2020-03 Spain & Portugal Day 9: Zamora to Hernani
Previous day ¦¦ Back to trip summary page. ¦¦ Next day
Zamora to Hernani
On the area de autocaravanas at Zamora we sleep well, waking to a cold but sunny morning. We have breakfast and watch two pairs of red kites nesting in the trees, a heron, storks and cormorants fishing in the river. There is a kingfisher, but we don’t see it.
Again, we look at the UK news and plan our options. All social gatherings prohibited and we are all to practice ‘social distancing’. Being here is Spain we feel both isolated from events in the UK, but ahead of events because all the things that the UK is planning are already the normal course of daily lockdown life here is Spain. We plan our route north towards the Spanish/French border.
We have been reassured by Brittany Ferries that if we have a valid reason to travel (ferry crossing which we have) we will be permitted to proceed out of Spain into France. We leave Zamora (but must come back and look at that lovely old Roman town sometime), taking the A-11 and then E-82 north to Tordesillas and then A-62 to Valladolid and Burgos. These are all fast, dual carriageways (non-toll) roads, with nothing but trucks on them.
On the E-82, only fourteen cars pass going in the opposite direction in 80 km, and no others on our side. We make excellent progress.
From Burgos we take the E-80 past the spectacularly beautiful gorge of Miranda de Ebro, where we do not stop as this, together with Madrid, is the area of greatest infection by coronavirus (almost 15,000 cases already reported in Spain). We carry on through Vitoria Gasteiz to Alsasua and from there the A-1 towards the border with France at Irun.
At Beasain, a fairly compact but busy city, the traffic becomes very heavy and very fast. It feels like a bottleneck for all the trucks from Spain and Portugal heading to and from the port at Irun (it is). This section is hard driving, fast and winding dual carriageways up and down some very steep hills, Basque country on the edge of the Pyrenees. We are glad to get to Tolosa and then Hernani, our stop for the night.
The area de autocaravanas in Hernani is not a very salubrious area, right in the middle of a heavy industrial park, but there are dedicated spaces for 10 campers, but it’s here where we need it, with motorhome facilities, open and free. We park up with four others, later another three join us…motorhome spaces are almost full! We are tired, having driven 276 miles (400 km). Our normal maximum drive is around 220 km, which equates to around 3 hours travel, if we do more then we arrive tired and don’t fully appreciate the journey.
We eat, rest and sleep in that order!
Previous day ¦¦ Back to trip summary page. ¦¦ Next day
Zamora to Hernani
Click nay image to enlarge
