Santander to Portsmouth by Motorhome, March 2021

We’ve just arrived from Spain, using the ferry from Santander to bring our motorhome back to Portsmouth in the UK after spending the winter of 2020-2021 at Nerja in Andalusia. Our ten day home quarantine starts today, and Ju’s just on the phone to the track and trace people who’ve called to tell us we have to quarantine and have to take tests on days 2 and 8, which we know all about. This blog post runs through the past few days as we passed through the Spanish and UK border controls and made our way home to Nottingham in the UK. The first part was written while in Spain, the middle bit in the Bay of Biscay on the boat, and the latter part from Nottingham in the UK.

The Santander Aires

Santander has, I think, three official motorhome parking areas within walking or cycling distance to the centre, although they might all require a taxi if you don’t fancy a few miles of potentially hilly walking or cycling. There’s a paid aire by the marina which is a few miles out of the city, but has electricity, and another official place which is by the side of the road in an industrial area south of the city and gets pretty bad reviews. The aire we opted to use is in the north of the city (N43.472237, W3.802752), free of charge with space for 25 motorhomes. It faces a huge landscaped park (the Parque Atlántico de Las Llamas) and is, for us two, an easy walk to the nearest beach but a harder walk into the city itself. All the other parking areas nearby seem to have prohibitions against vehicles over 1.8 tonnes, so I was nervous the aire would be full when we arrived, especially as the ferry is full and lots of British motorhomes are heading home at the end of their 90-in-180 days Schengen allowance.

We were allowed to stay for 48 hours in the aire, so we drove up from Cabarceno mostly on pretty-much empty motorways and dual carriageways on Monday morning. Relieved to find the aire was only about half full with UK and Spanish registered-vans, we reversed into a spot and got settled in before heading over to the clinic for our antigen tests. Over the next 48 hours the aire filled up with UK-registered motorhomes, with just 2 or 3 Spanish vans in among us all.

Antigen COVID-19 Tests in Santander

To return to the UK at the moment we need negative antigen or PCR tests taken at most 72 hours before boarding our ferry home (or when it sets sail, not quite sure). The antigen tests are much cheaper and faster than PCRs, so everyone sailing seems to be getting antigens and not PCRs. With our ferry sailing at 5:30pm on Wednesday, that meant we could (in theory) get the tests on Sunday evening after 5:30pm, or from then at any point before boarding. There seems to be an even split among our fellow travellers, with some getting the tests done wherever they’ve been staying in Spain, and then doing a 2 or 3 day drive to get here in time for the ferry. The rest of us opted to get the tests in or near Santander, allowing for any mechanical or other mishaps delaying the journey north.

Ju did the research on the motorhome forums and got us booked into the Eurofins Megalab Medicantabria clinic in Santander, which charges €50 if you book direct, or only €40 if you book through Salud Savia, so we opted for the latter. As we hadn’t booked direct Ju also had to email the clinic to book an appointment, using Google Translate to write the text in Spanish (we really didn’t need to as they spoke perfect English), and they got back to us quickly with appointments for 12 midday on Monday. We were asked to bring the reference numbers from the Savia confirmation emails, but no-one told us we also had to download a PDF using those same emails, so there was a bit of a panic at the desk when we came to do the tests (they needed us to email the PDF to them while stood at the desk, which we did).

The clinic is on Calle Castilla and, thinking it might be hard to find, I’d eyeballed it on Google Maps before we arrived. I needn’t have bothered, it was well signposted and we arrived at 10:30am to find it was still closed, so we headed off for a walk and a sit along the dockside in the sun. Coming back just before 12 we found a queue outside, which took about 40 minutes to get through. The receptionists were a tad stressed, as it turned out they weren’t normally that busy but it was the start of Easter Weekand and some Spaniards wanted to travel home and needed PCR tests for that, plus there were a few other couples from motorhomes needing the tests for the ferry.

The test itself was a ‘stick up the nose’ job. A lass in full PPE carefully slid the swap stick an incredible distance up each nostril, until it hit the back of the nasal cavity and then slowly rotated it. It wasn’t painful, and is far more pleasant than the back-of-the-throat-gag-inducing alternative, but it made the eyes water! Some folks in the aire reported they got their tests done and results given a few minutes later at another clinic. We were asked to come back 2 hours later, so had a nervous wait. If either of us came back positive we’d need to isolate for 10 days in the van, which would mean we’d miss our ferry and the last opportunity to leave Spain before our Schengen allowance expired. The implications of this aren’t obvious. Spain has a reputation for not rigidly enforcing Schengen rules, although that might change now there are a lot of Brits subject to these rules. Also, if you’ve a good reason for being delayed, it sounds like you might not be penalised if you’d made every effort to leave on time.

