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Author: Elisabeth And Teije |
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Overview
Finally, we leave southern Spain and enter Portugal, the target of our trip. But it is a habit of us to encounter interesting things along the way, so it always takes more time to arrive somewhere than we plan. This time we encountered the Archeodrome in France, Andorra because Teije wants to visit that country, Barcelona because we both want to see it, especially the buildings made by Gaudi, Cordoba because we are in the neighbourhood and the same is true about Gibraltar.
But we have reached Portugal on the 9th day of our holiday. Friends of ours (a Portuguese man and a Dutch woman) have recently moved to Portugal, so we have decided to visit them, also. They live in Albufeira, so there we go first.
Steps
- 18 June 2001 - To Albufeira, Portugal
- 19 June 2001 - Exploring Albufeira
- 20 June 2001 - Albufeira and to the beach
- 21 June 2001 - To the Monchique mountains
- 22 June - A quiet day at Albufeira
- 23 June 2001 - To Lagos and Portimão
- 24 June 2001 - A quiet day at Albufeira
- 25 June 2001 - Along the coast to Sagres
- 26 June 2001 - A cruise along the coast of the Algarve
- 27 June 2001 - The neighbourhood of Albufeira
- 28 June 2001 - From the Algarve to Lisbon
- 29 June 2001 - Lisbon
- 30 June 2001 - On our own through Lissabon
- 1 July 2001 - From Lisbon to Praia da Mira
- 2 July 2001 - Mira, Aveiro
- 3 July 2001 - To Casfreires near Satão
- 4 July 2001 - Viseu and the Serra da Estrella
- 5 July 2001 - Exploring the neighbourhood of Satão
- 6 July 2001 - A visit to Coimbra and Conimbriga
- 7 July 2001 - A last quiet day at Casfreires
- 8 July 2001 - Back to France
- 9 July 2001 - From south to northern France
- 10 July 2001 - The trip back home
8 July 2001 - Back to France
We want to leave early, today, but it has been very humid at night and our tent doesn't dry up. Very late we leave, but it isn't a big deal, for we have three days to drive home.
After a few hundred boring kilometers through Spain, Teije wants to take some smaller roads, so he leaves the highway at Gasteiz Vitoria in the Basque country, towards the foothills of the Pyrenees. Via secundary roads to Bilbao and from there to the coast of the Gulf of Biscaje. The narrow coastal roads are beautiful, but there is a lot of traffic and no places to stop to take a picture. After driving around for a few hours we finally arrive at the French border, just past San Sebastian.
But then we decide we want to get past Bordeaux today, so we won't have problems with the rush hour there tomorrow morning and suddenly we are in a hurry. But the busy traffic doesn't help much and it is quite late when we start to look for a hotel in Libourne, east of Bordeaux. We have made a trip of 1050 km. and need a rest. The city looks very attractive with it's illuminated medieval buildings but we don't find a hotel, at least not one that is open. And after an hour we decide to drive on and look for another place to stay. About 22h30 we happen to drive past a camping where the reception still seems to be open. They normally close at ten but we have been lucky. We are both very tired, but within 20 minutes we have set up our tent and are ready. It is nice enough to sit outside for another hour to relax a bit and then we fall into a sound sleep.
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