We stayed the last night of January in Saint Foy la Grande by
the Dordogne river, behind a little church. And so we woke up for the church
bell ringing the following morning at 7am. Than 8am. We admitted defeat after
the 9am bell ringing and got ourselves together to move onto our next stop:
Duna de Pilat.
This has been on our list of places to visit and it did not disappoint!
It is a massive sand dune (the largest in Europe, about 500m wide, 2.7km long
and 110m high) by the Atlantic Ocean. Apparently it is moving landward, pushing
the forest back. We walked up to the top; it took us about an hour. It was hard
work, a bit like walking up a hill in the snow. The scenery was great, thought.
It is an ideal paragliding spot and there were quite a few of them out despite
being early in the year. Harley just loved rolling in the sand.
We stayed the night in the forest 10 min down the road. The
following morning before moving
onto Biarritz, we went for a stroll on the beach, where we could still see
some old bunkers from the 2nd world war sunk in the sand.
In Biarritz we parked on an aire (6 Euro a night - not bad) to allow us to do
the necessary (empty our black and grey water and refill our freshwater tank). The
sun was out and the beach was 200m, so of course off we went and dipped our toes
in the water (I can confirm, the Atlantic Ocean is still cold in February.)
We walked into Biarritz the following morning, the coastline
was beautiful and the sun was shining. I don’t think Harley was too impressed, though,
going walkabout in town was not on his to do list. We made it back to the aire
and after a well-earned beer, we went down to the beach and did…nothing.
Spain: The following
day we moved on to Zumaia – a little town known for the spectacular rock formation
(
Flysch) along the beach and a Chapel on an outcrop of rocks high over the
ocean.
Then on our way to Bilbao we have stopped at
Saint Juan de Gaztelugatxe
or “Dragonstone” to the fans of the Game of Thrones series. We walked up to the
Chapel. 241 steps apparently, not to mention the walk down from the carpark to
the bottom first. No beer at the end only great views. Then down the steps and
back up to the carpark again.
I thought we were done with the up and down and steps for
the day, but we parked up for the night above Bilbao and decided to go for a
walkabout in town. To be fair, there was a bus line right next to us, but we
decided to try the steps down to town. Actually going down was not too bad. It’s
the way back up that made us question or sanity. Anyway, Bilbao turned out to be
a beautiful city. We walked down again the following morning and just spent
most of the day wondering around.
In the evening we moved on to Santona for the night. Great view from our parking spot,
just at the beginning of the trail that took us to
Faro del Caballo.
We went there
this morning. It is an hour hike to the beginning of the 761 steps that takes
you down to the little light house at the bottom. It was well worth the effort,
but you know how hard work the step machine is in the gym? Well, the real thing
is harder.
We are now parked up for the night on a little town called Somo,
on our way to Santander, where we are hoping to meet a friend over the weekend.
