Me again !

Well, telling you all about our lovely Madrid sunshine certainly cursed us for the next few days ! We left Madrid on Saturday in beautiful sunshine and drove 2 and a half hours North to Abejar which is a tiny village in the Castillo y Leon region. The campsite itself was very pretty, loads of pine trees to camp within and no marked pitches, so we found a pretty little spot for the tent. As it was Easter weekend we knew most of the supermarkets would be closed on the Sunday / Monday but hadn't passed any shops en route to the site. Never mind, thought us, the campsite has a 'supermercado'. Hmmmm, nothing 'super' about it whatsover. Despite a huge bbq area, they didn't sell any charcoal, and almost all the products simply consisted of jars of vegetables. Facing this or starvation, our only option was the local garage which - unusually for Spain - was quite well equipped and we managed to buy charcoal and eggs - omelette again for dinner.

Thank goodness they did sell charcoal as the temperature dropped incredibly - from leaving Madrid at about 32 degrees, it was suddenly just touching 10 degrees in the day and almost zero at night. Plus it rained - all day on the Sunday. So, whilst everyone at home enjoyed Sunday roast and plenty of Easter eggs, we lit the bbq, wrapped up in blankets and huddled around the bbq all day long ! After a night that was so cold we had to empty the rucksack and put all our clothes on top of the sleeping bag to stay warm, it was time to get a move on to somewhere better.

We drove up to Bilbao, had a look at the Guggenheim from the outside, and drove on to San Sebastian where we checked into a really nice hotel - warm and dry ! It continued to rain all yesterday evening although we made it down into the town and enjoyed some nice Rioja (this is the Rioja region) and pinxtos which is the Basque country's version of tapas. The whole bar is filled with different tapas dishes and you just pick up a plate and take what you fancy to eat and the barman tots it all up for you. The food was delicious - some kind of wild mushroom / cheese dish, the fabulous ham croquettes and a delicious ham / goats cheese on a slice of baguette.

San Sebastian has a beautiful cove beach, with some great sculptures at one end as well as these holes cut down to the sea - when the waves come in you stand above the hole and air whooshes up - nearly blew my scarf off this morning ! We then walked into the town along the beach and had a good wander among the lanes before walking the beach and seafront back.

Tomorrow we think it's going to be warm enough to get back under canvas and so are saying Hasta Luego to Spain and Bonjour to France as we cross back over the border and head towards Bordeaux.

Adios x x