The trip so Far

We keep heading south avoiding storms in Spain.


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Salamanca

Set off in hard driving rain this am heading south and onto Portugal. It seems the whole of Spain is covered in dense cloud, it doesn't just rain on the plain.
Drove to Salamanca, parked the caravan at a nice site by the river Tormes and headed into the city for some dinner.
It really is a beautiful city, as the tourist information map says: "Every area, with its columns and its supports, opens up and finds a meaning(???) ..a true outdoors museum"

Headed to Plaza Mayor where a party was going off... The Salamanca regions womens basketball team had won the premiership and were being toasted by the city! It was great fun. (Rog wanted to stay..)

Had pizza and ice-cream for tea and headed home... more hail!!

New cathedral, Salamanca

Guggenheim, Bilbao

The weather has changed!!
Cold and wet and worse to come over the weekend!
Headed to Bilbao along a crazy motorway which was like doing a lap of the Nurburgring.

Arrived in one piece and headed to Frank Gehry's masterpiece. It has been Chocolate Moose's lifelong ambition to go to the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. Since it's opening in 1997 it has become one of the most admired works of contemporary architecture. It's truly an amazing building, both inside and out.
CM was very impressed by the building but felt the collection inside was a bit sparse. I suppose he is spoilt with the fantastic collection at NGV. He gave a very insightful interview which we'll try and upload.

The kids were a bit disappointed that the kids section was tiny, containing a few cushions and 2 Ikea easels and was closed!!!

Took awning down this evening, going to head south to Salamanca then onto Portugal in search of sun!

Alex Say's Hi from Spain

Alex at the beach having a luxury milk shake.

Basque Anchovies

Walked down to the market in Zarautz this morning via the beach.
Found a terrific fishmonger who was very adept with her knife. All the locals were buying fresh anchovies so we thought we should too.

Recipe:

1. Remove backbone and tail and butterfly fish.
2. Lightly dust in seasoned flour.
3. Shallow fry in a hot pan.
4. Eat!!

Fish!

Team work

Proud Chef's 

Donostia San Sebastian

Beautiful day! 30 degrees and not a cloud in the sky.

Explored nearby San Sebastian (20km away). Lovely city in a sheltered bay with a great beach. Reminded us of Barcelona but much cooler and less touristy. Took a mini train ride to see the main sights to save our legs. Then went up the Furuncular to a Hasta la Vista point. It was like going back to the 1950s up there, a dated theme park but (un?)fortunately everything was shut!!! Phew!

Ice cream saved the day.

Picasso Rides Again! 

Donostia San Sebastian

Cable Car Station

Zarautz, Northern Spain

Zarautz, Northern Spain

Zarautz is 15 minutes west of San Sebastian. We found a fantastic campground situated on a cliff top above the town’s 3 km long surf beach. There is a surf school operating from the campground. Lots of teenage parties in the washblocks in the evening! Very  uncool eurorock music being played.

The town is small but has everything we need. It has a great market we discovered yesterday. We had the best jamon (135 euros/kg) but ours was a free sample when we told the guy at the shop we were Australian. We feasted on San Sebastian prawns and fresh anchovies in the evening.  

Alex and Charlie are busy learning Basque and doing their journals. We now have wireless access so they are also doing their school work from Australia on the Ultranet

and mathletics. Driving to San Sebastian today. 

Alex writing his journal

Charlie the Chef!

View from our site :)

Viva Espania

We have made our way down through France into Spain. Staying at a great campsite close to San Sebastian. The surfing looks excellent. I can't wait to rent a board and give it a go! The attached picture was taken from our camp. More soon :)

Dune du pilat, Arcachon, France

Chocolate Moose has been struggling with patchy Internet connections, lost dongles, some dingles (that don't work) and a mislaid cable. So no pics today but will post plenty tomorrow.
Had a good trip south to Arcachon on the Southwest Atlantic coast of France.
Great campsite set in a pine forest (Chocolate's favourite..... Reminds him of home)
Overshadowed by the massive Dune du pilat a humongous sand dune 500m high and 1.2km long. CM found the ascent tricky... The sand kept getting in his hooves but the views from the top over the Arcachon basin were fantastic.

