We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Marbella - ish

Marbella was only 30 km away so we decided that we would make the drive but if we found parking for the night on the way we would stop. We drove about 3 km when I made a wrong turn in a roundabout (GPS error) and we ended up in a semi residential area which had parking alongside the road. Tired, we decided we should just rest here for the night before we made our drive into Marbella to find our second campsite. Our second campsite choice was more expensive than Julie had remembered (from internet research) and we quickly turned away before we even entered. Our last choice was on the other side of the road so we needed to find a place to turn around which turned out to be more problematic then we expected. Because of the way the road system is designed along the N340, every second exit brings you to a roundabout that leads you to a bridge – we didn’t learn this at first though, now we are experts (it just takes one mistake). So we turned around and got off twice before getting to the right exit, the campsite is located at the 192.8 km marker. The guy behind the desk told us he wasn’t even sure we could spend an entire month at the campsite due to prior reservations. So Julie and I needed to drive around the campsite and mark down the #’s to all the sites that had no residents. We gathered up a few before heading back, when another guy just came in for his shift and seemed to know more about what was going on than the first guy. As it turned out we had a choice of 3 plots on a stretch that we had figured would be our best chance as there were so many vacant spots. I chose the one closest to the water outlet and the electricity. We promptly parked and started to set up for our long stay. First order of business was to clean the inside of the van and wash the dishes that had been piling up for the past few days. We set up the patio table and camping chairs when we were done cleaning so we could sit back and relax. The downside of us showing up on the day we did, was that everything was closed so we couldn’t buy groceries (a slight oversight). On the upside, we found 5 wireless connections available, one of which was the campsites. The campsite one required a password and the other 4 required payment, 55 euros for the month. We decided to check with the campsite reception to learn about the internet and find out about mail and what not. It turns out we get free internet (or the internet is included in our cost of the campsite) but they were experiencing technical difficulties at the moment (something we learnt happens a lot). They told us to try back tomorrow. While we were cleaning the van, a guy across from us was cleaning his yellow VW van listening to music. Julie and I determined that we had not heard one song we didn’t like the entire time he played his music, everything from oldies to new stuff. It was great to hear while cleaning, and eventually relaxing. Julie made a late lunch while I tried to get caught up on the blog writing when I remembered our Canadian flag. I mentioned to Julie that I had wanted to put it up when we parked, probably on the antenna. I didn’t even have the chance to get up before Julie was fastening it up. That’s when the guy across the road walked half way across and said, “Are you from Toronto or Vancouver?”
We ended up talking to Freddy for most of the night before calling it quits. It turns out that he is from the east side of London, England but had been living in the states for the past 14 years. He also spends most of his time traveling, finding work as a radio host. It was his first time traveling in a camper van (used a bike before) and he was converted in the way of life. Freddy hung around until Wednesday and we spent the time talking to him or listening to his music while we continued with our list of chores – we’re resting so we put very little on our plate each day.

Malaga

Parking was impossible. We ended up finding a spot on the corner of a roundabout. The walk into town didn’t encourage me to think the van was safe either. We made our way into the more tourist visited area and it cleaned up nicely. The major square was really nice, filled with many tourists all of which were taking photos of the huge Christmas ornaments. The lady in the tourist office was the least helpful yet. She did provide us with a list of campsites in the area and suggested we try the internet to learn about them. We found an internet café not too far away and researched what we could. We narrowed our list of campsites down to 3 campsites, but decided on going with our instincts and to head to the one that didn’t have a website. We arrived in Fuengriola late in the evening. The campsite (mentioned in our camping guide) that we had chosen way back in France turned out to be closed when we arrived at the gates. The sign said it had closed in 2005 and our camping book was published, apparently just before it shut down. This is the second time this camping book has led us to a non-existent campsite. The first time was in Bruges, Belgium where it turned into a movie theater.

Cordoba

It was a really long drive and we can tell the van is getting tired of the long halls, especially when they are back to back. When we arrived in Cordoba we stopped at a McDonald's for a bite to eat, figure out where we wanted to park and see if they had internet. They didn’t have internet, so we left looking for a parking spot and ended up finding one alongside a road. The spot was pretty level, the tourist office was within 2 km and it seemed like a pretty safe place. The only downside of us choosing this particular spot, was that it was near a roundabout that led to a highway and it also led to the hospital. We heard sirens from about the time we parked until 2 -3 am and then they started up again at 6am. The traffic was on the same schedule it seemed. It was a rough night, but we were optimistic, as we would be heading to Fuengirola or near there to find a camping spot for the month. So around 10 am we headed into town. The address we had for the tourist office was a dud and we had to walk much further to an alternate address. There were so many stores trying to sell to tourists, it was rather ugly. The tourist kiosk was located in a large shopping square and the lady was rather unhelpful besides providing us with a town map. Our intention was to see if the tourist office could help us decide on a campsite based on the criteria Julie and I had come up with. We know that they make phone calls like this for a nominal fee and we both decided it would be worth it. However, we were told to try a local travel agency instead. Knowing we wanted to know where we were heading later that day, we stopped into 3 travel agencies before giving up. None of them spoke any English. So we made our way to the reason we came here, the Mezquita. This was pretty disappointing as it was around 18 euros to get in and was nothing more than a church. We did see some church treasures (this would be why the people have no money but the church does) before we left and made our way back to the van. We decided to try the tourist office in Malaga for campsite information since it was the first major city we would enter before heading towards a campsite.

