Spain and Portugal
We had a fantastic two months in Bertie. We enjoyed every minute of it - the freedom, the variety, the landscapes. It's just like cruising but by road.
We wild camped on headlands and beaches; visited cities; travelled across wonderful landscapes and met up with friends.
Mediterranean boats at Bouzigues. Spent great couple of nights with Les and Jude... |
On the road to Spain - we enjoyed almost traffic free driving and found the sunshine! |
Seville rooftops. We loved this city and will need to return sometime to explore further |
Great to spend some time with Neil and Angela, thanks for showing us the ropes and introducing us to some lovely places |
Seville Plaza de Espana |
We visited Cadiz on Carnival day, everyone was dressed up. |
A couple of Cossacks |
This was the view from our window at one of our overnight stops |
Of course we both loved seeing, hearing and smelling the sea, we have missed it. |
And...we often had the beach to ourselves. |
Another wild camping location, Carvoeiro. The lighthouse beam swept our roof lights all night |
These two had bagged the best perch in town, on the roof of the supermarket |
John, Allison and Shakti. Thank you for your hospitality. Lovely to catch up with you and to enjoy a few days of luxury |
It's obvious why we'll return to Portugal next winter |
The Lands End of Portugal - Cabo de Sao Vicente |
Looking across to Cabo de Sao Vicente - the view from our overnight stop |
Alhambra Palace, Granada. A must see. Following a great reunion with Pauline and Richard in La Cala de Mijas, we crossed the mountains to Granada. A spectacular - if very windy - drive. |
Pete said there had to be a picture of me in this blog otherwise everybody would think he'd pushed me over the edge at Cap de sao Vicente.... |
Alhambra - we were lucky, the previous day there had been driving rain and high winds, but we had sunshine. |
Heading north - Delta de L'Ebre. Fantastic birdwatching, walking and cycling. Saw Glossy Ibis, purple heron, marsh harriers and many others. |
It's lunchtime and preparing the rice fields has to to stop. Instead of white vans all the guys arrived on huge tractors. |
Back in France, the instructions for this campsite said 'drive through the bull ring'.... |
Typical overnight stop provided by the local commune. |
Vichy - a glorious day and great architecture |
Autun - the Amphitheatre just behind our overnight parking spot. |
Autun - and our view across the lake |
Chateau de Sully - we saw the signpost and what a great place to visit and have a lunch stop. |
We just had time to clean and unpack Bertie before starting on another madcap adventure, we were about to help rescue the last wooden barge in France......
Let's save the Péniche Aster
The Aster is the last surviving wooden péniche in France. She was built in the early 50's and was later converted to a passenger carrying vessel, working the Canal du Nivernais. She has been unused for the past 13 years or so and was steadily rotting away. You can find the full story, a blog of our journey and the hundreds of pictures we took, on the Saint Jean de Losne Museum website (there's now an English version)
http://www.musee-saintjeandelosne.com/projetaster.htm
The Aster in her heyday |
And now twelve years later |
Sad but repairable |
At a boozey barbecue some while ago, an impassioned plea was made for volunteers to join the project.
So it was that we both found ourselves alongside seven other sixty plus adventurers who formed both the advance work parties and the delivery crew.
To be continued............
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