We had planned to take the ferry from Santander, Spain back to the UK but the ferry services had been disrupted due to extreme wind, rain and snow. They were claiming 9m high waves were battering the Spanish coast.
We either stayed in Spain until the ferries resumed normal services or continue the drive up through France to the English channel. We chose the latter.
We took the A4 Motorway via Vila Real district. We were lucky with the weather, even though there was a snow covering the ground, we had quite a bright day travelling. Must have travelled about 534 km.
We crossed the border into Spain and made our way via Valladolid and stayed overnight at Vilagonzala Pedernakes near Burgos.
Overnight snow fell and covered a few inches, but the day started off quite bright.
We made our way via Vittoria and San Sebastian, following the motorways. Good roads but a great number of lorries travelling with us. We wondered if some of them would normally take the ferry from northern Spain but had decided to travel through France also.
We had a good journey, we opted for the toll motorways with the added benefit of tunnels, making our journey much quicker than winding round the snow covered mountains. As the hours went by, the weather changed and we found ourselves driving into snow storms.
Finally, we were crossing the Spanish border into France. We continued on the motorway making our way to Bordeaux. We left the mountains behind us and drove through forest.
We saw a sign post for Leon, where we had stopped over on a previous trip. We remember it well, it was a typical french town and market day when we were there. Very close to the coast, sand dunes and forest. Great place to take our Adria!
We stopped overnight at Barbezieux de Hilaire. Not far from the coast and a cyclist route on a former railway.
Next morning we were back on the road heading towards Angouleme. The landscape has changed dramatically, mainly farmland. Passed the Futurescope at Poitiers.
Noticed a high presence of police and tractors near major supermarkets. Guess the farmers were protesting.
We headed towards Tours and stopped overnight at Alencon.
The next day we headed up to Falaise, stopped off and walked around the town.
Back on route to Ouistreham, we had time to look around Sword Beach and have a bite to eat.
Boarded the ferry at 3.25 pm and settled into our reserved chairs for six hours.
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