Speed bumps down memory lane.

I realise I keep banging on about how our good intentions about seeking out new places gets compromised every time we stumble across old haunts. I have concluded that this is more or less inevitable unless we change tack and concentrate our travels in future on Eastern Europe, the Balkans and Scandinavia. For most of this trip we will be on familiar territory, apart from the route across the south of La Mancha taking us from Valencia, through Albacete and Ubaeda to Seville. Our planned end point is partially new ground too. Our only previous foray into the Algarve was a four day break to Faro one February half-term. Our arrival happened to coincide with a deep Atlantic low. The hotel was a 1960s built concrete monster clinging to a cliff. The waves were so high that watching them from the terrace was reminiscent of Douglas Adam's description of dinner at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. 

Back to yesterday, after we escaped the tender ministrations of Palace Caravanes the we took 'D roads' south in order to avoid tolls on the A63. It was mid-afternoon by the time we left. We only travelled 30km or so, at the back of our minds was a nagging concern that if the fridge fix had not worked we may need to return to the repairers the following day.

We decided to stop at the Aire at Parentis en Born, partly because it was not so far from the garage, but mainly we were convinced we had not been there previously. As soon as we pulled off the main road and headed towards the lake I had a distinct sense of déjà vu. We drew up to the entrance to the Aire, yes this was the place with the terrifying rising bollards and incomprehensible credit card pay station we stumbled upon one blustery March day on our homeward journey in 2015. A repeat performance at the barrier proved unnecessary; the place was full. We stayed instead at an excellent ex municipal site a few hundred metres away. Only €13 ACSI rate, heated pool, great showers, lots of hot water at the washing-up sinks, big pitches, friendly staff, nice wooded ambiance - perfecto. 

Clearly appreciation of these particular qualities is a national characteristic, after a fortnight of being the only Brits in a pitch, we found ourselves parked among a clutch of Swifts and Autotrails. After we had eaten I joined three other British blokes at the washing-up place. It was a bit of a social occasion, chatting about this and that, discovering in the process we had absolutely nothing in common other than we each drove a motorhome and pure chance had marooned us at a random juncture in space in time clutching a J cloth and a bottle of Fairy Liquid.

We woke to a sunny day and a cold fridge. Yes! We can head to San Sebastian as planned. Once more we were on familiar roads. On the map the coast south from the Gironde to Bayonne is one big dollop of green. It's easy to dismiss it as a big boring pine wood, like Kielder Forest with surfing. Actually the landscape is a little more varied than that with patches of oak and chestnut woods among the ubiquitous conifers. In September the verges are covered in different sorts of heather, the bracken tinged russet brown and clumps of deciduous trees just beginning to yellow. In the autumn sunlight it was a truly lovely sight. As you reach Gascony the villages become more attractive too, the vernacular style is for shallow roofed, timber framed houses with overhanging rafters, like mini chalets. Though the villages are small each is clustered around a big stone church, reflecting that these roads follow an older route, one of the many pilgrim paths to Compestella - a less strenuous alternative to the more famous one from Moissac and Saintes, through Toulouse and across the Pyrenees via St Jean-Pied-de-Port.

Les Landes - empty roads, endless straights, endless trees...

We passed through Montalivet and Lit-et-Mixe, both familiar to us from the summer holidays we spent with the kids in the nearby seaside campsites. The places looked largely unchanged, a little more well-to-do maybe; each had brand new supermarkets on the outskirts. Their respective Maries had invested in shared space pedestrian schemes and aggressive traffic calming measures, which seems to have become something of a national obsession over the past decade. The sharp zigzag chicanes and mini-hillock sized speed bumps are a bit of a trial, especially if driving a larger vehicle, but if they save lives a make places more pedestrian friendly, then they are good thing, and inevitable given the aggressive, impatient driving style you encounter here so often.

As we neared the Bayonne, Anglet, Biarritz conurbation common sense trumped thrift. We joined the autoroute and fed the tollbooth robot. Even the mundanity of the autoroute has nostalgic connotations for us. The arrival of children briefly brought our wanderlust to a temporary halt. In the late 80s we had short beach holidays in Brittany squeezing our enormous Cabanon frame tent plus buggy and folding cots first into a Renault 4, its roof rack piled high, giving us the appearance of having been left behind by a 'peace convoy'; later, our gear stuffed into the boot of an elderly mint green Vauxhall Cavalier, our first family car. Times were tough, interests rates rocketed, almost doubling our mortgage repayments and trapping us in negative equity.

