From Cadiz we zipped north right past Sevilla as we’ve experienced beautiful Sevilla on two other motorhome trips. We headed straight for Albufeira located in the Algarve District of Portugal. We found a fantastic stellplatz located next to a picture perfect beach and planted ourselves there for a few days. We reluctantly decided to pull ourselves off the Portuguese coastline and travel a bit of the interior through the cork producing countryside and that turned out to be a good decision for us. Almost as beautiful as the coast, the interior is lush green with rolling hills and it’s very attractive in it’s own way. We were fascinated with the countless miles of natural growing cork trees that live hundreds of years and produce a yield about every ten years on approximately twenty percent of the tree.

Again we zipped past Lisbon for the same reasons we passed Sevilla and zeroed in on Nazaré further up the “Silver Coast”. Famous for it’s gigantic surfing waves that attract the best extreme surfers in the world every January and February. As we left Nazaré we discovered the ocean waves this last winter were not the only natural occurring dramatic event. This area of the coast was also hit with the most extreme wind storm action ever recorded. The hurricane type wind storms lasted for weeks and did extreme damage to much of this coastline with estimated damage in the ten billion dollar range.

After leaving north Portugal our first stop was to Santiago de Compostela in northeastern Spain. Famous for it being the burial site of Apostle St. James in the “Cathedral de Santiago de Compostela”. Approximately 250,000 pilgrims every year walk “The Camino” from many different directions over great distances to end their walk at this beautiful and busy Cathedral.

Westward along the north coast of Spain to Pamplona on the edge of the Pyrenees. This is the location of the well known annual “Running of the Bulls” made famous in a book by Ernest Hemingway. We drove onward into France though the eight kilometre Pyrenees “Tunnel du Somport”. We had a beautiful drive along the French side of the Pyrenees. We then stopped for a good look at Toulouse before heading to the French Mediterranean for one last stop at the beach before driving inland to fascinating “Pont d’ Avignon” where I’m presently writing this Blog. From here we’ll be working our way into northern Italy and eastward to the Dolomites with our fingers crossed that all that snow has melted.

Hope all is well with everyone, we’ll keep moving and keep you posted!

The “Cathedral de Santiago de Compostela” in Santiago

The northwest coast of Spain is underdeveloped and beautiful