St Jean De Luz.....2nd time

We moved from the Rioja region back into France hoping for the weather to improve. The weather over the previous few days had been miserable with high winds and rain and the loss of 20 degrees in temperature....horrendous. We also wanted to pick up some gas, some French wine and beer and, of course, cheese.

We stayed at the other side of St Jean De Luz this time and walked into the centre from the campsite in the sun and what a lovely walk along the front it was. We had another mooch around town which was so different with hardly anyone there at all. We walked right around the bay and marvelled at the Pyrenean mountain back drop with its snow topped peaks which definitely indicated that it is winter, something that we had not experienced for 6 months.

 The sun's out and the view is across the St Jean De Luz bay towards Biarritz in the distance

Pyrenean mountain back drop with snow capped peaks

Socoa end of St Jean De Luz 

Haro and Pinchos.....

Friday and Saturdays are very much about the Pinchos in Haro and for us also Sundays. This means you pitch up at a bar grab a creanza (Rioja aged for at least one year in the bottle) or a canas (small glass of beer) and one or two Pinchos (larger tapas dishes) and then you move to the next bar and repeat and repeat and repeat. It's great to see the variations of Pinchos, like snails, black pudding, pigs ears, goats cheese, its endless.

 Just a small selection of Pinchos

Sunday and its so nice to sit and have a glass of red 

Muga.....

Bodegas Muga is located in the historical Barrio de La Estación (railway station district) in Haro. The facilities (270,000 square foot) are two centuries old, built mainly of stone and oak.

 No its not snow though the hills had a slight dusting

 Some of the 14,000 barrels 

 Racking the wine... the smell is great

 Torre Muga Cellar 

The private dinning room at Muga with its roaring fire of old vines

Haro and Rioja time..........first up R. Lopez de Heredia

First stop R. Lopez de Heredia the oldest winery in the area. Now having spent some time in South Africa we have been on several wine tours in the past but this one was completely different. Our knowledge of wine making was shown to be focused on the modern techniques, stainless steel and cold filtering etc where R. Lopez de Heredia utilise no modern techniques. All the wine is stored in wooden vats and this is where the fermentation takes place from the inherent yeast in the wood. Our tour consisted of 6 people and a tour guide and lasted 4 hrs and 6 bottles of wine, plus a gift of one red wine bottle each to take away. This tour changed our view of white wine as it was so fine in taste and appearance we actually preferred the whites to the red......gulp

 If you look closely there's a bottle of wine here from 1900

 Fermentation in wooden vats

 Stored in the barrel for 6 to 8 years......

 and then stored in the bottle for a further 4 to 6 years, hence the mould on the outside

 Behind the mould there are hundreds of bottles of Rioja

 The modern tasting room

 Our tasting room

Mr R. Lopez de Heredia

13 & 14 Ciudad Rodrigo and Burgos Spain

So our journey north continued through Portugal and Spain. We had calculated that we could stop off at Ciudad Rodrigo and Burgos before hitting the Rioja region and the town of Haro.

Ciudad Rodrigo is a small cathedral city in the province of Salamanca, in western Spain, with a population of about 14,000.

The site of Ciudad Rodrigo, perched atop a rocky rise on the right bank of the River Águeda, has been occupied since the Neolithic Age and is a pretty walled town.

 A bullet scarred church within the walled town

It's all about the pig in Spain

The verracos (Spanish: verraco; Portuguese: berrão) are granite megalithic monuments, sculptures of animals that are to be found in the west of the Iberian meseta - the high central plain of the Iberian peninsula.

Next stop was Burgos:

Burgos is a city in northern Spain and the historic capital of Castile. It is situated on the confluence of the Arlanzón river tributaries, at the edge of the Iberian central plateau. The Burgos Laws or Leyes de Burgos which first governed the behaviour of Spaniards towards the natives of the Americas were promulgated here in 1512.
It has many historic landmarks, of particular importance; the Cathedral of Burgos (declared World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1984). A large number of churches, palaces and other buildings from the medieval age remain. 

