Ferry to Spain, Portsmouth to Santander and Beyond
I know, I know! When we took the ferry to Spain (Portsmouth to Santander) at the start of 2020 we had such a bad crossing I said ‘never again’. But, in my defence, that was before the world was turned upside down by Covid-19. Sitting at home and looking through all the options, getting the stomach churner felt like the safest way to reach Spain. Let’s face it, I wouldn’t be leaving our cabin or interacting with anyone. So, in a rash moment of bravery or foolishness we booked it before I had chance to change my mind. After a few relaxing days on Hayling Island, we made the half hour trip to the ferry port. Armed with seasickness tablets, wrist bands, a packet of ginger biscuits and a cabin in the middle of the ship I felt sick with nerves, but I knew I could do this!
Brittany Ferries had provided us with a list of things to do in order to keep everyone safe on the ferry. One of these was to wear a mask (not a scarf or bandana) at all times when in public areas on the ferry, at the port and at check in. We donned our masks as we reached the front of the queue, only to remove them a couple of minutes later so the lady could check our faces matched our passports, having a bit of a laugh with the immigration lady and lightening the mood. I wonder if maybe we should tippex a mask onto a our passport photos to make life easier?
We were given more safety instructions, and offered a copy of the Passenger Locator Form that you need to fill in to enter Spain, so don’t worry if you haven’t had chance to print one out before you arrive. We were very pleased to see that we weren’t the only motorhomes and campers making the crossing, there were around 15 on board. Each vehicle was given a coloured sticker which identified which area your cabin was on the boat, so when we boarded we were able to go to our cabin without bumping into anyone else. As soon as we got into the cabin I pulled out the hand sanitiser and anti-bacterial wipes, the cabin was spotlessly clean, but for my own peace of mind everything got a thorough wipe over, including all light switches, door handles and heating controller. We were asked to remain in our cabins as much as possible, so when I did venture outside to see Portsmouth as we left, the ship was eerily quiet.
The crossing this time was much smoother. I avoided reading and anything else that might make me feel queasy, opting to put on my PJ’s at 6pm (which isn’t normal behaviour and felt like a treat) and climbed into bed where I listened to an audio book I had downloaded onto my phone to help pass the hours. I slept surprisingly well, but in the early morning things did start to get choppy. I felt on the edge of sea sickness, not actually feeling sick but still not feeling right. Luckily it only lasted for a few hours by which point it was daylight and I could look out and watch the horizon again. Jay went for a wander around the boat a few times, finding it almost devoid of people except on the deck with the restaurants where there were a few people, one of whom was embarrassed he’d forgotten to put his mask on and had been reminded by the crew he needed one.
As we entered the port area in Santander we were asked to leave our cabins and wait to be called to the car decks. Announcements again reminded everyone they should be wearing masks and keeping a safe distance apart – which in Spain is 1.5 metres and 2m in the UK, but the ship was on British time, in a Spanish port and is a French boat. To avoid any confusion we found an empty area of the deck and waited there. There were a group of British fellas further down the deck who didn’t want to obey the mask rule, one was even wearing on the back of his head. I think they might be in for a bit of a financial shock if they do that in Spain as on the spot fines are issued by the police.
Before we had docked the first passengers were called to their cars, and almost as slowly as the ship nudged sideways into the dock the decks emptied. We finally drove off a little over an hour later as we’d been squeezed into an area where lorries were having to reverse to get out. As we waited staff came round to collect our Passenger Locator Forms and take our temperature. The thermometer was pointed at our foreheads and beeped, the chap nodded and we were allowed to go – we’d made it! Would I get the ferry to Spain again? Yes, after this experience I think I would as it not only was a better crossing, but we felt safe on board too with extra the measures in place.
As we left the port we decided to avoid the free aire in Santander as it’s always popular and it was Saturday night. We headed a little way south to the free aire at Parque Cabarceno, a place we also call the elephant aire (N43.35888, W3.81854). We first visited here back in 2011 after we’d just had a tyre blow out on us on the motorway in Spain. It was a frightening experience that ended well as we made two life long friends in Chris and Tina, who came to our rescue with a cooked chicken dinner and a ride in their motorhome to Santander while our van was being repaired. We really didn’t know what to expect when we arrived this time, so we were pleasantly surprised to find several Spanish motorhomes with families sitting at tables and chairs outside their vans, all wearing masks, while the kids ran around playing. There was also a couple of British motorhomes that had clearly got off the ferry before us (they still had their cabin stickers on the windscreen).
