RV Travels in Europe and North America
Travelintiger
Rioja is another small region that we really enjoyed. We came for the wine, and really enjoyed the people and the countryside.
We had wanted to visit some of the caves under Laguardia, but when we arrived yesterday it was too late to get in. We decided
We are in Rioja country. The plan for the day was to drive to the fortified town of Laguardia which is famous for its cave
We had wanted to visit some of the caves under Laguardia, but when we arrived yesterday it was too late to get in. We decided to stay around another day and get in a tour.
With time in the morning we lazed around a bit before heading over to Laguardia. We had a specific winery we were most interested in, but today they were only offering tours in Spanish, we contemplated going along, but they said it would be a waste as they spent a lot of time explaining the process and if we were not fluent it would be boring.
Instead we went to another winery and booked ourselves on a tour of Bodega Carlos San Pedro. We had a couple of hours to kill so we settled into a coffee shop and watched a replay of the Real Madrid game with the local team Since we did not know the score it was live to us. In the end the local team scored literally at the final whistle, and all of the locals who had kindly not given away the score shared a big high five with us.
When we got to Carlos San Pedro it was packed. In fact the owner was startled about how many English speaking guests he had. Towards the end he began asking people to wait 15 minutes and he would run a second tour. Ton and I decided to join his tour, as he was clearly the owner and winemaker. It was a good decision as Carlos gave an in depth and clear description of the winemaking process in the Rioja region. He showed us the original winemaking facility before admitting that they had moved to a modern facility about 15 years ago. They did have a splendid video of the process using the old equipment including a hand operated press that was still on display.
After the explanation we went down into the caves under the winery to see the cement tanks they use, as well as the barrel and bottle rooms. The caves have been under the town for hundreds of years, and go back to the time when the town was a fortress. There are over 300 caves under the town, and many have been used for winemaking and storage for the last 150 years.
It ended with a taste of the wine that was in a 6000 liter tank aging, as well as two from the bottle. The wine was superb, and we have been on a lot of wine tours in our time, but this was one of the best.
It was still pretty early so we decided to move south a little bit to get us positioned for another town tomorrow. Tonight we are in the parking lot of a major grocery store with 6 other motorhomes. We were able to get some supplies. The drive to here was thru the Cebollera National Park, and it was quite beautiful, though the weather was a little sketchy or we may have stopped for the night. It gives us something to aim for in the future.
We are in Rioja country. The plan for the day was to drive to the fortified town of Laguardia which is famous for its cave bodegas (wine cellars). Ron did his normal research on where to stay for the night and found the location for an aire that he thought was in Laguardia. After punching in the GPS coordinates we had a very pleasant drive of about 1 1/2 hours to the aire. After parking we headed into town to look for a particular bodega (winery). After wandering around the little village (which was quite nice) and some head scratching Ron realized we were one town short and not in Laguardia but Elciego.
We headed back to the aire and drove the 5km to Laguardia. The town was humming with all of the local families coming into town for Sunday. We finally found a place to park on the shoulder of the main road and headed into town. Laguardia is a “puebla bonita” of Spain. It is a hilltop fortified town surrounded by vineyards. There was a concert going on in the main square and people socializing at all of the bars and restaurants. We popped into the tourist office to ask a couple of questions. She gave us the information we were looking for but than told us that as it was Sunday everyone but the restaurants was closing at 2pm for the day. Ton and I took a pass thru town and decided it was worth coming back when everything was open, so we will return tomorrow.
In the end we decided to return to the aire in Elciego. The tourist information in Laguardia told us we were welcome to sleep in two of the town parking lots, but they were jammed. Elciego is another wine centered village and has a fantastic hotel, winery, restaurant in it. The Hotel Marques de Riscal is designed by the American architect Frank Gehry. It really is an interesting building though you can debate whether it fits the terroir of the area. At first Ron did not like it but it grew on him after we took a walk down to take a look at it and the surrounding vineyards.
We passed thru Castile on our way to Andalusia.
