Winter journey in our home on wheels - Part 1 - Calais to the Algarve
In October 2015 we set off from Gloucester to Dover, via Margate to see family, to get the ferry to Calais. At the end of all these posts on our journey I will detail the mileage and how much we spent on ferries, fuel and tolls. Below is Dover on the day of departure.
The dogs settled down to an hour and a half in the van while we had a smooth crossing over the water. Despite the media hype over the immigrant crisis in Calais we had no trouble at all leaving the port and driving away. In fact if you didn't know what was happening you wouldn't even realise anything was going on. We had a fairly uneventful journey down through France over 3 days taking the shortest route towards the Spanish border. This included the towns of Abbeville, Rouen, Chartres, Tours, Poitiers, Angouleme and Bordeaux. We didn't take any toll roads until south of Bordeaux as the A roads are nearly as good as the motorways most of the way.
We crossed over into Spain at Irun and then headed straight for Gouveia in Portugal where we had stuff in storage. Again we took the shortest route passing the towns of Vitoria-Gasteiz, Burgos, Palencia, Valladolid, Salamanca before the last Spainish town Ciudad Rodrigo. We took the toll roads in Northern Spain as far as Burgos as it is quite a mountainous area and we felt that paying the tolls would be the same or cheaper than fuel consumption and wear and tear on the van. Having said that we have never tried the alternative A roads going this way so have no idea if this is really the case!
It didn't take very long to get to Ribamondego near Gouveia where our friends have land and park up and chill out for a few days after long days of driving. While there I got the camera out and tried to get some good shots of the fauna and flora. Below is a beetle I saw wandering around.
There are lots of small pine trees on the land as a fire in 2011 destroyed all the trees. In one of the pines I discovered the nest of the processionary caterpillar. This caterpillar has fine hairs that can cause extreme irritation to mammals. Contact with the hairs of the caterpillar can cause rashes and eye irritation. Some individuals may have an allergic reaction to the caterpillar's hairs. Dog owners beware, dogs get these hairs on them and the cause irritation resulting in the dog licking the area and then getting the hairs on their tongue it may then be necessary to amputate the tongue to prevent sepsis and spread of necrosis. Severe reactions to the hairs may cause kidney failure in the dog and death may occur. Below is the nest of the caterpillar.
It was lovely to be back in an area where we have spent a lot of time and have some great memories of. One morning there was a low mist over the valley creating this beautiful image.
Portugal is where I have done the most foraging for mushrooms and I did find some edible species while visiting this part of Portugal during the Autumn. Not edible and very stinky but still quite amazing looking is the stinkhorn, they do grow in the UK but I have never seen one. This one has lost it's slimy mass of spores and so not quite as stinky!
Soon it was time for us to move on from the Gouveia area and head down to Tabua where friends live. This area has more of an expat community than Gouveia and we met up with old friends and made new ones. Just before we arrived we spent a couple of nights in the pine forest around Covas. One morning we were treated to a heard of goats coming past our door.
One beautifully sunny Sunday in November we went to the annual Feira de Porco (Pork fair) in Meruge near Oliveira do Hospital. Not really the place for two vegetarians the fair is designed to honor the port traders of the Meruge Parish and to preserve and promote the excellence of the ancient art of making the smokehouse. There is plenty of pork dishes to taste showing off the traditional cuisine of the central region. Despite the pork feasting we enjoyed the afternoon out in the sun taking in the local culture and eating a cheese crepe instead! I also tried my first ever Caiparinhas, a Brazilian cocktail made with Cachaca, now that was lovely!
All too soon it was time to say goodbye to friends and head south chasing the sun. By my birthday at the end of November we were in the Algarve soaking up the last of the summer sun. We stopped for a couple of nights at a pretty beach we have stayed at before called Odeciexe pictured below.
Agua spent most of the days there swimming and I managed to capture this lovely shot of her.
After a short break at Odeciexe we headed to one of our favourite places, the beautiful beach of Barranco near Sagres on the South West corner of Portugal. This has been a favourite stop for hippies, travellers, surfers and all sorts of people for many years. In 2011 we got evicted from there as the council were making a better car park. This has now been done and boulders put around preventing people parking nearer the beach although one boulder has been moved and so people were parking on the beach! The police did turn up a couple of times in the month we were there and told people to leave the beach though. Those of us parked in the car parking area were left alone. Below is a picture of the site taken from the cliffs above.
There are some lovely cliff walks East and West from the beach and some beautiful untouched coves only accessible by boat like the one pictured below.
There are a real mixture of people staying at Barranco and people coming and going all the time, mostly Europeans but people from all over the world. There are usually talented artists, musicians as well as handy mechanics staying on the site. Someone obviously had an eye for rock art as this picture shows.
And someone else (or more than one person?) was a talented graffiti artist.
After a lovely month at Barranco we decided it was time to move on into Spain and to Tarifa, a place that feels like home to us as we have spent long periods of time there and made many great friends. So a few days before Christmas we headed there to spend Christmas at the Pig field, our home in Tarifa. Here is the last picture from Portugal crossing the Guadiana river that separates the two countries.
