After a short spell fighting our way out of St. Malo in the rush hour traffic, we picked up the N137 down to Rennes. The heavens opened, and at one point our windscreen suddenly misted up so that we had to leave the road. We have known for some time that the old Astra has a problem somewhere in the water, heating and ventilating department. Rejoining the road, we found our way around the ring road and then south to Nantes. Here we joined the toll motorway for a while, until it was time for lunch and diversion and short cut that avoided the dog-leg around Niort. We passed through the Marais north of La Rochelle, a place we had missed on our cruise down the coast in 2004, and headed over to Rochefort where we stopped for lunch. From here, we were able to rejoin the toll roads again without trouble, arriving down in Bordeaux around 4 pm.
Ian and Christine had fortunately sent us some excellent step by step directions. This was just as well, as their village of Tabanac did not feature on our all-Europe road atlas, and with these we were able to drive straight to their house. What wonderful hospitality, and what a great location! Chris has appointed herself project manager to the builders, who have now gutted their living accomodation confining us to the 'apartment' at one end of the house. There is no doubt that their approach to 'going French' by making a determined effort to integrate into the local community is paying off.
While Ian and Chris had business in Bordeaux the next day, Mo and I walked across the bridge commemorating Napoleon's victories, and made our way around many of the principle sights. Chris met us in the Parc du Parliament and took us round the corner to a favourite lunch spot, where we ate 3 courses with wine for euros 9.50. After lunch it rained, so while the girls took Ella the English Setter out for a walk, John took an interest in Ian's struggle with the CG-Tel internet connecion.
The following day, Chris needed to check out the apartment they are buying in Bordeaux, so we went with her to be nosy. Afterwards, we went to a kitchen shop, and sat through a kitchen design cum sales pitch from Jean Francoise, and were delighted to witness Chris's calm 'non' to the first price! The discount predictably followed after a short smoke-break. We aquired a network switch which John hoped would solve Ian's problems. That evening, after another dog walk, we returned to Bordeaux for a meal on the banks of the Gironde, close to the apartment.
On Saturday, we first set off to Griman, where we purchased some 'bourru' poured for us into a plastic water bottle. This young grape juice from the current season is fomenting from its natural yeast, and we had to pierce the screw top to prevent it from blowing the bottle. At the same time we tasted some other wines, and emerged with a box of red graves, and a bottle of clairet made in champenoise style (ie fizzy). We then went to the market at Cadillac, taking coffee when we had finished purchasing the essential supplies. In the afternoon, Chis and Mo went to buy some fireworks, while John walked Ella and eventually found his way across the stream, while Ian cleaned the pool for the winter. Ian and John re-built the bonfire while Chris set about preparing chestnuts and pumpkin soup for our supper. We thouroughly enjoyed the bonfire, bourru with chestnuts, and soup, before Ian set off the fireworks. We enjoyed the dyeing embers punctuated by the occasional fizz and bang of the spent fireworks that Ian had seen fit to put on the fire.
Our last day was equally pleasant, helped by beautiful sunshine all day. We walked down to Langoiran to buy the bread for lunch, visited the boat yard where traditional craft are built and maintained, and tarried for a coffee at the hotel on the banks of the Gironde. After lunch, we drove over to St. Emilion. This is a world heritage site, and is one of the must-see places in the Bordeaux area. We drove through the chateau-rich countryside, vinyard after vinyard in their autumn colours, passing by huntsmen who were staked out along the road. On our way back, there were the occasional deer carcass, victims of the 'Batu'. None of us could quite square with the enthusiasm that the French appear to have for killing, particularly migrant birds and song birds. St. Emilion was indeed worth the visit, particularly the cloisters and church. We resisted the temptation to buy more wine from the many expensive lookingn outlets! In the evening we decided to relax, rather than go into Bordeaux for a performance of Mozart's Requiem.
John offered Mo the easy route, suggested by Chris, or the interesting route. Mo chose the easy one, so was directed instead along the more challenging one. We crossed the Gironde over Gustav Eifel's bridge at Langoiran, and made for St. Michel: thus far so good. Unfortunately a series of diversions threw John's sense of direction, despite the strong sun that suggested he might be going astray. Eventually we chanced across a village that appeared on the All-Europe road atlas, and we were able to gain the N10 dual carriageway heading towards Bayonne, although a little further south than intended. We had enjoyed a delightful drive through the vinyards associated with Graves and Sauternes wines, then through the Parc Naturel des Landes de Gascogne. It had been no hardship: far from it.
Finally, around lunch time, we made the French/Spanish border, and drove into the Basque country. We had seen Basque style houses when we visited the region in Fuga last year, but now the houses were in the context of the steep hillsides and looked so like valleys in Switzerland. The driving became difficult as we negotiated San Sebastian: heavy lorries challenging the underpowered Astra. However, we seemed to throw a lot of them off by opting for the road to Vitoria Gasteiz, where we picked up the toll road to Logrono. Here we entered Rioja territory, and the wide open hillsides were covered in dark red and green vines, contrasting with the rather more compact and enclosed vinyards we had seen in Bordeaux. Very little habitation and no sign of chateaux here. At Logrono we left the motorway, and headed for Soria. This was an unforgettable road, following the Rio de Iregua in the ravine below, while high rocky outcrops towered over us on either side. Finally we made it to the top of the pass Porto de Piqueras, and came down the other side. In future travellers will be spared this climb by a tunnel that is being constructed through the mountain, but no doubt the traffic on the road will increase as a result. And so we arrived at Soria, a quite large town and provincial centre, finding our way to the Hotel Leonor, an old and attractive building on the edge of the town.
The next day we set off south through interesting mainly wooded country, before picking up the main road leading west towards Madrid. The scenery deteriorated, but we came down at one point off a quite dramatic escarpment. Unfortunately we overshot the ring road that would have taken us south and around Madrid clear of trouble. Instead we ploughed on into some quite horrendous lunchtime traffic without the benefit of a map, and it was some time before we managed to get onto one of the many motorways that led south and around Madrid. A toll road took us south about 30km, before joining the A4 towards C. The road suddenly became quite dramatic and mountainous, before we left it to continue on to Granada. We arrived at rush hour once more, and John had forgotten the name of the hotel he had booked on the internet the evening before! As luck would have it, when the laptop was powered up we also found ourselves within range of an open wireless network that allowed us to locate the hotel on Multimap! That evening we climbed up through the old town to a point opposite and overlooking the floodlit Alhambra Palace.
The road to Motril, and then along the coast, was also dramatic and interesting. We arrived and found Fuga moored safely right outside the newspaper shop in the early afternoon. The total distance from St. Malo was 1225 miles.