Today we drove 600Km north on the start of our journey home. Wearing thin cut-off trousers and a sleeveless blouse, I was surprised to see the temperature dropping rapidly as we travelled north, from 27C to only 13, while rain clouds loomed over the mountains, turning the sky purple. This was in the prairie lands of Aragon, flat green fields as far as the eye could see, interrupted only by grain silos and the modern sculptures at each roundabout. As we slipped through a gap in the hills the sky cleared and we came to the modern outskirts of Zaragoza, and we were relieved to see the temperature had climbed to 20C.

After 3 trips round the block we found the entrance to our hotel car park. Continental car parks still amaze me, they're squashed into the tightest corners, their concrete pillars grazed and scored by hundreds of drivers. Initially we parked in the Mercadona supermarket car park, reached by driving across the pavement through a crowd of 10 year olds at the end of the school day, down a steep ramp under the shop, twisting and 3-point turning (our car is too long for these tight turns). Once we'd checked in, I read the small print on the ticket and realised we'd need to go through the checkout to get the ticket validated. So a quick shopping trip and we could get out of the Mercadona carpark, we then had to reverse up the alley to get into the hotel car park. Phew!! Andy did it without leaving any of our paint on the concrete.

By 6.30 we were exploring Zaragoza on foot, it was very windy as you'll see in the photos. After dinner we returned to the hotel car park and rummaged in our bags to find the warmer clothes in the bag at the bottom of the boot, which we thought we wouldn't need until we reached Normandy.