Seville

Yes we are back in Spain again and will be for the next 6-7 weeks. Seville is a large city that sees many tourists and for good reason. It has one of the oldest bull fighting rings, the third largest church in the world (St Peters in London and the Vatican in Rome are larger) and has plenty of entertainment and nightlife to offer. The previous night we parked outside an Ikea and made use of their cheap food and washrooms. We thought we had parked near a bus stop and planned to take it into town, but upon further investigation we learnt that it was a taxi stop, not a bus stop. So with that we had to make the drive into Seville. This was a stressful time. There are so many motorists, pedestrians and cars that seem to be parked just about anywhere and everywhere. We had some difficulty locating a spot for our large van. If we had a smaller vehicle, it would’ve been slightly easier. We found a spot that was “just” large enough for us but was difficult to parallel park into easily. Thankfully, the woman who owned the car in front of us was heading out. This made it much easier. I noticed then that we were almost covering a driveway entrance (the lady’s car was blocking it before). We were right along the river and could see the round bull fighting ring from where we parked. The tourist office was also within 2 km from us. The spot we had was pay parking and only allowed up to 2 hours of parking so we had to hustle. Up until now, Julie has been navigating when we drive and when we are on foot, but lately she has been having some difficulty reading the map or the GPS. So I gave her the camera and told her I would navigate if she took the pictures. Like every tourist office in Spain and Portugal, the employees were once again fast and efficient (which isn’t always a good thing). We made our way to the bull ring, where I tried to convince Julie to take a tour but we ended up taking some photos of it instead. She was protesting because she believes that the sport is cruel and does not wish to promote it at all. I don’t blame her for this view, it is a cruel sport, but it’s also a cultural thing for Spain. I did want to tour the ring itself, but didn’t push my luck (and was glad I didn’t, especially when Julie learnt that we would have seen a show during the tour). We then made our way towards the church. The church was huge and impressive. I wanted to head up the bell tower to view the city from there, but with a price tag of 8.50 each we moved on (8.50 to visit a church, neither one of us wants to promote that!). From here we wandered briefly through the old Jewish quarter past many small shops and into a park. From here we proceeded to the Spanish Square. When we read up on this square, we did not expect to see what we did. It was a huge semicircle square with a fountain in the middle. Walking along the half circle you can see tile work with pictures depicting the many popular cities and towns in Spain. Each one was unique. It was pretty awesome to see, plus it was free. Julie assured me that we could see a Flamenco show when we are in the Costa Del Sol and that it isn’t just Seville that has the shows. So we moved on to Cordoba.

Tavira

Another small town along the Algarve; it had over 30 churches, one fortress and a roman bridge. The fortress and the town itself were the draw for us. The roman bridge looked like any old bridge and connected the newer town area with the old. In the main square they had spent quite a lot of money to spruce it up as there were marble sections throughout, the old square seemed new. They were also setting up for Christmas, a little slower than other towns we have visited. Once we learnt where the fortress was we were off exploring the alleyways that led to the fortress. The fortress was almost completely ruined, but they did keep a lovely garden in the center. During our walks we also saw that they were excavating much of the fortress near by. The section of the fortress that was accessible to us provided great views over the city. Just outside the entrance was an old church with a huge clock on the bell tower. We wandered a bit more and sat for a moment on a bench near the river before we made our final drive for the day towards Seville, Spain. We both felt we could have skipped this town, but didn’t regret visiting it.

Silves

The main attraction here, a fairy tale castle, was a huge disappointment. The entire site was under construction and there wasn’t anything to see. It was a complete waste of time. Luckily, that was the last thing we did before heading back to the van. The lady at the tourist office was extremely nice and was completely aware that her town had barely anything to offer, though she was sure we would love it. She suggested that we walk to the small town square, have a cup of coffee from the old coffee shop and have a look at the roman tower in the square before making it past the two churches which lead to the castle. We took her advice, but weren’t sure about the “stopping for a coffee” as we have a schedule to keep. When we arrived in the square; there was some debate if we were in the right spot at first, but climbing a flight of stairs proved that we were indeed in the right spot, so we had to walk back down. Here we learnt that the town provides free WiFi so we sat on a bench and used the internet. The square was so small, probably the size of my parents backyard, that we were sitting right next to the old coffee shop patio. Since we were no longer in a rush we tucked ourselves into a bistro table and I proceeded to enjoy two lovely cups of coffee. Julie had lost her sunglasses at some point and realized it during the second cup. Frantically she retraced her steps and eventually made her way to the bench we were previously sitting at. It turns out that an older gentlemen sitting on the bench had them and was cleaning them off and waiting for the owner to return. All in all, despite the castle being a dud, the town was extremely lovely.

Sagres

Henry the Navigator built a fortress here in the belief that it was the end of the world. His school of navigation is here as well and the town only has around 2000 residents. Besides a light house, that’s pretty much all there is to see. So Julie and I have been to the end of the world as they knew it (Sorry, I had to). The wind here never seems to stop which makes it seem cool and the town is a fair distance away from the ocean for this reason. We also found that there were so many different sized rocks everywhere we walked or drove. It was truly amazing to be here, walking along the cliff and to see the ocean so far below. They changed the hours of operations for the fortress and school so we had only a half hour to have a look around, so we ended up running for some of it and missed out on the school. We could have changed our minds and decided to see it the next morning, but there really wasn’t much else to do and it reopened at 10am. We decided to free camp outside the fortress in its parking lot and at one point during the night we were serenaded by a bunch of dogs. The next morning we made the short 6km drive to the lighthouse, the most southwestern point of Europe. We had hoped to meet the guy that mans the lighthouse for a chance to go up, but again the hours didn’t work for our schedule. So we didn’t hang around, we had two town stops to make, the last of which, we needed to be at before 2pm. The town hall in that town offers free internet access only until 2pm.

