The First Iberian Tour
After the success of The Balkan Tour in 2008 we decided to do a similar trip a year later, but this time to places a bit more recognised by tourists. So we went to Spain and Portugal.
Choosing the cities
As previously, we had a few places we wanted to visit: Oviedo, Porto, Valencia and Barcelona. Given the location of those cities it felt natural to just drive around the Iberian Penninsula. Knowing how far Spain is, we wanted to visit as much as possible, as we thought we will not have a second chance (we were wrong, as we took The Second Iberian Trip in 2011 - but we did not know that then).
As soon as it became evident we will do a round trip, we decided to visit Gibraltar just because we could, and Andorra to tick off another country.
After a few weeks of pondering this is what we came up with:
- Gdańsk (Poland)
- *Koeln (Germany)
- *some obscure motel in France, probably near Bordeaux
- Burgos (Spain)
- Oviedo
- Lugo
- A Coruña
- Santiago de Compostela
- Vigo
- Braga (Portugal)
- Citania de Briteiros
- Guimarães
- Porto and Vila Nova de Gaia
- Tomar
- Batalha
- Alcobaça
- Lisboa
- Sagres
- Cabo de São Vicente
- Lagos
- Sevilla (Spain)
- Cádiz
- Gibraltar (UK)
- *Los Barrios (Spain)
- Granada
- Valencia
- Barcelona (Spain)
- Andorra la Vella (Andorra)
- *some obscure motel in France, probably near Lyon
- *Bonn (Germany)
- Gdańsk (Poland)
Days 1, 2 and 3: The road to Spain
France
Spain is really far away from Central Europe. Like, really, really far away. Going through Poland and Germany was not that bad - one day of driving and then it is done. Then it is time for France - you never think of it, but that country is just ridiculously large and there is no way you can drive through it in one go. Why? If you go the northern route, you go through Paris. The southern route goes through Lyon. Literally through. Paris took about three hours of just standing in the traffic and enjoying 30+ degrees outside...
Oh, and then there is French tourist infrastructure. The obscure motel near Bordeaux we stayed at had the same rate per night as a hotel in the bloody city centre of Granada. And do not get me started on the size of the room, as the double bed barely fit in.
The only benefit of Bordeaux is that it is relatively close to Spain.
Burgos
On our way to Oviedo we decided to stop in Burgos. We have found a paid parking near the city centre and took a walk to enjoy the beautiful cathedral.
The road to Oviedo
From Burgos we drove west towards Leon (without stopping by) and then north to Oviedo. The mountain range just south of Oviedo means the weather can chance in an instant - and that is what happened to us. While in Burgos we enjoyed the summer, with its 30+ degrees, Oviedo and its surroundings welcomed us with with rain (some hail even in the mountains) and about 18 degrees.