Our primary target for this trip is Morocco, but before we departed Oregon Ton also handed me a list of Spanish cities she wanted to
We were happy when I noticed that Tordesillas was the perfect distance to cover towards Morocco. It was about 360 kilometers south from Orio, and
It has been raining hard on and off for the last couple of days. Over night it rained really hard again and the ground and
It rained cats and dogs last night with occasional thunder. The finale came at 7am when lightning struck close to the campground. I took that
Kit had asked us to visit Segovia and we are glad she did. When she asked I didn’t even know where it was located in
We told Kit and Stephen that we thought they should visit Toledo as Ton and I think it is one of the most beautiful cities
Decisions get made for you sometimes. One of our bucket list items for this trip was to visit the Alhambra in Granada. We finally felt close enough to look at buying a ticket as you must buy in advance. So when Ron logged on to the site there was only one day left in the entire month, so now we have to be at the Alhambra on October 15. So all our thoughts of heading to Galicia, or Portugal were over and we had to head south.
That being decided for us we decided to go ahead and get to Seville straight away. It was a bit of stretch for one day so we picked Casceres based on it being about 60% of the way to Seville. We drove for about 4 hours on really good freeways thru some very open plains. We also passed thru a substantial mountain range with passes at 4000 feet called the Sierra de Gredos.
The old city Casceres is a UNESCO world heritage site, due to its well preserved mixture of Romanesque, Gothic, and Baroque buildings. It also has seven towers in place that were built by the Moors when they conquered Spain.
After checking into the campground we took the city bus to downtown, and eventually found the old town. You can see why it has been a fort since Roman times as it really sits in a commanding position over the surrounding countryside. The area is well preserved, though a modern vibrant city has sprung up around it.
We enjoyed walking around and taking in the sites for a couple of hours. Both of us are still feeling under the weather so in the end we called it an early night and headed back for hopefully a good sleep.
Today we left the land of Pintxo (Basque) and entered the land of Tapas (Spanish). We stopped in two towns today. The first town was a planned stop to see some things we were interested in, and the second was picked based on it being a good distance to drive, with a decent place to sleep.
We spent a noisy night in the parking lot of a Leclerc grocery store in Soria. The store was located in a kind of industrial park, and had a lot of truck traffic going by. Both of us have a bit of a bug so neither one of us slept very well between being sick and the noise of the traffic all night.
Our plan for the day was to head for the town of Aranda de Duero. It is another old fortified town with a bunch of caves under it that were originally for defense of the town, but have recently been converted to wine production. The drive from Soria was easy, in general the roads in Spain are a little wider and a little straighter than France, and this results in quicker and easier trips between towns. We arrived a little before noon, found the aire for the town and headed into town to check it out. After a quick stop at the visitors center we headed off to a Bodega that also had a cave under it that we could tour. We arrived at the Bodega at the same time as a Danish couple so we went on the tour together. When the tour was done we walked around town, and decided we had seen enough of Aranda. As it was still early we decided to drive a couple more hours.
After some research we picked the town of Tordesillas based on it being the distance we wanted to drive with a good place to sleep for the night. Our intention was to get to the campground early, and take it easy for the rest of the night. But as we pulled in the town looked interesting, and the restaurant was offering a great deal on a Asada (meat) platter for two. So we ended up walking into the town to admire the churches, and having probably our best meal so far in Spain. It was a very nice ending to the day. During the meal we ended up talking to a Dutch/English couple who raved about Portugal. We are getting really tempted to visit.
Ton really loves Basque food and we enjoyed this small region of Spain more than we expected.
Our charge down the atlantic coast to southern Spain continued with a 480 kilometer drive. The drive was nice and uneventful if. It was uneventful
We decided to have a laid back day today so we did not plan to leave Orio. We spent the morning doing some light chores
We took our time leaving in the morning as we were hoping that the traffic in Bordeaux would die down. We have experienced more traffic
There comes a point in every trip that marks the beginning of the end, and that is the day where the first priority in deciding
Today is going to be short and sweet. We decided to take advantage of the excellent facilities here at Orio Kanpina to take care of
We picked Orio for our destination because we like the campground, but also because it is a convenient place to visit San Sebastian-Donostia. This is
Today was an almost day. We were both very much looking forward to Pamplona. It had a great reputation. Ron is a huge fan of Hemingway who loved Pamplona, and Ton had read a lot of good things about the town, we were both excited.
