Where's Bertie? He's in a beachside car park in the town of Comillas (exact location: 43.38971, -4.28938)
Weather: Gloriously sunny, with a chilly start, but reaching a high of 17 degrees by mid-afternoon.
Yesterday ended with clear skies and today dawned the same, which makes it no surprise that it got a bit parky overnight. The heating was called into use before we emerged from the duvet this morning. Of course, once the sun got high enough to hit us, Bertie warmed up quickly.
Yesterday we moved 5km along the coast, today it was 2km - so close that from where we are now sitting we can clearly see the church below which we were parked last night. We did add a little onto the drive by detouring via a supermarket on the opposite side of town.
Having not driven for weeks, I figured that on such an short and easy journey I could safely abandon my navigator role and take the wheel. That was slightly terrifying for Mick, firstly because of my driving (hey, it's been a while since I drove Bertie down small roads!), but secondly because the SatNav initially insisted that there was no possible route to our destination*, meaning he had to navigate. Mick doesn't like navigating; it's why he always bagsies the driver's chair.
The journey wasn't quite as easy as I had envisaged, but I managed to make it through the narrow cobbled streets and to squeeze Bertie into a space in the shop's tiny car park. If we hadn't needed so much then walking would definitely have been preferable.
I also managed to squeeze Bertie back out of the tiny car park and got him back through the narrow cobbled streets, and into the car park where we are now residing. They charge 55 cents per hour to park here between mid-June and mid-September (via a manned hut, not an automated machine). At this time of year it is free, which is unsurprisingly considering how few cars have joined us throughout the day.
Our first explorations, between elevenses and lunch, took us along the seafront by way of a recce as to whether the promenade was long enough for a run (answer: yes, as long as we don't mind running it twice in each direction).
The beach next to which we are parked. There's a man in the sea, wearing just trunks. It really wasn't that warm.
That outing took us around the harbour too, where we spent a while peering over the sea wall, watching the waves. We did that for a little too long, as without warning a rogue wave came along, splashed over the wall and onto my head. An impressive amount of the water found its way down the neck of my zipped-up jacket.
The harbour, where a couple of fishing boats we had seen last night and this morning had just come in.
This afternoon saw us wander up to the town, perfectly hitting the afternoon closed period, meaning that it was as quiet as 7 o'clock on a Sunday morning. Had we timed it better (i.e. before 2pm or after 4pm) we would have got a map from the Tourist Office and done the two 'town tour' routes properly. We could possibly have done them maplessly, as they seemed to be well signed, but we made do with just reading the information points we came across on our less-structured meanderings.
Looking back down on Bertie and the beach.
We were on our way back to Bertie when I remembered that the first house ever designed by Gaudi is located here. Doubling back, we found it, but were disappointed that you can't even get a glimpse of it without paying the €5 entrance fee.
Back at Bertie once more, I've managed to resist doing any laundry, on the basis of not having a full load, even though there's a laundrette within fifty paces of where we are sitting. That's more convenient than on most campsites!
(*that was after we had got around the issue of the SatNav cable, which has been unwell for a very long time, finally giving up the ghost completely)
Weather: Gloriously sunny, with a chilly start, but reaching a high of 17 degrees by mid-afternoon.
Yesterday ended with clear skies and today dawned the same, which makes it no surprise that it got a bit parky overnight. The heating was called into use before we emerged from the duvet this morning. Of course, once the sun got high enough to hit us, Bertie warmed up quickly.
Yesterday we moved 5km along the coast, today it was 2km - so close that from where we are now sitting we can clearly see the church below which we were parked last night. We did add a little onto the drive by detouring via a supermarket on the opposite side of town.
Having not driven for weeks, I figured that on such an short and easy journey I could safely abandon my navigator role and take the wheel. That was slightly terrifying for Mick, firstly because of my driving (hey, it's been a while since I drove Bertie down small roads!), but secondly because the SatNav initially insisted that there was no possible route to our destination*, meaning he had to navigate. Mick doesn't like navigating; it's why he always bagsies the driver's chair.
The journey wasn't quite as easy as I had envisaged, but I managed to make it through the narrow cobbled streets and to squeeze Bertie into a space in the shop's tiny car park. If we hadn't needed so much then walking would definitely have been preferable.
I also managed to squeeze Bertie back out of the tiny car park and got him back through the narrow cobbled streets, and into the car park where we are now residing. They charge 55 cents per hour to park here between mid-June and mid-September (via a manned hut, not an automated machine). At this time of year it is free, which is unsurprisingly considering how few cars have joined us throughout the day.
Our first explorations, between elevenses and lunch, took us along the seafront by way of a recce as to whether the promenade was long enough for a run (answer: yes, as long as we don't mind running it twice in each direction).
The beach next to which we are parked. There's a man in the sea, wearing just trunks. It really wasn't that warm.
That outing took us around the harbour too, where we spent a while peering over the sea wall, watching the waves. We did that for a little too long, as without warning a rogue wave came along, splashed over the wall and onto my head. An impressive amount of the water found its way down the neck of my zipped-up jacket.
The harbour, where a couple of fishing boats we had seen last night and this morning had just come in.
This afternoon saw us wander up to the town, perfectly hitting the afternoon closed period, meaning that it was as quiet as 7 o'clock on a Sunday morning. Had we timed it better (i.e. before 2pm or after 4pm) we would have got a map from the Tourist Office and done the two 'town tour' routes properly. We could possibly have done them maplessly, as they seemed to be well signed, but we made do with just reading the information points we came across on our less-structured meanderings.
Looking back down on Bertie and the beach.
We were on our way back to Bertie when I remembered that the first house ever designed by Gaudi is located here. Doubling back, we found it, but were disappointed that you can't even get a glimpse of it without paying the €5 entrance fee.
Back at Bertie once more, I've managed to resist doing any laundry, on the basis of not having a full load, even though there's a laundrette within fifty paces of where we are sitting. That's more convenient than on most campsites!
(*that was after we had got around the issue of the SatNav cable, which has been unwell for a very long time, finally giving up the ghost completely)
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