Crossing Spain in a Motorhome – Nerja to Santander

This week we’ve started our journey home back to the UK after spending the winter at a campsite in Nerja, Andalusia. On our first motorhome tour crossing Spain in a motorhome took ages, but on our last few trips we’ve trimmed that down to just a few days. It’s only been three days since we left the campsite, but already it feels a long time ago.

Why are we going home?

We’ve had people getting in touch asking why we are going home. Why not stay out longer in the sunshine? As part of Brexit us Brits are now only entitled to spend 90 days in a rolling 180 in the Schengen zone (which is pretty much most of Europe, except some countries in the Balkans). This legislation is not new and has been enforced for travellers from outside of the EU for several years. However, what we don’t know is how strictly the border forces will be enforcing it, and what penalties will be given to first time offenders. We’d rather not find out.

There are countries outside the Schengen zone that we could go to and in normal times we probably would have hopped on a ferry over to Morocco and spent a few months there before re-entering the Schengen zone. However, due to the pandemic the border between Spain and Morocco is closed to anything other than freight traffic. We’ve had folks suggest that instead of coming home, we could drive over to Croatia, Bulgaria etc as they aren’t part of Schengen, and we know that some motorhomers have done this. However, this is where things start to get a little tricky. In Spain the borders between the autonomous communities are closed, you aren’t allowed to cross between them unless you have a valid reason (work, education, appointments with government officials, returning to your place of habitual residence etc). So, we’re OK to drive across Spain to get the ferry home, but are on dodgy ground driving across Spain to go to Croatia. We haven’t been stopped on our drive across Spain, but we did spot a police roadblock on a roundabout coming off the motorway near Santander. From what we understand several other countries are doing checks at the border and you are only allowed to enter if you can prove you are transiting to return home. Covid tests are also required to enter some countries and lockdowns can spring up at any moment trapping you in a country, region or even a town or city. I read a report this week from a motorhomer who was travelling back to the UK from Greece, they ended up paying quite a lot for several covid tests to cross Europe.

If I’m being honest, I am finding travelling in a pandemic to be stressful, and from talking to fellow motorhomers returning home, I don’t think I’m the only one. With things changing so rapidly, I feel obliged to constantly check news sites for where we are, and where we are going to ensure we don’t break any rules, but the constant scaremongering news feeds just crank up the anxiety. According to the Spanish news around 40,000 extra troops will be on the roads from Monday to stop people travelling for Easter, fortunately we’re crossing the country a couple of days before they are deployed, but just reading that had me hunting out evidence of where we had stayed, and for how long, and getting a print out of our ferry booking. I’m not naïve, after once featuring in the Daily Mail we soon discovered that the papers need to write articles that sell, and if that means ‘enhancing’ the truth a little, then so be it. The other week when we were trying to book our ferry home, the UK press was screaming that Spain would be added to the UK red list in days, needless to say it didn’t, but the thought was planted which ended up costing us a few quid in rearranged ferries. Each of these ‘sources suggest’ stories which are written as fact cranks up my stress levels and I can’t stop reading them because it’s just not in my nature to breeze through places oblivious to the rules. Friends of ours once pointed out that we Brits are the only nation to park somewhere, then get out and look for a sign to tell us we can’t park there – I don’t entirely agree, but there is some truth in it.

Back in the UK it is starting to look like there is light at the end of the long, dark Covid tunnel. Restrictions are starting to ease, so once we are out of quarantine we’ll be able to go and see our families, albeit only in their gardens for now, but that is a huge step forward. If we had stayed at home all winter, we wouldn’t have been able to visit them apart from possibly on Christmas day (and then only one set of parents), so it’s not like we have missed out by being away (we’ve made a lot of use of WhatsApp video calls to see them frequently that way instead). Our parents have all had their first vaccine doses, as has Jay’s sister and my nephews. My brother and his wife are booked in for theirs and while we might not get ours as soon as we get back, it won’t be long after we get out of quarantine. Once our parents have had their second dose, visiting them will feel much less stressful as we know that they will have some protection if we happen to be asymptomatic carriers.