It’s not that there was anything wrong with Pamplona, it is a very beautiful and interesting city, but our expectations were very high. Yesterday St. Sebastian wowed us because we had no expectations and it was a great city. I think today was the opposite.
The day started with a quick drive over the mountains to Pamplona. We crossed the highest pass we have seen yet in Europe at a little over 2000 ft. The road was good and we were in Pamplona before we knew it. That was the first problem as we had planned to stop at a grocery on the way into town, and we were in town before we knew it, so we missed the grocery stop. It should have been no problem because the aire was supposed to have a grocery next to it. It turned out the grocery was a Carrefour Express which is like a 7-11. The cupboards were bare so we needed a real grocery. Google told us there was another grocery about 1/2 mile a way. Ton is a little under the weather so Ron went on a reconnaissance and it was indeed a real grocery and closer than a 1/2 mile. So the groceries are taken care of for a couple of days.
We then headed into town to see the Citadel, Cathedral, and the old town. The citadel was another fort and quite a large one. It is quite well preserved and we took a quick walk thru, but decided to move on.
We walked thru the old town near the end of Siesta so it was pretty quiet, and while it is the old street layout, it was for us a weird combination of grimy and modern. The streets are quite wide to allow for the running of the bulls which is what Pamplona is known for. The Cathedral was again ok, but we did not see the inside as they wanted €3 to get in. We ended the day with a visit to the Bull Ring to see the statue of Hemingway next to it. We almost visited the ring but they wanted €6 to walk thru.
We finally decided to have a dinner as the food is supposed to be good. Again the food was ok, the service was ok, and the location was good, with an amateur Basque band playing local music with some interesting wind instruments. All in all not awful, but not a memorable meal or visit.
While François did not move today, we did. Today we did the trip to San Sebastian-Donostia that we had planned for yesterday. After a late start to the day we walked down to the train station in Orio and took the 30 minute ride into downtown San Sebastian. San Sebastian is the Spanish name and Donostia is the Basque name for the town. In the city Donostia is used much more prevalently than San Sebastian.
Donostia is not an old city, everything but a couple of churches dates from no earlier than the mid-1850’s. There are a couple of reasons for this, the first is the British pretty much burned the city to the ground in 1813 after they captured it from the French. The second reason is that the Spanish seem so far, to be a little less enamored with old buildings, and have less of a problem knocking down old buildings and replacing them with new buildings. Our sample size is small on this, but that is our observation so far.
The city has a very prosperous air to it with lots of upscale shops, and very nice pedestrian promenades thru town. It is an easy town to move around on foot. Eventually we made it to the old town, which was the original footprint of the town dating back to the 1200’s and corresponds to the area within the old fort. We climbed the hill above the old town to the remnants of the fort, where we had a very nice view over the town. The climb was probably a couple of hundred feet in elevation gain, but was worth it when we got to the top. From the top of the old fort you have a great panorama of the two harbors that make up San Sebastian-Donostia.
At one time San Sebastian was a major port and ship building site. Today its main industry is tourism, and it excels at that. We climbed back down to the old town to look for a tapas lunch. We wandered into a tavern where lunch is laid out on the bar, and consists of different miniature sandwiches and tapas. You grab a plate and move up and down the bar picking the food you want, when you have your plate full you grab a beer from the bartender, and head to a table. At the end you tell the bartender how many pieces you took (they pay attention), and how many beer you had, we had 8 pieces, and 3 beers. Ron was a little dehydrated from the climb.
After lunch we strolled around town for a while people watching, and having another stop at a local coffee shop. On the way back we stopped at the Cathedral, though we are getting a little jaded with Cathedrals. It was another fun day.
Plans change, sometimes by accident. We had planned to go to the nearby city of San Sebastian to do some sight seeing. Before we left we thought we could knock out a load of clothes. Well that did not work out the way we thought it would. The washer we used was the slowest washer we have run into in 3 continents, with nothing going wrong it took over an hour and half to complete it’s cycle. Then we put the clothes in the only dryer, and inserted our coin expecting it to tell us it would take 40 or 50 minutes to dry the clothes, it said 120 minutes, we thought how nice of them as no dryer could take 2 hours to dry a medium sized load of clothes, we were very wrong. It ran the full 2 hours, and then we hung the clothes out to finish drying. By the time the clothes washing was done it was too late to go to San Sebastian so we just relaxed for the rest of the day. It was a little frustrating, but at the end of the day we probably needed the rest, as we have been on the move constantly for 18 days.
