France, France and more France, then home.

A few notes:

A cursory glance at the Campercontact and Acsi apps left us pondering the question, has France got more campsites per head of population than anywhere else on the planet? Possibly, perhaps Holland is another contender. Whatever the answer, what is certain is that the vast majority of French ones are closed in February. Travelling by motorhome from one end of the country to other in winter is difficult, especially as the local authorities also have a tendency to turn-off the water supply in municipal aire de camping cars. It means simply wandering about is not an option, pre-planning is essential.

Day 1 - Zumaia to Bordeaux, 172 miles

Blue skies, temperatures in the high teens, quiet motorway, all good. We were heading for Caravan Beau Soleil in Gradignan, a small town on the southern outskirts of Bordeaux. Gill phoned ahead to double check they were open and had space. It turned out to be a pleasant enough site, small, friendly staff, slightly quirky sanitary block - par for the course really.

Day 2 - Bordeaux to St Cyr, 160 miles

Our plan had been to stay at Camping Le Futuriste near Poitier. The place operates all year round due to its proximity to the Futuroscope theme park. It amazes me the place still operates as the future it imperfectly predicted when it opened 1987 is already history. Perhaps it always was about futurism, the imagined shape of things to come. Gill found an alternative, a new all year site - Aire de camping-car de Beaumont Saint-Cyr. - a few kilometres north of the city on the way to Châtellerault. The entrance barrier was card operated. In order to use the site you have to buy a plastic contactless card which is usable in a network of aires belonging to  the  'campingcarpark' chain. We are fairly sniffy about French web design, in our experience it is by far the least ergonomic we've happened upon on our travels. It did not surprise us at all that the card would not work and we needed the assistance of a friendly Frenchman who phoned the customer helpline on our behalf. They managed to activate the card and all was well.

It is an interesting concept - a network of 200 aires, open all year, with good-sized flat pitches and wide access roads and well maintained service points. The fact that you can check availability on the app and book ahead brings the aire de campingcar into the 21st century. We will use them, the concept is good even if the app is distinctly clunky.

The aire is next to a country park. Lac de St Cyr has an adventure playground, lots of way-marked paths and a waterside restaurant. Most of it was closed during winter, but the paths to the birdwatching hides were open. It was cold and wintry looking compared to where we had just been.

It was a pretty sunset. We opted to observe it from the van. We don't really do bracing, it's why we migrate south. In future the post Brexit visa rules are going to make two long trips either side of Christmas impossible. One option is to do 'medium haul' to the Caribbean, Mexico or S. America and take a six week trip to the Tropics or southern hemisphere in January. The question is can we afford it. Of course there are carbon footprint questions too. I can foresee me consulting Skyscanner a lot over the coming months.

Day 3 - St Cyr to Bréhémont, 60 miles

Top Priority - find an Auchun and pick up some beer and wine to take home. The nearest was on the outskirts of Châtellerault. Here it is, glimpsed behind a big Macdonalds. It would be lovely if most of France looked like the pretty village below, it's ancient buildings strung out alongside the Loire. In fact, architecturally ugly sprawl typifies the country these days more than any cute romantic spot that you might find in a Rick Stein foodielogue.

The further north you go, the trickier it becomes to find places to stay. We wanted a campsite so we could get a proper shower, the bathroom on-board is ok for a day or two, but not all the time. We found two sites that appeared to be open near Tours. We opted to head for the one furthest from the city at Bréhémont, both the ACSI app and Camper contact confirmed it was open. After a slightly tricky time on single track roads we found the place. There was no-one about and the sign by the gate indicated it opened on March Ist. We parked in the driveway to reset the sat-nav to the site on the outskirts of Tours. However, moments before we drove off the campsite owner approached us and said we could stay for free on a pitch since the facilities were not functioning. It was a kind gesture. We even got invited for drinks with his family at 5.00pm, to celebrate a new arrival in the family. Here he is,  just a week old. His name - Theopaul.

The only thing you can be sure about if you choose to travel as we do is that you will confronted by the unexpected. Sometimes the surprises will be unwelcome, other times delightful  - like today.

