| 21 Jun, 2008 - From Millau to the End of the Earth |
A cheap flight to Santiago de Compostella in spring 2007 and a TV programme on the construction of the Millau viaduct planted the seeds for an MX-5 trip for 2008. The roads around the Gallician coast convinced me that the Spaniards had the Five in mind all the time they were laying the many miles of new smooth tarmac. Combined with the fabulous views from Cape Finisterre this was a trip that needed to be organised. Eight other couples also decided it was a good idea, so the ferry crossing from Portsmouth to Bilbao was booked and the search for suitable hotels begun. The jewel in the crown turned out to be the Hotel Montaigu in the Pyrenees, picked out at random; it was a superb base in breathtaking surroundings at the foot of the Col de Tourmalet.
The holiday evolved into three parts, three days in Albi, between Toulouse and Millau, three days in the French Pyrenees and finally, A Coruna on the North West coast of Spain. In all a long way, I covered over 2700 miles from door to door. The run down to Portsmouth was not without incident, after only 12 miles Rob’s car came to a halt. A new alternator was needed, by the time a new one had been sourced, collected and fitted, time was running out. Aren’t superchargers handy? With eight cars waiting on the dockside Rob & Linda were greeted with a round of applause. The Bay of Biscay was like a pussycat, not a ripple over 33 hours. The force nine was saved for our return! After two relaxing nights afloat we were itching to be back in the cars, straight into rush hour Bilbao style, a bit like the M60 but different. A local rule had us perplexed at first. It seems staying in a lane for longer than a nano second is very much frowned upon. So not wanting to look like tourists we joined in. Great fun, I think we should introduce this rule on the M60 so we can all get to our destinations that fraction of a second sooner each morning.
After crossing into France, a long motorway drive around Toulouse had us in our first hotel by tea time where we found the owner’s wife to be the proud owner of a Mk3 in Galaxy Grey. The walled city of Carcassone was an obvious choice for a visit, and very pretty it is too. However, the main reason for this part of the trip was the Millau viaduct, I must have been too eager, as I made a complete hash of programming the sat nav because two of us ended up in a village on the south side of the River Tarn with seven cars waiting in a similar sounding village on the North side. Both groups drove over and under this magnificent structure and called in at the visitor centres. The road back to Albi was far from an anti climax though, a superb, open MX-5 type of road. A fine finish to a memorable day.
Moving on to the Pyrenees we had a slight problem, a stress crack had appeared in Jim’s windscreen and Mazda assist wanted a local dealer to see it. Eight cars set off back towards Spain with the idea that Jim would meet us for lunch at a small spa town, Bagneres de-Luchon. This little town is situated at the foot of the Col de Peyresourde, which leads on to Col d’Aspin, which in turn leads to Col du Tourmalet. These three climbs are famous for sorting out the men from the boys on the Tour de France, and fantastic MX-5 roads they most certainly are. The tarmac was being repaired along several sections ready for the Tour, but even so the driving and views were spectacular. I had seen pictures of the Cirque de Gavenrie on postcards and wanted to see it, imagine Malham Cove on Steroids, with snow and waterfalls. The hotel owner told us to see it but not stop long and to go to the Cirque de Tromouse just to the east, or if the weather was perfect, to go to the Pont d’Espagne and see the waterfalls and lake. She was sure we would enjoy the drive in our “leetle” cars. How right she was, the road to the Cirque de Tromouse had a small toll of 4 euros, one of the best investments of my life, the road and the views got better and better with each hairpin bend as we climbed higher and higher into the mountains to end up on a high plateau, you need to see it for yourself, my words cannot do this place justice. After a short walk and a picnic lunch we set off to the third treat of the day, the drive past the many waterfalls finishes at an enormous car park, and being late in the afternoon the two cable cars were used to get to the Pont d’Espagne. A 15 minute walk had us at the lake, again more beautiful than I can describe, time was pressing as the last cable cars were due to leave so we left without exploring as much as we wanted to. Madame was incredulous that we had visited all three sites in one day; she obviously doesn’t know just how good our “leetle” cars are.
We left the Pyrenees, each of us saying we would love to return. A long motorway run in France on a Sunday is not too bad as trucks are banned; however we now know where they go. The East European truckers park up in the service areas completely blocking the car parks and the slip roads, the Spanish service areas are easy to park in but the quality is much poorer than the French. We arrived in Oviedo (eventually) the address we downloaded and put in the sat navs was wrong, Franco’s fault apparently. After the civil war he got rid of all the old local ways of doing things and got all the different regions speaking Castillian and doing things the Madrid way. Now things are slowly getting back to the old ways and addresses are no more than vague neighbourhoods. This particular Sunday evening in Spain just happened to be the day the national side beat Germany to win Euro 2008. The next day was spent sightseeing and for a few, taking advantage of a hosepipe found at the back of the hotel. The drive to A Coruna was in two parts a long very twisty road to the coast then the new motorway, not quite ready in places, but as they do over there they let traffic use it whilst still building it. The health and safety brigade over here would be in a state of shock, but everything seems to just workout. A coffee break was planned for a small fishing village picked at random once again, Tapia de Casariego had the perfect sheltered beach, plenty of parking and a superb Italian style coffee shop, we decided to make it our coffee stop on the run home.
View the photos in the Gallery.
|
|
