The Search For Real Spain

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With an area of just over five hundred thousand square kilometers Spain is the second largest country in Western Europe after France and with an average altitude of six hundred and fifty metres it is second highest country in Europe after Switzerland. That is a lot of country to try and see and visit and with so many northern European ex-pats living down the eastern coastal strip then the chances of experiencing the real Spain was always going to be difficult to achieve in this part of the country.

On a visit to eastern Spain it occured to me that there must be more to the country than beaches and condominiums and so the search for real spain begins…

Dieppe and a Rough Channel Crossing

This was probably just one of the best nights sleep of my whole life and I woke fresh and raring to go and because we had caught up so much time then we weren’t nearly in so much of a rush this morning.

We had time for breakfast and then we headed north again towards the port of Dieppe in Normandy and an afternoon ferry crossing home.  Twenty-four hours previously I don’t think any one of us was that confident of making the English Channel by Sunday afternoon so this was a real bonus and we drove steadily the final three hundred kilometres first past Le Mans and then Rouen and on to Dieppe just after lunch time.

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Road Trip – France, Bordeaux to Tours

 

We were so relieved to be leaving Spain that we stopped for a short while at the border on the French side and bought some doughnuts for breakfast but when we opened the sellophane packets they turned out to be past their sell by date and starting to go mouldy so they had to go straight in the bin.  Except for Anthony who declared himself so hungry that he could eat his own arm so he just nibbled carefully as close as he dared (which was alarmingly close in my opinion) around the green bits.  So much for French haute cuisine!

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Road Trip – Armação de Pera, a Crate of Beer and Bread Roll Rationing

Actually we didn’t need a great deal, the two main items on our shopping list were beer and bread, in that order!  We found the beer and quickly calculated how much we would need for three days and set about assembling the purchase at the counter.  The shop keeper seemed a bit agitated by this but all she was trying to make us understand was that she would rather like the bottles back when we had finished with them because there was a deposit on them.

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