Beyond France to Home!
Driving through Spain
Over two days, we covered a good 700 miles, from the delightful thermal springs in Spain, right up through France towards Brittany.
We stopped for a night beside a lake in Spain where it rained non stop! Still lovely though!
The lay-by we found was pretty secluded. Not a bad place to park up for a night! I even attempted a swim in the morning, but the temperature beat me and after five minutes, I was back out of the water!
Some country roads in Spain certainly made a nice change from the motorways!
The rain didn’t really let up much. Somewhat different to what we’d been used to back in the Algarve.
We saw Snow on the mountains!
Driving through France
We hardly stopped once we crossed over into France.
On our way up through France, we found a couple of great spots to park up foir the night. One was just North of Bordeaux in the middle of a forest!
GPS Location: 45.17271, -0.32264
Another good night spot was a lay-by next to a stream near La Chapelle-Glain. There was even a public WC with a tap that I filled up the water from!
GPS Location: 47.61063, -1.20248
We’d arranged to meet up with blog readers Mark, Alison and Ben who live near Pouance…
We made our way to their delightful home where they really did make us feel welcome. They very kindly offered us a parking spot in their beautiful garden for the night… perfect!
Such a stunning place, we felt very privileged to stay here for the night.
When we arrived, they showed us around their amazing home, where we sat for the evening drinking wine! In the morning, we woke up to find a pile of logs by our door for the morning fire… so kind!
We’d just like to say a huge THANK YOU to Mark, Alison and Ben for their hospitality!
We continued up into Brittany and dropped in on a fellow forum member, David and his wife, Hilary. David was kind enough to let us use his Brittany Ferries guest discount code. Huge thank you!
We parked up and booked our return ferry. Our return was a week earlier than planned because I had a few things planned when we got back…
Return to England!
Introducing… My daughter, Emily and my new travel buddy, Ted!
After 36 hours with no sleep and over 400 miles of driving in both France and England, we returned home completely shattered. Then we drove another 60 miles round trip to pickup young Ted from Wales!
Ted’s a six month old Border Collie who was being re-homed because he wasn’t getting the time, attention and company that he needed. Ted and I will be travelling together very soon, once he’s settled in and been trained to perfection!
Emily is a six year old young lady who had missed her Dad very much and was absolutely over the moon that I was home early and it was a complete surprise to her!
Big thank you to Kirsty’s Mum, Linda, for knitting us a massive red blanket which is now in full time use on the sofa!
Snow.
Yes, really.
This was not what we expected to come home to!
From the Algarve to this…. Slight change!
So the next plan…
Ted and I will be travelling again in a few months. Until then, I have a Border Collie to train, and a Beyond to service and modify slightly!
I can honestly say I loved our trip away. Five weeks travelling and it went as if it was just five minutes. Great to be back to see my Daughter, and my Parents though!
Over 4,500 Miles of driving, the van didn’t miss a beat. Perfect. Not bad going for a 15 year old LDV weighing almost 5 tonnes!
Where will we go next? Probably Wales to go on with! But eventually, back to south Portugal. I fell in love with the place and cannot wait to return!
Watch this space…………!
