4 Countries in 1 Week

Saturday 11th July

Bonjour

Wow – what a week we have had – four countries in one week – we woke up last Friday morning in Portugal, then had some nights in Spain, one in Andorra and then last night in France! This also means 4 different languages (Andorra is predominately “Catalan”) – I think Rae was saying thank-you in Thai the other night. The translator and our phase books are definitely well used.
We drove from Riano to Laredo on the Saturday – the drive itself was very pretty as we followed the river, however the road was probably the steepest and narrowest that we have driven – unfortunately it was also raining – at one stage we met a big bus coming the other way – we both had to stop and pull in our mirrors – Rae could have easily touched the bus as it inched it’s way past us with only I am sure millimeters to spare. It was also a shame having the rain around as it stopped us going up a gondola which is one of the steepest in Europe – Rae thought that the cables the gondolas were attached to were the power lines as there were no pylons that we could see before it disappeared into the fog!!
We had a great day last Sunday exploring Bilbao - this is a great city that is well known for its museum Guggenheim which is in the shape of a hull of a boat and the body of a fish – we decided against going into it in favour of wandering around the old town which is full of cafes and bars. We had a memorable lunch which was the nicest tapas we have had sitting in the plaza with markets happening round us. We both enjoyed this town.
Monday we awoke to still more rain so the decision was made to head into San Sebastian – we are not quite sure what happened but somehow we bypassed it and were only 40km from Pamplona and we had driven out of the rain. Ah…..Pamplona…this was an absolute experience and if anyone young or not so young gets the opportunity to go – then you should!
Monday was the opening of the Running of the Bulls Festival (San Fermin Festival), this entails tens of thousands of people all dressed in white with red scarfs around their necks and red belts around their waists all in the plaza– they mayor declares the festival open and then there is a big sangaria fight – hence the white pants and tops are now pink! We managed to get a campsite with at least a couple of thousand others – majority of them Poms, Ozzies and Kiwi’s. The camp itself was like a mini Wild Foods Festival – with live bands and people just out for a great party! I think the average age would have been about 26 so we fitted in perfectly – we weren’t the oldest by a long shot. After heading to bed about midnight (our camper was right by the party lawn) it seemed only minutes before we were woken by the alarm at 4.15am – this was so we could be on the first bus into Pamplona at 4.50am for the first running of the festival – the sight that greeted as we arrived into Pamplona was people everywhere – many sleeping where they fell the night before after the official opening. We made our way to the entrance of the Arena where the bull running ends – we secured a place right by a waist high concrete wall and this is where we stayed for the next 2 ½ hours. Then at 8.00am you hear a gun fired – this means the bulls are let loose – then a couple of minutes later you hear another gun fired and this lets the 200+ runners (also all in red & white) know that the bulls are now running – it took them about 4 minutes to run to where we were standing – it was hilarious watching the people who were running – you could see the whites of some of their eyes – one person fell just by us and the next thing you know there are about 20 people all tripped over him as they were watching for the bulls – when all the bulls are in the arena they just shut the huge steel doors and those runners that are in the arena stay in there with the bulls and for the rest of the runners and crowds it is all over – so doesn’t take long. The only runners that didn’t finish were the 45? That needed some sort of medical treatment, one badly hurt and in hospital. This place is absolutely crazy. We have never felt the push of a crowd so strong as we did standing there – there were probably 10 rows of people standing behind us – all trying to see! So by 8.30am we were having coffee and toast in a café. We did a Google search on the bull running and there were pictures of the first running on http://www.life.com/?
After another party night at the camp we were back on the road again…….
We drove through to Boltana, a beautiful village with a pretty river running through it – we arrived there about 2.00pm and had a great roast dinner for tea along with an early night!!
From Boltana we headed into Andorra – which is a very small country that lies between the Spanish and French borders. Andorra is a shopping mecca and boasts that it has one shop per 40 people that live there – Christchurch probably has about one shop per 250 people! As the country is duty free the majority of the shops are electronic stores, perfumeries, booze stores, tobacco shops and all of your good label stores such as Gucci, Prada etc etc. We spent the afternoon shopping – Brent was disappointed that Rae had credit cards with her and he couldn’t buy a stun gun and pepper spray! The following morning after stocking up on groceries we headed out of Andorra as the Tour de France was coming through and the whole town was booked out and they were about to close off the streets.
On leaving Andorra we ended up driving through a couple of tunnel as we were tired of driving on narrow windy steep mountain tracks – the tunnels went right through a section of the Pyrenees mountains and were 8.7km long – whilst it was great they were also quite expensive! On coming out of the tunnel we were back in France.
We are now in Gruissan staying in an Aire (basic parking spot for campervans) with 126 other campers – the site is right by the marinas so we have had a good bike round this morning seeing how the other half live and after a relaxing afternoon in the sun before the English couple beside us persuaded us to have a wine with them – we had a great night and ended up on top of their camper van with a bottle of port watching the sun set.

A’bientot