The Ferry Home

On Thursday morning and after taking George for his walk we packed up the van & car & headed off to Santander for the ferry. As you would expect we were a bit concerned that all the paperwork would be in order to get George back into the UK, but no problem there. We than joined the queue of caravans, motorhomes & cars in the ‘pet’ section area & waited to board.

All pretty straightforward & we had booked a pet friendly cabin so George could stay with us & not have to go in the kennel section. There was a small dedicated exercise area for dogs & the crossing was very smooth. We arrived in Portsmouth at 16:30 on Friday & got home around 18:30.

Overall a very enjoyable experience & a big learning curve. Our next planned trip will be in the spring of 2012 & to France.

We hope you have enjoyed our blog & many thanks for keeping track of our travels. We now hope to enjoy the summer in the UK.

Homeward Leg 2

After our first overnight stop & a four hour drive north we arrived at Merida. The site was quite pleasant, very rural & with a very good/clean shower block. It hit 28C that day and at 18:00 we were still sitting in the shade of the van trying to keep cool! Had to go back to my very basic Spanish to book in!

The next day and another four hour drive we arrived at Camping Astral in Tordisillas. Another very nice site and we wished we had stayed another day and walked into Tordisillas to explore more.

We then moved on to our last site, Camping Santillana, (20 minutes from Santander), where we are as I write this. Not overly impressed with the site as the access roads are very narrow & more geared towards smaller caravans & motorhomes – actually a tent would be a better idea! It also rained for the first two days and was quite cold, but I supposed we should start getting used to UK type weather again!

Santillana is a very nice old medieval town and reputed to be the best in Spain, with many Paradors. It is also next to the site, which was the main the reason we booked here. It is well worth a visit, but as you would expect very ‘touristy’ – and probably, (after Alhambra), close to being the equivalent of Stratford-upon-Avon!

Once again my basic Spanish was called upon to book George in to the local vet for his pet’s passport treatment, (tick & tapeworm). To comply with the pets passport scheme this has to be not less than 24 & not more than 48 hours before the ferry departure to allow him back into the UK.

We catch the ferry on Thursday @ 15:30 & hope to arrive home around 18:30 on Friday, ending a very enjoyable winter tour.

The next Blog will be the end of our tour!!

An overcast afternoon in San Vicente, just west of Santillana...

Los Cristina, Huelva, Spain

For the first day of our homeward leg we decided to travel just over the Portuguese border back into Spain & overnight at a campsite in Isla Cristina. Not a very impressive site, but most people stay here as a very nice beach is just a short walk across the road through the pine woods.

We set up & then took George for a walk & had a late afternoon drink in the beach bar. Although slightly cloudy, the pictures do not indicate how hot it was!

 

We pitched by the entrance ready for an early start in the morning.

 A long walk to the beach.

 Get in the queue...

 The Home rush Hour!

Cafe con leche - in this heat!

What you need is a beer!!