Evora

We found a parking spot outside Evora’s town wall with little difficulty. It seemed like a truck-stop-like rest area. We got up rather early and once again it was warm enough outside for me to wear a t-shirt (two days in a row!). Evora has a gruesome sight, a cathedral built out of human bones. So when we made it to the tourist office and received the extremely quick directions, we made our way to the fountain in the square to figure out our walking path. It was here that we were approached by two people our age. They were conducting a tourism survey. The survey was fun and Julie and I had a laugh when they asked us which countries we have been to. Because of our pace, we sometimes forget all that we have seen and done. We are so looking forward to our month of rest in Spain. Back to Evora. The town is old but well maintained. It was fairly rewarding walking the streets of this town and not too difficult to navigate to the recommended sites (The town map was really accurate). Julie had the feeling that the bone chapel was in fact located inside another church. We found the entrance and an elderly beggar lady pointed us in the right direction, for this reason, Julie gave her a 50 cent piece. The bone chapel was about as morbid as you would expect one to be. We took our pictures, took in the site and made our way to the next stop, the temple of Diana. The path we chose would take us past a few recommended churches and most of the town. The Roman temple of Diana was in such a poor state it is hard to believe that we found it impressive. This was mainly due to it’s location in the town. On its own, it was pretty pathetic. Behind the temple ruins, a small park afforded a great view of the city outside the town walls. We had another long stretch of road to cover, so it was off to Sagres – the end of the world as they knew it (It’s okay if you want to sing, we did).

Lisbon (Lisboa)

The GPS isn’t always accurate. When we were trying to make it to our destination campsite the GPS brought us to a residential area that was so poor and so sketchy that we made sure our doors were locked when we stopped to figure out where we were. The street had many strays and we watched them fight over some food. Most of the houses had caved in roofs and to our surprise people were still living in them. We tried our luck with the GPS coordinates instead of the campsite address which brought us to a more reasonable area but still the wrong location. Our GPS had us turn down what seemed to be a road that was behind the campsite (we could see sites on the other side of a fence that ran along side the road). We got concerned when the pavement ended and the road kept going on through a forest. The dirt road looked traveled on, but not necessarily with a car or van, maybe a four wheeler? But the GPS was suggesting that it met up with another road that would lead us to the campsite, and since we could actually see the campsite through the fence next to the road, we figured we would give it a shot. Did I mention that there were parts of the road covered with mud and other parts water? We really should have turned the van around or backed it up since it was a narrow road. I drove the van along the dirt road until it ended. The area we stopped in was in fact just part of the forest and the road did indeed end here. With our suspicions being verified we argued briefly and decided to turn the van around. On the way in, it was clear that I needed to keep the gas pedal down and the van on us much dry area as possible to make it through to the area where we stopped. It was a bumpy ride on the way in. That being said, I was really worried about turning the van around and getting it stuck on a log or a stump or even hitting a tree. Most importantly, I wasn’t sure if I could successfully take her back the way we came since we didn’t have the momentum we had on the way in. The van and I made it and Julie was very proud of both the van and my driving. I have to admit, I was glad we made such a stupid mistake because it was fun to drive the van the way I did. As I mentioned to Julie before, the van is truly a truck at heart which is why she can take such abuse (Thank God). We found the entrance to the campsite after that and decided to stay for one night once we learnt that check out was at 7pm. It was so early in the day that we contemplated venturing into the city. However, since we needed to do laundry and aren’t visiting another campsite until Spain, we needed to stick around the campsite to do our chores. We tried out our new washing machine, which works gloriously. Julie thinks it works better than the last campsite washing machine we used. It has also been much warmer which allowed us to hang our clothes to dry as well. So the next morning we went to our first sight of the day, which really turned out to be our only sight. The Lisbon Oceanarium is located in the former Expo site and is the second largest in the world; the larger one is in Japan. It set us back 21 euros and also took up much of our day. We did however love it. The facility is set up in four staging areas, where they simulate the four different ocean systems. In the center is a massive 550 million liter aquarium which can be viewed throughout the entire visit. Watching the different fish swim around was amazing. We saw sting rays, manta rays, sharks, tuna (which swim in large schools, at times looks like a larger fish), a very large ugly looking fish and many others. It was truly remarkable. Julie tells me that the one in Orlando is much nicer but she enjoyed this one a lot too. On our way back to the bus stop we wandered through a mall and stopped in the food court for some KFC – the menu is different and strange. Despite us having a late check out, we thought we only had 30 minutes to pack up the van and leave and we hadn’t even got on the return bus back to the campsite. Worrying about having to stay another night we did our best to rush. Julie and I stopped by the reception to see about checking out and we decided to ask what time it was even though Julie had a watch. It turns out that Portugal is an hour behind Spain, which explained a lot. We took an hour to get ready and be off to our next town, Evora.