In the early evening we walked into town to get some groceries (i.e. wine). It was a nice evening and we noticed that most of the town was out moving around, groups of children, adults, old men, and old women in groups conversing and enjoying themselves. It was the same last night, and is a nice cultural difference that we envied a little.
We came back to a nice conversation with our English neighbors. Ton made dinner and we drank some of our groceries before settling in to watch some Netflix Ron downloaded today in between washing and drying.
After 16 days in France we finally reached Spain. We could have spent the entire trip in France, and enjoyed ourselves, but this trip was supposed to be about Spain. So we finally decided to head south.
Except for one pit stop to put in just enough fuel to make it safely to Spain, we powered thru about 280km’s of driving. We only put in enough fuel to make it to Spain because France is now the holder of the record for the most expensive fuel in the EU. We have been paying €1.45 per liter, that is around $6.80 per gallon give or take. The first fuel station we saw in Spain had diesel at €1.15 per liter so we had a little celebration.
We had planned a photo op at the border between France and Spain, but it did not happen. The border was invisible, we did not know we had crossed into Spain until Ron noticed the road signs were suddenly in Spanish, and Basque. There was not even a sign welcoming us to Spain.
We had a nice drive down the coast to a small fishing village called Orio. We are parked a couple hundred yards from a very nice beach, surrounded by very tall hills on both sides. In fact guys parajump from the hills above the beach and circle around for 10 or 15 minutes before landing next to the RV park.
In the evening we walked into the town proper, and kept looking for the old town, all we saw were modern condo’s and wide new streets. This area has been having a second home boom in the last decade or so, and the construction is very modern, quite different than France. After wandering down to the old fishing port we finally caught a glimpse of the old town, but it is tiny compared to the modern town.
Cologne was our last stop in Germany. Every country we visit comes with a rush at the end as we always run out of time. Cologne is famous for its cathedral which is the most visited place in Germany. It is indeed impressive. Cologne did not leave a great impression on us as we experienced the worst service we received so far anywhere in Europe in two different Kolsch bars, neither place seemed to want us there.
We were up early to get on the road to Bonn. But there was a delay while we tried to figure out who to pay
We planned on going into Munster today, but when we woke up it was cold and grey. We lay around in François the morning and
Woke up early to see Fred and Denise off, and since we were up we decided to get an early start also. As we were
Today we departed Germany after 34 days. Germany was an easy place to travel, we enjoyed the country. It is a well organized and well
Another long drive today as we decided it was time to move on from Germany. Just like with Spain we thought we had enough time
Today we departed Germany after 34 days. Germany was an easy place to travel, we enjoyed the country. It is a well organized and well run country. Ton enjoyed a lot of cities particularly Bamberg, Mainau, Lubeck, and the northern romantic road cities of Dinkelsbuhl, Rothenburg, and Wurzburg. I tended to lean a little more to the old East German cities of Lubeck, Schwerin, and Leipzig. We drank a lot of beer and while we had many good ones, we also had a lot of mediocre beer which was disappointing. The food is hearty and filling but not particularly interesting though we did gain an appreciation of sauerkraut.
Today we needed a work day, so we took advantage of the lower gas and grocery prices in Germany to fill up François before we departed. After arriving at our campground we got a load of laundry done.
When we were done we only had time for a quick walk thru the town outside of the campground. As this was our only day in the Netherlands we did what all good tourists do, we explored a grocery store to compare the inventory and prices with the other countries we have visited. The little suburb outside our campground was really well tended and clean which really is the stereotype of the Netherlands.
Another long drive today as we decided it was time to move on from Germany. Just like with Spain we thought we had enough time to see most of Germany and it turns out we have missed most of the central part of the country. We wanted to make one more stop on our way out of the country in Cologne.
