After celebrating Margot’s birthday in splendid Albufeira, we started to make our way east along this increasingly popular resort-rich coastline towards Spain. Faro is not far from the border and things started out so well with us scoring a coveted camping space at a nearby campground on a beautiful sandspit beach. Unfortunately, however I ended up with what I think was food poisoning from some “fresh fish” and required a number of down days to fully recover.  As a result of loosing those days we had to move quickly along. We drove east through Sevilla turned left at Cordoba and made our way north towards Toledo (places we have enjoyed before in past trips). El Escorial, northwest of Madrid, was a very interesting stop for us with its incredible 16th century palace and nearby “Valley of the Fallen Monument”.  We capped off our visit to Spain with a really nice stop at the 1020-1287 Loarre Castle north of Zaragoza. What a fascinating castle, and the vista views from it’s defensive walls were absolutely stunning. Over and through (tunnel du Somport), the Pyrenees we drove onward into France. Bypassing Bordeaux we stopped at an interesting little place called Blaye that is situated further along the extremely long inlet into Bordeaux. Here a major and long standing fortification was built to protect Bordeaux from invading forces coming from the Atlantic and its origins date as far back as the Romans and Vikings.  Another more modern fortification further north was also an interesting stop. At St. Nazaire the Nazi’s built a huge fortified submarine repair and supply base that is still standing today and now used as a massive multi purpose structure. St Nazaire also has one of the largest dry docks in Europe and for this reason it was a major target of the Allied forces in WWII. In fact, the most daring commando raid in history took place here attempting to neutralize that dry dock and the details around that event makes for a very fascinating story, if your interested. I had a quiet and laid back birthday in Quimper, Brittany before we headed off to the Normandy coast for a overnight stop on Utah beach and a respectful visit to the Canadian war cemetery outside Caen. Onward to Paris where we completed another long walkabout that connected many of the major sites of Paris including Norte-Dame Cathedral that is still undergoing restoration from that dreadful fire. It’s now time to put our feet up for a couple of recovery days before wrapping things up and returning the motorhome back to Dumo Reismobile in Germany and completing this unpredictable 2022 adventure. 

After leaving Arles, France we drove a short distance to an interesting coastal holiday destination called “La Grand Motte”. This massive seaside apartment/marina complex is based on the design conception of one architect. Jean Balladur’s wave like pyramidal shaped buildings are intended to blend into the natural environment when viewed from boats offshore. Our first close-up impressions of this 60’s era resort were not that great but then when you see large sections of this complex from a distant vantage point, I must admit, it is impressive and it’s still a study destination for many architectural students. Onward to Andorra which today does not resemble the country that Bert and I visited in 1972 where we parked our VW van at the top of a mountain because we got good radio reception and then almost froze to death during the cold icy night. Actually many of those mountain tops are now populated with somewhat impressively large ski resort developments. Combining awesome skiing with tax free shopping has created a mega European winter  destination and has rendered this entire little nation unrecognizable via my 1972 experience. We actually moved through busy little Andorra fairly quickly (which is not too hard to do considering it’s size) but lucky for us, diesel fuel was a bargain on the way out.  

Spain is a fascinating country and is truly one of our favourite destinations. It has so much natural beauty, culture and history to offer that it’s impossible not to be impressed with it. With limited knowledge about the northern part of Spain we called on Kees to help guide us along and he did not disappoint. Extremely well informed and an experienced traveler throughout Spain he graciously shared some wonderful ideas and destinations with us… thank you once again Kees. Zaragoza, Logrono, the wine district of Rioja, Burgos, Leon, Astorga and Ponferrada along the “Camino de Santiago” (Pilgrimage walk to Santiago de Compostela) were all great suggestions. Also of interest was a fascinating archaeological site we stumbled upon in the Atapuerca Mountains. Here, Europe’s oldest human remains were accidentally discovered by railway construction workers cutting a trench for a new railway line. Some artifacts and human fossils date back an astounding 1.2 million years. They are still excavating this site. 

Into Portugal and down the coast to Porto we drove. The weather cooperated and we had a great time exploring the old town and eating the best Portuguese sandwich ever (as promised)… twice!  Continuing south we stopped in at the surfers mecca of Nazare. Here you find the largest surfing waves in the world (they can reach over one hundred feet high) and this is the place where surfing records are set. Even though the waves were rather tame during our visit we were still able to experience this beautiful and busy place bursting with its surfer energy and mixed together with the atmosphere of a traditional Portuguese fishing village. It was a very cool place to spend a relaxing sunny day. We are now in the Algrave area on the South coast of Portugal and working our way back east again towards Spain. From this point on, we have no real agenda as we start our return trip north so we’ll just follow our instincts and drive the roads less traveled.