Waves and Mountains

Had a dip in the Atlantic while in Comillas. Not as warm as the Med but the waves were awesome - Bobbing Dick would have loved it! Now up in the Picos Europa [taking Gordon and Ged's advice] on a campsite with stunning views. Cycled down into Potes yesterday evening to buy two plugs [for the campsite sinks] and an ice cube tray. The inward journey took 4 minutes with hardly a turn of the pedal and the return journey half an hour in bottom gear all the way. Not only that, the plugs didn't fit! Does anyone know the Spanish for universal sink plug - the flexible kind?

Comillas

A beautiful old town on the north coast of Spain, a bit further on than Santander. It had an added bonus- the market was on!

Keeping up appearances

Our neighbours on the site near Comillas were very friendly but definitely very upper echelon - we felt compelled to conceal our tomato sauce bottle behind our bottle of wine..

Latest fashion!

Caramba! We went up to the pool only to find that one is required to wear a bathing cap. These we duly purchased at reception and went back to the van to try them out [our memories of swimming caps telling us that these can be very difficult to put on]. Here is David in his - and, no, you're not seeing me in mine!

A quiet corner

Sweeping into Spain

After breakfast with Dave and Linda, we travelled on through Marmande, Mont de Marsan and a night's camping south of Biarritz, then on into Spain. Roads are mainly dual carriageways with little traffic and glorious views of the hills and coastline - the sunshine helps, of course. I hadn't realised that even though we were very near the coast, we still had to cross the Pyrenees - bridges across valleys and tunnels through hills. We were making great progress until we found ourselves being syphoned off the E8 on the outskirts of San Sebastian, and again outside Santander. My driver has a penchant for straying off motorways [might be something to do with the tolls!] However, we are now happily ensconced in a quiet corner of our first campsite in Spain, a little to the west of Laredo. May stay a couple of night if the sun continues to shine [sorry folks - we know it's been pretty awful back home this week].

More catching up

On Tuesday we left our campsite at St. Foy to drive down past Duras to Dave and Linda Beattie's place. WOW! What a pad - a converted barn facing south with fantastic views over the countryside. One of their first jobs was to shovel cow muck from the stalls. Now it has some amazing features such as a staircase incorporating an immense wine barrel, feeding troughs for the cows now beautifully restored and a mezzanine gallery to the rooms on the upper floor. Spent a lovely afternoon and evening there [thank you both!]. Dave had made a fish soup which went down very well. Coffee and croissants for breakfast the next morning then, somewhat reluctantly, we had to take to the road again.