Spain - Day 4

There was some quite heavy rain in the morning. However as we were leaving Santander it started to dry up. We headed south east for Zaragoza, about 4 hours drive away. On the way we stopped in a layby for our lunch.

We reached the aire we'd identified on the Search4Sites app, but didn't really like the look of it. It was just a lorry park next to a service station on the ring road.

However there is another free aire on the other side of the city near the university, which looked a better bet, so we headed there.

This was much better, though quite busy and we had to park in an overflow area. Like the Santander free aire, it had water and waste facilities provided.

We only had a short local walk, then ham croquettes with peas and sweetcorn.

Spain - Day 3

We actually had an announcement that we were going to dock in Santander at 3am, but wouldn't be disembarking until the scheduled time of 8am. I guess they must have gone a bit faster than normal to avoid some weather.

We were called to go to the van at 7.45, but sat there for an hour waiting to get off. Once were were going it went smoothly though.

We'd decided to spend the day in Santander, so first went to a Lupa supermarket, then drove to the free aire next to the llama park.

Later we walked to the El Sardinero beach, where loads of locals were taking advantage of the sun and doing energetic activities like volleyball, paddle board and some kind of organised team frisbee match.

We walked along the promenade as far as the Magdalena peninsula.

We had a walk round it, it has a marine park on it, where we saw some seals.

There are also some historic boats, and a castle.

Round the other side of the peninsula it was less sheltered and very windy, there were a lot of kite surfers.

We walked as far as the marina where we ate our sandwich for lunch, and watched the Salamanca ferry sail out again at 1pm.

We walked into the city itself, and came upon a small band performing.

We had a beer in a taverna up the hill a bit. To get to the aire was up and over the top of the hill, and we noticed on the map there was a funicular a bit further along, so we headed for it. There were some outdoor escalators on the way.

The funicular turned out to be free, and quite fun.

From the top we headed down the hill back to the campervan.

Later for dinner we had spicy Spanish sausages, with mash and beans.

Spain - Day 2

We had a full day at sea today, the voyage is nearly 32 hours so won't arrive until 8am Saturday.

We'd brought cereal and milk on board so we had our breakfast in the cabin.

The weather forecast on the TV screen looked a bit ominous:

It was sunny but quite windy outside as we headed west in the English Channel.

We were quite close to France as we rounded the Finistère peninsula in Brittany.

Lunch was a sandwich that we'd brought with us, and for dinner we went to the Taberna café where we both had pork with olives and rice, pear tart and shared a carafe of house red. It was pretty good.

As it turned out the sea conditions weren't that bad really. A bit of movement up and down but none of us were affected by seasickness.

Spain - Day 1

We left the house in the campervan about 8.30am to drive to Portsmouth for our ferry. We stopped for lunch at a service station on the M6, then a further quick stop further south.

We arrived at Tesco in Portsmouth about 6.30pm. We'd seen dire warnings about the weather in the Bay of Biscay so decided to buy some seasickness tablets just to be on the safe side. We then went to McDonalds for some food.

We checked in to Brittany Ferries about 8pm, and had a pretty long wait to get through security.

On board the ship Salamanca we had to use a muzzle on Oscar when walking from the car deck to the cabin, but that was the only time we needed it really.

The cabin is an inside pet-friendly 4-berth, and is absolutely fine. It has a fake sunny scene on the wall instead of a window.

We took Oscar to the outside pet deck, which is quite a bit bigger than other ferries we've been on. He's quite an old hand at this, and pees and poos fine there.

The ferry wasn't leaving till 11.30pm, so all we did was have a couple of beers and went to bed.