We cheered ourselves along as best we could with a delicious meal, lamb chops for me, pork cheeks for Ju. Generally we eat less meat than we used to, but as this would be our last meal out for a while, we treated ourselves to what we fancied the most on the menu.

We’d been given a website to check our results as well as being able to go back to the clinic for printed copies, and after about 90 minutes my results came back. ‘No es detecta‘. What does that mean? It sounded good, but I wasn’t sure if it meant the test hadn’t worked or I was negative. Ju refused to download hers, and we headed back to the clinic feeling nervous but hopeful. Another, shorter wait outside and the receptionist confirmed we were both negative, and that the UK authorities would accept the certificate she printed off and handed to us.

I’ve been nervous about this test for weeks now, and in the final few days beforehand managed to induce some of the symptoms of COVID-19 in my head! I was very tired at times, unusual for me unless I’ve done a big 20+ mile run, although I think that was due to being tense driving north listening every minute for the high pitch whine of wheel bearings starting to fail. I even managed to develop a cough, although thinking back I coughed about once every 2 hours, so probably just my normal level of throat-clearing. Anyway, negative we were. Ju recorded a short video of the process and we filmed a bit showing us happy we’d got the paper in our hands and were free to go to the next stage in the process.

In-Quarantine Day 2 and Day 8 PCR Tests

While we’re in our 10 day (minimum) quarantine in the UK we need to complete two PCR tests each by law. We needed to order and pay for these before we could complete our Passenger Locator Forms, the final stage of paperwork, but we held off buying them until we’d got our negative results and would be able to get the ferry. The UK government has an approved list of providers, which seems to grow every day, and they charge a range of amounts, a bit odd for what is essentially the same service. Ju picked the cheapest ones at the time, costing us £160 each, from Expert Medicals. The tests arrived at home a day later, where our tenant received the delivery, so they’re already waiting for us. We’ve since noticed that Expert Medicals seem to have high numbers of negative reviews, sending test kits late, the wrong kits, taking 3 days to send results and closing over bank holidays, so you may want to consider using someone else!

Passenger Locator Forms

With the PCR tests booked we could complete the UK Government Passenger Locator forms once we were within the 48 hour window of arriving in the UK. We did these online, the only awkward bit was the fact we plan to stay in the car park at Port Solent in Portsmouth the evening we arrive back in the UK, so we had to add two locations and just write in a free text box that we were isolating in our motorhome for one night before doing the rest of the isolation at home in Nottingham. That doesn’t seem to have been an issue and no-one has commented on it. We saved the PDF of the forms onto our phones and didn’t need to print them off, we just handed the phones over when asked for them at the ferry check-in in Spain and at the border in the UK.

What’s Santander Like in March 2021

As of the end of March 2021, Santander is hot! We’ve been slowly freezing bottles of water in our van’s freezer these past few days so we can pop them into the fridge during the long crossing, when the gas has to be turned off. That was working well until I popped an almost full 2 litre bottle in there last night. Coupled with it being about 25 degrees that’s defrosted the fridge and the bottle hasn’t fully frozen. No surprise really, even the instructions for the fridge say the freezer compartment should only have pre-frozen food popped in it (we generally ignore this and it freezes our food no problem). Update: all the bottles fully froze so we had about 3 litres of ice in the fridge for the crossing, but it wasn’t enough and the fridge was warm when we returned to the van after the crossing.

Weather aside, the city is the busiest place I’ve seen in I don’t know how long. Restaurants are open with people mainly sat outside. The pavements are busy with walkers, cyclists and runners. The parks have folks doing weights, picnicking and kids playing. I passed a football pitch with two kids teams playing and maybe 30 or 40 parents stood, spread out, watching from the other side of the fences. The beach is the only place we’re allowed to walk without facemasks, although that rule changed on the day we left, so across the whole of Spain you now have to wear a facemask while on the beach, even when sunbathing – expect some unusual tan lines. At low tide the beach was huge and although there were lots of people walking along it, there was a ton of space. At high tide in the evening, beach volleyball nets were set up and we were treated to some pretty impressive skills (and some not so impressive skills, although still much better than either of us could manage).

Overall Santander feels pretty lively and seems to be getting on with life as best it can. I took a quick look at COVID cases in Europe yesterday and Cantabria was among the lowest level in Europe (as was the area of Andalusia we were in for the winter), so maybe I’m not getting a full picture of life in Spain at the moment.

