So a few more days have passed and its getting more and more difficult to find internet/wifi connections hence the delays between stories. We are currently in Portugal but before crossing the border we had explored some lovely spots in Northern Spain. We crossed the border on Monday from France to Spain on Monday last week and spent the day in San Sebastian, which is a beautiful and quirky town, full of loud colours, a pretty port and lovely sunshine! After sampling all SS had to show us, we headed down the coast to visit Guernika, made famous by Mr Pablo Picasso and then to Mundaka which is where there is supposed to be great surfing...well only if you are a total novice like me and don't actually like waves..it was like a millpond so no surfing for Max and a bit of sunbathing for me...it was a funny scene when the tide came in and what seemed to be hundreds of spaniards screaming and picking up chairs, tables, bags, old grannies, the kitchen sink (they take everything to the beach). We stayed at a lovely campsite by the sea and the mountains - that was the good news.

The bad news, and one of our first observations of Spanish camping, is that it seems half of Spain live here during the summer months and bring their entire houses with them - even fake grass for the outside and a porcelain dog! And gosh, they were loud - all they seemed to do was scream at each other or at the thousands of kids who in turn screamed at each other.....and another of our observations is that all the kids we have seen seem to (how can I say this...) hmmm, seem to have consumed too many calories as they are rather on the large size - we have been looking at this like a science experiment. Is it genetic? Do they eat too much ice cream? It has passed a few evenings in the van, spying through the back window (we can see out, they can't see in...sneaky) so after waiting for the waves that never came, we headed to Bilbao and spent a lovely day walking around the city which was hard given it peaked at 37 degrees -what a scorcher!

We even ventured in to the Guggenheim Museum of Modern Art...I am still trying to convert Max from Maximus the Barbarian given he isn't a big culture vulture...well,maybe next time as to be honest, we weren't that impressed by flying cars with large glo-sticks coming out of them, or a wooden shipwreck sitting on a 'sea of broken plates to represent contemplation' so we said goodbye to Bilbao and headed down the coast again stopping in Ladero and St Vicente de La Barquera (where Max has been once before with his brother Eric but could only remember the supermarket :o) - at last, peace and quiet and not a noisy child or porcelain dog in sight) - we even had a sea view even though the van was on a slant and Max squashed me as I slept...camping can be dangerous you know :o)

After leaving here, we went on he search for more waves at good spots but they weren't there - we hit Llanes, Luanco, Salinas, Luarca and ended up in a lovely spot called San Cosme de Barreiros and the most beautiful campsite in the world...ever. Clean, like a hotel, friendly, quiet, great facilities and it was even designed by a local spanish architect - it was that nice we stayed for 2 days and had beach walks and a nice sunbathe. We then look a long-ish journey to Santiago de la Compostela, in the far North-West of Spain, which is a famous pilgrim site for Christians having journeyed along the camino de Santiago. It is supposed to be the burial site of St James. It was beautiful and busy with tourists. It was hot too so we had a lovely day, walking through the old streets, eating ice cream and watching the world pass us by. We then drove further south and in to Portugal. We prayed to St James that he would bring us waves....let's see what happens!