Sintra

This drive was stressful for both Julie and I. It turns out that we probably should have stayed in Lisbon instead of Sintra to visit this town. We later re-read our European camping book, and they strongly suggest against driving in Sintra. They have plenty of crowded, narrow streets. Parking is also supposed to be rough, but we lucked out. Sintra is famous for its palaces and has been the home of Portuguese royalty. Had we had more time and money, we would have stopped by all of the sights. However, 2 of them were closed till the next day and the other was a bit of a drive out of town. The main palace that’s located just outside the town centre didn’t impress us much. Which is why we decided to skip the other attractions, we did however visit the toy museum. I was completely disappointed to learn that I wouldn’t be allowed to play with any of the 20,000 + toys. For the most part, it was mildly interesting but seeing the castle or inside the palace might have been more rewarding. There were a few toys I found funny, some I remember from when I was a kid (which is scary to see in a museum!) and some we took pictures of for other people when we saw a toy that reminded us of them. We took another stroll through the tiny old centre to search for a pay phone to call home. It was at the second phone that Julie started to get upset, as it seemed that her card wasn’t working again. I watched her punch in the # only to see that she thought she was still in Spain, not Portugal. Slight oversight, but we managed to call home. We spotted a potential place to park below our original one (1st was pay, 2nd one wasn’t) and on our way there we passed a sign for Pizza Hut. Julie being in no mood to cook and me loving pizza, we stopped for dinner. We managed to order the right pizza this time and weren’t all that impressed with it, but we both feel it was the place, not the pizza type. I also ordered a beer called Superbock which is advertised over here, pretty much everywhere. It wasn’t bad, reminded me of Heineken. Afterwards we finished the complicated drive to the parking spot and found another van free camping. This always makes the spot better. The next morning I convinced Julie to visit “Hells Mouth”, I also suggested seeing a palace, the Moorish castle (it was closed) and the most western point of the continental Europe. Hells Mouth wasn’t as far away as some of the other sites I suggested and was free. Due to the time of year, it wasn’t the raging inferno I had expected but it was nevertheless nice.

Nazare

Because of the distance and the time when we had left the castle, we ended up driving at night and knew that seeing Nazare would have to wait for tomorrow. Along the way we saw a camping store and decided to check it out. Despite waiting for nearly an hour for some help, it paid off huge. We are stuck with Butane, which concerns Julie but we now have enough fuel to run our stove until we are back in Germany or somewhere we can purchase propane in our particular bottle style. Why can’t they all use the same type? It was 50 euros to get the small gas bottle and adapter at the camping store. We thought this to be a bit expensive, but we need to eat. In order to conserve fuel, I haven’t been running the fridge, I can only get away with this because that is how cold the nights have been lately. Once we entered Nazare, we did our best to search out a spot to park, once again, it seems that a sport arena was our best choice.
The reason we chose to visit Nazare was solely based on the fact that some of the locals dress up in the traditional dress to lure tourists into their shops and that it’s a nice coastal town. We did manage to see some of the older ladies in what we think was traditional dress, but we felt it wasn’t worth a picture and we weren’t sure. The coastal town was nice, mostly white houses with red roofs, one thing that was strange, we were strolling down the coast and saw a large area of fish heads and bones drying in the sun – they were for sale. That was a pretty weird sight, oddly, it didn’t smell.

Tomar

This second stunning site for the day was almost skipped. We were both tired and unsure if we should skip our next two stops and head towards Lisbon instead. It’s still fairly cold at night and as I’ve mentioned before, it’s hard to get motivated. Despite our wavering, we ended up sticking with our original plans for the same reasons we picked the stops in the first place. Tomar itself seemed like a nice town to visit, although it didn’t have too many sights. This is probably because of the Castle of the Knights Templar, it was fully worth the 9 euros entry. However, this wasn’t our first impression. We learnt that we could have parked the van outside the castle after we made it to the tourist office, but we also learnt from the tourist office (in the fastest instructions ever) how to get to the castle. It was only a short walk away up a hill. The walk started off on a cobbled street, but once we turned the corner it was completely falling apart and turned into a dirt road. We actually thought of turning around at this point, that’s how bad of shape this road was in. Since we were so close and tired and it was getting later (around 4) we pressed on to meet the main gates. From the main gates you can’t see how large this castle is, so based on what we saw, it wasn’t all that impressive. It was a small yellow brick wall with a wooden door in the middle stating a few things you can’t do once inside. We made it this far, so we went inside before I snapped a few pictures thinking that I wouldn’t get the chance once inside the walls. Once inside the castle walls we entered the lower courtyard with its large and well manicured gardens. I decided once again to pull out the camera to take some pictures because what we were seeing was pretty impressive. We thought we couldn’t take pictures once inside because of the sign at the front entrance. It was a picture of a camera with a red circle surrounding it with a red line crossing through it. We later guessed, since we saw so many people with cameras taking photos that it must have meant no flash photos. When we learned this, I didn’t put the camera away. Exploring this castle takes a bit of time, we both believe maps should be handed out so you won’t miss anything. This has been the largest castle to date and almost entirely preserved. You can get lost, but only for a moment. I won’t go into too much detail, as it would get pretty boring, so look at the photos instead or visit it yourself. The inside had many rooms and thankfully, it had English explanations for most. We even had the chance to visit a monk’s dorm hall, but not the rooms themselves. We did try peaking through the key holes though. We had only envisioned an hour at this castle but spent nearly 3 and left in a hurry so we could do our best to keep to our schedule of being in the campsite in the Costa Del Sol by December 1st. Clearly, we could have spent more time visiting this castle.

