarkation rituals of my own. I always managing to wander nonchalantly past the lifeboat hoists and liferaft racks, just to check, you know.. I have never been a good sailor and ever since I saw 'Titanic' almost twenty years ago, blind panic and a propensity for catasrophication have joined my usual feelings of nausea, dizziness and  a tendency to moan quietly well before we actually cast-off.

Well, they seem in order....

Eventually the Pont Aven slipped away from the quay, reversed a bit (do ships 'reverse'?), then sailed slowly down the Bahia de Santander towards the sea. It was a pretty twilight and I joined the small gaggle of people at the stern rail scrabbling to take identical cliched photographs of the wake in the evening light. A peaceful scene, punctuated by the occassional yap or howl from the adjacent pooch gaol.

My brilliant travelling companion...

Once it got dark we headed for our cabin and played with the folding bunks. Given that the space is not much bigger than one of those coin operated metal toilet kiosks, it is remarkably well designed and contrary to expectations we got a reasonable night's sleep.

At breakfast we learned we had slept through a minor emergency. At some point in the small hours the ferry had to make a detour to enable a helicopter evacuate a seriously ill passenger. As a result our arrival in Plymouth was going to be delayed by two hours. We changed our plans, deciding to head for a campsite near Dawlish rather than the small site on a cider farm near Taunton as originally planned.

Only five hours to go....

We left Santander on a sunny warm evening. Mid afternoon the next day found us sailing up Plymouth Hoe in freezing fog. We drove off. Muriel woke up still convinced we were in Santander. Her stock response to cartesian confusion is to repeat, somewhat robotically, "Turn around when possible, turn around when possible." She was not alone with this thought. Immigration waved us through with a perfunctory glance at our passports. As we approached the customs shed an officer flagged us down. I assured her that we had checked the van for stowaways; she asked us how long we had been out of the country. "Since September," I replied.

"Lovely," she said with a smile, "Why did you come back?"

As I drove around Plymouth's traffic choked roundabouts garish neon gleamed 'Primark', 'Staples', 'Jobcentre Plus' through the foggy dusk. The officer's question seemed very pertinent. It is not far from Plymouth to Dawlish, but by the time we got there in was pitch dark. To add a little excitement to the day Muriel directed us off the A38 onto a bewildering series of back roads, mainly consisting of sunken lanes that no one in their right mind would ever try to drive a motorhome down, Clearly this thought must have occurred to the on-coming car drivers as quite a few gave us an annoyed flash as we squeezed past one another at a snail's pace.

Gill had phoned ahead and the receptionist at  Crofton Country Holiday Park assured us that they were open until six, I was relieved when we found it and thankful that the guy in the office drove ahead in a 4x4 to direct us to our pitch for the lighting was low key - which makes it good for star gazing, but a nightmare to negotiate in a moho. I was pleased to settle in for the night. Homecoming was proving tricky, and we still had a long drive tomorrow.

Dull but mild

Wednesday dawned, a little overcast, but very mild. I drained the grey water wearing a tee shirt; tee shirt weather in December, it's  not often you can say that in England. As a place to stay in winter Crofton Country Holiday Park seems very good. The site is divided in two on either side of a narrow lane. One side is a holiday park packed with chalet's and statics, but well landscaped and not too much of a blot on the landscape. The camping area is very well designed with heated, impeccably maintained facilities, good sized pitches, friendly staff, and only £12 per night in low season. The pitch size is generous, the staff welcoming and helpful - I have been very rude about British campsites elsewhere on the blog, but you have to give credit where it is due. If we get a mild spell in late winter or early spring, I think we could do a lot worse than to return here to escape the Pennine gloom.

As we drove north up the M5 the sun came out and we had a lovely day driving through the west of England. For the second time on the same day England surprised us. Over the past three years we have enjoyed driving through regions on southern Europe that have a great local food culture. Of course there are excellent places to eat out in the UK, and good products and produce, but it's not the norm. Mediocre is our default setting; branded, corporate, packaged commodities strewn to customers used to second best from faceless distribution centres. It does not have to be like this, and happily today we visited two places that confound the stereotype.

The first was a couple of miles from where we stayed near Starcross in Devon. . Powderham Farm Shop is packed full of great local products. We went there for some bread and came out with a shopping bag full of stuff, excellent mince, a range of local sausages, some Devon blue cheese - the whole place is a showcase for good British food. In a sense, however, you might expect this from a stately home estate's farm shop. The real surprise came when we stopped for lunch at Gloucester Motorway Services.  Bill Bailey called them 'cathedral's of despair', and if you wanted something that epitomises the worst aspects of British food, then look no further than what the hapless British motorist has to put up with on our motorways. However, Gloucester Services shows that it does not have to be like this, the place is full of excellent fresh produce and has a farm shop every bit as good as the one at the Powderham Estate. What the place shows is the mundane and the ordinary can be delightful, there is hope, but sadly only here and there.

