Category: Travel

June 3, 2017 Andy 0 Comments

When Espe and I circumnavigated the globe some ten years ago, we met various families who had taken time away from their routine to travel. None impressed me more than a French family who were away for three years in their own custom built Land Rover motorhome. The children, eldest 10 and twins 8 (if I recall correctly) were continuing with the French curriculum, doing the same course material, homework and exams as their friends back home. By studying a mere two hours a day the were able to keep up to date, and with the travels were exposed to…

August 24, 2012 Andy 0 Comments

When it arrived, unexpectedly from my French aunt messaged via Facebook to Espe, the invitation to join my Uncle and his family on they yearly trip to Brittany in France we didn’t need asking twice (even if we did take over a month to reply). We even managed to find cheap flights on the new low cost airline airline, Volotea, direct from Valencia to Nantes, where we were picked up by my Aunt and Uncle before driving onto the wonderful cottage they’d rented minutes from the beach in St Jacques close to Sarzeau. We arrived late at night which exactly…

July 26, 2012 Andy 0 Comments

At the end of the spring / summer semester we took the opportunity to explore a bit of Catalunya. It was but a brief camping trip (much like this write up) but we managed to get up into the Pyrenees and over to the north east coast. We started our trip camping near Campdevanol where we met a friendly Basque family even if they did begrudgingly have to speak in Spanish with us. The following day we climbed some 1000 meters via the rack railway to visit the impressive Val de Nuria sancturary close to the French border. Stunning views…

November 20, 2011 Andy 0 Comments

A few months back I spotted an offer via Groupalia to drive a Ferrari or Lamborghini on country roads for a mere 99 euros. A discount of 75% of their normal rate. Ok, when you read the small print, it is only 20km, which will be over in no time, but… when else would I get the opportunity to drive such cars? I signed up and mentioned it to fellow petrol head Juan (Mongol Rally 2009 veteran – Twingo mis Dudas). Unfortunately the offer expired before he was able to take advantage of it. With various phone calls and emails…

June 19, 2011 Andy 0 Comments

Day 3. On paper the shortest distance, but the biggest climb, pretty much all of it relentlessly in the first 10km with no rest. A real mix. Woodland, moorland, wide continuous downhill, tight technical single track. An amazing ride, definitely glad we did this one last.

June 18, 2011 Andy 0 Comments

Day two. Even hotter, greater altitude gain, but a shorter distance overall. We cycled up and around Catalunya’s most distinctive landmark, Montserrat. It really is quite amazing, but I’ll let the photos show you that… A great ride, tarnished only by an impassibly overgrown section of technical single track which we had to walk back up again once we could get no further.

June 17, 2011 Andy 0 Comments

It was a pleasure to have Christian come to visit. We’d been planning it for a while, and although the initial April trip was cancelled, Christian made it over with his bike ready for a few days riding in Catalunya. Having been out on the bike very little, I was worried about my level of fitness (last time I rode with Christian we crossed the Alps… I was the fittest I think I’ve ever been, and he still left me standing). I was relieved to here that with him studying for his finals he’d done very little exercise too. Over…

June 8, 2011 Andy 0 Comments

I’m currently building a website for a chap called Tom. He’s slightly more well off than most, so when he invited me to go to Logroño in La Rioja region to sample some wine, I didn’t have to think twice, especially given that Tom was going to be flying us there… Arriving at the deserted Logroño airport there was only one ‘taxi’ waiting in the pickup zone. It was white, rather long and had a fridge full of Cava. We went on two bodega tours which I have to say were facsinating. I learnt a lot about the wine making…