Cologne is one of the largest tourist destinations in Germany and has the most visited place in Germany in its Gothic Cathedral. Since it was on the way towards The Netherlands we decided to spend the night here. Again we were both up pretty early and got an early start so our drive to Cologne was nice and easy if a bit long.
We got a nice spot in the aire facing the Rhine River so we have spent part of the day watching the river barges going past. After settling down we headed towards the city center to join the crowds at the cathedral. Our route was along the Rhine, and for the last mile the path was a sprawling flea market. Between the flea market, the holiday and the five river cruise boats docked along the river the river walk was jammed with people.
We finally reached the cathedral, and had a quick walk around the exterior before going in. Much to our surprise the entrance was free. This cathedral is still Catholic unlike many of the churches we have been visiting lately which started out as Catholic, and were converted to Lutheran after the reformation. The exterior is massive and the spires are the main attraction. Construction was started in 1248 and suspended in 1473, it was finally completed in 1880 after over 400 years of suspension.
The interior is attractive, and the stain glass is pretty though we presume it is all post WWII. The Cologne cathedral would probably make our top 10 list of cathedrals if we were keeping one, but closer to number 10 than number 1.
Cologne is also famous as the originator of Kolsch Beer, so that was the next attraction we headed for. The first place we went was Peters Beerhouse where the first waiter asked if we were there to eat or to drink, we replied drink and he immediately showed us to a standup bar in a corner next to a bar, and the place where waiters return the used beer glasses. This was in a huge place that could easily seat several hundred and it was 90% empty. The tradition in Cologne is to serve beers in small glasses so that the beer remains cold, the server is supposed to come by frequently so you can get refills. In this case after the first round the waiter came by and said his shift was over so we needed to pay up. So we were out of there.
Hoping that was an aberration we headed over to another famous Kolsch place which again was largely empty, this time we got to pick out table and sit, but the service was not particularly friendly so we decided to cut our losses and head on back to François thru the slightly less crowded flea market. Ton cooked a great German meal of pork cutlets, spatzle, sauerkraut and kraut salad so the day ended on a positive note as we enjoyed our meal while looking out on the river traffic on the Rhine.
Bremen is the smallest state in Germany consisting of only two cities. It is a remnant of the Hanseatic League which were merchant cities of the middle ages. Bremen is famous as the friendliest town in Germany which is what attracted us to it.
We learned yesterday afternoon that Monday is a holiday in Germany which explains the big crowds both in Bremen and at the stellplatz. When we
There was a pretty violent thunderstorm last night that lasted a couple of hours. I think as a result we both woke up early and
We learned yesterday afternoon that Monday is a holiday in Germany which explains the big crowds both in Bremen and at the stellplatz. When we got back to the stellplatz last night there was a sign in the entrance saying that there was no room in the parking lot. Because we liked Bremen and were worried about finding a similar sign in our next destination we decided to spend another day.
The World Heritage Site the old town hall that we saw yesterday had a tour today at noon and we decided to make that our highlight for the day. We slept in and then spent the morning cleaning François and watching the morning exodus of motorhomes from the stellplatz before walking down to the city for our tour.
The tour of the interior was helped by an extremely enthusiastic and knowledgeable guide who did a good job of explaining how Bremen developed as an independent merchant city under the Holy Roman Empire. When Charlemagne first tried to incorporate Bremen into his empire he did so in the normal way by sending a bishop to the city. The citizens of Bremen resisted this because they wanted the city government to be separate from the church. Charlemagne’s son Roland agreed to this and Bremen claims to be the first government where the separation of church and state was formally proclaimed.
Unlike in other cities in Europe the town hall was as prominent as the Cathedral, and do to luck the building survived all of the wars that occurred over the 600 years it has been in existence. In addition to the normal fantastic wood carvings and paintings the town hall also has a giant wine cellar that holds over 650 different examples of German wine.
Part of the wine cellar is now a restaurant so we decided to treat ourselves to lunch down in the cellar. When we arrived we were offered a private room for about 6 people built into the side of the cellar. It was a cool place even though we were planning on a light lunch.
