{"id":1943,"date":"2019-05-27T15:05:18","date_gmt":"2019-05-27T15:05:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=1943"},"modified":"2019-05-29T16:38:13","modified_gmt":"2019-05-29T16:38:13","slug":"03-missing-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=1943","title":{"rendered":"03. MISSING FRIENDS"},"content":{"rendered":"

We stayed in our Dutch camping – La Motte – in the middle of absolutely nowhere – for two nights hoping Glenda’s back would get better.\u00a0 We had a lovely lunch on the terrace at the Bistro de Circuit.\u00a0 We thought Circuit was the name of the village.\u00a0 But it wasn’t.\u00a0 The Circuit de Haute Saintonge is a motor racing circuit constructed in 2009 to attract employment to the area – and probably to let the owner race his Lamborghini off the road.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It’s mainly a weekend sort of place where amateurs can get to try out fast cars.\u00a0 Had we eaten there on Saturday I guess it would have been rather noisy!\u00a0 We didn’t, so it wasn’t!<\/p>\n

A quick visit to Chalais, the nearest, biggish town introduced us to the concept of Terrace Rental Wars.\u00a0 A small cafe run by ex-pat volunteers located on one open space was not allowed to serve their customers on said terrace because a bigger outfit (which was actually on a different street across the road!) had claimed the space!\u00a0 That’s Europeans for you.\u00a0 \u00a0Which reminds me we were approaching election day.\u00a0 This town listed no less than 34 parties\/candidates to choose between – including… Oh No!…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Somebody should tell them…\u00a0 Or we could lend them Boris or Theresa!\u00a0 Or both!<\/p>\n

We managed a couple of miles walk that evening, but Glenda was extremely sore even with lots of tablets plus wine.<\/p>\n

The next day, we tangled with the Spanish and Portuguese lorries on the A10 and A63.\u00a0 Great strings of the things – but at least they are not permitted to overtake for miles in the vicinity of Bordeaux.<\/p>\n

Us mixing it with the big boys…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

We had thought we might stop at Rauzan near St Emilion before heading to Oyambre in Spain.\u00a0 We met a couple Americans there last year who were travelling in a rented camper van (rented camper vans are OK, btw).\u00a0 Ann and Glenn.\u00a0 In the end, we rushed straight past.\u00a0 Had we stopped we would have met Ann and Glenn who were, coincidentally, camped there for a couple of days this year too!\u00a0 First missed friends!<\/p>\n

We had supposed to be in Oyambre with Mad Mary and Barry this week, but because of a certain ferry company cancelling crossings left and right (did I mention that already?!), we didn’t arrive in Spain until the day before they were due to leave.\u00a0 And it was raining on the north coast so we dived south to Haro.\u00a0 Second missed friends!<\/p>\n

We were due to meet Barry and Sybil in Haro, but the site was jammed with weekender so we left there the following morning heading for Morocco.\u00a0 \u00a0Third missed rendesvous!<\/p>\n

And with Pia and Grant near Jaca, we won’t be seeing them this trip either!\u00a0 Number four.\u00a0 Oh dear.\u00a0 Nobody will be speaking to us!<\/p>\n

The site we eventually settled at was Camping Monte Holiday at Gargantilla del Lozoya, in the valley of the Lozoya River.\u00a0 As it was still the weekend it was full of Madridians.\u00a0 \u00a0Spaniards can be noisy at the best of times, but when 15 families with 600 children between them get partying, it’s, well it just IS anyway!\u00a0 On the bright side, by Sunday afternoon we could hear the birds singing and passing traffic again!<\/p>\n

We were left in splendid isolation …<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

… with great panoramic views of the surrounding mountains out of our windows…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

OK.\u00a0 Enough’s enough.\u00a0 More about some firsts we have experienced on this trip later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We stayed in our Dutch camping – La Motte – in the middle of absolutely nowhere – for two nights hoping Glenda’s back would get better.\u00a0 We had a lovely lunch on the terrace at the Bistro de Circuit.\u00a0 We… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spain-may-2019"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1943"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1960,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1943\/revisions\/1960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}