Hot or What? – Northern Spain

Our first impression of North Spain was it felt an awful lot like Wales (mountains, beaches and lush greenery) but with heat. Our favourite patch was the Asturias, between Ribadesella and Llanes, about an hour’s drive west of Santander. Our last visit was made memorable by the wildlife – we saw a scorpion and a tarantula. At least, I think it was, but it could have been a very large, extremely hairy arachnid – anything bigger than a money spider is monstrous as far as Jo’s concerned.

Llanes

I have great memories of this villa (bottom left above) with the cute balcony, particularly lying on the grass watching the stars – the almost total lack of light pollution meant we saw way more stars than we ever do over here. Like a hundred times more. And I couldn’t get over the idea of having mountains on one side of the road and beaches on the other. I remember jogging up to the top of the ridge behind the villa and finding a huge, Dolmen-sized rock, which became my daily route. And you could see it from the road. The bottom right piccy above was one Jo used as a basis for one of her art GCSE pieces. It now hangs in our bedroom – proud mum or what?

Beach of Caves (Playa de Cuevas del Mar)

About a dozen miles west of Llanes, we returned here day after day, year after year. Apart from exploring the caves, which was a big draw, it had one of the safest coves, deep enough to swim in (when the tide was in), but shallow enough that even Stephie (who was only 4) could paddle safely without fear of the crashing waves. Being me, a favourite challenge was to swim through the gap in the rocks, which I did many times. Only once did I get caught – the tide was going out rapidly and a bunch of local lads were daring each other to attempt it, but they were all too scared. With my “I’ll show you English courage” head on, I stalked past them and swam through. It was a tad choppy, and when I emerged, both knees were bleeding from being dashed against the rocks. Still have the scars today, but in retrospect, there’s nothing funny or clever about a 40-yr-old woman dripping blood all over the beach.

The Picos Mountains (Parque Nacional de los Picos de Europa)
The Picos de Europa National Park is a stunning limestone mountain range in northern Spain, spanning Asturias, Cantabria, and León, known for dramatic peaks, deep gorges, rich biodiversity, and historic villages. Wildlife includes the Cantabrian chamois (mountain goat), brown bear, Iberian wolf, bearded vulture and golden eagle. We took a cable car (Funicular) up to Fuente Dé where we took a short stroll amid the relentlessly grey rocks.
I suspect this may have been what started Steph’s love of mountains – she’s scaled Cadair Idris in Wales many times and I’m sure the rockies were one of the main reasons for her moving to Canada.


A salutary tale of bad prawns, a dog and a cow skull.
In 2000, we hired a villa in Collera, just outside Ribadesella, and it was all looking good until we had a meal in a restaurant on the first day. It was quite posh, and they welcomed us with a complementary dish of prawns. The kids didn’t fancy any, so Bri and I polished them off. I can’t remember what else we ate, but by the time we left, I was chucking it up in the street outside. Bri got sick the following day, but when we tried to get out to buy some medicine, the trusty Volvo refused to start. For three whole days, we couldn’t keep any food down and had no way of contacting the RAC – mobile phones had not yet entered our psyche. Although only 11, 10 and 7, the kids managed to look after themselves because we had no chance of doing anything approaching that, as we existed on chicken noodle soup and they munched through whatever we’d bought on the first day. They had a lot of fun with the neighbour’s huge black hound called Nello, whose favourite plaything was a massive cow’s skull.
It all came good in the end – we managed to borrow a neighbour’s phone, get the car fixed and drive into town to get some Imodium and supplies. Thankfully, the car managed to hold it together all the way back to Coventry. However that October, in the Loire valley it threw another wobble and the headlights went so we couldn’t eat out in the evenings. By the next year, Bri bought his first Landrover Discovery, complete with a DVD player so the kids could watch movies on the long journeys. We thought it was so-oo space-age.

Hot or What? - Southern France

So many of our holidays began on Brittany ferries, and we spent many a happy hour playing cards in the Commodore Lounge, having sussed early on what a different experience you could have by paying a little extra. I love this first photo, showing how protective Chris was of Jo.

Lake District
The one and only time we stayed in Limousin (somewhere between Limoges and Clermont-Ferrand if memory serves), I remember it being perpetually muggy and close. Although totally land-locked, we did visit the beach of a huge lake and hired pedalos.

Atlantic Coast
1991 saw us near Biarritz, and my enduring memory is of the sand dunes at Arcachon.
One of our first holidays with a pool was somewhat further north near Royan in 1992 with 2-year-old Jo looking cute as a button, and a handsome Chris shortly before his 4th birthday.

Mediterranean Coast
In 1993, 4 & 5, we took the 24-hour ferry cruise to North Spain (Santander), then took a few days to travel across to a gite in the region of Var, spending a week there before driving up to Paris (in a day) to stay in a Disneyland hotel and visit the park.
We have several videos of Jo singing "Look at this stuff," from the Little Mermaid, and the crocodile was an essential pool/beach toy.
The gite in Flayosc was memorable for Stephie's first steps, and the bottom right photo is hanging up in our hall - one of my favourites ever.

Lourdes
This place was something else - we found a cool hotel with a family room for all five of us and a balcony overlooking the town, which although choc-a-block full of tacky souvenir shops, had a certain charm. At least once we visited the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, staying for a mass and doing the whole tourist bit of queueing to walk past the grotto.
But the take home for me was the amazing water - each time we brought more containers. Over five years later, we found a bottle buried in the spare wheel compartment, and the water was still as cool and clear as when we collected it. Truly magical!

