And finally we’ve arrived en España

After a good night’s sleep and petit déjeuner at the hotel, we set out from Limoges, once again heading south. We only had about 440 km (or 275 miles) to conquer today.

Our route followed the A20 south until near Montauban, where we joined the A62 to Toulouse, where we did a half circuit of the ring road before taking the A64, now heading more south west.

Once the Pyrenees came into view, the motorway turned west to run parallel to the mountains. It was then soon time to turn directly towards the mountains, intially on a short single carriageway motorway spur for about 6km which qualified for its own number, the A645. This soon led to the N125, which struck deeper into the steep sided valley ahead - the Val d’Aran.

14km after crossing the Spanish border, we arrived at Camp Bedura, our base for the next 11 days and nights.

The campsite is set on terraces leading up the side of a mountain. Our pitch is a few levels up from reception, the pool and the bar. The pitch is a great size and so far seems to be very shady.

After getting the tent up, we headed about 10km back towards the French border to visit the nearest medium-sized supermarket.

Whilst shopping, we inadvertently committed a cultural faux pas (or a “metedura de pata”) by touching the fruit and vegetables we wanted to buy. It turned out this was verboten and a couple of guys, armed with plastic gloves and an armful of plastic bags were there, it seemed to shout at miscreants like us, and then to pick and bag the produce you selected. Fortunately, the guy who served us was actually quite friendly and spoke good English.

Suitably chastened, but with a full trolley, we returned to the campsite for a dinner of pizzas in the campsite bar/restaurant, followed by an ice cream.

We omitted to take any photos in campsite beyond the two featured above.Read more