Through Formalities onto the Ferry

We brimmed off Zagan’s diesel tank at a station near a large Carrefour at €1.03 a litre, which will be enough to get us home to Nottingham without needing to stop again. With time to kill Ju headed into the Carrefour, stocking up on sparkling wine and alcohol-free lager, both roughly half the price of the UK. At this point it was still only about 1:30pm and the ferry didn’t sail for another four hours, but we plugged the port into the satnav and headed over there anyway.

Access to the ferry is to the south of the point where the boat slides into place alongside the Santander harbour wall, look out for the faded white letters FERRY written across the exit from the Calle del Marques de la Hermida (the exit for the ferry is here: N43.454355, W3.817227). This brings you to a small unmanned booth and barriers which lift when you approach, giving you access to the port. From that point onwards just follow everyone else or wherever staff tell you to go. Before check-in a staff member walked along the queue asking to see our negative COVID-19 tests and Passenger Locator Forms. These were checked again at check-in, though they didn’t ask to see invoices for the tests as some previous travellers have reported experiencing. Through check-in we were directed into one of the lanes to wait, with several of the lanes already full, including two lanes of motorhomes and caravans. We saw Martin and Ann’s van and had a quick chat and recognised a few other UK-registered vans we’d seen in the aires or roads on the way north.

Throughout the trip north we’ve felt relief at each stage of the journey, Spain not being added to the UK’s red list, our ferry not being cancelled again, getting to Cabarceno without breaking down or having any issues with police stops, pulling into the aire at Santander and finding space to park before our COVID tests, getting the negative results of the tests, and then this stage of having passed through Spanish formalities. The sun was beating down at this point, raising the temperature to about 29C in the shade, and the main issue on my mind was at what point I should turn the gas (and subsequently the fridge) off and move the frozen water bottles from the freezer compartment to the fridge! We felt sorry for the poor folks sat in cars being slow-roasted for hours, especially the ones with dogs. To pass the time we cooked up a spot of lunch and were just eating it when a burley Spanish Guardia Civil knocked on the side of the van and asked to come in for a quick look around. No one has been in our van for months, so it was a good job it was fairly tidy. He was very polite, gloved and face-masked and only did a cursory look in the bathroom and wardrobe, we wondered if he’d let us off easy because we only had two dinner plates on the table.

At the first sign of anyone moving at the front of the many queues I got trigger-happy, turning the gas off roughly an hour before we moved an inch! Eventually we were routed through Spanish passport control who, in a new post-Brexit reality, scanned and then stamped our passports with the date we’d left the Schengen Area, having used up every last one of our 90 days. A few folks have asked what would have happened if we’d had a positive COVID test. The answer is we’d have had to self-isolate in the van for 10 days, for which we’d have needed to move aires to do, although we had enough food in the van to allow this. We’d miss our ferry of course, so would need to rebook and pay again, and then explain and possibly provide proof of what had happened at passport control if challenged for overstaying. At that point we’d be at the mercy of the Spanish border force but given the fact we could prove we’d tried in good faith to leave within our allowance, we might not be penalised at all. Thankfully we didn’t find out.

We waited again for maybe another hour before boarding, so the fridge went back onto gas for a while then we were ushered up the ramp into the boat and turned around so we were facing the exit ready to disembark (or so we thought, turns out the exit was behind us so we had to reverse and do a U turn before disembarking).

On the Brittany Ferries Galicia

The Galicia only went into service in 2020 so is a pretty new ship and feels it. We were given our cabin keys at check-in and made the mistake of popping them into our phone case, which immediately seemed to render them demagnetized and useless, so we couldn’t open the cabin door. Ju went off to get them re-coded, finding a queue of similar folks and frazzled staff who couldn’t get the machine to make new cards to work. Eventually Ju re-appeared with a member of staff who used a master key to let us in. No problem, Ju’s plan was to lie down and try to fend off the seasickness, so there was only going to be me outside anyway for a while (thankfully the crossing was incredibly smooth, so she didn’t suffer too much).

The cabin feels pretty plush, with four beds, three of which fold down from the walls. There’s a TV hooked up to the ship’s free video on demand service, with a good selection of films and some UK TV and radio channels. The TV schedule on ours doesn’t work, with every slot just reading ‘No Data’, but that’s not an issue for us. The shower is hot and unlimited, there are several USB and mains charging points (a mix of 2 and 3 pin), and just enough space for our bags.

Our ticket included an evening meal and continental breakfast, both of which proved to be very good. To spread people out passengers were allocated slots for the evening meal, and ours was after 8:30pm. The ship has French staff but works on UK time, so our watches, still on Spanish time read 9:45pm by the time we headed down to join the short queue. Ju was looking a tad peaky, although the sea was about as calm as the Bay of Biscay likely gets (and it’s stayed that way, we’ve had a great crossing). Everyone on board has to wear a facemask, and apart from the odd panicked forgetter, nose-show-er or folks eating and drinking in the restaurant (the bars are closed), all our faces are covered.