Al-fresco dining
One of the joys of self-catering holidays was siting down to dinner in the outside dining area provided by almost all of the French Gites and Spanish Villas. We would go to town with exotic meals and we have many photos of us sitting down to lavish meals.
Another Gray custom was wherever we stayed we’d have a bowl of fresh fruit – quite often purloined from the one provided in the commodore cabin.

Hot or What? - Mid-France

Loire Valley

We spent many October half-terms in gites in the Loire valley when the kids were growing up, and it's the place I hanker after most when our ability to travel is restricted. Unfortunately, I didn't keep detailed records of all the places we visited, but a quick tot up says there were at least a dozen, one of which was in the grounds of a small Chateau. I have vivid memories of many fabulous holiday homes with exposed beams, log fires, and semi-wild gardens. I would always find a circuit for a daily jog of at least a couple of miles, and quite often there was a local farm shop where we could buy fresh eggs, milk and cheese to accompany our favourite dish: tarte aux champignons.

We must have visited over a dozen chateaux, including the ones which feature in many of the top lists, i.e. Chenonceau, Chambord, Azay-le-Rideau, Villandry and Ussé. Saumur Gets a special mention, because it's twinned with Warwick, where I spent a decade in a house whose garden backed on to the castle grounds. One of the most memorable sheets was in a small town called Pallau-sur-indre, and we booked the same place in 2007 and 8. In particular, at the bottom of the garden was a small cave, which linked up with a network of caves which ram underneath the castle. The first time we went we were not really equipped to explore too far, so on the second time we made sure we had powerful torches. Despite the numbers painted on the walls in various different colours, it was extremely Easy to get lost and the girls stayed outside, anxiously waiting for us to return.

The most recent trip was October 2019, staying just outside Angers, where we celebrated my 60th birthday: We visited the Caves Grenelle at Saumur for a wonderful guided tour and wine sampling. The moment we parked the car, the heavens opened with torrential rain oh biblical proportions bouncing off the courtyard so we were soaked by the time we reached the lobby. However by the time we had to go outside, it had stopped. We were so impressed, we bought home two cases of their wines, including several sparkling reds. Now we're able to travel again this is my first destination to stock up on some more.

Green Venice
Many of the villages we've stayed, particularly in France, are situated on a river. Bri’s always had a fascination with boats and has piloted every type you can imagine from pedalos & punts to swanky speed boats. So in 1998, when we stayed near la Rochelle, we had several trips out in boats, as you can see from the pix. The top left shows one of the daily practices which soon became a tradition - a stroll to the boulangerie for the daily baguette.


Oradour-sur-Glane

I have mixed feelings about recommending this place, it's possibly one of the most harrowing experiences, and the atmosphere hits you as soon as you step out of the car. In a cruel and heartless retribution, four days after D-day, a 200-strong panzer division rounded up all the women and children in this village in the church, and all the men in barns and sheds. The soldiers set fire to every single building in the place, and those attempting to escape were machine-gunned.
The entire village has been preserved as a monument to the 642 people who died - definitely not for the faint hearted. Most moving for me was the lone vehicle believed to be the doctor’s car. He had arrived back in Oradour from visiting a patient whilst the round-up of the villagers was taking place. He parked his car and joined his father, the mayor, in waiting to see what was going to happen. This view is one of the best known of all the images of Oradour, symbolising as it does, a frozen instant of time.

Hot or What? – Northern France

Brittany

My first experience of France, was a family trip to Brittany in summer after finishing my a levels. Grateful to discover I had reasonably good sea legs on the ferry, I joined in with fascination as we discovered warm seas, stunning sights and scrummy crepes. I was particularly taken with the fortified island in Concarneau and the standing stones at Carnac. One of my takeaways, however, involved a British couple on the ferry home who declared their loathing of the French pancakes, calling them creepies. Nowt as queer as folk!

So with a toddler and a six-month-old, hubby and I ventured back to Brittany, staying in a fabulous gite with a pool table, which we returned to one year later. We were truly bitten by the explorer bug, but one of our excursions, seeking a place known as Merlin's Tomb in Paimpont forest, our trusty Volvo ended up in a ditch. Both being engineers, we returned To the site and borrowed enough logs (conveniently lying around), to lift the tyre out of a ditch. On returning them, we gave copious thanks to Merlin - it truly was a magical experience.


Normandy

We enjoyed our first trip, in October 2000, so much, we returned three more times in that decade. We also popped over to Caen in November 2017 for my daughter's birthday - she was working in Paris at the time. The big pulls for us were the Bayeux tapestry, the Normandy landing beaches, and the jewel in the crown: the Mont St Michel. There’s something truly magical about the narrow, cobbled streets which wend their way around the island up to the abbey of Saint Michael at the summit. It seems every square inch of the island is devoted to tourism, with wall-to-wall hotels, restaurants, cafes and souvenir shops. We returned there several times, the most recent included a two-night stay in La Mere Poulard to celebrate my 60th birthday.

That visit coincided with the 80th anniversary of the start WWII, so there were a stack of related events, around the patch.

The previous year (2018) was the 100th anniversary of end WWI, so I organised a trip for Dad and I to visit a bunch of salient sites, including a trip following the Somme for dozens of miles. We toured several war memorials and museums, including the Wellington tunnels at Arras – well worth a visit.

But even more memorable for me were the tunnels at Bouzincourt – we were lucky to get a private viewing and, without all the safety features, it was much closer to the experience the men would have had.