Day 4 - Bréhémont to Le Mans, 110 miles

Sunday morning...I wonder what percentage of French males aged between 35 - 50 are dressed in garish spray-on lycra, pedalling furiously down a country lane in a closely packed peloton. We had plenty of time to consider this question as the bunch in front of us took up most of narrow road making it impossible for a vehicle of our size to overtake them safely. We acted as their impromptu team truck for about 12 long kms. In fainess, apart from the odd hill here and there the group managed a steady 20mph on average.

After a while I began to miss the peloton, it was the only interesting thing that happened all day. It rained, the roads were quiet, the countryside north of the Loire looked dull and god forsaken on a wet Sunday in February.

We decided now we had the 'smartcard' we would give another campingcarpark aire a try. It was located in St Saturnin, a suburb of Le Mans. This time the smartcard technology worked perfectly. We agreed they are a welcome addition to the places to stay off-season in France. We will use them again I am sure.

Day 5 - Le Mans to Neufchatel en Bray, 158 miles

The last two times we have tried to stay at the aire in Neufchatel en Bray it has been 'complet'. Popular with British, Belgian and Dutch motorhomers, its position makes it an attractive stop-off either heading south or heading home. We arrived mid-afternoon, even then on a Monday in February there were only two places left. We felt relieved, we had no plan B other than the aire in the nearby village, but the place has no services and we needed to dump our waste water.

Day 6 - Neufchatel en Bray to Wissant, 98 miles

Gill noticed while perusing the campercontact app that the pin on the Cite Europe car park had disappeared. A bit of googling confirmed that overnight parking at the shopping centre had been disallowed due to the level of thefts from vehicles. It's a shame because the place was so convenient for people booked on early morning tunnel crossings. We decided to use the aire at Wissant, a small coastal village about 20km south of the Eurotunnel terminal.return. 

There was also the question of our final retail splurge in Bolougne Auchun. It too has become part of our ritual of  return. Do we actually save much by bulk buying wine and beer, or does it simply encourage us to drink more? We are working on the beer consumption - we have managed to reduce tit to sharing one small bottle at beer o' clock. I wish we could apply the same discipline to our wine consumption - habitually we manage to polish-off a bottle between us, a couple of glasses with our evening meal, then if we are watching TV so easy to polish off the bottle. What I would really like to do is apply the same logic to wine as we have to chocolate - one small square of delicious Lindt per day with our post lunch espresso macchiato. So why can't we half the amount of wine we drink,  spend the same, but consume bottles costing twice as much? There'would be a health benefit and a lifestyle gain, just think how much fun you could have if your budget was £12 a bottle rather than half  of that. This is a sacrifice I could make for Lent, to deny myself cheap wine and only drink delicious. Actually it will have to wait a bit as we have about 10 boxes of cheap but delicious non-vintage delights stashed in the van already.

We had forgotten how attractive Wissant looks, even on a blustery day in February. The chalk landscape and cliffs between Calais and Boulogne are surprisingly undeveloped. It is instant old fashioned France. The smudge on the horizon is the Kent coast, suddenly homecoming felt imminent.. It is extraordinary how much of a cultural divide the English Channel has proven to be, as much a psychological state as a geographical fact.

Back in the van Gill prepared a tapas style evening meal entirely composed of random leftovers in the fridge - like a Master Chef invention test. Definitely a winner.

It was a wild night with gusty winds rocking the van. At least storm whoever held off while we were driving. We set the alarm for 7.30am hoping we might catch an earlier crossing.

Day 7 - Wissant to Buxton,  287 miles

We are not renowned for prompt starts. Quite often we are still mulling over the first challenge of the day - when will the van heat up sufficiently for chief morning coffee technician (Pete) to roll out of bed and put the kettle on. All the while we can hear stalwarts nearby starting engines and driving into the blue yonder before we have even opened the blinds. So the fact we managed to catch the 10.15am shuttle rather than the 10.50am that we were booked on counts as a minor triumph. One of the attractions of Eurotunnel is how humdrum an experience it provides. The only excitement this time was when we were re-directed by the French border authorities into a security zone where the van was loaded onto a conveyor belt and checked by a machine that looked like a car wash. Apparently the giant sensor can detect drugs, explosives and weapons, an infrared scanner also looks for illegal passengers, which is why everyone, including the driver, have to be outside the vehicle. The French police were really chatty and not at all officious. I wondered if the machine was new, but the operator said that they had been using it for about three years. 

