France & Spain October 2025 - The Last 5 Days

October 16th/17th

Two full days left in Alcossebre before we have to pack the van, clean the apartment and set off homeward.

So we did very little but enjoy the fact that Storm Alice had finally blown itself out, without causing too much damage in this area. Further north in Catalunya there was loads of flooding. To the south in Murcia there were reports of electricity failures and no drinking water.

Thursday evening we took a walk into the town along the beach promenade and the wooden boardwalk.

We popped into Ale Hop and Claire bought a few things.  😀

We thought about having dinner out but in the end the restaurants looked a little full for the three of us.

Friday was again local to the apartment. We even loaded most non essentials into the van. 

We were lucky we could park pretty much in the same place each time we had just been out. Right by the entrance to the complex.

October 18th

We were up early. Checkout time is 10am and we were ready long before they opened reception. 

Today was also the day that TomTom was going to have another brain fade.

We had to ckean the apartment. Brush up given the equipment they left for use. 

A brush that simply had hair and dust stuck to it and a long handled dustpan that was pretty useless when used with the brush!

We had to return the keys,  the two TV remotes and the air-conditioning hand unit. The latter three were in the apartment when we arrived.

Once checked out it should have been plain sailing. N340 to Peñiscola, AP7 to Vinarós, then the N232 all the way to Zaragoza.

Instead we went on some roundabout way towards Lleida, way to the north east of where we were going and then looping back!!!

I blame TomTom's mapping for this, but Google Maps was hardly much better.

The more we went on the more frustrating it was. We finally found our way to Huesca where we maybe should have been hours before?

The end of the day was at the magnificent Canfranc Estancion. As well as a the hotel there is a new motorhome area. The cost is €9 a night with or without electric hook-up. 

The hotel (https://www.barcelo.com/en-ww/canfranc-estacion-a-royal-hideaway-hotel/) is a little more expensive and peering through the windows looks expensive. 

We setup and then went for a walk. I like to travel with a little waste as possible. This includes fresh and waste water. Our fresh water tank in 100 litres which amounts to 100 kilograms of our payload. Waste water is a little heavier per litre... we could carry 90kgs of that... I filled up three lots of the 6 litre watering can....

Of course. A walk wouldn't be a walk without a coffee. I mean a coffee. Not a coffee each but coffee. My "dos café con leche por favor" that was been successful many times failed me this time.

Before that we dropped into the tourist office. Why? When I reserved our space on the aire it said to print the page and display in the window. Print? 

On one of the forums it suggested going and getting them to do it. The lady was confused.  In the end the reservation id I had written out would suffice.

October 19th

Our destination today was planned to be Donzenac in the Dordogne, a few miles north of Brive la Gaillarde on the N20/A20.

Once again TomTom threw a wobbler. A simple trip up the N134 from the Somport Tunnel to Pau before making up for low speeds on a toll motorway led to us disappearing onto narrow, winding C roads. 

The N134 does a kind of loop to get from Oleron to Pau. So TomTom and the equally hopeless Google connived to waste time doing this. In fact by the time we stopped on the A65 services to regroup, we had done less than 70 miles in two hours.

Donzenac was simply too far to arrive in daylight.

We changed destination and I plucked Saint Leon sur Vézere out of the Camping-Car Park app.

After another roundabout route and narrow roads we arrived. When right on the edge of the road cars still bulled through the other way. One clown in Porsche came through. We heard a bang. He had hit us. I didn't feel anything. We thought he had banged the bank on his right. He hadn't. He'd hit our left wheel arch. There's a small crease that I didn't notice until the morning.

It is what it is. If the Porsche fool had slowed down it could have been avoided.

More annoyingly is that Saint Leon is just off a wider road from Les Eyzies to Montignac. And TomTom hadn't chosen that wider safer route.

Once settled we had a walk around the village. It's one of the Beaux Villages de France. There were some places for sale and a few for rental with some web company. Both those were locked up and dark.

October 20th

With the plan to to Donzenac aborted yesterday and us ending up on the CCP site at Saint-Léon sur Vézere, it meant that we needed to rethink today and the rest of the week's journey and overnighting spots.

We set off around 1020 today. We were originally heading up the A20/N20 to another CCP site at Thénioux near Orleans.

What should have been a simple run eastward to Brive became another C roads funathon. 

Once we finally got onto the A20 after a little of the A89 we discussed options. By the time we stopped at the Area Porte de Corrèze services we had decided to abort Thénioux and get somewhere not as far away.

Checking the road map and CCP app we hit on the aire at Oradour sur Glane. It's a popular aire as it's not too far from the "village martyr".

We went there some years ago. It's a very sobering experience. Oradour-sur-Glane Memory Center | Limousin – New Horizons https://share.google/Ny8nRf3gYi1c5HH6I

By the time we had setup it started to rain. The village isn't dog friendly as it's a memorial. It's 15 minutes to walk but not in the rain!

Maybe tomorrow on our way out.

The re-think means that the Tuesday overnight has to chsnge. Instead of the champagne aire near Epernay, we will now keep going roughly north to the Loire Valley and another CCP aire at Veuzain sur Loire.

It's only around 125 miles so we might get a chance to pop into a chateau or two...