That's it for part 1, part 2 follows shortly!
Thanks for reading :) xxx
The dogs settled down to an hour and a half in the van while we had a smooth crossing over the water. Despite the media hype over the immigrant crisis in Calais we had no trouble at all leaving the port and driving away. In fact if you didn't know what was happening you wouldn't even realise anything was going on. We had a fairly uneventful journey down through France over 3 days taking the shortest route towards the Spanish border. This included the towns of Abbeville, Rouen, Chartres, Tours, Poitiers, Angouleme and Bordeaux. We didn't take any toll roads until south of Bordeaux as the A roads are nearly as good as the motorways most of the way.
We crossed over into Spain at Irun and then headed straight for Gouveia in Portugal where we had stuff in storage. Again we took the shortest route passing the towns of Vitoria-Gasteiz, Burgos, Palencia, Valladolid, Salamanca before the last Spainish town Ciudad Rodrigo. We took the toll roads in Northern Spain as far as Burgos as it is quite a mountainous area and we felt that paying the tolls would be the same or cheaper than fuel consumption and wear and tear on the van. Having said that we have never tried the alternative A roads going this way so have no idea if this is really the case!
It didn't take very long to get to Ribamondego near Gouveia where our friends have land and park up and chill out for a few days after long days of driving. While there I got the camera out and tried to get some good shots of the fauna and flora. Below is a beetle I saw wandering around.
There are lots of small pine trees on the land as a fire in 2011 destroyed all the trees. In one of the pines I discovered the nest of the processionary caterpillar. This caterpillar has fine hairs that can cause extreme irritation to mammals. Contact with the hairs of the caterpillar can cause rashes and eye irritation. Some individuals may have an allergic reaction to the caterpillar's hairs. Dog owners beware, dogs get these hairs on them and the cause irritation resulting in the dog licking the area and then getting the hairs on their tongue it may then be necessary to amputate the tongue to prevent sepsis and spread of necrosis. Severe reactions to the hairs may cause kidney failure in the dog and death may occur. Below is the nest of the caterpillar.
It was lovely to be back in an area where we have spent a lot of time and have some great memories of. One morning there was a low mist over the valley creating this beautiful image.
Portugal is where I have done the most foraging for mushrooms and I did find some edible species while visiting this part of Portugal during the Autumn. Not edible and very stinky but still quite amazing looking is the stinkhorn, they do grow in the UK but I have never seen one. This one has lost it's slimy mass of spores and so not quite as stinky!
Soon it was time for us to move on from the Gouveia area and head down to Tabua where friends live. This area has more of an expat community than Gouveia and we met up with old friends and made new ones. Just before we arrived we spent a couple of nights in the pine forest around Covas. One morning we were treated to a heard of goats coming past our door.
One beautifully sunny Sunday in November we went to the annual Feira de Porco (Pork fair) in Meruge near Oliveira do Hospital. Not really the place for two vegetarians the fair is designed to honor the port traders of the Meruge Parish and to preserve and promote the excellence of the ancient art of making the smokehouse. There is plenty of pork dishes to taste showing off the traditional cuisine of the central region. Despite the pork feasting we enjoyed the afternoon out in the sun taking in the local culture and eating a cheese crepe instead! I also tried my first ever Caiparinhas, a Brazilian cocktail made with Cachaca, now that was lovely!
All too soon it was time to say goodbye to friends and head south chasing the sun. By my birthday at the end of November we were in the Algarve soaking up the last of the summer sun. We stopped for a couple of nights at a pretty beach we have stayed at before called Odeciexe pictured below.
Agua spent most of the days there swimming and I managed to capture this lovely shot of her.
After a short break at Odeciexe we headed to one of our favourite places, the beautiful beach of Barranco near Sagres on the South West corner of Portugal. This has been a favourite stop for hippies, travellers, surfers and all sorts of people for many years. In 2011 we got evicted from there as the council were making a better car park. This has now been done and boulders put around preventing people parking nearer the beach although one boulder has been moved and so people were parking on the beach! The police did turn up a couple of times in the month we were there and told people to leave the beach though. Those of us parked in the car parking area were left alone. Below is a picture of the site taken from the cliffs above.
There are some lovely cliff walks East and West from the beach and some beautiful untouched coves only accessible by boat like the one pictured below.
There are a real mixture of people staying at Barranco and people coming and going all the time, mostly Europeans but people from all over the world. There are usually talented artists, musicians as well as handy mechanics staying on the site. Someone obviously had an eye for rock art as this picture shows.
And someone else (or more than one person?) was a talented graffiti artist.
After a lovely month at Barranco we decided it was time to move on into Spain and to Tarifa, a place that feels like home to us as we have spent long periods of time there and made many great friends. So a few days before Christmas we headed there to spend Christmas at the Pig field, our home in Tarifa. Here is the last picture from Portugal crossing the Guadiana river that separates the two countries.
That's it for part 1, part 2 follows shortly!
Thanks for reading :) xxx
Comments