We were both tired from the crossing, even though I must have slept for 70% of it, so after a wander over to see the elephants in the wildlife park (which you can’t do quite so easily now as a fence has been built since we were last there) we had a bite to eat and started to plan our trip across Spain. Checking the map which shows Covid-19 restriction in Spain (you can click on each region to find out what restrictions are in place there – with the help of Google Translate), it had changed quite a lot from when we last looked before we boarded the ferry just over 24 hours earlier. A lot more areas were now marked as having restrictions, some of which effectively closed the border to that area unless you had a good reason to cross it. We did a quick rework of our plans and agreed to cross Spain in two days, so we headed to bed early. That night Spain tried to make us feel at home by battering Zagan’s roof with rain and blasting him with wind that you could hear coming. Ear plugs went in and we slept like logs.
The next morning we had no idea what time it was. When we got off the ferry some things automatically changed to Spanish time – mobile phones, satnav etc. Overnight the clocks changed to mark the end of British Summer Time, so some moved again, but others didn’t. In the end we had three time zones in the van and weren’t entirely sure which was right (Google told us the answer in the end). While it didn’t really matter as the plan for today was to just drive, it did remind us of the time we crossed from Spain to Portugal and went several days without realising it was on a different time zone!
We filled up with diesel at 9.30am (thanks to the receipt we now had the time) and set off on the motorway south towards Madrid. Just north of Madrid we stopped for fuel again because we top up when we see it cheap nearby on the gasall app (Spain only), rather than when we are running low, and in Spain it is cheap – the best price we got was €0.898 a litre (about 82p a litre). The attendant made several attempts to fill to the nearest Euro, going over by one cent each time (does it matter these days when paying with a card?), Jay had to stop him as fuel started to come back out of the filler hole. Then after a quick bite to eat, we were off again.
All the way from the top of the country the motorway signs flashed to tell us that the border with Africa is closed to all but freight, we hadn’t heard this mentioned anywhere, so it’s a good job we weren’t heading for Morocco on this trip. We took the M50 around Madrid as we didn’t know if we could follow satnav’s optimistic ‘fastest route’ through the middle of the city – she doesn’t know about the pandemic and is oblivious to emissions zones too. Around 600 kilometres, several hours and many editions of ‘desert island discs’ later we arrived in Puerto Lapice (N39.32636, W3.48356). Deep in Don Quixote country, the free aire was looked over by three windmills on a hill. To stretch our legs we climbed up and enjoyed the views before heading back to Zagan. We’ll have to visit and explore the area another time when we’re not in such a rush.
We’ve gone from checking the UK news sites all the time to find out if Nottingham has gone into Tier 3, to checking the Spanish sites as the President was due to make an announcement that evening. As was widely expected, Spain is now in another ‘State of Alarm’, as it was when we raced home in March. We had messages from blog readers advising us to turn around, but we had made the decision to do this trip knowing this might happen. The area we are heading to has much lower infection rates than where we had come from in Nottingham, and with both sets of parents OK back home, we now know we have time to sit out whatever this wave of virus may bring. Each region now has the power to implement night time curfews (Andalusia has gone for 11pm to 6.00am – which won’t affect us much as we haven’t been out that late in years!) and restrict travel between regions. That hadn’t happened in Andalusia yet, and we were on a mission to get there before it did.
Setting off at 9am on Monday there was noticeably more traffic on the roads, and a noise, a strange noise, coming from one of the wheels. It sounded a bit like when the wheel bearing has gone in the past, and it was coming from the same wheel. We sat in stony silence listening to it, then turned up the radio to bury our heads in the noise. We fake cheered as we passed little milestones ‘only 200km to go’ to try to keep positive, then breathed a huge sigh of relief when we crossed into Andalusia. At Jaen we pulled into a supermarket car park and Jay took a look at the offending wheel, but couldn’t see anything wrong. It wasn’t hot, the tread wasn’t worn in one place and there was little else to do but get back on the road. The countdowns continued ‘one hour to go’, as the majestic snow-capped peaks of the Sierra Navada greeted us.
We reached the end of the motorway south and turned right, finally pulling into Nerja 932 kilometres since that first fuel fill near Santander. We stopped off at Lidl for a quick stock up before heading to our home for the next month or so at the Aula de Naturaleza, Cortijo San Miguel (N36.74759, W3.89866). We were greeted by the owner May who apologised for having to take our temperatures. That test passed – which was surprising considering how hot and flustered I was on those last few miles – May took us through the latest regional guidelines and those for the campsite. Let’s just say it’s a good job I made a load of face masks before we left as we’ll be wearing them everywhere except on our pitch. We then picked a pitch for ourselves, nestled among banana, orange, fig and custard apple trees and parked up Zagan. Wheels chocked, handbrake off, camping chairs out, shorts on and relax – we’ve made it.
