Thursday 24th April, 2025
Knowing this is our last day, and subconsciously knowing we have to clear up after our visit, we woke rather early and got started. Fortunately we had consigned ourselves to a couple of rooms and the kitchen, the dogs however also had the whole garden, on three floors to roam about in, and “ hunting” their “doings” was a major task!!! Still everything sorted by lunchtime so headed out to Lliber for another bottle of their superb local white wine and a few tapas for lunch. Being a weekday the cafe wasn’t heaving with cyclists as it is at weekends, but still there were enough people to create an atmosphere especially as the sun was shining, of course.
Back home we packed the car, cooked our last meal and headed to bed for a reasonably early night; early start tomorrow as we head north. Tomorrow we are heading for a village just over the border in the French part of the Basque region, a 800-km drive to
Friday 25th April 2025
Boiler switched off, Gas turned off, house locked up, car out of the garage and we were out of the house about 0815hrs, stopped at the local garage, not for fuel but for some morning goods for breakfast, and away, pretty good!!!
To eat up the mileage we elected to use toll roads everywhere we could; unfortunately, unlike the motorways in the south of Spain where all the toll booths have been removed and are free to use, in the north of Spain charges still apply. We did our normal 2-hrs on, 2-hours off but each changeover stop took longer as we gave the dogs a run around.
After an uneventful drive we arrived at our hotel in Laressore about 5-pm, booked in and joined the locals sitting outside in the sun for a drink.
Once we had chilled-out, we gave the dogs a jolly good walk in the local park, with lots of ball throwing before taking our bags into the hotel. Originally we thought we would venture out and find a local restaurant but it soon became abundantly clear, we were in the centre of the village and we got the last table!!!
Being so close to the border and in the Basque region, our evening meal was influenced by the Spanish, so a couple of Tapas with a bottle, “naturally”, was called for and along with everybody else enjoying their Friday evening. The hotel did have a “formal” restaurant inside and we did look at the menu but the Tapas won the day, well the night!! Whilst eating we were serenaded by a singer playing his own guitar and everybody was happy until around 2100hrs when suddenly the wind came up, not gently, no a big gust that sent various things flying off the table, quickly followed by some people heading into the bar and the rest “donning” on coats and jackets; the locals knew what happens at this time at night!! We weren’t prepared, no coats, so as we had finished we headed to the park for the dogs then back to our room. Tomorrow we head to the Loire Valley, a drive of circa 670 KM’s