Gloucester Services -  catering for the masses does not inevitably lead to mass catering.

Low energy architecture with a butterfly friendly roof.

So, marooned here for while, without a clear idea when we might be on our travels once more, maybe we should take heart from today and try to  seek out some this country's simple delights. This positivity did not last for long. Somewhere on the M6 south of Stoke we ran into drizzle and fog; rush hour in the Potteries was grim and we arrived home to a freezing cold house and a demand for an unpaid parking ticket for £70.

Next day we deposited Maisy at the hill farm where we store her, it was grey, cold and damp, in other words normal weather up here in the Pennines. We have DIY stuff to do in the house, Gill's Dad needs more of our time and attention, I have a lot of reading to catch up with and a heap of other writing projects to complete if I could muster the energy and find the inspiration. Ideally, we should enjoy equally time at home and time on the road, but I don't think we have even come close to that; being at home still feels like the bit in between. Muriel's echolalic catch-phrase 'turn around when possible' seems so tempting, not so much a catch-phrase as a mantra, perhaps a mission statement even. Is travel addictive, an obsession  - probably. What I think it provokes is an ambient restlessness, a nagging dissatisfaction. One final thought, what do you want, a satisfying life or a thought provoking one? For the traveller, the only satisfactory life is a thought provoking one.

Pennine grim.

Gill with her best 'it's f****** freezing face on, she is, of course, far too well mannered to express such a thing.

About 15 years ago I wrote a sonnet about travel after reading Paul Theroux's 'The Happy Isles of Oceania' -

          Parting Shots

Departure spawns its own mythology:
the tearful scene, a squalid terminus—
she needs his promises; he wants 'no fuss'—
one wistful kiss, a gauche apology.

Her script demands a clichéd gravitas:
the jukebox playing, as his silhouette
dissolves into the cinematic sunset:
"Regrets, I've had a few!" An emptied glass.

Then always for the loved one left behind,
the niggling doubts: this time he won't return,
he'll die, shack-up with someone half his age,
come back quite changed; she knows that those who find
delight in not belonging always yearn
for solitude no woman can assuage.

The poem captures, I think, the underlying sense of loneliness that pervades Theroux's book, written shortly after the break-up of his first marriage. What is wonderful about our journey is it is 'our' journey, a celebration of love and companionship, a grand Romantic gesture in a world where grandeur is in short supply and the Romantic distrusted, not least because it has a whiff of the uncool about it. The uncool, it's a latter day heresy, designed like all thought control to limit  expression, to kill joy. There are scant blessings to be had in growing older, but one of them is to slip beyond the realm of the cool, being sixty plus is inherently uncool - therein lies a certain freedom, unachievable by the young.

I think, that was a roundabout way of saying, thank you Gill - we did this together, and it was marvellous.

e

Last few days - Spring before Christmas!

Somo to Noja, 13 miles, Wild camping at Playa de Ris, free, 1 night.

Somo to Carbácena, 23 miles, Aire, free, I night. 

Carbácena to Santander, 13 miles, Ferry to Plymouth, not free.... 

With clear skies and weather in the high teens we have stopped dashing about and have decided to take it easy before catching the ferry home. The Costa Cantabria is very beautiful, I remember making some lame comment back in early October when we drove through here that the landscape was a mixture of North Devon and Middle Earth. Today, looking out of the windscreen at the green rolling hills by the sea, a red roofed town on the edge of a rocky inlet with a big beach of soft sand, then the resemblance to the West Country does seem apt. What about the Tolkien comparison? OK, it's a bit far fetched, but the Cantabrian massif at dusk yesterday viewed from the aire in Somo, well it had a slightly 'Misty Mountains' look if you stretched your imagination a bit. Tolkien certainly did; I read somewhere that his inspiration for the mighty range that he imagined ran from the Grey Mountains in the north of Middle Earth all the way to the gap of Rohan was the Malvern Hills, The Malverns, I know they are not exactly molehills, but they are not mountains either.

Maisy and thec 'Misty Mountains'.

Before we set out Gill downloaded a French app called 'Park for Night'. Up until now we have only used it to find moho friendly car parks in urban areas during the day. For overnight places we still tend to use Campercontacts. However, as we noted previously, this area of Spain is a bit thin on the ground for places to stay out of season so we decided to give 'Park for Night' a go, and it did highlight far more wild camping opportunities in the area than those listed on Campercontacts. Like Campercontacts, the places on 'Park for Night' have user reviews, which means you have some idea of what the place may be like before you arrive. 

The place it found for us at Noja's Playa de Ris proved to be one of the best wild camping spots we have ever stayed in. Amazing beach, interesting rocks, a nice coastal path, and not too busy or noisy. Of course it is out of season; Noja's extensive sprawl of low-rise apartments are nearly all shuttered for the winter. In high season it's probably manic.