So, we’re heading home. Home to see our families and friends, home for our vaccine and probably home for the rest of the year, because if the rules around tests and quarantine for travel abroad remain the same, the idea of coming back out is not looking inviting at the moment (for us personally).

Crossing Spain in a Motorhome

Our drive from Nerja in Andalusia to Santander in Cantabria, Spain has seen us covering 992kms. On our drive from Santander to Nerja back in October, we did it just two days – covid rates in Spain were on the increase and the autonomous communities were closing their borders so we were racing to get in before they shut. We allowed a bit longer for our return, having learned our lesson from a few years ago when we hung around in Spain enjoying the good weather before making a dash across France. We broke down just outside Chartres and had to be recovered and put up in a hotel while Zagan was repaired. We only just made our ride across the channel (which was a relief as we book the cheapest unchangable tickets!). In order to avoid that sort of stressful situation again we left the campsite a week before our ferry departs.

Day One – Nerja to Puerto Lapice

The first day was just over four hours of driving with a couple of stops for fuel. Jay had already researched the cheapest fuel stops on our route using the free gasall app which we’ve found to save us around €5 – €10 per fill up depending on if you are comparing to motorway or other local station prices, either way it’s worth the short diversions. Not long after our first fuel stop in Nerja (€1.068 per litre for diesel) we were following a lorry on the autovia. On entering a tunnel we both saw a cloud of dust from the back of the lorry, from which two fist-sized rocks emerged. There was nowhere to go, the first clattered around under Zagan, the second hit us on the front with quite a thump. At the next junction we pulled off the motorway and I jumped out to check for damage. I couldn’t see under the van as we were parked on the slip-road, but the rock that had hit us on the front had fortunately only scratched the paintwork down to the metal. If we had been in a car, the impact would have been on the windscreen at passenger head height.

Our first overnight stop was in Puerto Lapice (N39.32646, W3.48343), Don Quixote country. This had been our only stop on our journey south in October and at the time we managed a walk up to the three windmills overlooking the town, but didn’t make it into the town (which was all of a couple of hundred metres away).

This time Jay went out for a run to the windmills and beyond, and I met him in town for a look around. The name of Puerto Lapice is mentioned four times in the novel Don Quixote, and the town will not let you forget it. There are silhouettes of the Don and Sancho everywhere, as well as a metal sculpture of Cervantes writing his masterpiece. We even stumbled upon a souvenir shop that looked like someone had ‘thrown up’ Don Quixote’ all over it, as well as a faux windmill, it had several metal statues of him as well as being covered in amazing tile artwork.

When we got back we checked underneath Zagan for signs of rock damage or anything leaking. We couldn’t find anything, but were very much surprised to find our exhaust had snapped in two! We hadn’t noticed any additional noise or loss of performance, but we have driven across half of Europe with one empty front shock absorber before and not noticed that either, we must be too busy admiring the scenery.

Jay set to work and a short while later he’d created a temporary fix with a sweetcorn can and some wire. More British motorhomes arrived at the aire, all from our campsite in Nerja. The three of them were travelling as a group, but unfortunately only two had made it so far – the third van’s car trailer having suffered two punctures about 30 miles out of Nerja. That night as I made the tea I stood looking at the hob wondering what was wrong, the water for the sweetcorn wasn’t getting hot, then I realised I needed to light it – it’s been months since I had cooked with the gas hob, it looks like I have forgotten how to motorhome.

Day Two – Puerto Lapice to Herrera de Pisuerga

The following morning the missing motorhome was in the aire, they’d arrived some time in the night after curfew. I can’t begin to imagine how stressful that journey must have been. It made our rocks and broken exhaust seem like nothing. Jay ran the tap to fill the kettle but no water came out, it turns out that we aren’t on the warm coast any more and the temperature overnight had dropped significantly causing our boiler to dump the water to avoid freezing. It hadn’t felt that cold, so we hadn’t put the heating on, so it’s not just me that has forgotten how to do this motorhoming malarky. After saying goodbye to our fellow campsite vanners, including Dennis who’s been travelling for 35 years and had some amazing anecdotes, we set off at 9am knowing today would be the longest drive.