Marvao

We rested in an extremely small town parking lot just off the main road heading towards Portugal, we were only about 40 km away so this spot was ideal. This small village of only 190 residents situated on top of a small mountain could be easily spotted from the road leading up to it. We weren’t quite sure of what to expect from this small town, we just know that in our camping book it was mentioned as a worthy detour. The winding road up led us to a large parking lot of busses and cars just outside the village walls. It was free and nearby so we were happy with it. Both feeling exhausted from the previous day it was hard to get moving, but we managed. We walked along the town wall heading towards the tourist office. The lady behind the counter was extremely happy and eager to show us what the village had to offer. We took some photos and went to the castle to explore it. To this point we have been enjoying the town so much and it is so quite that we could hear sheep bleating and dogs barking from the villages down below. The castle exploration was another treat. There were no areas blocked off from visitors every tower and wall provided stunning views of the area. Every garden or garden area was extremely well cared for, and the hedges were carved into fountains, baskets and hearts. There were also a few small water fountains. To our surprise, it seemed that someone still lived in one of the houses inside the castles walls. Everything was free which made it that much nicer. We truly did enjoy viewing this town and left with excitement for our next stop, Tomar and the castle of the knight’s templar.

Toledo

The morning was spent working on the van. It seems that we now have to carry 5 types of fluid in the van. The fan for the heater stopped working a week ago too. Julie, tired of looking at bug guts on the window, decided to adjust the spray nozzles for the windshield. We topped up the engine coolant and oil and managed to finally fix the loose wiring for our music. It was a fairly successful morning and the van drove much better for our efforts.
Our camping guide book tells us that the highways in Spain are tolled, and yet we manage to find ourselves on them most of the time without any toll booths. For this reason, the drive to Toledo was fast and easy. We managed to find parking just below the old town. The old town is completely surrounded with old city walls and fortifications. The streets are narrow, some of the narrowest we have come across to date. It was also extremely easy to get lost in this city, as none of the streets run in any logical direction and sometimes they lead to a dead end of sorts. It took us some time to locate the tourist office, but because of this, we managed to see a fair bit of Toledo’s old town. There were so many knife stores and the like. One of which we stopped in to have a closer look as it had Lord of the Rings memorabilia which was something different. Everything was too expensive so we left. We know that Toledo has some interesting history, and if it wasn’t 50 euros each for a late night guided stroll through the town, I would have more to say about Toledo, but I don’t. It was getting dark outside and we have a schedule to keep so we headed out of town, tired and not sure if we could manage the drive to Portugal this night.

Madrid

Julie’s intention was to leave our free camping spot at 9:30 and check into the campsite at 10 (when most campsites seem to be open, some open earlier). This of course, didn’t happen. Of course there was the increasing sound of traffic being parked along a main road and the occasional passing conversations. But what we didn’t expect was to hear a conversation and have the van shake once in a while. By the time the van rocked the third time I had enough. It wasn’t much of a shake, but it was around 8 and we were planning on visiting Madrid, so I suggested to just get up. When Julie opened our blinds to see what was shaking the van she was surprised to see a pair of work gloves on the mirror. It turns out that a couple of workers were slacking off under the cover our van. So when we left they were not happy, as they had to get back to work. It was good that we got up early, as we learnt that the campsite opened at 7am, so we were able to check-in early.

First, a little bit about the campsite. This place is huge with well over a 1000 places to park. The facilities were modern and nice. This place also had WiFi, at a cost of 10 euros for the day. We bought into this, but were disappointed as the connection speed was so slow, that at times we couldn’t even load up a page without it timing out. Oh well, it did prove itself somewhat useful when it did work. We missed the bus into Madrid by minutes; we watched it drive passed our stop. Something we tend to due, apparently we don’t walk or get ready as fast as we think we do. So it was a wait of about an hour, we debated heading back to the van but decided that missing the bus again would be worse than waiting the hour. When we got off the bus in the downtown area of Madrid, the first thing we saw was a giant monument that resembled the Brandenburg Tor in Berlin, just a smaller version. We wandered around the town for what seemed like forever trying to find the Plaza Mayor (old town square). After a few misguided turns, a funny looking building - the top of which reminded me of a space ship from Star Trek. We then stumbled on what seemed to be the site of a movie or maybe just a star being in a certain hotel (we think it had to be a male actor as there were hordes of young girls) we managed to find the Plaza Mayor (Finally Julie says). However, we weren’t all that impressed. The entire square is dedicated towards tourists and was therefore ugly. We didn’t hang around too long. Julie did however contemplate buying us some ice cream from a Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream shop. After that sight, we decided to visit the royal palace, but not venture inside. It was nice from the outside but nothing too impressive. I wish we ventured into a free tapas bar, but I’m not entirely sure I would enjoy it anyway. Once we get to our resting place for December, we should check one out then anyway. Checking out the night life in any large city would be fun, but with money being the way it is and bus schedules the way they are, we just can’t have that kind of fun right now. When we made it back to where the bus dropped us off earlier, we managed to wait around and freeze our butts off for over 45 minutes before heading into the main terminal. It turns out that our bus driver should have dropped us off below street level, not above, so we had missed a few busses and ended up waiting in the proper place for about 10 minutes. It was so cold and windy that night that we contemplated hanging out in the heated bathrooms instead of the van. We are not sure how much propane we have left and haven’t been able to replace or fill our spare tank.

