Having said our goodbyes to Chris and Penny, who were spending a fews days in Tarifa before heading up the east coast to relieve Penny’s youth, and to Tony and Margot who were joining Ray’s Andalucian tour, on the ferry and refreshed from the night on the campsite we began the long slog north on our own (oh to be retired and be able to take weeks to get back to the UK!).
The drawn out departure from Morocco had meant a last minute change of plans to ensure we didn’t repeat the long driving days of the trip down so today, Wed 29th May, was only (ha,ha) 834km to the aire at Vitoria Gasteiz. The aire is well signposted and located in a designated section of a large car park to the north of the town. It takes 10 vans (although several others were parked in the main car park) and has water and WC and grey water disposal facilities.
Obviously supplies are running down on the way back leaving space for more purchases – Spanish wine and chorizo on today’s list!
Departing Spain on Thursday 30th, the next stop is Ste Maure de Touraine, approx 30km south of Tours. Again another well marked aire in the middle of a small village – we arrived around 6pm and there were plenty of spaces. An earlier arrival meant we had time for a walk around the village which was well needed after days on the road!
The driving days are getting shorter; 650km today and only 460km tomorrow!
A brief shopping stop in Tours and we headed to our final stop on Friday 31st at the Aire de La Baie La Somme. A fairly smooth trip until we reached our nemesis: Rouens. We have been through Rouen five times this year and each time we’ve taken a different route (there is a bridge closed which means there are diversions, one of which is height restricted and we can’t take). So it’s the third, and hopefully final, Bob’s mystery tour until we work out where we are and where we should be going. What I should also add here is that since January 2006 France has been renumbering its roads and each local authority is able to choose its own numbering system; our road map is dated 2009 and the renumbering was expected to take a few years. So to add to the confusion the roads on our map weren’t the same as on the road signs! New maps have been added to the shopping list for when we get home.
The Route we took