Into Spain!

Today we left France and moved into Spain, the first time we've been here with a motorhome and the first time we've been here at all for 15 years. As usual we'd set the satnav to avoid the toll roads so initially that routed us through various towns and villages until eventually, on crossing a river bridge, we found ourselves in Spain. There wasn't any actual "Spain" sign that we saw at the border - not sure if we missed it or if it was something to do with being in the Basque country.

Our toll free route routed us inland for a bit, through some pretty hilly areas with architecture that had us thinking of Germany, Austria or Northern Italy that Spain. The weather started off lovely - hot and sunny - but as we looped back to the coast just west of Bilbao a big bank of cloud came in from the sea making much of the rest of the day fairly overcast, although still pretty warm.

When we'd been in Northern Spain previously we'd rented a house just East of the harbour town of Ribadesella and wanted to re-acquaint ourselves with that areas. We'd struggled to find an open campsite nearby so decided to go with the closest Aire that our book had to the east of the town. We'd then be planning to get an early start tomorrow and take a look round the area before maybe heading up into the Picos mountains.

The Aire we'd decided on was just off the motorway on the edge of the town of Columbres, with the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela passing a few yards away from where we'd be overnighting. As we'd arrived mid-afternoon we decided to walk the mile or so into the town itself, following part of the pilgrimage route there and back.

The bits of the town we saw were quite pretty, with some interesting architecture including a museum about Spanish emigration to Cuba and South America and various other oddities including an "Indian" house with turrets etc.