Avila, Segovia, San Lorenzo de Escorial

OK, so as you can tell by the title we had a bit to do today. So after we got the van ready to go and made a quick visit to the hotel we were off. Avila was our first stop for the day. It is another medieval town centre that we wandered around and enjoyed quite a bit. But seeing as how we arrived at lunch hour, everything was closed and the streets were pretty much deserted. The streets were once again cobbled which always makes walking interesting and the town was partially surrounded by a wall.
There wasn’t much else to do here, so after about an hour of exploring we ventured off to our next stop for the day, Segovia. It was a simple drive to Segovia and when we arrived we lucked out on a great place to park. It was in a hilltop field and seemed to be near some kind of church as there were a bunch of crosses on the hill. The spot itself was free and offered an amazing panorama of the city. Right away we could see the Roman aqueduct and the large church looming over the city. The tourist office was located at the base of the aqueduct, so it was pretty easy to figure out which direction we needed to head to. The aqueduct was huge, about 138 meters tall and was still in use by the town. While walking through the streets we actually saw running water pouring down a hand rail along some steps. It was pretty amazing to see this huge stone structure and to know they didn’t use a drop of mortar to build it. We decided to take the walk suggested by the tourist office to the other town sites, the huge church and the Alcazar. The young girl at the tourist office was from America, which surprised us. The church was a church (no surprises there) and the Alcazar was indeed a fortress turned into a museum, which we didn’t visit. The only thing that mattered was that during our walk, Julie managed to find herself a picnic basket for 20 euros. She was so happy about this find. To quote her, “It’s exactly like I wanted”.

I guess the only problem with buying it, is that we live in a van. Guess we will have to look into shipping it back. The last stop for the day wasn’t actually to sight see at all, which was good for us because we didn’t arrive in town until 8pm. We are using Escorial as a base for exploring Madrid, Spain’s capital and its largest city. Since we arrived so late, we opted to free camp for the night along a somewhat busy street before checking into the campsite in the morning. It’s still cold at night so we want to get south soon.

Salamanca

This was an excruciating drive. First, both Spain and Portugal have many hills, valleys and even mountains in certain areas. This makes the driving irritating because, as I’ve mentioned before, the van doesn’t like driving up anything. Second, we had to cover 390 km to our stop in Salamanca. This drive should have taken only a few hours, not an entire day. We left rather early in the day, around noon but didn’t arrive in Salamanca until 6:30. Finding the campsite for the night wasn’t too much of a problem. The campsite was located right behind a hotel, which we later used for free internet access. We spent two nights in the campsite, but never ventured into town. The second day was cold and pouring rain. This weather we have been experiencing lately is extremely tough on us and doesn’t encourage us to head out and explore. So unfortunately, that is all we have to say on Salamanca. The campsite was behind the hotel Regio. We found both to be nice and we both wished we could have spent the night in the hotel rather than our cold cramped camper.

Porto

We woke up rather early this morning in hopes to see all we needed in Porto and move onto our next stop. It was another cold start, which always has us moving slower, and we managed to be on our way in around one hour. The tourist office was located 3 km away from where we parked and because of this we ended up passing through many of the shopping areas and plazas along the way. It also took us through one of the “highlight” areas of Porto; this was basically a steep back alley leading towards the river. Porto is described as being “grimy” and we felt that was a bit of an understatement. We have been seeing many stray animals since arriving in Portugal and even some areas of Spain. This time we even watched a dog jump into a dumpster. There are also many run down, almost deserted homes. At times I am reminded of the poorer areas of Mexico when I was there 3 years ago. Sometimes it is depressing to wander these areas and it definitely doesn’t conjure up the images we had of Spain and Portugal. Porto is Portugal’s second largest city and yet we have been to many nicer towns so far. We decided not to take the excursion across the river to one of the many Port wine makers and turned around and made our way back towards the van. Along the way, we did see a small castle and in one of the “highlight” alleys there was a street sign indicating no snails are allowed. Other than that we felt this was a disappointment.

Braga

Braga is one of the nicer, richer cities in Portugal which is why it was a shame to show up so late. This didn’t stop us from exploring it somewhat. We’ve noticed that they are already putting up decorations for Christmas, something Julie and I keep forgetting is around the corner. We might have stayed the night there if it wasn’t for a few things. First, there was a guy walking around the town center parking area, and when he wasn’t wandering around or standing amongst the cars he was ushering them into a place or out. It seemed that no one really new why. This creeped the hell out of Julie, so after some exploring, we drove again to the sport stadium parking lot. It was around 10pm when we arrived and until 12 pm we stayed, but we played host to groups of kids hanging out in their cars. They were quite loud, so Julie couldn’t sleep and once they turned their music on, it was enough for both of us to come to the conclusion of driving to Porto that night. It was only 60 km away, and we did manage to find parking that was much quieter although rather shady.

Santiago de Compostela

This city is often simply referred to as Santiago and is famous for having the remains of St. James. For this reason it is a pilgrimage site. Our guide books also say it is arguably the most beautiful city in Spain. It was for the last comment that we decided to make this long trek to the eastern coast, we didn’t care too much about the old bones under a statue. The drive to Santiago was extremely long taking us two days. So we were kind of expecting a jaw-dropping city. It was nice and it is the first Spanish city we’ve been in that has a large pedestrian only district which I love to explore, but it wasn’t jaw-dropping. We did like the city though. After finding the cleverly hidden tourist office and having them track down a propane vendor without any luck, we followed the “suggested” walking path on our city plan map. There were many snack places and underground bars that would have been nice to visit. There were also apartments mixed in with this and it being a pilgrimage sight, there were many churches too. Outside of this, there was nothing more to see or do, so we left for Portugal. We’ve also noticed that most of Spain is under construction and our Garmin map program doesn’t have all the new streets or roundabouts. This adds to Julie’s fun when navigating, just ask her yourself.