Despite the diversion we still made it onto an earlier train. The earlier we can get to England the better as the trip from Kent to Buxton tends to be our  longest  and there are no guarantees that you won't be delayed somewhere. In fact this time we made excellent progress around the M25, through the interminable roadworks north of Milton Keynes, but we were not going to get away with an entirely uncomplicated journey.

It's fair to say the cause of our detour was unusual. The most direct route home takes us westwards along the A50 towards Stoke, then directly north up the A515 through Ashbourne. Today being Ash Wednesday meant it was day two of Ashbourne's traditional town-wide football match. It's been played since Tudor times and brings the whole place to a standstill. We carried on up the M1 until the junction with the A38 which links to the A6. In Matlock and Bakewell there was plenty of evidence of the recent flooding and the hills around Buxton were covered in snow, thankfully the roads were clear. Sarah and Rob were on hand, so the house was warm and they had sorted dinner - all good! 

Next morning it was a wintry scene in the back garden. We had to wait until the snow cleared from the road in the afternoon before returning the van to the farm where it is stored . 

However, homecoming had one further surprise in store. During the first few weeks of our trip our news apps were dominated by the moment when Boris finally 'got Brexit done'. February was been dominated by the spread of the coronavirus. Sitting in a Motorhome in some remote corner of La Mancha, the story seemed distant, slightly worrying but not an immediate concern.

It was somewhat of a shock to wake-up the next morning to discover Buxton had momentarily hit the headlines because a cases had been diagnosed locally. The school closure affected Burbage Primary - all thee of our kids went there - it's less than half a mile from our house. There are undoubtedly some risk involved with long-term foreign travel, on the whole staying at home is probably regarded as the safer bet. Not today!

Zumaia rocks

Though Logroño is regional capital of the Rioja region it is situated close to the border with the Basque country, in fact some of the best Rioja wines actually hale from Euskadi. 

It's a spectacular drive from here to the northern coast, following the Ebro at first, then across the mountains, skirting the Basque capital, Vitoria Gasties, then over a couple passes. Immediately the hills are deep green coloured and the mix of chalet style houses and light industry in the valleys more reminiscent of Switzerland than Spain.

Briefly the drive takes you into a little sliver of Navarre. We reckon that out of  mainland Spain's sixteen regions we have passed through all but four of them - everywhere except Catalonia, Asturias, Gallicia, and Communidad de Madrid. Next time!

It's no surprise that San Sebastian and Biarritz across the French border developed in the late 19th century as winter resorts. Though our visits here in recent years have always been in wintertime we have always been blessed by mild sunny weather. Today was no exception.

Following 2018s 'wing-mirror-gate', we decided to avoid the campsite at San Sebastian and headed instead to Camping Bungalow Zumaia. It's only half an hour by train to the gastronomic delights of San Sebastian, however with our tunnel crossing now less than a week hence we opted to stay for  only one night and press on to France tomorrow.

We arrived around oneish, The receptionist recognised Gill from our stay here a couple of years ago (it's the curly hair!). She's very chatty, a big enthusiast about the local food culture and 'green' Spain in general. After lunch we walked through the industrial estate next to the site, then down the riverside footpath, past the docks and harbour and into town. 

Zumaia had no outstanding monuments or architectural highlights, nevertheless it is a pleasing place to be in. Most of the small ports along the north coast specialise in fishing, Zumaia's specialism was octopus though the place also seems to have been a centre for small scale shipbuilding and repair and engineering. There is still one shipyard working. As we walked towards the town centre the crash of a sledge hammer hitting a big chunk of metal rang across the water. Metal bashing - it's a happy sound, people working in local jobs not dependent on tourism or retail. 

There has been some industrial decline since the Franco era when naval engineering was a major employer, including a plant producing marine diesel engines. These docks have been filled in and are now occupied by apartment blocks, bland but not unpleasant.

However, Zumaia's fame is geological rather than historical. The rock formations are world famous. Wikipedia describes them as follows - 

The town has two beaches (Itzurun and Santiago), which are of interest to geologists because they are situated among the longest set of continuous rock strata in the world. Known locally as the "flysch" they date from the mid-cretaceous period to the present, a time period of over 100 million years. The K-T boundary is present at the Itzurun beach, and fossils can be found, notably of ammonites. The strata stretches along a distance of about 8 km, between the towns/beaches of Deba and Getaria, with Zumaia lying in the middle.

