La Coruna: Episode 2!
La Coruna, Spain
We got some advice from clubmotorhome.co.uk that we could park up near the Hercules Lighthouse, close to the centre of town, so we’ve upsticks and moved a few km to here. It’s a much nicer spot, although we are parked up next to the world’s oldest campervan (see photo – it has plant pots on the roof and a stash of old wood under it – the bloke seems to be nice enough and rated the town as ‘very good’ on the basis the police haven’t shifted him on and there are toilets nearby).
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=43.38348,-8.40251
The weather is: overcast. The rain’s held off, but the wind’s making up for it!
Today’s experiences:
- Drove through La Coruna again. It’s like playing Frogger in a motorhome. No-one likes traffic wardens much but they don’t seem to have any here and I don’t like the result (see photo – these guys just park anywhere).
- Attempted to get Dave into Ikea La Coruna for Ju to buy some Xmas lights for the van. No chance, height restrictions all over the place; narrowly avoided some very long reversing menoeuvres. Managed to find somewhere to wait though so we have lights for the windows!
- Watched a Long Way Round episode to keep me inspired. Worked a treat, I’m up for anything now. Ju also took a picture of my beard, which is looking more Ned Flanders than Ewan McGreggor…
- Last but not least, we had the choice between paying a few euros and seeing inside the last remaining working Roman lighthouse a few hundred meters from our kipping spot, or having 20 minutes to play on rented segways. See video for result of our decision: youtube.
One thing I’ve noted over the past few weeks: it’s easy to be swayed by reading a single sentence of opinion on a place or country. Spain? You’ll get robbed, the roads are bad, there’s nowhere to stay. In my view, these are just generalisations and you need to see a place for yourself to really get a feel for it. Having said that, Galacia is a bit pants, don’t bother coming here (I know, I know, this is said partly tongue in cheek). The towns we’ve visited had the feel that they’d attempted a facelift but given up halfway through and the weather is grim: what’s to like?
Our thoughts are now turning to finding a campsite; our laundry cupboard cum shoe and wine storage spot is filling up rapidly. Catherine at www.theworldisourlobster.com is ever helpful and has given us info on a place down the coast which is still open at Louro. She’s also pointed out Cabo Fisterra as ‘an awesome spot’ so we’ll go on the way.
Cheers everyone, Jason
Couple of web problems I think – vid of Segways got a 404 and this comment box came up in the tiniest if fonts so as to be almost invisible…
Now for the post Caruna 2!
Excellent read as always – it’s my regular morning treat. I had the thought this morning that I could set out driving and be with you in two days… I might nip down for a weekend visit (yeah right)
You say they park anywhere… You say there are height restrictions… You say (elsewhere) that you are a hardened traveller now… Come on! Man-up and just stop outside the shop you want and walk away.. :D :D
Re the Long Way Round – the series was great (although a little too much of the ‘blub blub I miss my kids’ for my liking) but the episode you watched I believe, is the one where they are moaning because they are having trouble getting free bikes… They should remember that some of us have to save up and put all our hard-earned into it!
TTFN
Roger
p.s. Loving the maths tests – but some of them might actually be a bit tricky for non-IT people: “8*null=?” – do non-geeks know what null is in this context? And being a geek myself I feel that I have to point out that I entered zero as the answer and it worked… Poor effort guys – everybody knows that null times anything is null…
;-)
Great to hear from you Rog. Thanks for the info on web stuff not working, I’ll try and fix it. The stuff hanging up was a huge selection of hams. I saw a shop assistant sliding a small wooden stick into one for a punter to sniff; you must be able to tell how ripe they are? As for the parking, let’s just say I’m getting less British by the day mate. Yeah, come on down and see us, we can put you up in the guest wing (you’d have to share with Charlie). We’re heading off south, into Portugal within a week I think. Looking forward to it as we hear it’s cheap! I’ve no idea why the coder’s used null btw? Hope you’re well fella, Jay
Got wearily out of bed in my Hannover hotel yesterday, wandered to the office, plugged in, connected to your blog and got a huge close-up of Jay’s face. Scary stuff first thing in the morning. Perhaps you could add warnings at the top of the page if there’s going to be ‘content of a dubious nature’ ;-) It shocked me so much I couldn’t bring myself to leave a comment until now.
Btw – it’s gloriously sunny here; just like summer. Well, okay, perhaps not.
Hey! Close ups of my face should be a ‘premium’ feature! Glad to hear the old Hannover hotels are still being kept in business by E.ON. I’ve still not found that necklace, but I’ll keep looking. Cheers, Jay