Category: 2019 Tour

Terry Arnold

We had enjoyed 2 successful tours to Spain and Portugal with Brittany Ferries using the Parador and Pousadas hotels with half-board tour packages. Why change a winning formula? – for 2019 we selected their Spain Heritage Tour.

This time we sailed from Portsmouth to Bilbao as the arrival times better suited the links to hotels at either end of the tour.

There were 8 of us; Gary, Clappo, Will, Colin, Paul, John, Terry & Adrian.

UK to Lerma

• We pulled up at the Portsmouth ferry check-in leaving Clappo to perform his normal rituals with the clerk. A large group of mostly BMW GSAs sporting custom decals and loaded with accessories pulled in to the next booth. Who knew that some of these guys were to become good friends in later years?

Whilst having snack on an outside deck on the ferry crossing, a guy comes up to me and says “I know you – You used to work at Bankers Trust Company!” Embarrassingly, I couldn’t remember his name although he could, mine. “You’ll have to remind me of your name”. “Gareth” he said “Gareth Davies”. And that’s how we got another group member, we worked in the same firm 30 years previously, only ‘knew of’ each other, now live just 4 miles apart. “I never knew you rode bikes” – “Same”.

In the same chat, Gareth asked Clappo if he’d ever washed his Klim suit, so beginning the sparring between Gavin & Clappo

Amazing Coincidences.

• During the sailing the ships entertainment team had laid on a demonstration of Virtual Reality visors. Adrian and I had a go and it really tricked the mind into believing the images and surroundings, great fun.
• I have never been a fan of Tour / Hen Party style T-Shirts in public. However the shirt Clappo arranged for this year – with 3 skulls (again – an image I personally don’t like) – turned out to be a real conversation starter with the other passengers on the ship. “I’ve just seen your mates along there”, “Where are you lot all headed then?” Etc. It actually was great fun.
• We arrived in Bilbao and headed south and within just a few miles from the coast the scenery becomes very rural and beautiful. These were fast, smooth flowing roads, the sun was bright and the air warm. It was wonderful to be back.
• After about 60 miles the roads became even more curvy with hills and undulations for extra interest. At Burgos, we turned south and headed in to Lerma. The satnav took us up a direct narrow street that I wasn’t too sure about but that brought us into a large square with the grand parador on the far and left sides.
• A group of about 12 Ferraris that we had seen on the ferry had arrived before us and were carefully lined up and on display to satisfy the owners’ bulging egos.
• Another fantastic parador with a large central full-height lounge area, galleried landings with the rooms off them and large artworks on the walls.
• We checked in, spruced up and had a stroll around the old town, then back for a beer in the lounge. Terry misguidedly went for a run to try to maintain some fitness – he joined them in the bar soon enough! I did see the road we should have come up though.
• That night, Terry and Adrian had quite an argument where T accused A of excessive snoring. T then went back to sleep while A listened to T’s excessive snoring “all night long”. A peace-making deal was sought and agreed next morning. Alcohol and the cell-like room’s stone walls didn’t help.

Lerma to Segovia

• In a previous report, I noted that the scenery in central Spain, on the plain, is not too interesting so it is necessary to detour to find the hillier and more scenic roads. So we headed in a loop southwest before swinging round to the west again. We went through the Parque National del Canon del Rio Lobos and the Parque National Sierra Norte de Guadarrama
• We stopped for lunch (which turned out to be very filling as whatever we ordered turned into a meal to feed the 10,000) and observed that we were making fast time and that it wasn’t very far to Segovia, our destination.
• Adrian decided that he was happy to continue with the planned route, mileage and timings and would head for Segovia on his own.
• We performed a little on-the-fly route planning and found a road through forests, that climbed up to a pass at 1774m and down the other side. It ran beside a huge lake, along a valley and back up the range we had just crossed climbing to around 1900m and then ran along beside the ridge at 1850m for a few miles.
• It reached a T junction at the Puerto De Navacerrada where we turned north down an amazing forested hill section and into Segovia. This was one of the real highlights of ALL our tours. What an amazing chance find.
• Our parador for this night was an imposing modern building set high on the side of a gorge. It was built with red bricks very open plan. There was a lovely outdoor swimming pool and an internal leisure pool that we all made use of.
• A bit repetitive but, another fine a la carte meal with wines was enjoyed by all.
• In the setting sun, we watched many hot-air balloons rising on the opposite side of the ravine with Segovia cathedral as a backdrop.

