Salamanca Thursday 14th October 2010 and thank God we're back,

Salamanca Thursday 14^th October 2010 and thank God we're back where we belong.

The fourth blog officially begins now because we're back on the trail.

What happened between July and October back in the UK I will go into later, as many things did.

The plan this time is to get the Brittany ferry from Portsmouth to Santander (not!) and then journey down to Regio del la Plana, next to Cape Trafalgar and then revisit Roquestas de Mar and Benicasim. Then into and through France to arrive at the Black Forest in Germany in May and finally onto the Horticultural exposition held in June 2011 in Koblenz, a journey of about 2,700 miles, walk in the park.



The last time we were in Salamanca we were on my motorbike, Yamaha Fazer, and even with that we could not get parked!  So as the bus stopped just outside the campsite, Camping Ruta just north west of the city, we would go in on that.  Which side to stand on as we did not know which way the bus was coming or going.  Obviously we decided on the wrong side because the two buses that whizzed past, did not stop but the drivers pointed across the road as they went past.  Bus finally came 10 minutes late and we paid our €1.20 for the half hour, 3 mile trip.  Had a superb day in a wonderful city, a nice lunch in a proper, i.e. cheap, Spanish restaurant and actually walked back for the exercise.



That's all for now as I have not converted the pictures so will include them and the rest of the story as it comes back into memory.

OK here goes:-

Well, the journey down. We had booked through CC&C to get the 10% discount they were offering for the Brittany ferry service to Santander, read the small print, only if you were returning this year. As we were not returning for 9 months and then via Calais, no go. After a bit of a haggle got if for £430 which included an outside cabin with a porthole, SWMBO was over the moon. Leaving 12^th October and could not wait. Talked to the people who left their cars on Freshfield Bank in such positions “to slow people down”, tossers, to put them on their drives otherwise SWMBO will be giving them a “knock” at 6am on Tuesday morning.



Balbao 1pm

Gets up and away, no problems although as we drove on to the M23, going M25 and A3 to Portsmouth the list of “forgotten” bits got a bit longer.

I had earlier phoned CC&C about the documentation not arriving (it had, SWMBO had it) as was told that we wouldn’t be going to Santander after all, we were going to Bilbao! It turns out that Brittany wanted to try a “dry” run to try it out as they were taking the route as from January 2011. P&O had stopped their service in September this year. OK'ish because although getting to Santander was 1 hour shorter and the distance to travel was 50 miles longer, I knew Bilbao port from a number of trips there, although it would have been nice for a change.





Here's a thing; P&O did the same journey via “The Pride of Bilbao” and the trip down was two nights and three days, Brittany did it in 24 hours, go figure. Food was actually not as good on this French ship as on the P&O boat, we also watched “Shutter Island” with Leonardo De Caprio (no he wasn't there with us, silly) and I would recommend you give it a miss by a very large margin. Bay of Biscay was, as usual for us, a mill pond and the next thing you know we were on AP68 to Salamanca.



Camping Ruta bus stop to Salamaca



A 320 miles trip and SWMBO went into her usual “eating mode”. For some reason whenever she travels any diet goes out the window and it's pies, Pizza, sandwiches and basically anything that's not good for her, but she's happy, bless.



Salamaca from the Roman Bridge









Camping €19/night Ruta



Pulled into Camping Ruta and stayed two nights and although an ACSI site was charged €19/night because if you looked closely they have not been accredited by ASCI since 2001. Pretty rapid turnover as the site is prime for a stopover for southern Spain and Portugal and of course a trip into Salamaca. (see above)



Salamaca Plaza Mayor



Salamanca from the Cathederal



Then a 420 mile run down to where we are now Camping Pinar San Jose leaving at 9am and arriving here about 6'ish. Could have been a tad earlier as for some reason I had put Camping Regio into the GPS with PSH's coordinates and therefore spent a while looking for Camping Regio, and asking for it after driving past PSH and having to do a three point turn on a narrow road when it finally dawned on me what I had done. Regio was actually a stop on the way that we did not use, how I confused it I do not know, suffice to say I received a good ear bashing from 'er indoors.