Ju x
Unable to find the puerto lapice free aire on google map
We usually stop over at Aranjuez on Santander to Nerja.
Yep, we were looking at using the ACSI campsite at Aranjuez but weren’t sure it if was open. We dropped them a line the night before but didn’t get an answer, and we were feeling OK so pushed on a little further. The aire at Peurto Lapice was busy, about 10 motorhomes in there, mostly Spanish. Saw you’ve found it now, the GPS for anyone else looking are:
Latitude 39.32636
Longitude -3.48356
Cheers, Jay
Managed to locate free aire at puerto lapice.
Hello JJ,
congratulations to arriving safely.This place will be a lot better than tier3 in Kimberly, even when it’s getting worse with Spanish lockdowns & weather.Enjoy & carpe diem Heide from Herne
Thanks Heide, we’re surrounded by fruit trees and mountain views is so uplifting, and the sunshine doesn’t do any harm! Sending love and luck, Jay
So glad you made it have a wonderful time
Thanks Moira, much appreciated, Jay
Well done to have left England and through Spain before we go back to lockdown here which may be as soon as tomorrow but almost certainly sometime this week. Enjoy. Very envious.
Hi, I must admit to being very envious.
I did the race back from Spain in March like many others, I wanted to sit it out but all the sites were ordered to close so forced my hand. What makes you think they won’t close the sites again when they ramp up the lockdowns etc?
Regards
Dave
Good question Dave, we don’t know, we’ll just have to wait and see. Cheers, Jay
Great read, thanks. Enjoy Spain!
Had a chuckle. :-) I guess you meant the latter?
Kahuna, plural Kahunas (in Hawaii) a wise man or shaman.
Cajones (in Spanish) – 1. The testicles. 2. Boldness or courage.
Strange reading your blog as that sounds just like us!! Except we travelled to Bilbao on the 21st October after stressing whether we were doing the right thing… or I was anyway, John just wanted the sun 🙄.
We treated ourselves to an outside cabin as John was so ill last time in the internal cabin – it was very enjoyable and a good sick free voyage😂 we also cleaned thoroughly before doing anything…
We are now travelling back up to catch the ferry from Bilbao after our 2 weeks.
We stocked the camper thoroughly and haven’t visited a shop of any kind at all and still plenty of food on board!!
We have visited Ronda, Algodonales, Caminito del Rey on campsites. Everyone very welcoming and we are having no trouble at all.
The roads are empty and we have just travelled through Seville and across the Andalusian border with no Guardia civil in sight for checks. Two police cars passed us but they were not interested.
Don’t believe the media reports, a lot of it is scaremongering nonsense…
Enjoy your time in the sun. Ann 😎☺️
Thanks Ann, sounds like you packed a ton into those 2 weeks, good for you guys! Safe travels home, Jay
hi, congrats on your journey!
we are planning to do the same trip on 30 November, except our destination would be Torrevieja and with a Nissan Micra.ha-ha
Do you have any advice regarding the drive or the restrictions between communidades? or just in general… (we are moving there so its only a one-way trip)
thank you
Hi Ursula
Sounds like you’ve a good trip planned there! If you use Facebook, the N332 group is worth keeping an eye on – it’s run by officials in their spare time, translating the latest COVID situation into English. As I understand it, at the moment it’s only (officially) possible to drive between most autonomous regions if you’re heading to your main home, or for work etc. We did the journey before these ‘border closures’ came into force, so we’re not sure how enforced they are. Probably best to keep an eye on N332 and see what they say, or see if you can find others who have done the same route closer to the time.
Good luck, happy travels, Jay
After some confusion over what time it was island hopping in the Caribbean a number of years ago my husband and I learned to pack an old fashioned not smart (dumb?) watch that we can set ourselves. In that part of the world cell service is not reliable and we got pretty confused on what time it was a number of times. I’m glad we aren’t the only ones who have been confused about what time it is while traveling! I’m happy you guys are back on the road while we (like a lot of the world) are seeing cases tick up here in the US all while waiting for election results (uggg). Enjoy your travels!
Cheers Martha, thank you. The whole world is waiting to see your election results I think – interesting times! Jay
I can only hope we get some news today…and a new president! Fingers crossed!!!