It felt good hoisting the Spanish and Basque courtesy flags, quite exciting sailing into another country and Northern Spain is somewhere I have wanted to go to for a while.
Hondarribia is the first town no the Northern Spanish coastline. It is separated from Hendaye in France by Ria Bidasoa. We loved this place; the marina itself was ok and had a nice beach right next to it. The town is gorgeous though, especially the old fortified part with its medieval buildings and alleyways. The
We loved this place; the marina itself was ok and had a nice beach right next to it. The town is gorgeous though, especially the old fortified part with its medieval buildings and alleyways. The newer part of town has a great buzz about it, loads of restaurants, cafes, and tapas bars.
A Saturday night there is a must.
We had a few days here, partly because we really liked it and partly because we had to replace the choke cable which snapped and had to be ordered up.
We took the opportunity to go to Hendaye (in France acrsoos the river) for the day, which incidentally is twinned with Peebles.
Our wee walk over to Hendaye ended up a twelve mile trek as we took a detour trying to find a mosquito net for over the bed. No mosquito net but plenty of blisters. Anyway, Hendaye is ok I suppose, just a holiday town with not much atmosphere. Thankfully there was a boat you could get back across the river to Hondarribia!
This is my anti-mosquito nightwear, not the coolest look or feel!
Our next stop, passing San Sebastian on route (see below)
was Zumaia, described in the pilot book as a town full of happy people. I think the author was taking the micky, either that or the happy people had gone somewhere else for the day. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but we just found it a bit depressing, pretty enough but just dull. So much so that a walk around during the day when we arrived was enough and we just ate on board that night.
Great Tapas, even if I do say so myself.
We had a chat with Kevin the other day and he thinks we should get a bit of a push on so as to be down the Atlantic coast of Portugal before the equinox which is around the 23rd of September. The weather can start to change around then and this coast is not meant to be one to linger on anyway according to the books. Not because there are not some great places to visit but it can be pretty inhospitable to sail down. This does however mean we might need to rush the Spanish Rias which we were looking forward to seeing. Mmmmm!
We are also trying to get to A Coruna by the 22nd of August as Dave and Iain were thinking of coming out to see us for a few days if we can get there by then.