Noja's Playa de Ris - an beautiful place to overnight.

We walked a few kilometres one way, towards Isla, then in the evening trotted in the opposite direction reaching a nearby pine covered rocky promontory. It was all very peaceful and lovely. We woke this morning and watched a slightly understated misty sunrise without even needing to stir from bed - we have definitely reached the 'we can't do THIS at home' stage of the trip. 

Next day - our final night, back at the 'elephant aire ' at Cabárceno Park. It was almost empty when we were here last, today it was packed with lots of British vans. I suppose early December is a crossover moment when the Santander ferry is busy with Brits heading for Spyeen for Christmas one way, then returning with other Brits like us, doing exactly the opposite.

Some  were going, others, like us returning

Yes, you can get this close.

So, as for today, it's the inevitable last shopping trip, then off to the docks, parking early enough to have a quick look at Santander, then homeward bound. I think I said in the previous post that we had not yet reached the 'endish' stage. Well, we have now, which is a good thing, because we are - at the end I mean, well apart from a 260 mile drive from Plymouth to Buxton. At the moment I am regarding that as beyond the end, some kind of purgatorial afterlife that I don't quite believe in.

e

Blue skies, and the smell of anchovies

Logrono to Somo, 140 miles, Aire de Autocaravanas, 12 Euros per night, inc ECU, 2 nights. 

Sometimes it seems a bit silly to have so many weather apps on our phones, but a couple of days ago it paid off. Each app offers something different, Wunderground has the best long range forecast, Spain's national weather service - Il Tempio - is good for localised severe weather warnings, and the dear old Beeb, even for foreign parts, provides an interactive countrywide map that shows cloud cover and converts at a click to display isobars. 

While clicking through this, getting ever more depressed at the great lumps of cloud enveloping Iberia for the next week, we noticed a thread of yellow on the northern coast. As the rest of Spain mouldered in gloom, sunshine and warmth was forecast for the Costa Verde. 

This seemed like an unlikely story the morning that we left Logrono. It was grey and chilly. We headed upwards into the Alta Rioja, passing bodegas worthy of a mention in our Hugh Johnson guide; the best Rioja comes from these upper slopes apparently. Not that we could see the famous vineyards, the higher we climbed the foggier it became.

Somewhere north of Haro we reached a ridge and through shreds of cloud the Ebro valley appeared far below us, pale straw coloured, bathed in sunlight. For a few minutes the weather played hide and seek; for a moment or two we would be wreathed in grey, then suddenly through a gap in the cloud we would glimpse the valley - a brief image of a castle perched on a spiky out-crop, or sere fields stretching away towards distant mountains.

On the horizon was a line of pale grey, then light blue; somewhere on the motorway north of Miranda de Ebro we broke into bright blue skies and glorious sunshine. It seemed both a new country and an earlier season. The mountains were green, as were the pine and eucalyptus forests. The trusty BBC had been right, there was an unseasonal sliver of summer clinging to the northern coast as the remainder of Spain embraced winter. 

Once we had decided to head back to Cantabria a few days before our ferry, that raised the question of where to go and what to do. As I flipped through the pages of the road atlas covering Eskuadi and Cantabria one place name caught my eye - Santoña. I remembered an episode from Rick Stein's cookery series about Spain when he visited the fishing port. Basically it is where the best anchovies in the world are landed, most of them ending up in tins. That's where we decided to stop for lunch. It was an inspired choice, not only is Santoña interesting, it happens to be set on a beautiful inlet with views to the mountains.

We loved the place, the weather helped, clear blue skies and warm sunshine. In Santoña the anchovy is king; the boats catch them, small factories near the quayside preserve them, specialist shops sell them, restaurants menus celebrate them, and the entire town reeks of the salty smell of anchovies. Now, as well as wine, chocolate, breadsticks, ham, aoli, garlic, paella spice, lemons, oranges and olive oil, we now have many tins of anchovies stowed away for culinary experiments back home.

It was a short drive to Somo where we planned to stay. The aire is next to a campsite about 2km from the town. It is well designed, has a good service point and a lovely view south towards the mountains. The fine weather is forecast to hold for a few days, so, despite the days ticking down towards 'moment ferry', we are not feeling 'endish' just yet.

It is about three kilometres to the beach at Somo, most of it on roads with pavements. The town itself is part surfer resort, part Santander suburb, but the beach is huge and the sunset over the inlet towards Santander was worth the walk.

e

Henry Moore and the Evolved Omelette.

Careñina to Logrono, 139 miles, Logrono aire, free 1 night.

