Spain 2003, Day Five, Haro

Day Five 21st March

Only stopped in Cambrils one night, the site is a bit out of the way. Decided to head north east, towards a site in Haro, about 280 miles, well on our way to ferry at Santander. Just after we set off, Dot starts moaning about a smell and blames me, I am most upset (although it usually is me) and point out it is probably coming from outside but this smell persists. We work out that it must be coming from inside the van and Dot goes back to investigate. She traced it back to the dirty water tank and it is easily cured, simply by putting the three plugs in the three drain holes. We make mental notes to remember this next time and to buy some bleach, it was pretty bad.

Made one wrong turn and nearly ended up in Tarragona as we took a shortcut from the A7 to A2, we went onto a trading estate to get our bearings. I think we where just confused by road signs and where on the right road in the first place, anyway we took the opportunity to fill up with diesel on the trading estate.

This trip is when we discovered just how good it is to travel on the motorway in Spain, now this may not be true for all motorways in Spain but on the toll roads in northern Spain it is. We travelled for miles with only one lorry up front, about a mile in the distance and maybe one the same distance behind but the strange thing is, every time you come up to overtake one of these lorries, three cars will suddenly appear from nowhere and get in the way. The other strange thing is, that these cars will be about ten feet apart, as if towing each other and still will be as the disappear in to the distance and this will happen every time.

HaroCamping de Haro Avenida de Miranda s/n Web Site

We had pre-booked the site, mainly to be sure we knew a site that was open. The site is just across the river from the town about a ten min walk to the centre but up hill all the way. Its a lot cooler in Haro, luckily we had nice thick coats with us, that we had used to get to the airports on the way out, we had also packed some warm clothes for the evening.

When we arrived there wasn't anyone at reception, so we had a look round the site, which as with the others we had visited, it was pretty much deserted. We eventually booked in, and then walked up in to town for a look round and something to eat.

We had a good look round and then headed back to the main square, just as we got settled for a drink outside one of the bars, a large crowd started to congregate outside what looked like the town hall. Whatever the protest was about it only lasted a few minutes, thinking about it later, the gulf war had just started, so it was probably that. The bar we chose had lots of tapas on the bar but this looked different to what we had seen in Spain before, as it seamed to consist mainly of small sandwiches with cocktail sticks through them. Anyway we got a menu and I was surprised to see egg & chips top of the list, just what I fancied, I think Dot had an omelette or a pizza.

Later on the way back down the hill, we passed a very busy bar/restaurant, so popped in for a look, these had masses of tapas, the traditional type and one, slices of potato baked in oil with chillies, looked particularly good, so we had to have a portion between us. It was better than it looked and we vowed to return.