Segovia to Toledo

• The evening before, we could see an impressive and spectacularly floodlit roman viaduct. We decided that we should experience that so headed off-route to explore. It was too big to miss so didn’t take long, and after a few photos we decided to grab an early coffee up by the cathedral. We got separated from Clappo in the steep hilly one-way streets and parked up on the exit road – hoping he would come past. After a while he phoned to say he was up in the cathedral square, it was quite something to see and had a good photo for us, he then came down and rejoined us.
• Our route took us back up the amazing hill that we had descended the evening before. Colin led and we absolutely flew up that hill at very high speed. I think I may have some video of Colin slowly pulling away from me as he normally does.
• At one point, whilst hanging off round fast curves we past something like 40 (can’t be sure, I was quite busy at the time!) old Fiat 500s of all colours coming down the hill. Quite surreal
• We stopped for coffees and a rest to lower our heart-rates at the top, where it was very busy with tourists and coaches of school children. The road down the other side was fantastic too, with far ranging views due to there being fewer trees.

BTBMmc Segovia to Perto De Navacerrada (1850m)

• We entered the hills and roads to the west of Madrid, doubling back southeast to Toledo. Avila and the roads that lead to it are renowned as great motorcycling roads and we were not disappointed. We somehow got separated on the way to Avila but we spotted each other while some were refueling stop and decided to stop for lunch.
• The roads on this leg were straighter and faster generally and at only 170 miles we arrived in Toledo mid afternoon – very early for us.
• Again there was a lovely pool and everyone went for a swim and to relax. (Terry went for a second and last run, giving that up as a bad job, too hot, too hilly)
• Guests of the parador had a sectioned off (VIP) area on the large terrace over looking Toledo city across a ravine. We sat there and formed a deep friendship with waiter who was dispensing drinks. I think it was Adrian or maybe Will who fancied something other than beer so ordered a gin & tonic. The waiter’s method was to point the bottle at a large gin balloon and pour, counting 2 seconds. This resulted in a very large measure of gin, which having seen what was available, everyone else ordered too. A very merry evening ensued.
• We were staying at Toledo for 2 nights. Adrian elected to pass on the next day’s riding and took a taxi into Toledo for a day of culture, which he enjoyed very much.
• The rest of us did a 200 mile looping route to the west through the Parque National de Cabaneros along the shore of the dammed Rio Guadiana (which was extremely bumpy and had huge potholes and craters for many miles) We stopped at it’s dam and took photos whilst soothing our backsides.
• We looped east again and back to Toledo through the Reserva National de Cijara
• Back at the parador we repeated the successful formula of swimming pool, beers and drinks on the terrace and stonking dinner.
• We got a cab into town, strolled around and visited a bar or two.

Toledo to Salamanca

• We rode northeast towards Avila but turned off west to run along a mountan range of hills to pick up some hills, curves and hairpins.
• I don’t remember anything notable about this day, but the route map suggests it was enjoyable.
• We pulled into Salamanca where we had stayed before, cleaned ourselves up and walked across the valley to the old city.

Salamanca to Zamora

• As the crow flies it is 25miles between these cities, but we managed to clock up 198 miles in a long ride to the west and back.
• Today’s ride took us into Portugal and specifically part of the Duoro valley and national park
• Some of the roads here were quite exceptional and I remember a section of 20-30 miles of fast curving roads where we had a lot of fun riding very determinedly
• There were some marvelous roads in those parts and eventually we pointed to wards Zamora and had a trouble free run in.
• Another super medieval stone palace presented itself as our hotel. Parking was in a garage where two of our party took exception to paying €15/bike, so they left their bikes on the pavement.
• We got cleaned up and strolled out into the city. One memorable feature was of many storks nesting on chimneys of the buildings in the city and the huge white birds flying around and landing on their precarious piles of twigs.
• We found a bar down a side street and whilst drinking our beers, noticed that other customers had a very strange drink. A bottle of beer upturned in a glass so that it glugged down into what I think was a spirit or cocktail. Anyway – when in Rome… and all that – we tried and enjoyed them.
• We walked across the bridge over the river to the rear of the parador, along the far bank and turned back over another bridge to the hotel. We enjoyed drinks on the large sunny rear terrace, watching more storks nesting before having yet another great dinner.