Pic is of Alex in his hidey-hole... Busy reading Artemis Fowl, wants to finish the book before Dad!

Chateau's

Chateau's Galore in the Loire. Sarah is reliving her childhood wondering around Chateau's in the Loire. Alex and Charlie are learning to speak French. I'm still struggling to get the mac connected to the Internet hence the brief posts from my iPhone.

Chocolate Moose arrives at Chinon!

Life's been tough for Chocolate Moose. He took a long time to recover from the flight and jet-lag. Then the freezing cold weather in England sent him into hibernation. He was very worried about catching the gastro bug that struck down Charlie and Samantha (poor Bubster was sick for 4 days), so again took to his hidey hole with a tube of alcohol hand wash.

He emerged this afternoon in the sunshine bathing beautiful Chinon. He regaled to us ( with a tear in his eye) that one of his ancestors had lived in the grounds of the chateau many years ago but unfortunately had met a nasty end and his head is now above the fire place in the great hall.

Set up in campsite on the banks of the river Vienne overlooking the chateau at Chinon. Chocolate enjoyed a hearty home cooked meal and is now tucked up in bed!

Chinon

Staying at Chinon in the Loire Valley.

Alex Quiz
How old is the Chateaux below?
A) 250 years old?
B) 500 years old?
C) 1000 years old?

Le Brevedent

Arrived in France. Staying in the grounds of Louis XVII's hunting lodge at Le Brevedent Normandy. Heading to Loire Valley today.

Almscliff Crag

We went for a bracing scramble up Almscliff Crag this am. Almscliff is a favourite spot with local climbers, Rog used to climb here in is youth! Very very very cold!!!
Still lots of snow which delighted A & C. They had fun scrambling over the boulders.

Still busy setting up caravan and working out how everything works

 ... put awning up yesterday, hopefully it'll be quicker next time, mind you I suppose we do have 6 months!

Scams

I personally came across both of these scams whilst looking for cars and
caravans in the UK.
Scam 1: Give the Car a Haircut Sir!
Haircut is British slang for taking kilometres off the car odometer.
Also known as "clocking".
Car A
I found the perfect car a good price, the model I wanted. One former
owner low mileage. It was a long drive to the garage but worth it for the
right car. How wrong I was. When I finally got there I found a shabby
tired looking car with worn seats and fittings.
The condition of the car was not consistent with the mileage. The
salesman was also very evasive about the former owner.
Time to walk away! Lesson learnt.
Car B
Two owners 31,000 miles. Privately owned right model and milage. Perfect. But given my experience of a couple of days earlier I thought I would run an RAC vehicle check on it. Glad I did the RAC check it reported the milage as 110,000 miles!
Apparently up to 30% of cars in the UK have their odometers falsified. It's very easy to do with a laptop and some software.
But heres the thing its not illegal to reduce the odometer reading! It's only ilegal to sell a car with a false reading!
There's a major loop hole in the law here I think. I can smile about this now because after these experiences I went to a large dealer and bought a decent car (I hope) and checked its history with an RAC vehicle check.

Scam 2. The ESCROW Caravan Scam.
I was looking for a 6 berth caravan for the family. I found one that looked good and it was about 20% cheaper than similar models on the caravan club website. I contacted the seller via email. Turned out to be a couple of pensioners who no longer wanted to tour. It sounded great until! They said they were living in France but would bring the caravan back to the UK if we were serious buyers. They also mentioned the only payment they would take was via a system called ESCROW. At this point I started to get suspicious so a Googled a few key words. It turns out this is a classic scam. Where you end up paying and the caravan never appears. Now there was no way I would part with money this way but some must fall for it.