Jeff: Last couple of days and back to the UK

So bright and early on Monday morning we got up and headed inland towards the capital of Basque country Vitoria-Gasteiz which was the first Spanish city to receive the award of European Green Capital in 2012 and has a green ring around it giving the ability to cycle around the whole city. It was, again due to rain today so we decided to do one of my new favourite things and go mural finding as Vitoria-Gasteiz has lots of them. They were started in 2007 and now there are over 30 different ones dotted about the city and not only is it great to walk around and find them it means we can explore the city. We spent a good few hours walking around the old and new sides of the city to find as many as we could, luckily we had found a google map locator for several but we found some that were not on the map and we couldn’t find all the ones on the map. What we did learn quickly is that you have to look all around for them, including up as some were on buildings high up, some were behind gates and some were behind trees. After a long walk we decided to head to a café for some lunch to warm us up and as usual we headed to a little vegan place where we were the only customers and we had a really good and interesting chat with the owner while having a three course late lunch. After filling up on lunch we headed back to the van, grabbing some shopping on the way to plan our cycle for tomorrow

The next day we planned to cycle around the green ring which was an easy 30km cycle but we obviously didn’t plan it well enough. The App we were using wasn’t great and the signs for the green ring and the directions on our app were different and the app wouldn’t stay alight while cycling meaning we kept having to stop to look at it so we thought stuff that and we would just follow the signs. That was fine until we got into a loop at a park that essentially went around the park in a circle and having done one loop we got the other App out and decided to try that and with Rich directing us we soon ended up back near the van having done a third of the route so we tried again with the second app and this time had a route that went around the whole green ring and completed the 30km (but we were cold, muddy and a little wet by the end). Once the bikes were loaded in the van and we had a hot cup of tea to warm us back up we got ready to head onto the next town where we planned to spend the night, charge the van before heading to Santander tomorrow for the 30 hour ferry back to the UK. We spent the evening packing for the ferry (arguing over what was overkill – Rich wanted to take the slow cooker!!!- and what was needed)

The next morning we got up very early as it was a couple of hours drive to the ferry. We had a dilemma on route though as the toll road was faster (if you could do the speeds it says, which Jeff does not do) and a few KM more but the other route could be mountainous or have lots of roundabouts so its always difficult to decide but as we had enough time we thought we would take the other route and boy were we glad we did. The route did take us through a valley and up and over a gentle mountain but the whole route was stunning, made even better by the fact that the sun was still rising as we drove. Having had a lovely final journey we got to the ferry port, checked in (easier than expected) and parked up. We had a bit of time so we popped to the shops to get some final food for the ship and waited to be called on. It wasn’t long before we boarded and we parked up, remembering the door colour and floor number, this time, and headed up to find out cabin. While the price of the journey included a three course dinner that was all it included so we had bought a kettle so I could drink tea, some food (which was a great idea as the range of vegan food was extremely limited) and lots of films downloaded (there was only 1 hour of internet per device and limited ability to stream or do anything on it). However there was lots of films on their in ship entertainment service so we binge watched movies mostly in the room, interspersed with walks around after each film and ate lots. As our room was en-suite we also took full advantage of the shower and had very long hot showers which was lovely. It was weird not sleeping in Jeff (and having single beds) but we soon got rocked to sleep by the waves. After 30 hours we docked in Portsmouth and headed back through the fog to Somerset ready to return to real life and prepare for Christmas!