Day Three

It was time to say goodbye to Playa Arenillas and start, gradually working our way to France. The plan today was to drive along the North Coast to San Sebastian, where we would have a stop for lunch and some sightseeing, before heading about fifty kilometers further south to our campsite for the night.

The plan worked well until we arrived in San Sebastian. Almost all the car parks in San Sebastian are underground and consequently have a maximum head room of two metres. The van not including the television antenna is 2.3 metres. We drove around for a wee while before we eventually found some on street parking, with the added bonus of being next to a bus route into the city centre.

We liked San Sebastian a lot. Unfortunately we didn’t have a lot of time to explore.

We spent about two hours there before we decided we needed to head off to our next campsite. It was about sixty kilometres south. At a place called Urbasa. The drive south was fairly flat, but as soon as we left the motorway the road went up, rapidly. After negotiating a series of very tight hairpins the road levelled out on to a plateau about a thousand metres above where we started. On the way up we got stuck behind a cyclist, I say stuck but he was going as fast as we were, about twenty five to thirty kilometres an hour, up a significant climb. It was only as we passed him I noticed that he was wearing a Caja Rural (a Spanish pro team) jersey. I suspect that he might have been a professional out on a training ride.

It is a lovely campsite which we shared with a herd of donkeys, one of which thought that our windscreen wipers might make a tasty snack.

It might have been a good place to spend a day or two. There were lots of walks and bike rides, around the site, but we were only using it as a break in the journey.

The next morning, after breakfast in the site café we headed off, back down the hairpins and into the Pyrenees.

Day Four

We had a longish trip ahead of us. We were trying to work out where to stop for lunch when Diane saw a sign for Castillo di Javier. So we had to visit.

It is very well preserved/restored. It was the birth place of St. Francis Xavier. (Javier is the Navarra spelling) I think it is now owned by the Jesuits. There is a Jesuit seminary next door. It is an interesting place to visit (and only cost €3). The story of his life is well, if a bit hagiographically told through artefacts and art.

There is a good restaurant next door. Well worth a detour

After a tour of the castle, the associated chapel and a good lunch we headed off into the Pyrenees. After couple of hours driving through increasingly beautiful scenery (and increasingly challenging roads) we arrived at our home for the next two nights, Camping Peña Montañesa in the foothills of the Pyrenees.

As we had arrived late and couldn’t be bothered to cook, we had dinner at the campsite restaurant. It was OK, but nothing special. The beer was cold and the food that was supposed to be hot was hot. We could have hung around after dinner to watch the Champions League Final, but decided to go back to the van. We knew when Real Madrid scored by the noise.

The campsite is also situated in a dark area. After dark the stars were spectacular. It was good to go to sleep with the skylight open looking up at the stars.