Gill's response to this was typically brilliant. She found an amazingly cheap ten day Easter break to Antibes. This was 1992, we listened to John Major acknowledging victory on the steps of number 10 as we bombed southwards on the l'Autoroute de Soleil. Mid smarmy cliché, Major's dirge disappeared into a hail of static to be replaced by some hi-decibel French radio talk show, preferably incomprehensible. We had escaped. We spent a sunny fortnight in the South of France and learned three things. 1. Out of season the Mediterranean was affordable. 2. So long as you travelled with their needs in mind, having children with you was a delight not a chore. 3. If it was raining where you were, it was sunny somewhere else 

It was this latter thought which struck us that July, when on our usual summer trip to Finisterre we stood glumly in a fine, but persistent drizzle on the Point de Raz watching Brittany Ferries service to Santander pick its way slowly through the rocky islets offshore, then disappear southwards into the mist. You can guess what happened next. The following morning we packed our wet big-top of a tent into the car, hastily scooped up random camping gear, then the kids and strapped them in. By late morning we were off. We are not stopping until we find some sunshine, we resolved.

It drizzled all the way to the Loire, poured down through the Poitou-Charente. Somewhere near Saintes we stopped for an evening meal in a Centre Commercial; the hypermarket cafe had a ball pool, we hung about until the kids had exhausted themselves. It was dark by the time we continued south. Bordeaux loomed; here the motorway split, left towards Perpignan and the Med, straight on towards Biarritz and the Basque country. We chose the latter on a whim, maybe the heat of the Med might be too much for the kids, we wondered. 

Sometime after midnight we explored a resort area near Hossegar: it was bathed in garish neon and very overdeveloped, so we carried on. By now I was exhausted, so we stopped in a service area and attempted to sleep in the car. I woke after dozing off. A full moon had risen. The grassy picnic area shone in the spectral light, it was full of rabbits hopping about, they too looked silvery. I dozed again for an hour, then woke at first light wondering if I had dreamt the magic bunnies.Gill assured me that she had seen them too. Onwards, as the sun rose in a clear blue sky we arrived at the Aire de Service near Bidart overlooking the spectacular Cotes Basque. Any further and we would reach Spain and in those days you needed a bail bond to drive there. So we stopped, got out our trusty Michelin camping guide and found a site a few kilometres inland from Biarritz at St Peé sur Nivelle. We booked into Camping Goyachea as soon as it opened and found a great pitch with a view of La Rhune, the Toblerone shaped mountain that signals the western end of the Pyrenees. We had a great couple of weeks, the children went brown from head to foot. No-one worried back then about the dangers of sunshine.

Camping Goyachea, July 1992

I think 1992 was the year we changed from a family who enjoyed going on holidays into a family that habitually travelled at every opportunity. Our trips all over southern Europe, to America, Canada, Egypt, Japan, Hong Kong and Australia, all of them, I think are rooted in the moment we headed to the Cote d'Azur one Easter on a whim then, the following July, drove 500 miles overnight to escape the rain.

It is understandable, therefore, that as we headed down the autoroute towards Biarritz a bit of a nostalgia fest broke out in the van As we passed a service area with a big expanse of grass, I pondered, "is that the place of the spectral rabbits?" The chunky outline of La Rhune appeared. Gill picked up her phone and took a few shots as we sped past. I recalled how Matthew and I climbed to the summit one sweltering August afternoon. He was only six, thinking back, he did brilliantly to make to the top. We sat there together watching the vultures circling above us in the thermals.

La Rhune

For the past three years since we have travelled once more as a couple, our tacit mantra has been, 'visit new places'. I still think it's a good 'mission statement'. However, all rules are there to be broken, especially self imposed ones. Perhaps we need to cut ourselves some slack and accept that following in our own footsteps is ok. For our past travels along with us into the present anyway, and to some extent frames how we perceive the here and now. However, our past selves are not innocent bystanders, which is why nostalgia is ok only in small doses. We all have questionable pasts.