We opted to bring our trays back to our cabin and eat here, for a bit of added safety (and to enable us to store up a few uneaten pastries for lunch today!). We’ve not brought a dog on board, so can’t comment on facilities for them, although we have spotted an outdoor dog walking area. Finally, the boat has free and paid WiFi, both of which seem to be very slow listening to the folks moaning at reception and the French staff just nodding and saying ‘yes, it is slow, isn’t it’!

Disembarking and Staying Overnight in a Motorhome in Portsmouth

The staff kept us in our cabins until we were called by our sticker colours to walk straight down to the car deck and get back into the van, no waiting around in stairways with hundreds of others on this crossing. Down in the van we threw our bags in, checked the fridge (sadly warm) and then sat behind the wheel for half an hour before being disembarked and slotted onto the back of a huge queue of cars and vans. Just under two hours later we arrived at the UK customs and passport control booth about 200m from the boat, where the lady took our passports, proof of negative COVID-19 tests and checked our passenger locator forms again. She asked a few questions: how long have you been away? why are you coming home? do you have a house here? and so on, then quickly checked the lockers were all secure and waved us through. Happy days, another hurdle cleanly jumped!

We’d been expecting a long process to get off the boat and we were right. By the time we rolled into the Portsmouth night it was 9:20pm, although we got unlucky and were one of the last vans through. Rather than drive straight home, tired and with nowhere to park the van at the other end (our storage location closes overnight), we opted to head to the semi-official mixed parking at Port Solent, a 10 minute drive from the port (N50.840004, W1.098701). This is the parking area for a marina/shopping/cinema complex and the staff let motorhomes stay overnight if they call on arrival and register with security. We rolled in to find about 10 other vans were already there, but no cars as the complex is closed still. When Ju called the number she was told they couldn’t officially ‘take bookings’ and we might be moved on ‘as travellers had been reported in the area’, but otherwise we were welcome to stay. After a cuppa and a quick bite to eat, we hit the sack, tired and relieved, and got a good night’s sleep.

Up the A34, A43, M1 and Home

It’s Good Friday today and it’s been a great one for us. A 3.5 hour drive along fairly deserted roads brought us home where we’ve unloaded our bags, popped Zagan back into his storage spot (five months after he last left it), drained down the water system (there’s talk of snow), and ridden our bikes back here. Driving on the left, the suddenly cool weather, the lack of facemasks on people out and about should, perhaps, be a jarring experience. I guess after coming back here in November and flying back out again in December, we’ve switched between Spain and the UK a couple of times, on top of all the times we’ve been in and out of the UK pre-COVID, and it didn’t feel much of a shock. It’ll probably be a little uncomfortable for a while when we’re back out, people not having their faces covered unless they’re in a shop etc, but I suspect we’ll get used to that quickly enough. Ju had a text message on the way up here inviting her for her COVID-19 vaccine too, so it seems we’ll be able to get our first vaccination soon after we’re out of quarantine, perfect.

For now we’re back into isolation, for the 3rd time, but a relatively short one. The first was for 14 days, the second for 17 or 18 (I forget, but we did extra days so we could sit with Dad at Mum’s funeral knowing we were free of the disease). This one’s only for ten days which we’ll use to get a bunch of jobs done. One thing is for sure: we won’t starve! Dad’s baked a ton of stuff and left it in here for us, Sainsburys are coming later to drop off a load of fresh stuff and we’ve enough tins to keep us going for a good while.

Going to Spain in October 2020 was a bit of a gamble. We may well have found ourselves locked in the campsite for months, or having to pay for hotel quarantine when we returned. We could have become ill with COVID-19 while abroad, or have been unable to leave the Schengen Area inside our 90 day allowance for some other reason. We had travel insurance though, our EHIC cards happened to carry on working after the end of Dec 2020, and Andalusia’s Junta also insured us against COVID-19, so we weren’t really out on a limb. As far as we know neither of us have ever had the virus. Spain didn’t go back into a full lockdown, and we were able to eat out, visit the beach, town and mountains as much as we liked, and spend most days sat in the sunshine. Our idea of renting a car to explore a little wider didn’t come off, as regional and municipal border closures meant we’d have to be careful where we tried to go, and it felt right for us to stay put at a time even the locals couldn’t legally get around much in their own country.

So, that’s the end of this particular adventure. We’ll keep you updated from time to time in the coming weeks, when hopefully motorhome travel in England will become possible again on 12 April, good luck everyone.

Cheers, Jay