It is a must see sight. Last time we were here it was low tide so more of the famous strata was visible. Nevertheless, with big Atlantic rollers crashing over the rock shelf, it was an impressive display. 

We sat down and simply wave watched for quarter of an hour. 

Later in the afternoon, back at the van, there was a knock on the door. The guy from a British hire van asked if we could help with his GPL issue. It transpired the couple from New Zealand had hired the motorhome in the UK but nobody had thought to explain the complexity of gas bottle connectors in Europe. They had used up all the gas in the two Calor bottles provided. I gave them two spare pigtails we had with us which could be easily converted to connecting a European fitting. Since we have refillable bottles we had no use for them. I reckoned that his best plan was to cross the border into France where buying a gas bottle is straightforward. In Spain it is difficult to buy a Cespa bottle without a Spanish address, though apparently there is a lively black market in second hand ones. I hope it all worked out for them.

A week today we will be back in England. We have no plans to visit anywhere in particular in France. There comes a point where getting home becomes the priority, especially as the warm sunny spell we have enjoyed continues as far as Bordeaux, further north it looks gloomy and cold. - not a great prospect

The convoluted route towards an evolved omlette.

We happened upon Logroño by accident on our way north to catch the ferry from Bilbao in December 2016. The level of our ignorance about Spain was such that we were unaware that Rioja was an autonomous region and not merely a type of wine, and we had never heard of its small capital city - Logroño came as a delightful surprise.

Our second visit was unintended too. A delicious visit to Donastia in early October 2018 ended with a bump when an over-enthusiastic white van man clipped our wing mirror on the narrow road from Camping Igueldo. The nearest Fiat Commercial dealer who could fix the problem happened to be Logroño. This time we were well prepared to explore the delights of the pinchos bars around Calle Laurel. In particular I had noticed a place on our first visit that advertised an 'evolved omlette', it was an intruiging idea, especially as tortillas are taken very seriously in Spain, and when cooked well are truly delicious. How could they be evolved into something tastier?  Sadly on our first visit we had gone to Logroño at lunchtime, and the world's greatest and sole purveyor of the evolved omelette was an evening only enterprise. 

Second visit - we were well prepared. We headed into the town in the evening, had a great time sampling a range of interesting Riojas and delicious pinchos to accompany them.  The evolved omelette place was nowhere to be found, I declared it must have gone bust, only to discover it opposite the last bar we ate in, by that time we could not face another bite. Once again I vowed, next time we're Logroño....

... and we will be, the day after tomorrow. In between we continue our experiment travelling north up one of the lesser frequented 'A' roads in Spain. In fact the N330 on the whole was well designed, easy to drive and took us through some beautiful mountainous country. The landscape was spring-like, the sky clear blue, exactly what we vanderers vish for.

The only section that was at all tricky was 20kms south of Teruel where the road twists and turns through the upper valley of the Turia, following a series of limestone gorges with spectacular bright red rocks.

Tricky, not difficult nor dangerous, no more challenging than the road through the Wye valley near Tintern.

Beyond Teruel we joined A23 motorway that links Valencia and Zaragoza. The stereotypical view of inland Spain is of one big, hot, dusty plain, uniformly beige. As our journey over the past few days has shown, the reality is much more interesting and varied. Nevertheless, stereotypes always contain a modicum of truth; it's fair to say the route of the A23 conforms the the stereotype, and so tedious is the highway the authorities have plonked terrible modernist sculptures by the roadside in the vain hope of alleviating driver fatigue.

Thankfully we were not going the whole distance, pulling off for a stopover in the wine town of Cariñena. It's a workaday place but the parking spot by the sports hall is ok and the service point well maintained.

Next day, we took a shortcut towards Logroño down a 'yellow road' which avoided the busy motorway around Zaragoza. It was an attractive drive, past the small town of La Almunia de Doña Godina, then north, passing the snow dusted summits of Sierra del Moncayo. None this was planned and entirely the result of a sat-nav failure which for once worked in our favour.