The lanes are home to many bars serving pinchos

12.Nazare...Death on a Stick....

For those not in the know Nazare reached the ultimate status in surfing a few weeks ago, no not because we visited it but that the largest wave ever surfed happen here. Take a look at the link to see how large the waves get.
http://magicseaweed.com/news/nazare-blows-up/5733/

The weather was very windy when we were there so the waves were a bit blown out but still immense.

This photo was taken a few days after we visited and you can see the waves are incredible.

Huge shore break..the town's beaches have a 'danger of death' warning as the waves are so big

Just a small wave on the southern side of the head land

Now that's how to handle a SUP

We sat on the beach in the sun for hours watching the surf.

Camera crews were filming the surfing too and then we were joined by Garrett ‘GMAC’ McNamara and Andrew 'Cotty' Cotton two of the big wave surfers that surfed the largest wave ever. These guys had serious big wave boards, Rhino chasers. They headed out into the surf and just kept paddling and paddling until my camera could no longer pick them out, they were heading for the large off shore waves. 

The photos below show them choosing their route out to the big waves.

 'Average Al' the Badger.

 Big Wave advert

Fish drying in the sun

11. Portugal Luz and beyond......

Rules are made for breaking.......so we headed to Luz where we have holidayed in the past, but for a good reason. Last time in Luz some two years ago we stumbled upon a South African restaurant so we thought we would travel the 300 odd miles to treat ourselves to some great food and we weren't disappointed! This time our stay in Luz was different as we walked the coastal cliff path to Burgau a small fishing village towards Sagres. Oh yes and we managed to watch the England rugby game in the Irish bar with Bobby Davro....well it looked like him and sounded like him so in my mind it was him.

 The After Eight Cocktail

 Luz beach and cliffs

Cliff top walk to Burgau

Cowboy Town Spain......El Rocio

En route to Portugal we encountered El Rocio a real cowboy town, every house, bar and church has a hitching post and the bars have high level tables so you can sit on your horse and have a drink (get on your horse and drink your milk), a really unique place. A ghost town when we visited in the week but at the weekend it explodes with cowboys and cowgirls on horseback and wagons. In July they hold a festival that over 1 million people attend. It's not a gimmick town for people to dress up and play cowboys they actually are cowboys.

 All the roads are sand.

 High Street El Rocio

El Rocio Church/Cathedral 

Oops Missed 9.......

Stop off number 9 in Spain was a pure gem and an unplanned destination. We were heading to Conil but were unable to fit on any of the campsites so we back tracked some 8km to a small village called Zahora. The campsite sits just outside the national park and is surrounded by pine trees, a home from home feeling.
The site is one of our top 5 sites and the area has fantastic beaches. The battle of Trafalgar took place off the headland on the 21st October 1805, though there was no obvious celebration on the 21st Oct....not surprising really.
Zahora is very Bohemian and I describe it as Croyde  in the 50s, very chilled with great beaches and unspoiled surf before the tourists found it and turned it into a commercial hot-spot.

 The beach at Cape Trafalgar 

 Cape Trafalgar Lighthouse 

 Blue sky at Cape Trafalgar

 Allen paddling into a wave at Zahora - miles of uncrowded beach breaks

 Mellow wave at Zahora

 The Spanish version of the Thatch pub at Croyde.....

 Stunning beach to El Palmar

 We love the sunshine..bring it on

Oops I forgot to pull the rip cord....

 Spain is just full of Anchors...............

Marine Pines making it feel like a home from home.

We planned on staying one or two nights and we are still here two weeks later. We have met some great people here too, Ray, Martin and Muppet the Westy, Julie and Ian with there 4 Border Terriers (crufts champions) and 1 Westy, Mark and John who owned a campsite in Devon and have planted a seed in our minds. Gary and Barbara from Bishops Waltham and Gill and Ben from Bordeaux, plus many others.