European Trip

Hi all

That's Fatcat and I well and truly on the way to our European adventure. A big thank you to everyone who helped us plan this in my other thread.

We are currently on the Bilbao ferry docked in Roscoff for a crew change. Just finished breakfast and pondering what to do with ourselves for the day.

We decided to break the trip to Portsmouth into 2 days with a stop over at a b&b near Stoke on Trent. Which I can recommend, if anyone is interested send me a pm.

Updates to follow...

Brilliant.....looking forward to the stories and photos.

Enjoy

Cheers
Rosco

Enjoy, stay safe & update us when you can.

Paul

Petrol supplies in France were a major problem a week ago, - much of the north and west was "dry", not helped by panic buying. But at the moment things seem to be OK (everyone's now got a full tank!), despite strikes at refineries and attempts by the CGT union to blockade fuel depots in protest at a new labour law. But the situation could change at any time - I'll keep you posted with any info that my spies give me. Meanwhile, fill up in Spain before crossing into France, and keep topping up long before you get low!

There are also moves by other unions to disrupt transport, particularly in the run-up to the Euro footie champs, so good luck!

Have a great time folks, I have loved all the European road trips I have done. Look forward to reading about your adventures and seeing some good pics

Radar wrote:Have a great time folks, I have loved all the European road trips I have done. Look forward to reading about your adventures and seeing some good pics

You mean like this one?
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Now we're talking....what the heck is it?

Looks lovely though.

Rosco wrote:Now we're talking....what the heck is it?

Looks lovely though.

They were both really good. The one on the right is hazelnut cream in chilled lambs milk and the one on the left is yoghurt with nuts and white candyfloss. I thought there would be a wee bit of candyfloss not a whole stick. But it was good to be a kid again

A quick update on what we’ve been up to:

The day on the ferry was pretty boring to be honest, but we managed to laze away the time pretty effectively.  The weather going along the coast of Brittany and into the Bay of Biscay was glorious - warm, sunny, little wind and flat calm seas.  In fact the seas were pretty flat calm the whole way.

Day 1 - Spain

When we woke up just before arriving in Bilbao we were forced to question our Captain’s navigation skills, I was pretty sure we had gone north by mistake and were back in Scotland.  Bilbao was shrouded in mist, it was cold, windy and threatening to rain.  Conditions that can only be described as dreich.

The ferry docked at 7.45am CET and we disembarked, through border control and on the road by about 8.30.  Not too shabby at all.

As we turned off the motorway just outside Bilbao the rain did come on…heavy.  So we had to stop at a petrol station and put on our waterproofs.  It was cold too, about 9-10dgC.  Had to dig out my jumper and the thermal liner for Ian’s jacket.  This is not what I was expecting at all!

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We persevered and continued our route using back roads to skirt to the south of Pamplona.  At one section, twisting up the side of a valley onto a high plateau, we ended up in the cloud.

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However, coming down the other side of that plateau the rain did go off a bit and the roads began to dry although the heavy cloud stayed with us for most of the day hiding anything but the lowest of hills.

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We managed to navigate our way around pretty well with only a couple of missed turns and an accidental trip onto a brand new section of motorway that neither of our sat nav apps recognised to mar the trip.  Although we did find a bridge to nowhere which was pretty cool.

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We stopped for lunch west of Jaca where finally the cloud lifted enough to see the Pyrenees for the first time.

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Then we turned south towards Huesca before taking a wee single track road north east through the Parque Natural de la Sierra y Canones de Guara which I had assumed was a canyon road but turned out to summit at 1200m where the clouds finally cleared, the sun came out and the views towards the Pyrenees were amazing.  This road pretty much dropped straight down into Ainsa where our hotel for the next 5 nights is located.

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What an adventure, hope the dry sunny weather prevails for you. Great update, thanks.

Paul

A quick update on the fuel situation in France. The government seem to have successfully un-blockaded the fuel depots, though there are still strikes at some of the refineries that could affect supplies in the long term.

I travelled from the south (Perpignan) via Montpellier in the past couple of days and didn't encounter any fuel supply problems. In the Calais area some of the petrol stations even had signs outside saying "We're open" (or the French equivalent) as if they're desperate for customers. I went up the eastern side of France just in case there were any issues necessitating a trip over a border, and in fact I did fill up in Luxembourg, where diesel is only 0.95€/litre. Nearly got caught up in the Tour of Luxembourg cycle race, too - felt a bit sorry for the riders as the weather was pretty dire (though probably normal for the Ardennes), with heavy thundery showers and slippery roads under the trees. A very pretty area when the sun does come out, though - my son and I had a great long weekend mountain biking there some years ago, and the roads are great for biking when dry.

Sorry, I'm digressing, back to France. The area around and to the south-west of Paris has suffered severe flooding, the Seine and its tributaries being the worst affected, with many main roads and even motorways impassable. The highest river levels were expected around midnight last night (Saturday), so if there is no more heavy rain things should gradually start to improve.