The plan was to arrive in Logroño in the early afternoon so we could extend our pinchos snack fest across lunch and evening. We just about managed it, arriving in the Calle Laurel area about 2.15pm. Lunch service ends at three on the dot, so we only managed one pinchos at Bar Soriano

The place serves one speciality, mushrooms grilled in garlic oil, each with a small prawn, skewered into a slice of baguette, simple but surprisingly delicious.

By the time we finished the other bars were closing, but we did discover the whereabouts of 'Bar Evolved Omelette' and checked that it would be open on a Tuesday evening. Our plan for the afternoon stint was to finish with coffee and cake, but it was past three, the moment where most businesses in Spain shut up shop for a couple of hours. We found one open cafe eventually but only after consulting our helpful virtual assistants.

Apart from its Pinchos scene, Logroño is an interesting small city. The outskirts are a tad bland, but not unpleasant. The historical centre on the right bank of the Ebro contains mixture of attractive buildings from the 17th - 20th centuries.

We always seem to stumble across some minor Modernista masterpieces we had not noticed before - this time the facade of the market hall and the old fishmongers shop a couple of doors down (now a perfumery!).

It's not a stuffy place, and has quite a youthful vibe; and in Spain that usually results in some splendidly tasteless graffiti.

We returned to the van for a few hours until the second half of our pinchos fest kicked-off around 7.30pm.  Back across the big old bridge across the mighty Ebro, the bars were just reopening on Calle Laurel.

We discussed our plan of attack, we needed a snack strategy, it's no good going for something hearty straightaway - like patatas bravas, as that dulls the appetite for later; on the other hand, begin with a morsel and you end up drinking on an empty stomach and become befuddled. This pinchos malarky requires a considered approach.

Though some bars were still taking down their shutters when we arrived in Calle Laurel, we found one that advertised tortillas as a speciality. If our mission was to experience an evolved omelette then it was important to set the benchmark by eating an unevolved one at the outset.

It was delicious, the potatoes perfectly creamy and the omlette itself firm on the outside and squidgy in the middle. One regret, after a couple of mouthfuls I tucked into the chilli sauce that came with it, so fiery it overpowered the subtly seasoned omelette.

Where next? Some of the places we had earmarked in the afternoon still were closed. We headed for 'El soldado de Tudelilla' down a backstreet. Sarah and Rob had recommended the place as serving particularly delicious esalada tomate. They should be a good judge of these things as their approach to food is similar to Grace Dent's who described herself the other day  as a vegan flexitarian, in other words eating a plant based diet usually, but  embracing meat and dairy if eating out.

Our salads were conjured up in front of us, the woman making them balancing a plate on the tips of three fingers with her left hand while splashing lime-green olive oil over the lettuce with a flourish that could only be described as theatrical.

By now Calle Laurel was livening up, the bars filling with local pinchos aficionados. Time to try the evolved omelette. Whereas most pinchos bars are basic in the extreme,  simply a long counter where people stand or sit to eat, staffed by one or two people at most, 'D.O Laurel' has a bit of style, pitched at tourists as much as locals.

The wide screen TVs in every place so far had been beaming some execrable game-show to  disinterested customers. Here it was Atetico Madrid versus Liverpool on Sky. People were even watching the screen rather than concentrating on the food.

Gill chose the house special.  Of course I had to go for the evolved omelette, after all it had taken three attempts over as many years to get the opportunity. The verdict, it was weird. The classic tortilla de-constructed and served in a glass.

 It tasted like the original, but the texture was slightly slimy and the aftertaste cloying. To me this was no evolution, more an unfortunate transformation. 

No way could we end out pinchos quest on a low note. We found somewhere banging out classic patatas bravas by the bowlful. Impressively it was staffed by a one-woman phenomenon. The small bar was crowded but she managed single-handed to serve everyone food and  drink on demand, while holding three conversations simultaneously.

No messing about with the classics here, there is something deeply satisfying about a well cooked patatas bravas washed down with a robust Rioja. After two hours or so of unadulterated simple pleasure we headed back to the van.

We counted up the cost of our night on the town, less than €30 for both of us. Most remarkable of all,  we had been charged 80 cents for a glass of white Rioja that we had with our ensalada tomate. In the end my desire to experience the delights of an evolved omelette may have been misplaced, but to misquote the old adage about the road to ruin being paved by good intentions, my convoluted route to an evolved omlette may have been doomed to disappointment, but it was paved with unexpected delights.