We set off for Spain two days ago, this was quite planned and not a reflction of my driving speed or my ability to become lost and exasperated with the sat nav…though that often occurs….

Our first overnight stop was at the Chalet Lyrique hotel in Gradignan, a southern suburb of Bordeaux. It’s a very pleasant hotel and it should be noted lays on an excellent buffet breakfast. This morning we took the autoroute as far as Saint Jean De Luz, where we stopped for lunch at a Courtpaille and then topped up with fuel at a nearby LeClerc….I then put our destination, Mutriku in the sat nav and requested an ‘eco’ route avoiding the toll roads. Oh, how quickly things can go wrong…..

At first things went swimmingly, we drove through Irun, crossing over the river which forms the border between France and Spain. We passed some strange market place which reminded us of Brixton and continued out of town…..some of what passed after is slightly blurred but we seemed to go round in circles and the mileage and time to our destination went up, not down. We drove up into the hills, along single track roads wreathed in low lying sea mist and back down the other side. Eventually we popped up at a roundabout next to ‘opitaleak’ which is indeed a hospital. By a large piece of luck we ended up in San Sebastian town centre. Sadly the piece of luck wasn’t that good. San Sebastian has a gorgeous town centre, though it’s beauty was lost to a stressed out driver trying to avoid the Spanish bus and taxi drivers. We drove along the sea front and headed along the cliffs taking the coast road which seemed to be beset by roadworks. There were some delightful small towns along the way. I even stopped at one to take photos because it had stopped raining…yes, rain…

Our passage through the next two or three towns was considerably easier and we arrived here, at the Hotel Zumalabe The view from our room is really something..

It may be even better in the morning if the sun is shining. Oh yes, tomorrow we drive to Bilbao Airport, where we leave the car and fly off to Jerez for Cadiz. The satnav will be set to ‘fast’ and ‘use autoroutes’….once bitten etc…..