The day began with me getting a rather annoying phone call from work. I have no idea what they want as I missed it, and quite frankly I’m on holiday.
After having a look at everyone’s pictures from the last few days on my laptop we set off out.
Everyone had decided that we needed to do food shopping, and then get lunch at an English restaurant called CJ.
As we left CJ’s the wind was really blowing and you knew a storm was coming. As we turned to go to the car we noticed these big black clouds and lots of them. We hot footed to the car and 2 minutes later it started to rain. Well started to would be an understatement! It bloody down poured with lots of hail which sounded like gun fire. With lots of lightning. The storm was so bad you could hardly see the traffic or roads in front. Roads got covered in basically ice which makes getting up hills interesting, most of the villa roads got turned into mini rivers. As we sat on top of the hill which overlooks the sea, there were a few lightning strikes at sea!
We decided to sit in the car and wait for the rain to stop or calm down, as the villa is a bit of a walk from the road.We gathered all the shopping up and ran to the villa and basically sat inthe villa bored. The only entertaining thing was seeing Ben break the sliding doors and then spending ages fixing them.
Once everything was fixed and the sun came out we all left for a walk around town. Ended up back at the villa while we decided whereto go for dinner. We decided on going for a drive, as wewhere driving around we also lookedfor places to eat. We ended up eating on a restaurant overlooking the coast. Nothing beats food and beer by the sea. Later in the evening we ended up in a place called Sin Bar for a few drinks.
After getting up at 6.30am, after a rather uncomfortable sleep in the car we finally set off. We decided to ignore all logical directions and follow signs for Gan. This is because if you follow the signs for Spain in France they take you through the tunnel. But we wanted to go basically through the Pyrenees Mountains which is more fun.
As we drove through the mountains one can’t help but stop and take pictures every now and again, in other words, every corner. The views were amazing; nothing beats driving through mountains and seeing snow. The roads are awesome, nothing like seeing a diesel spew black smoke out while boosting round corners. There are a few nice mountain villages, ones like Gabas. We finally drove out of the French side of mountains at 9.45am. As soon as we did we were greeted with an amazing view of even more epic mountains. Nothing beats driving out the mountains and seeing a massive lake and the mountains behind it. After much cruising we finally reach our first Spanish toll road the AP7, which takes us really near the villa. We finally arrived at the villa just after 17.00. All I can say is spending 3 days in a car without having a wash is not good. That first shower was awesome and long awaited.
Later on in the evening we all went out had a few drinks and got food. Much needed after a long trip, nothing like an ice cold bottle of Estrella Levante.
The holiday to Spain started at 2am on May 1st. Mike came over to my house; we loaded all the stuff into the car before I then took over driving to meet up at Ben’s house. We then left Ben’s house at 3am.
We drove down the M20 towards Folkestone for the Channel Tunnel. After being loaded on the train at 5am, we arrived in a service station outside the terminal in France for 5.30am (GMT) or French time 6.30am. We all set our GPS’s the same however Bens GPS said “While in France, Please continue to Europe”.
Mike started the French driving so I could get used to being on the other side of the road and French road sides etc. However while driving through France at about 9.30am (French Time) our little convoy got split up, because Ben did not keep right when he was supposed to. Of course phoning did not help because we don’t know where the hell we are or where they are. We finally met up at around 10am (French Time) on the D915 about 2KM distance behind us.
After taking a short rest break at 11am on the outskirts of Paris we started our road trip again, passing the main Peugeot factory. Lucky for us the GPS decided not to take us through Paris. However we did pass through a village with interesting name called Pussay.
We finally stopped off for lunch at 14.45 (French Time). Only to find Dumb and Dumber (Ben and Dan) had forgot their food and had to buy some. Also filled the car up with fuel, and continued driving for hours.
We finally then stopped for fuel at around 19.30 (French Time). It was a long awaited stretch, and set off again at 19.50 (French Time) for Pau, where we arrived at 10pm. Finally got some much needed sleep and some food.
So It’s The Final Countdown for my Holiday to Spain. We are leaving on the 1st May 2010 at some crazy early hour something like 2-3am! But we ain’t going to Spain in a plane oh no. We are driving to Spain, more to the point Alicante. As my friend Ben has a villa out there. There are currently four of us going, and we are taking two cars. It’s me and Mike in the Astra MK5 1.6 (Owned by Mike), and Ben and the other Dan is the Astra MK3 1.7TDS (Owned by Ben). So it’s Petrol (MK5) versus Diesel (MK3). We have all the essentials sorted like Travel Insurance, Breakdown cover, in case for whatever reason we have some form of electrical fire, or other issues.
The journey is going to be a very long one, but we are all sharing the driving and we are using GPS, we aim to be at the South of France for evening and get some rest there. As we want to be fresh before going over the border to Spain and mountain driving etc. Of course for that I will be taking an insane amount of pictures, mostly because of the epic views there etc. I’m taking all my photography gear, Nikon D200, Nikkor 50mm f1.8, Sigma 70-300mm APO DG, Tamron 17-50mm f2.8, selection of filters for lenses (Circular Polarising Filter) and plenty of storage cards. I’m going to use one of my light stands as a tripod, as I currently don’t have a tripod of my own.
As I’m also taking my laptop I will try and keep my blog updated with my holiday travels etc, as there is WIFI available in the bar which is near enough next to the villa apparently. But the main reason I’m taking my laptop is to download my images, then of-course for keepsake burn them to DVD.
We’re leaving together, But still it’s farewell, And maybe we’ll come back To earth, who can tell?