I have given up trying to keep the blog up to date on the move. The difficulties of finding WiFi are such that the virtual trip tends to lag a week behind the real one. I am determined not to end up writing a memoir, so at the very least I think what I write has to be captured as near as practicable 'in the moment', even if it is uploaded to Blogger with photos a few days later. To do this I use the 'Simple Notebook' app on my phone which works well on the whole.

The importance of writing as you go has been emphasised today because I have broken my own rules and right now I am attempting to write about the second leg of our journey from Valencia to the Cantabrian coast, which happened in reality three days ago. Even that short delay means I have forgotten stuff, for example any details of the journey from Careñina to Zaragoza, poof! Gone. I have a vague memory of the industrial sprawl around the city, other than that the odd image of a vine covered plain, the layby in Navarre where we stopped for lunch exists only as a vague recollection of graffiti on the bins inferring the spot was much appreciated as an amenity by the local gay community. Apparently we passed some awesome steam-punk factories, but I only recall them because Gill took photos from the cab.

As for Logrono itself, I have no blanks spots, so I don't feel a fraud blogging about it. It is the capital of Rioja region so you would expect it to be a lively place, wine towns usually are. The old centre is on the south bank of the Ebro, but it's a compact city, so even though the aire is on the opposite bank, in a large mixed car park by a sports complex, it is only a ten minute walk to the centre.

The city itself proved delightful. The first surprise came when we arrived at the central square in front of the Cathedral. It was hosting an exhibition of Henry Moore sculpture. Though there were only eight examples, they were all large pieces and represented key aspects of his work - the influence of landscape and natural form;  the reduction of the human form to an abstracted essence; standing and reclining figures, and the monumental scaled up from the miniature. It was almost a mini retrospective. It was refreshing to experience the works outside the staid atmosphere of an art gallery.

It was a brave move on the part of the city and the curators. In 2012 a Moore medium sized  bronze sold for in London for £19m. This particular piece was famous because it was associated with Festival of Britain, so probably sold at a premium price. Even so, the value of the artefacts on show in Logrono must have been in excess of £40m, and the only protection came in the form of a two bored looking security guards. I cannot see such an open air exhibition being staged in the UK.

Our guidebook mentioned that due to the influence of the neighbouring Basque region, Logrono had a developing  pinchos bar scene. This is something of an understatement, the area around Calle San Augustin and Calle del Laurel is packed with bars all trying to out do each other in the business of the beauteous snack. There is an element of specialisation, one place doing lovely things with goats cheese, another seemingly applying the principles of origami to ham. Sadly, the establishment which promised that they had been producing the most delicious patatas bravas in Spain' since 1987 only opened in the evening, so we were unable to evaluate the claim. Also closed, a bar whose USP was an 'evolved omelette', a brave move in a country where tortilla is universally regarded as having achieved near divine perfection so far as exciting things to do with an egg is concerned.

Even though quite a few bars had yet to open the choice was still somewhat bewildering. After wandering up and down for a while we chose a place that seemed to offer differing types of pinchos. Gill chose a ham croquette topped by a pennant of Serrano ham flying from a cocktail stick. My small concoction consisted of lightly grilled goats cheese with soft fruits - raspberries, blackberries and red currents -  stacked carefully on top with grace and artistry. Washed down with a glass of Rioja, it proved Mr. Schumacher's adage correct, small can be beautiful.

By now it was late afternoon and the light was beginning to fade. The streets were quiet, the town took on a slightly other worldly atmosphere, a kind of magic realism.

I wondered if the architecture had something to do with it. The pedestrianised streets in the centre are full of minor Modernista gems, not just examples from the early twentieth century, but later buildings from the Franco era where the style evolved, adopting motifs from Art Deco and post war modernism without fully embracing them. I had noticed this hybrid style last year, in Sicily and Portugal. It is somewhat overlooked, probably because it is associated with fascism. In time the political connotations will fade, and these buildings' architectural qualities become better appreciated. I think they are rather splendid.

It was time for a cortado we decided. Gill announced that she would like to find a traditional café. This proved more of a challenge than we anticipated. Although Logrono's buildings ooze early twentieth century style, most of the bar and café interiors have been given a distinctly contemporary make-over, minimalist cool being the preferred choice. We had almost admitted defeat when we happened upon Café Moderne, which was celebrating its centenary this year. Many of the original fitments remain in place.

We sat at the dark wood bar and were served excellent coffee. I imagined Hemingway might stagger in at any moment - 'Drunk in the Afternoon'! In reality the only person with literary pretensions was me and I am hardly in the same league, or any league at all. Moreover, I'm stone cold sober. I suppose the perils of suffering from an imaginative disposition is that you are doomed to be forever disappointed.

However, you would have to try very hard to be disappointed with Logrono. It is lovely, all the more so because its delights came as an utter surprise, and Café Moderne serves a great cortado, it really does, you should try it. If you do, buy Ernest a drink, and tell him I'll catch him next time.

e