These giant bulls are everywhere in Spain.

Santander

We wrote this city off on our list of places to visit in Spain, but we couldn’t avoid it seeing as it is somewhat midway to our next stop. We arrived in town pretty late and didn’t park until around 11pm., something Julie and I are commenting on a lot lately is our inability to avoid driving at night. Before we came on this trip we both agreed that there is no point to drive at night as we miss most of the landscape/towns and we should be resting for the next day too. However, ever since we left Regensburg for Dresden, we have managed to drive at night pretty much every other day or so. We think lately it’s mostly due to daylight savings time. Anyway, we ended up driving around Santander looking for a spot we could both agree on only to return to the first one we found. Julie doesn’t feel as comfortable free camping in Spain as she did in France or Germany, I believe it’s because we are doing it alone and the crime rate is slightly higher. We stayed the night without any issue. While entering a roundabout, Julie and I couldn’t help but laugh in seeing a man on horse galloping around the roundabout. Something we never thought we would see but were glad we did. We managed to get up early for a change so we could arrive in Santiago de Compostela before 7pm. This didn’t happen though; we ended up pulling over along the highway (think hwy 11) to sleep in the parking lot of a pension. We’ve heard rumors that Spain is warm in the winter time, so could someone tell us why we woke up with frost on our windows and frozen water in the sink?

Bilbao

The drive to Bilbao was longer than expected, about 3 and ½ hours. We found parking right outside the Guggenheim museum of modern art. Everyone’s heard about the Guggenheim museums, but something that Julie and I learnt about it was there are five in the world. We both didn’t think the Guggenheim was in Spain, but our guide book said it was, now we know why. Something else Julie and I learnt about museums of modern art, was that we only truly enjoy modern art if we can laugh at it. Needless to say, we were quite happy to be on our way after completing the 3 floor museum. We did learn some facts along the way though, the art on display was the last 300 years of American art, and somewhere along the way they had a timeline of American history. Violent and racist fits what we learnt quite well and the war of 1812 was apparently against GB, not Canada, which I guess isn't entirely wrong considering we are still under the monarchy. Our next stop is Santiago de Compostela, though we don’t think we can make it today, so we plan to stop in Santander.

San Sebastian

Our original intention was to visit the city of Bayonne, where they believe the bayonet was created but never confirmed. The city has two rivers and some other stuff to check out which is why we decided to make the 95 km drive to Spain’s San Sebastian. This is another beach side city, one section is believed to be the best place to windsurf/kitesurf/surf etc in Europe because it has never ending wind. The part of the city we visited was located smack dab in the middle of the new area and the old. This gave us a good grasp on how the differences for our first Spanish city. The Spanish government moves here during the summer months so the new area does have an expensive air about it. The old area looked like most old towns we have seen, but the roads have been kept up to date. We walked from one side of the city to the other following the coast. This was a very beautiful walk, but an extremely cold one. It was 9 degrees in the sun and 3 in the shade, that being said, when we arrived at the main beach area you could imagine our surprise to see people attempting a dip (about 4 tried and succeeded for a moment). I could imagine this city to be buzzing in the summer time and the beach just packed with people. The campsite we are staying at for the night (we need showers desperately) is located on top of Mount Igueldo. The view from our van is amazing and would be nicer if there weren’t trees blocking part of the view. On the other side of the mountain road is the ocean which is again a great view. Tomorrow we plan to head to Bilbao where the Guggenheim is located and then start our very long trek west. Julie and I are planning to do the majority of Spain and all of Portugal in the next few weeks in hopes of arriving in the Costa del Sol region in the south where we intend to spend about a month basking in the sun and doing odd excursions to places near by. We are also toying with the idea of a cruise to Egypt during this time, but with our funds almost depleted this might have to be skipped. So for anyone wanting to escape the cold and come and hang with us in the Costa del Sol, let us know and we can come meet you at the airport.

Biaritz

Driving to the town of Biaritz was simple enough, but the town itself seems to have not figured out how to effectively execute logical roads. After 100 turns and about 50 roundabouts, we made it to the parking lot, only to learn that we didn’t have electricity. There are only 4 electrical hook-ups per station and about 6 stations for 50 spots. Again, this wasn’t turning out to be a good decision. We drove to a “nearby” McDonald’s, I say nearby, because it was 6 km away and took us 30 mins to drive to it and there was barely any traffic being a Sunday, and found out that it did not provide free WiFi. Use of the bathrooms and a quick bite, we made our way back to the parking lot. We had a baguette with 4 types of cheeses and pate. This was accompanied with two bottles of wine we purchased the night before. Both are award winners, one being the best of the Bordeaux region, the other being the second best Chardonnay in the world. To our surprise, the Chardonnay was not nearly as pleasant as the one from Bordeaux. It didn’t stop us from drinking it though. Besides the bottle from Cahors, these were the most expensive bottles of wine to date; they were just over 2 euros each. We watched a Harry Potter movie as well and then talked before calling it a night. That is how we spent my birthday, not exactly how Julie or I intended it to be, or would have wanted. But without any money and it being a Sunday it was the best way we could spend it. The next morning I moved the van to a vacated spot to acquire electricity where we spent the day in the van resting and watching the other two Harry Potter movies we have managed to download. With Julie not feeling well for the past few days we didn’t really venture out much during our stay in Biaritz. We did manage to visit the town centre at dusk, which was cool because the trees along the boulevard had lights in them. We also watched some people surfing when we walked along the shore. Couldn’t imagine how cold the water must have been. We tried to acquire internet access for free but couldn’t manage. So we opted on a cyber café – 3 euros for 45 minutes. So we got caught up once again. Thanks to Gerald and Rachel as well as my mom and dad for the birthday “presents” and thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes as well.

