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Our last day in Spain was perhaps the best.  We set off quite early, filled the tank and took to the hills, enjoying generally excellent roads and dramatic scenery.  We hadn’t known what to expect of the landscape, but certainly hadn’t expected to go as high as the 1200m of the Portillo de la Sía.  The views were slightly spoiled by haze, but were mighty impressive all the same.  At the Mirador de Aja we were rewarded not only by huge views but by a flying display by 15 or so vultures.  There were more bicycles than cars on the roads: one forgets that Spain is just about as bike-crazy as France. 

Near Portillo de la Sía

 Santander too was a surprise.  I’d taken a look at the approaches to the port on Google Earth, and rather dismissed the place as a typical sprawling city of commercial and retail parks with a grid-pattern central district.  That’s all true, but beyond the centre to the north lies an extensive and rather posh seaside resort, complete with a casino and century-old luxury hotels.  Also on the sea front is the huge wedding cake building that houses the head office of the Banco de Santander.  We paused for a shandy by the lighthouse at Cabo Major, and watched the ferry as it arrived from Portsmouth.  We tracked it back up the bay, and it was just berthing as we arrived at the port at 17:15. 

Our hearts sank when the sign lit up saying that boarding would start from 19:15.  At least it was warm and still: many’s the time I’ve had to hang around the port of Dover in bitter winds and stinging rain.  When boarding finally began – and they’d taken most of the trucks through by then – the process took well over an hour, presided over by a young man who zipped round the place on an electric trike.  I suppose there may have been some method in his approach, but I’m damned if I could work it out.  To the untutored, it looked random and chaotic, and I was starting to dread the disembarkation process at the other end.  When we were finally ushered on to the ship we were led down a ramp to deck 2, noting that a huge trap door had been lifted to allow access.  So we were interred beneath the lorries.  I was made to park so close to the side that I had to scramble over the centre console to get out of the car. 

Homeward bound

From there on, things improved.  Our cabin was perfectly adequate: we had an outside 4-berth one to ourselves.  Down at the blunt end of the Cap Finistère it was quite noisy, but although we could tell from our midships cabin that we were on a motor vessel, the noise and vibration were not at all intrusive.  The restaurant too was pretty adequate – our main courses were very good, if the starters left a bit to be desired.  23 hours is a long time to be on board a ferry, however, and the public spaces are distressingly full of the public.  We gritted our teeth and sat through the quiz, but discos, cash bingo, children’s parties and face-painting are not altogether our thing.  From where I tried it, the free wifie was utterly hopeless, and it doesn’t work in the cabins, unfortunately.  Still, a day off the internet is no bad thing once in a while, and the sea was still enough to allow a nice long siesta.

The approach to Portsmouth was really interesting.  I have done it before, but not, as I remember, in daylight.  Three cruise liners were leaving as we came in, one of them the Deutschland, which served as competitors’ quarters during the London Olympics, moored in the Pool of London.  A hovercraft left Southsea for the Isle of Wight just as we motored by, and we had good views of the dockyard as we came in.  Disembarkation was a pleasant surprise: we docked just before the 19:45 scheduled arrival time, and were in the car by 19:55.  We’d expected a long wait, so had bought sandwiches: they were barely eaten before we were beckoned out of our parking slot, and we were through passport checks and on the road by 20:10.  The roads weren’t bad either, so we were home and filling the kettle by 21:50.  Celia had kindly opened some upstairs windows for us, so with a little help from the fan, we slept long and comfortably.

The irrigation system seems to have worked pretty well during our 4-week absence:  I’ll turn out a first pot of potatoes later.  Roses have flowered like mad, and the rather feeble Picadilly rose has responded to treatment and put up a couple of strong new shoots.  Top marks to the Justice of the Peace, which is a mass of flowers.  This morning’s thunderstorm will not have helped, and with more rain forecast today, I think we’ve seen the best of it.  The rudbeckias at the front are sulking a bit.  I’ll administer water and a sound talking-to.