After lunch we strolled thru town for a while taking in the sites, and people watching. Bremen has a cute town symbol the four musicians of Bremen. It is based on a fairy tale by the brothers Grimm about 4 animals who are abandoned by their owners when they are too old to be useful. The 4 of them decide to move to Bremen to be musicians and even though in the fairy tale they do not make it to Bremen the town has adopted them as the symbol. There is a statue of the four musicians next to the town hall and the legend is that if you make a wish and touch both forelegs your wish will come true. It is important to touch both legs because as they say in Bremen if you only touch one it is just two asses shaking hands with each other.
There was a pretty violent thunderstorm last night that lasted a couple of hours. I think as a result we both woke up early and decided to get out of Hamburg before the traffic got bad, so we were on the road before 7am.
Ton had Bremen on her list of must see places because she had read that Germans vote the people from Bremen as the friendliest in Germany. That was enough for her to make it a must stop site for us. We decided to take a walking tour put on by the tourist information office. The guide was a local lady who told us she was afraid to speak English 10 years ago, but she decided in her 40’s to study and now gives tours about her home town in English.
Bremen as a port town and aircraft manufacturing city was heavily bombed during WWII but the town hall, and a section of town called the Schnoor (string in English) survived intact. The town hall is a UNESCO site and has a typical renaissance facade which is incredibly intricate and ornate. The Schnoor was a working class neighborhood for the history of the city and as a result there are a lot of older homes from the 15th thru the 19th centuries that have mostly been turned into tourist shops and restaurants.
Bremen has a well developed tourist infrastructure, and even early in the season was quite busy. We enjoyed the tour and then just walking around town.
We decided to treat ourselves out to dinner, and were looking at historical German restaurants when Ton said exactly what I was thinking, “lets get something beside German”, so we ended up with an excellent (and large) Greek dinner before heading back to François for the night.
We usually avoid big cities but we could not pass on Hamburg. Even though we only spent one day there we were pleased with how easy it was to navigate François into town, and it is a place that we would have probably spent more time if we were not on a time crunch.
When we moved from Schwerin to Lubeck we crossed from the former DDR (East Germany) to the GDR (West Germany). We knew because the pedestrian
When we moved from Schwerin to Lubeck we crossed from the former DDR (East Germany) to the GDR (West Germany). We knew because the pedestrian lights changed.
he wait and go lights in East Germany are referred to as Ampelmanchen, and are one of the few things that have been retained. Much cuter than in W. Germany, Ton loves the hat and the portlier body.
Hamburg is the second biggest city in Germany with a population of nearly 1.8 million. It is a bigger city than we normally take François into so we were a little nervous. The drive in turned out to be pretty easy with only one detour caused by construction. I had accidentally loaded in the coordinates for a different RV parking than we planned, but by the time we figured it our we were settled in.
We only budgeted one day for Hamburg so we decided to take a “Free Tour” of the city center to try to take in as much as we could in a short time. The tour as always was informative and gave us a quick view of the city and it’s history.
At the end of the tour we were by the new Elbphilharmonie Hall. This concert hall was recently completed in 2017 for over €800 million, and besides the concert hall there are apartments and a hotel in the building.
The concert hall reportedly has the best acoustics in the world, and is designed so that no one watching a concert is more than 100 feet from the stage. Today they were celebrating their 10 millionth visitor to the Hall so they had free concerts and apple strudels.
The interior is beautiful, the exterior attempts to be modern and striking and we think misses on the striking part. The observation deck has a panoramic view of the very busy Hamburg harbor.
Our last stop was a brewery in St. Pauli which is the former (current?) red light district for Hamburg. It turns out the brewery was across the street from the RV parking I had meant to use, so it was a missed opportunity to save on some walking. We stood out from the crowd, not because we were American, but because we were not young, hip, and tattooed. The beer was good, and the people watching fun so we indulged in two rounds instead of our normal one.
Another part of the former East Germany this region had one of our favorite cities in Germany. It was near the coast and we enjoyed seeing the ocean again after several weeks in the mountains.
We have found a city in Germany that we really have a good feeling about. As we have traveled around Europe we find cities or
Once again we feel like we are running out of time for the trip. We spent last night setting out priorities because we came to
