Where's Bertie? He's in a stunning spot at a picnic area on the coast to the NW of the village of Liandres (exact location: 43.39291, -4.26342)
Weather: Wall-to-wall sunshine. Cool start.
As Mick was still in bed at the point that I had my trainers laced up, we ran sequentially this morning. We then needed to stay put a few hours as our running gear had needed a wash and, with it just being a few items, it wasn't worth splashing out to use the laundry facilities (€8), so the washing was done by hand and Bertie's bathroom was turned into a drying room, taking advantage of the electricity by running the fan heater in there on low*.
I had to pause mid-run as I couldn't resist another snap of the Picos de Europa, this time under a blue sky
There's a building in Cóbreces that says 'Panaderia' (bakery) outside, so I ambled up there whilst the washing was drying. It's not your standard baker's shop, looking from outside to be just another large house. I entered through the front door, turned left into what you might expect to be the living room, where I found a bare, concrete room, with baskets and crates of every sort of bread placed around. There is no counter, but there was a man (presumably the baker) in a hole in the floor. He climbed out of his hole to serve me, but we both ended up disappointed as I was on a mission for croissant and today he had none (darn, should have bought yesterday when we peered through the window and saw massive ones in one of the baskets).
'Elevenses' was thus cancelled in favour of just 'coffee', then we made a move and made it all the way over to the service point before we got chatting to the British chap in the other Hymer. Amongst varied conversation, it turns out that we were both in Capbreton at the same time in October. Thinking about it, when we nearly moved spot on our second morning there, due to the 'Party Central' van of surfers in front of us, the only other spot that looked better was next to a British Hymer with a personalised plate. I'm now pretty sure that was Gordon. As it went, our Party Central neighbours left, so we stayed put and it took another four weeks to meet him.
When we finally bade Gordon (and Cóbreces) farewell, it was to come all of 5km up the road. Within ten minutes we were pulling into this picnic area with a 'wow!' upon seeing this view out of Bertie's windscreen:
Pausing only for lunch, off we set for a bit of a wander, walking eastwards to the extent that we almost reached the village we walked through three days ago on an outing from Cóbreces.
Bertie is the white cube in the middle of this snap
Just before sunset, our little picnic area suddenly became busy with dog walkers and people just coming to sit a while overlooking the sea...
Good bench!
...but once the sun dipped behind the hills and the temperature started to collapse, they drifted off, leaving just us.
As I'm typing this last paragraph, Mick is just closing the blinds for the night, but for the last half an hour or so we have been treated to a view of the jagged line of mountains being silhouetted by an increasingly orange sky. My phone camera cannot possibly do it justice, but here's a poor impression:
(*I acknowledge that this probably cost the campsite more in electricity usage than the tumble dryer would have used, but we had paid for unlimited electricity, and I couldn't justify 'stealing' a use of the dryer on the basis that, to my mind, it would have been most cost effective for someone else.)
Weather: Wall-to-wall sunshine. Cool start.
As Mick was still in bed at the point that I had my trainers laced up, we ran sequentially this morning. We then needed to stay put a few hours as our running gear had needed a wash and, with it just being a few items, it wasn't worth splashing out to use the laundry facilities (€8), so the washing was done by hand and Bertie's bathroom was turned into a drying room, taking advantage of the electricity by running the fan heater in there on low*.
I had to pause mid-run as I couldn't resist another snap of the Picos de Europa, this time under a blue sky
There's a building in Cóbreces that says 'Panaderia' (bakery) outside, so I ambled up there whilst the washing was drying. It's not your standard baker's shop, looking from outside to be just another large house. I entered through the front door, turned left into what you might expect to be the living room, where I found a bare, concrete room, with baskets and crates of every sort of bread placed around. There is no counter, but there was a man (presumably the baker) in a hole in the floor. He climbed out of his hole to serve me, but we both ended up disappointed as I was on a mission for croissant and today he had none (darn, should have bought yesterday when we peered through the window and saw massive ones in one of the baskets).
'Elevenses' was thus cancelled in favour of just 'coffee', then we made a move and made it all the way over to the service point before we got chatting to the British chap in the other Hymer. Amongst varied conversation, it turns out that we were both in Capbreton at the same time in October. Thinking about it, when we nearly moved spot on our second morning there, due to the 'Party Central' van of surfers in front of us, the only other spot that looked better was next to a British Hymer with a personalised plate. I'm now pretty sure that was Gordon. As it went, our Party Central neighbours left, so we stayed put and it took another four weeks to meet him.
When we finally bade Gordon (and Cóbreces) farewell, it was to come all of 5km up the road. Within ten minutes we were pulling into this picnic area with a 'wow!' upon seeing this view out of Bertie's windscreen:
Pausing only for lunch, off we set for a bit of a wander, walking eastwards to the extent that we almost reached the village we walked through three days ago on an outing from Cóbreces.
Bertie is the white cube in the middle of this snap
Just before sunset, our little picnic area suddenly became busy with dog walkers and people just coming to sit a while overlooking the sea...
Good bench!
...but once the sun dipped behind the hills and the temperature started to collapse, they drifted off, leaving just us.
As I'm typing this last paragraph, Mick is just closing the blinds for the night, but for the last half an hour or so we have been treated to a view of the jagged line of mountains being silhouetted by an increasingly orange sky. My phone camera cannot possibly do it justice, but here's a poor impression:
(*I acknowledge that this probably cost the campsite more in electricity usage than the tumble dryer would have used, but we had paid for unlimited electricity, and I couldn't justify 'stealing' a use of the dryer on the basis that, to my mind, it would have been most cost effective for someone else.)
Awesome pics! What % of the year are you living in Bertie?
ReplyDeleteBy the time we get home from this trip we will have spent 219 nights in Bertie this year (and he wasn't registered until the third week in February, so we had a month and a half without any trips). That compares with 180 nights in Colin last year.
DeleteBefore we bought Colin in 2011, I put together a spreadsheet and worked out that we needed to use him for 34 nights per year to make him worth the investment. I can't remember what number of nights I came up with when we bought Bertie, but I think I can safely say that we have exceeded target for his first year!