Dune de Pyla (Pyla-sur-mer)

It was very dark when we arrived at the Dune de Pyla parking lot, our camping spot for the night. It was a nice place to stay, quiet, surrounded by trees and we managed to find a level spot after doing about 3 laps of the parking lot. We weren’t the only campers here either, which is always a good thing. Since we were only seeing the sand dune and then driving to Biaritz later we didn’t get started early. It was just before lunch when we followed the small crowds towards the dune. The walk to the dune is lined with tourist shops, most of which were closed for the season. I know the sound of “The largest sand dune in Europe” sounds about as exciting as getting the chance to watch paint dry and honestly that was our thoughts too. We decided to make a stop here because there were none on the way to Biaritz and Bayonne that peaked our interest. It was a break in the drive from the Bordeaux region as well. South from Bordeaux, the area is extremely flat along the coast which is also good for our van. The sand dune was around the height of the escarpment and is three kilometers long. They had plastic stairs running up the steep side of the dune, the same side as the parking lot. Once we made it to the top of the dune we realized why this was mentioned in one of our guide books. The steep side (west side) is completely surrounded by evergreen trees and the gentler side (east side) faces the Atlantic Ocean. The steep side is steep enough for sand boarding. The view was amazing from the top of the dune and we were extremely glad we stopped here. We walked down to the shore and here we made our mark before walking back up the sandy slope.

This took us forever and was extremely tiring. On a side note, the nights and days are becoming much warmer so our effort to get south is finally proving worth it. France’s highways are tolled, so we take the back roads, which at times, add about 2 extra hours of driving so we ended up stopping in Souston on our way to Bairitz. It was 5 euros, but that included electricity, a dump station and fresh water. I toyed with the notion of staying here on Sunday too, to avoid driving on my birthday, but with no internet and it costing us 5 euros, I decided that we should finish our drive to Biaritz, 60 km away. Upon leaving the parking lot, we were at the pay machine, a man walked up to the van and told us the van stinks. This is really starting to get to Julie, as she can’t imagine why anyone would feel the need to point this out, and especially why people would escalate things to an argument. So far my decision wasn’t a good one.

Bordeaux City

It was around mid afternoon when we decided to head to the city of Bordeaux. We luckily found parking 2km outside of the city centre and got the chance to see most of the city before even getting to the tourist office. We learnt that even in the Bordeaux region all the wine tours are finished for the season and if you wanted to visit a Chateau, you needed to book a private tour. Most Chateaus’ charge a visiting fee and expect a wine purchase. That being said, we didn’t stay too long in the city. With only 250,000 people living in the city it was surprising to see the streets jam-packed with people and cars. We figure that the tourists double the population. It was so busy. The newly made pedestrian area was nice to walk down, but it was too busy to window shop or even really see anything. Bordeaux is pretty much like any typical city you would visit, there wasn’t too much to see, so we spent about an hour before heading off towards Europe’s largest sand dune.

St Emilion

There were two places to park for camper vans, one free the other 32.50/night. Naturally we went to the free one only to learn that it was by permit only. Some farmers in France join a tourist thing; people pay an annual fee and are allowed to park on the farmers land. It’s a shame too, as it was at a vineyard. We had passed a pay parking spot along the way so we decided to check it out. We guess the auto-payment machine wasn’t working because it was off season, so we managed to park for free anyway, and we weren’t alone that night either.

We weren’t entirely sure if we wanted to see St Emilion because most of the vineyards are closed this time of year and no tours are running. However, our guide book mentioned that this town was the best to see in the entire Bordeaux region so just before noon we headed into town in search of the tourist office. The medieval streets and buildings were truly a wonderful site. The town was beautiful, charming and an extreme pleasure to visit. When we found the tourist office we joined up for a tour of one of the largest underground churches in Europe (the only way to view it) and wandered around for a bit before it started. Because of where the tourist office is located, we were able to get a great panoramic view of the city. The first place the lady took us too was where St. Emilion, the town founder, lived during the last 17 years of his life performing baptisms in a shallow well in the ground as well as the miracles he’s said to have done. It is said that if you make a wish and throw a coin in the water you must come back and thank St. Emilion if your wish comes true. There was also a low seat in the rock, where women sit and pray and are guaranteed to become pregnant within the year. She then took us to the catacombs and explained that there are over 80 hectares of catacombs underneath the region of St Emilion. It was then off to the church where she showed us some pretty morbid things. The first thing was an express way to rot, they used to believe that the faster you turned into ash the faster you got to heaven, they would submerse your body in water for a while and when they took you out the combination of air and water would accelerate the decomposition, they have a name in French for it but there is no word in the English language that exists. The word is “Pourriseoir”. The second was led coffins where they used to put the bodies of rich people that died of disease (so it wouldn’t spread) and apparently they still use these types of coffins to transport bodies in France till this day. Half the tour was done in French and Julie was translating for me, until the guide clued in about what Julie was doing, then the guide decided to explain everything in French and English for the rest of the tour. When the tour was over we decided to head into a wine store to see about shipping a case back home. At 130 euros to ship to Canada and having to pick the case up at the airport, we decided it is not worth it for us. Sorry, but it looks as though we’ll be the only ones to enjoy the wine this time around.