The gray horror (last week’s HighwayHanger) is in the Basque Country. The campsite, by the way, where you’re not allowed to bring your dog and where you have to pay 46 euros a night, is only a few hundred meters away. So maybe we’re not so bad off after all. We can easily go a day without a shower, and that campsite looks like they ration the hot water.
Out of the Basque Country, on to Spain and Portugal
Out of this HighwayHanger! Me and my family, we part ways here. We say goodbye under the highway, at the indeed charming little marina of Orio, which in the watery morning light does its best to make up for the gray horror of yesterday.
I’ve quickly made a plan to possibly stop in Burgos, with Plan B to drive to Zamora. Burgos was quickly ruled out, because the Gray Wave is underway, which means campers with bald heads and gray bobs everywhere, especially at the Sights.
Burgos is a Sights destination, so I quickly fell back on Plan B
About a three-hour drive. Then Mira, my back and I will be done for a while. The sad thing about Spain is that they don’t quite understand that you need more than a tiny patch of grass next to the highway with a trash can, a small tree, and a bench, that can barely fit a couple of trucks.
The first time I stopped at one of those P’s, it was because I was starving, but let me tell you, your food doesn’t taste as good if you have to eat it surrounded by the smell of urine. Experience quickly taught me that this is the case at all those P’s. Understandable, because you need a trash can and a bench (why, after all that sitting & driving?!) much less than you need a toilet. And there are none.
The French government does its best to make the highway as pleasant as possible, with top-notch rest areas that often have an entire park attached to them. A park with lots of parking spaces, picnic benches, lots of trees and shrubs – you could easily do it in the bushes here, but …. > clean women’s and men’s restrooms (!) with the radio playing, and plenty of trash cans. Good indications. And sometimes a nice rap:
PRO-CHAINE SOR-TIE
GEN-DAR-ME-RIE
In that respect, France scores much better than its neighbor below. Portugal doesn’t do so badly, but there’s plenty of room for improvement here too. I haven’t stopped on the P (because it stands for Park&Pee apparently) in Spain again. The first one in Portugal was a gas station with a parking lot behind it. At a gas station in Portugal, you almost always have a public restroom—and if you’re lucky, it’s reasonably clean.
Also, for the first time: a stray dog. A mother, clearly visible, who wasn’t doing too badly in her begging. She kept her distance but was clearly in need. I wasn’t the only one who thought she could use a little something extra, but I was the only one who thought she also needed something to drink. Now, I didn’t have much with me to leave it in, so she had to make do with a modest, washed yogurt container.
And yet more pee smell. Boo. Fellow men people, do it in the toilet, please, or at least a bit further away! (No no, this is not seksism; I don’t see women doing that in a bare parking lot with a good overview … we’re not built for such a thing.)
Good to be back home. Even though you didn’t come out on top in this comparison of P-roducts, I still think you’re the most beautiful, home-country Portugal!
.
We moved here in 2000 from Rotterdam, the Netherlands, to the Termas-da-Azenha, Portugal.
We started to rebuild one of portugals cultural heirlooms: Termas-da-Azenha, an old spa.
You’ll find mosaics and paintings everywhere.
Since Covid we rent the houses for a longer period of time, not as holiday houses anymore.
Each week a little blog about what is happening around us. An easy read. A few minutes in another world. A little about what it going on in Portugal. If you plan your holiday to Portugal, it might be a nice preparation.
In the weekend we publish it on Bluesky, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram.