Where's Bertie? He's sitting on the roadside in an abandoned development in Sagunto (not far N of Valencia) on the E coast of Spain. Exact location: 39.68444, -0.26936.
Weather: Sometimes sunny, sometimes overcast (we drove a long way today!), cold until we hit the coast.
On Saturday morning, we woke up at home and here we are, 3.5 days later, on the coast of Spain. We knew we could do the journey that quickly, as we've used almost identical staging as we did when we fled home in March 2020, but, my goodness, it's a lot of driving.
We got a slightly earlier start this morning, before 9am, which was too early for the money collector, who had also failed to call last night. Having used not just a parking space (of which there must have been over a hundred free), but also the electricity and wifi, we couldn't abscond without making reasonable efforts to pay, and on this occasion we were successful. Or at least, we fashioned an envelope out of a sheet of paper, put the correct money into it, and put it through a letter box on the booth at the entrance, so hopefully it reaches the right people.
Toll roads saw us out of France and through the first few miles of Spain. There we found ourselves at a manned booth where, we realised as we pulled away, we got short changed. Hopefully it was an honest mistake, but you have to wonder. It's not a situation where you can just nip back to make a complaint, and it's unlikely that most people check their change, particularly when handed a fistful of coins.
The toll roads west and south of Pamplona we avoided. The free road, running almost adjacent to the motorhway, is no further and only a tiny bit slower.
Just before Zaragoza a pause was had parked parallel to a service road, in between lorries, and next to a towering concrete wall. It wasn't the nicest lunch spot, but on the plus side, the service station had a convenience store where we were able to buy some still-warm bread, having not passed a supermarket or bakery all morning.
The next stop, only about 20 minutes later, would have made a slightly nicer lunch stop, but there we only paused for fuel* (160.6c/litre).
The kilometres duly passed by as we continued on, trying to stay entertained with a variety of podcasts, BBC Sounds downloads, and bits of a couple of audiobooks. I also spent a few minutes deciding where we were going to spend the night.
With 100km to go the temperature outside was still fluctuating between 0 and 3 degrees, but we were still up high, so we had faith that it would warm up as we approached the coast. Sure enough, as we pulled into Lidl's car park in Sagunto at 1715, it was 10 degrees. Not as warm as we'd like, but probably not unreasonable for the times of day and year.
Whilst I bought the three ingredients needed to cook tea (we'll do a big shop tomorrow), Mick checked out the most local options of where we could spend the night.
Both behind and opposite Lidl are the sorts of abandoned developments that one finds all over Spain: the roadways and pavements have been installed, together with streetlighting, with building plots lying between the grid-system roadway. Then the whole thing has been abandoned. They're not the most attractive places to stay, but tend to be quiet (and, as I've said many a time before, once the curtains are closed, the view outside is irrelevant). So, that's where we are. Given the time of day, I saw little point in going the last 5k to the coast-proper tonight; the chances of finding a good place to park there will be much higher in the morning.
(*Yes, we're buying fuel frequently. One day we may do something about the fact that Bertie's diesel tank leaks if we fill it more than three-quarters full, but having lived with it that way for three years, there's a good chance it won't be any time soon.)
Weather: Sometimes sunny, sometimes overcast (we drove a long way today!), cold until we hit the coast.
On Saturday morning, we woke up at home and here we are, 3.5 days later, on the coast of Spain. We knew we could do the journey that quickly, as we've used almost identical staging as we did when we fled home in March 2020, but, my goodness, it's a lot of driving.
We got a slightly earlier start this morning, before 9am, which was too early for the money collector, who had also failed to call last night. Having used not just a parking space (of which there must have been over a hundred free), but also the electricity and wifi, we couldn't abscond without making reasonable efforts to pay, and on this occasion we were successful. Or at least, we fashioned an envelope out of a sheet of paper, put the correct money into it, and put it through a letter box on the booth at the entrance, so hopefully it reaches the right people.
Toll roads saw us out of France and through the first few miles of Spain. There we found ourselves at a manned booth where, we realised as we pulled away, we got short changed. Hopefully it was an honest mistake, but you have to wonder. It's not a situation where you can just nip back to make a complaint, and it's unlikely that most people check their change, particularly when handed a fistful of coins.
Spain; we came here for the warmth and sunshine...
Just before Zaragoza a pause was had parked parallel to a service road, in between lorries, and next to a towering concrete wall. It wasn't the nicest lunch spot, but on the plus side, the service station had a convenience store where we were able to buy some still-warm bread, having not passed a supermarket or bakery all morning.
The next stop, only about 20 minutes later, would have made a slightly nicer lunch stop, but there we only paused for fuel* (160.6c/litre).
The kilometres duly passed by as we continued on, trying to stay entertained with a variety of podcasts, BBC Sounds downloads, and bits of a couple of audiobooks. I also spent a few minutes deciding where we were going to spend the night.
With 100km to go the temperature outside was still fluctuating between 0 and 3 degrees, but we were still up high, so we had faith that it would warm up as we approached the coast. Sure enough, as we pulled into Lidl's car park in Sagunto at 1715, it was 10 degrees. Not as warm as we'd like, but probably not unreasonable for the times of day and year.
Whilst I bought the three ingredients needed to cook tea (we'll do a big shop tomorrow), Mick checked out the most local options of where we could spend the night.
Both behind and opposite Lidl are the sorts of abandoned developments that one finds all over Spain: the roadways and pavements have been installed, together with streetlighting, with building plots lying between the grid-system roadway. Then the whole thing has been abandoned. They're not the most attractive places to stay, but tend to be quiet (and, as I've said many a time before, once the curtains are closed, the view outside is irrelevant). So, that's where we are. Given the time of day, I saw little point in going the last 5k to the coast-proper tonight; the chances of finding a good place to park there will be much higher in the morning.
(*Yes, we're buying fuel frequently. One day we may do something about the fact that Bertie's diesel tank leaks if we fill it more than three-quarters full, but having lived with it that way for three years, there's a good chance it won't be any time soon.)
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