Zamora to Santilliana Del Mar

• The 2 bikes had not be stolen overnight and we only paid €5/bike so everyone was happy.
• The route took us north to the south of Leon, where a little further on, the Picos de Europa mountains rose up out of the flatter lands and soon we were into familiar territory, Riano and Colin’s Caff again.
• We had ridden this leg in a similar direction before, but this time we turned off and ran east – parallel to, but further from the coast before heading up to Santilliana.
• We had been to and very much enjoyed Santilliana del Mar before. In fact, John had been there twice before already as his campervan had broken down nearby and had been ‘stranded’ there for a couple of days while it was repaired.
• Another lovely evening of drinks and food and chat with dear friends.

Santilliana Del Mar to Bilbao

• It is so normal in these reports to write about the short ride into the Santander ferry port, so it was wonderful to see that actually we rode to Bilbao and used lovely internal routes in the Costa Verde hills.
• We avoided the motorways and took the scenic roads. It started to rain as we swung the bikes along the mostly gentle curves, beside rivers and up and over wooded hills, but dried up later.
• At one point we found ourselves at height with the north coast clearly visible and stopped for some photos. (We couldn’t get the phone to stay positioned so Will took a photo, then I took one and I later merged them in photoshop to get the full team pic)
• It’s always sad riding the last few miles into the ferry port, as it means the tour is nearly over. We have so much fun, it’s hard to stop.

Bilboa to UK

• There were severe delays to the incoming ship, a passenger had needed to be helicoptered off so we sat in a cafe cum duty free building on the dock for at least 4/5 hours. At least we were early enough to get seats and there was food.
• It started to rain heavily as we queued to board and we were held in a covered ‘pen’ for a while. Moving off, a goldwing, rider and passenger toppled over onto Adrian, taking him down too.
• Loading my bike, a big, shouty deckhand was very rough strapping my bike down, causing the seat to bend in half – literally. I had a huge row with him and a small girl supervisor interjected and calmed things down. He was “a real pain” she said. She filled out a claim form that had to be validated by the captain. During the crossing my name came over the tannoy and the Vice-Captain escorted me down into the sealed lower decks, overriding the access locks as we went. He accepted the apparent damage and we went back up. It all came to nothing as the seat unfolded itself with no visible lasting damage, and I couldn’t be bothered to take it any further.
• When we met on the boat, we were both shaken and distressed and took a while to calm down. Beers helped. Anyway, we were on the ferry and settled into the rhythm of the 24 hour crossing.
• This year Colin and Will had brought along ukuleles to entertain us with. Thankfully I was having a nap in my cabin for the main performance on an outside rear deck and I missed it. Apparently a lady had taken issue with them for singing political songs and she was offended! We didn’t realise the Strawbs song ‘Part of the Union‘ was so contentious.
• The captain radio’ed that bad weather was expected in the Bay of Biscay during this voyage. He didn’t lie. Around midnight it started to whip up a bit choppy. Most people had gone to their cabins but Me, Adrian and Paul were finishing drinks in the bar. Poor Paul was turning green and was really struggling, vowing to stay awake all night.
• Adrian and I retired to our cabin, bouncing off the corridor walls as we went. Actually we slept surprisingly well, I managed to imagine that the pitching and rolling was really me riding my bike up and down hilly curves. It worked for me. We rose quite early and went to a deserted breakfast area where we could look out of the windows at the horizon. Most people that were about looked pretty sickly.
• The captain had taken the ship nearer the coast around Brittany and we sailed between many small islands. This reduced the ship’s speed greatly and the crossing overran by about another 6 hours. While we were walking to the car decks together he said that the delay would take nearly a week to ‘iron out’ of the timetable.
• The rest of the crossing was uneventful and we docked at Portsmouth, rode up the M23 and onwards to our homes.