March

Spain
Lunch in Bilbao
As we hurried up the steps towards the sculpture of a puppy sitting outside the museum in Bilbao you could see how amazing it was with all the pretty flowers that had been planted all over it.  The inside of the puppy was full of pipes which helped to water the plants.

Next we went around the corner and saw a huge spider.  It was the biggest spider I had ever seen and it was made out of steel pipes which had been painted.

Then we went to a really cool playground full of big balls that you could jump on. By Amy

Is that an elephant I see, but I thought we were in Spain? Our cool night camping on the edge of an animal park in Cabarceno

 

Early morning mist, its not quite summer yet!

A day at Cuevas del Castillo, the caves of prehistoric man, unfortunately we were not able to take any photos inside the caves.

We got to the outside of the caves and then after only 2 minutes of waiting for our tour guide we entered the cave which was going to take us on a once in a lifetime experience.  After our eyes had adjusted to the gloomy light I didn’t know what to look at first, stalactites and stalagmites were everywhere, not just hanging from the ceiling and coming up from the ground, but swirling around and around like  huge ice-creams, some even looked like backdrops on a stage but that wasn’t all, not by a long shot because when we turned a corner there were paintings, one of a horse, then a horse’s head as well as bison and lots more all done in charcoal and iron oxide, they were all amazing.  After lunch we entered yet another cave and I was again amazed by all of the paintings in this cave.  There were even handprints that had been made by blowing iron oxide onto hands that had been held up against the wall causing a an outline of the handprint. By Laura

Cangas de Onis Was a really lovely small town which I really enjoyed walking around. It has a superb medieval bridge with a very steep cobbled arch.

It also had not only a tiny 15th century chapel but a church with a cool three storey bell-tower

A couple of days later we decided to stop in Lugo for lunch so we could have a walk around their Roman wall. And what a wall, it is in really good condition and almost complete, it runs for over 2km’s right around the centre of the town and at some points is 10m high.  It is also very wide and apparently wide enough to race Roman chariots along the top!

 A view from the wall... it's starting to feel a bit tight for space!!

On the UK’s mother’s day we happened to be in the same town of A Coruna as my parents who had just arrived that morning and we had a lovely day exploring A Coruna with them.  Our first stop was Hercules tower 

and then a walk along the harbour and some lunch 

 Before the girls grappled with a very large and colourful octopus!

Then it was time to say bye to Mum and Dad and continue on our journey.

One of our last stops in Spain before Portugal was to the tiny island of A Toxa which has a fascinating church completely covered on the outside in scallop shells.

France
We left Dover on the ferry to Calais and our first stop in France was of course a hypermarket to stock up on some French cheese and wine! Then on to Wissant our first aires stop of the trip.  From Wissant we headed to Dieppe, and then on to Bayeux to see the tapestry. The tapestry is almost 70 meters long and took nearly 10 years to complete and when you see the amazing attention to detail in the artistry as well as the sewing you can well imagine it would have taken that amount of time.  The town was also pretty cool .

We stopped in lots of aires along the way, some in small villages and others on the outskirts of larger towns, some very small with lots of campers all squeezed in only just large enough spaces and at other times we found ourselves the only campervan in the entire carpark.   We had a great stop in the tiny village of brogile.

Then it was time to hit the big time and have a few days in Paris.  We couldn’t possibly manage to see all the sights so we opted to visit the Arc de Triomphe and a walk down the Champs Elysees so Pete could wonder and exclaim about the sheer volume of traffic heading around the Arc de Triomphe roundabout at any given minute, after he had had his fill of car counting we headed towards the Eiffel Tower (high on the girls list of things to see) but unfortunately it was quite cloudy and we couldn’t see the top of the tower.

So headed to the Lourve (up there on Janet’s list) and spent a good few hours looking around.

It was also at the Lourve that we spent 2 euro’s each that’s about $4 NZ dollars each, a total of $16 NZ dollars to use the toilets, at least there was a good choice of toilet paper!!

And from the art galleries of the Lourve we headed to Montmarte (top of Janet’s list) and after a good climb to the top of the hill (a good warm up for our legs ready for the Eiffel tower) we spent some time wandering around watching the street artists at work.

After a quick trip next door to see the beautiful Sacre-Coeur we headed back into central Paris for another go at climbing up the Eiffel Tower.  Wow I think every other tourist in Paris had the same idea!

The queues were huge, we opted for the shortest queue which was the option to use the lift

although we had hoped to walk up all the 1665 steps to the 2nd level after a two hour, yes two hour wait we were all pretty tired and I think it was the right choice to get the lift up and then walk back down.

The whole experience was just amazing and now it’s all over even the long wait in the rain didn’t seem too bad! 

From the highs of the Eiffel Tower it was back down to the Metro and back out to the shuttle stop for a lift back to the campsite and a nice warm cosy bed. After a second much quieter day in Paris we headed out and stopped exhausted in the little town of Beaugency, the girls and I didn’t even get out of the van; we just ate some dinner and headed straight to bed. We soon found ourselves back on the coast and at the lovely seaside town of La Rochelle.

A few nights later we had planned to stay at Anglet but when we got there all the aires were full, so we continued on to Biarritz and managed to snag the last space in the car park. Then after a huge sigh of relief we headed to the beach. Some sun, sea and sand at last yippy!!!!!

Our last stop in France was at the lovely town of St Jean-de-Luz unfortunately the aires was rather small and we were squashed in a tight row of campers with our backs to the railway line, where every so often you could feel the bullet train (the fastest train in Europe) go whizzing past and a busy road at the front.
                                          
But  the town and harbour were lovely and we spent a whole afternoon just wandering around looking at all the old buildings and lazing on the beach.

Then it was time to head to Spain!