Portugal & Spain 2008

Monday - Dodging rain clouds

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Monday 16th June

It had been a very smooth crossing and our cabin was fairly quiet (apart from a little light snoring). Over the ships tannoy came the message, "The restaurant's open for breakfast" in two languages, so it was time to get up!

This picture should look familiar to anyone who's been on this ferry or read my Pyrenees trip report two years ago, for those who haven't, this is the queue in the La Belle Angele restaurant for the fried breakfast.

Anyway, I chickened out of the fried breakfast queue and chose cereal, a warm chocolate croissant and a mug of tea, then wandered aft, to find the others.

We'd discussed the possible fuel shortages during the previous evening and decided to press on for Portugal as planned. Mine and Patto's 1200RT's had a range of around 300 miles, but the other two bikes would be running out at half that distance, our cunning plan was to stop quite often to top up, then if we found a filling station dry or closed we'd have enough fuel to carry on.

It really didn't seem that long before we were coming in to Santander, the sun is out, the sky is blue, (ELO - Mr Blue Sky) it all looks very promising :-)

Meanwhile, down on the car deck riders were starting to arrive and un-strap their bikes, then came a long wait while the boat doors opened and the first vehicles got away, bikes were last off it seemed. We had quite a wait.

This is our route down in to Portugal where we'll firstly be touring the Serra de Estrella National Park, it's 329 miles according to my mapping. It would be great to get it all done this afternoon, but its a long way...

13:16 We ended up being among the last bikes off the boat, but it didn't take long to get through customs, just a quick look at the passport and away we went.

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Trouble struck on the roundabout at the port gates, a British biker looked as if he'd hit or been hit by a Spanish car, he was upright and parking his bike, the car looked to have stopped with a huge dent in the side! We kept on going as the traffic was incredible and the accident looked to be attracting the attention of the Spanish Police, not a good start for someone's trip :-(

I haven't been to Santander many times, but the traffic in the city always seems heavy, as we slowly made our way out of the city we managed to get split up and back together again before there were any serious changes of direction and I'm please to say we all managed to get on to the N611 for Valladolid without incident. Some ten miles later I was still dawdling along just getting used to riding on the right and taking in the scenery when a group of British riders shot passed us at speed, I was honestly impressed, 'they must really know where they're going' I thought and continued to dawdle up the road. A good few miles later we came across the same group, this time on the hard shoulder and in the company of a Spanish bike cop! Talking about it later, we concluded the cops probably lay in wait on the roads leaving the city when the ferry comes in knowing someone's likely to get a little giddy, its just too good an opportunity to miss.

Some way down the road, Lucy (my GPS) said the motorway would end in a couple of miles with a slip road down to a roundabout, the next time I looked down, we were riding on a none existent road and well past where any roundabout might have been. 'Surely things can't go wrong this soon' I thought glumly... Still, this new road seemed to be heading in the right direction so I hoped it would take us where we wanted to go. Just then, would you believe, it started to rain <sigh> and rather than get in to trouble for riding through another rain storm, I stopped on the hard shoulder in the next convenient tunnel while the guys put waterproofs on.

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14:53 Still with waterproofs on, Dave and John getting fuel and a reminder of what Britain has lost in it's headlong dash to be 'modern' someone filling the bike for you. But things are going well, we're back on track now that new bit of road has re-joined our route. All we have to do now is keep going, another 100 miles would be good before wrapping up for the day, but the further the better really.

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16:08 Second top up, Patto's checking the route while John keeps watch. We've had huge black rain clouds following us for a while now, so despite wanting to go further, it might be wise to stop soon. We're quite close to Valladolid, but I really don't fancy trying to find a hotel there, I've developed a healthy dislike for big cities over the last few years, Lucy looses her signal and stops working then the group gets split up, it's not usually a happy situation, I much prefer smaller places. Looking at the map Tordesillas around 30 miles further on looked a little more my size.

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16:00 Arriving in Tordesillas you soon realise it's not exactly a tourist town, but after a quick recce on the bikes it did seem worthy of an overnight stay. We'd spotted a place earlier that looked quite promising and headed back for another look.

16:08 Riding back around to the Hostel El Pardo, I left the bike and went inside to ask about rooms. Unfortunately the proprietor spoke no English which is fair enough as I speak no Spanish, but he was pleased to see me and took me upstairs to see the rooms, well, they were much better than I could have hoped. Back outside I gave the lads the good news, 'How much is it?' the guys asked, 'I have no idea I replied', 'Is there any breakfast?' well, there's a dining room, so maybe...

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Our room before we messed it up too much, and those are not my boots trying to escape through the window :-)

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Dave and John start unpacking their bikes while the black clouds catch us up, looks like we made it just in time!

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After a couple of cars had gone the proprietor took the trouble to call us back down to move the bikes under covered parking, top fella!

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Meanwhile outside, the huge black clouds were above us, but the storm never happened, all we got was a couple of light showers.

After cleaning up and having a drink or two in the hostel's bar we took a walk in to town for a little sightseeing, this was around 7:30pm and a number of locals had come out to take the air after another shower of rain. The town seems a little tired and forlorn with many of the shop fronts looking as if they're from the 60's. Interesting place though, and a couple of shops were still open.

Higher up, where you're not supposed to notice is evidence that parts of Tordesillas are much older than they seem. The cement render has been taken off revealing old timber framed construction. In York where I live that timber work would be exposed for all to see, perhaps here they should do the same.

A panorama of the old town square (Plaza Mayor) made up from five pictures. We'd ridden our bikes through here a few hours back, I'd felt quite guilty about it at the time, but it must have been ok really because there are cars parked all over.

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Eventually we found a place to eat, and that was mostly thanks to the English menu hanging in the case outside.

The San Antolin hostel, bar and restaurant , 8 San Antolin, Tordesillas.

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After a few drinks downstairs watching the local ladies playing cards we went upstairs to the dining room, I can't remember exactly what the main course was, but it was ok, the dessert I do remember, that was egg custard and was very nice :-)

Then, after another good wander about, we went back to our hostel to watch the football with the locals and have a last drink or two. I don't have a picture of it, but in the bar everything seems to end up on the floor, toothpicks, nut shells, cigarette ash, wrappers, the lot, in fact, stuff seems to end up on the floor when it would be just as easy to put it in the ash tray, the barman's forever coming around the bar and sweeping up, mucky lot!

Sorry, not many scenic pictures today, its been more a day of going places. But it's not been a bad day, we hadn't run out of fuel, we hadn't got lost and we'd found a decent place to stay for the night, and tomorrow its Portugal for sure!

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This is as far as we got today, 179 miles travelled.

          Today's temperature graph, quite comfortable but noticeably warmer in Santander.

             Today's elevation graph, once we rode up in to the mountains it was really quite scenic.

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