It took us five hours to reach Herrera de Pisuerga, with just a few arguments with satnav who (once again) tried to take us through the middle of Madrid. We arrived in the town to dark black clouds, but luckily the rain held off to give us a chance for a quick look around the town, or should I say City, as this small place was granted city status in 1902. Herrera is was known for its Crab Festival, however a plague of the native crab wiped them out, so we’re not sure if the festival still takes place – but you can see images of the river crabs (which look like crayfish) displayed all over the town, there’s even a statue of one on a rock as you enter the town.

We are making a point of continuing to avoid contact with people while we travel across Spain, as are all the other travellers we meet. Any conversations are short, done in masks and from a distance. We had the place to ourselves as we went sight seeing around Herrera though. As we wandered around we joked at how in the past we always manage to visit places at ‘locked o’clock’ (especially now that shops are able to stay open beyond 6pm, they are back to having a siesta for a few hours over lunch). From now on we’ll be able to call it anti-covid time. Sadly though seeing places devoid of people can make them look quite tired and run down, which Herrera de Pisuerga did to us.

The free aire (N42.58983, W4.33275) is by the river that was once filled with the crabs, and is next to a closed down campsite. We’re not sure if the campsite closed due to the loss of the river crabs, but it was now serving a purpose of somewhere for the local teenagers to meet, play music and have a few drinks. As the sun set the air cooled, but that didn’t deter them, it was probably only curfew that saved us from a sleepless night as they all disappeared by 10pm. We remembered to put the heating on this time, which was a good job because not only were we inland, but we were now 800m up in altitude, so the temperature got close to freezing overnight.

Day Three – Herrera de Pisuerga to Cabárceno

We had planned to stay at Herrera de Pisuerga for a couple of nights, but the teenage antics put us off risking a Saturday night there. Instead we drove 127 kilometres to the free aire at Cabárceno (N43.358583, W3.818676). This is where we stopped when we got off the ferry back in October, so it’s a fitting place to round off this trip. We’re about 30 minutes from Santander and will head there on Monday morning for our covid tests.

After arriving we went for a walk to see if we could see any of the elephants in the park next to us, we hadn’t gone more than 100m from Zagan when we spotted our first one, it seems they were all out on our side of the park to say hello (they’re in a huge enclosure maybe a mile long, so are sometimes dots in the distance). One day we’ll cough up the €30 each to take the ride around the park on the cable cars, but for now we were happy to get up close to Nelly and friends for a few minutes before retreating back to the van.

As I was typing this we had a visit from Martin and Ann who had just arrived here too, we first met them on a campsite in Croatia in 2016 and then spotted them cycling through a street in Morocco in 2017 and joined them for an evening drink. This time we only had a short chat with Martin as we’re all trying to keep away from folks, asking them about the epic events in Morocco last year which saw a five mile queue of motorhomes waiting in vain outside the closed Spanish border at Cueta. However they are on the same ferry as us, so we might get chance to catch up with them once we’ve all had our covid test results to get us on the ferry.

In our drive across the country we didn’t get stopped and asked why we were travelling. We did spot a police roadblock stopping people coming off the motorway close to Santander, but because we have come to the elephant park we missed it. Across all of Spain traffic was light, and even around Madrid it was no worse than the M1 on a normal day (although that was a shock to the system!). There are plenty of Spanish motorhomes knocking about in the aires, I guess they’re all ‘stuck’ in their home regions but are getting out and about as much as possible, enjoying the spring weather.

In all it has taken us around 10 hours of driving to cross Spain in our motorhome, we could have stopped more often, but we weren’t sure how hard it would be to travel in these strange times, and were keen to get up here and relax a little before crossing the Bay of Biscay.

Ju x