Well, they let us back into Spain! I had been worrying that I was never stamped out of Spain when we left for Morocco and rules have recently changed that UK rabies titre test results are apparently no longer accepted with EU pet passports, so the girls might not have been allowed either. However, we arrived on a Sunday afternoon and our passports were stamped without issue and no one even wanted to see our pet passports. This easy re-entry from Morocco where rabies is endemic and stray dogs are numerous seemed a little ironic considering the grilling you get entering and leaving the UK which is rabies-free.
We decided as it was Sunday and all the supermarkets were closed in Spain to head out of Algeciras and to the marina we visited on the way down in La Linea de la Concepción.
As we have not been able to go out for a beer for weeks in Morocco we decided to head into Gibraltar and get a pint 🍻🍺 The wierd Britishness of Gibraltar in the midst of Europe and the English voices all round were a massive culture shock after weeks in Morocco. The grey and windy weather was a stark change too. Ironically, as we had been told to expect, we had far more of a grilling when returning on foot at the border from Gibraltar back into Spain than we had earlier that day entering from Morocco 🙄😒
We ended up staying the full 3 days that we were allowed at La Linea de la Concepción. We did some laundry, tried and failed to find good Spanish tapas and did a bit of sightseeing.
The route north through Spain, we decided to get out the cloud by heading over the hills along the coast inland from Malaga. Sure enough as we got over the top the skies cleared to a beautiful cloudless blue.
As we had the good weather back we took the opportunity to get off the motorway and take some of the local roads. We stopped in free village aires and enjoyed some rural Spanish life. After miles and miles of olive groves around Granada we reached extensive wine region. Perfectly tended but leafless vines lined our route.
We had some fabulous scenery through the hills around Albacete and enjoyed some lovely local villages.
We stopped off on the outskirts of Zaragoza as we had driven enough that day, but we were not in the mood for a city tour the next day preferring to get some more miles done. Instead we had a beautiful park up in the Pyrenees that afternoon, enjoyed a Sunday lunch meal out amongst lots of local families in Sunbilla. I even got to see some beautiful donkeys on my dog walk and chatted to a lovely older local guy beside the house he was born in which he had returned to after a career farming in California.
We had provisionally made a flexible booking for a ferry from Roscoff and were unsure whether to go for it or take some more time on our trip home. In the end as the weather worsened through France we decided to get back home so we can get ready for our next big trip on the panAmerican Highway coming up in April. I was busy emailing and making arrangements whilst we drove.
However, we did decide to do a big drive upto La Rochelle the next day so we could take a day off driving the day after. We had an early celebration of our 15th Wedding Anniversary in Bar Andre instead which was just pure French food heaven. It also gave us chance to do the obligatory vet visit with the girls for tape worm treatment before returning to the UK.
The weather turned to pouring rain the day we left and we decided to get some more miles in to gain another day off. We made it all the way to Saint-Pol-de-Leon, just down the coast from Roscoff, one of our favourite park ups. We sit here now listening to the rain and the wind on the truck windows, all cosy inside. We are hoping that the wind reduces, as it is forecast to do, before tomorrow so we can still get our ferry home. We have written ourselves a big to do list before our next adventure which could see us away from home for 2 years!
In for a Penney 