Astorga

Frodo is getting adventurous, he’s going off grid.

Some areas of northern Spain are not well supplied with bona fide campsites but there are aires where motorhomes are authorized to stay. We had originally thought of going all the way from Chaves to Burgos, where there is a campsite, but that would have been a run of more than 400kms taking almost five hours. Instead, Francine found an intermediate, modestly sized town called Astorga, slightly off the route but which has a very reasonable sounding aire, according to its reviews. It also has yet another Gaudi building to gawp at for entertainment.

Astorga is about 200kms/3hrs from Chaves. We left Portugal after a handful of kilometres and re-entered Spain.

The initial part of the journey on an autovia was fine and pleasantly smooth, unlike Portuguese roads many of which rival the UK’s for bumps. Then our route took us across Spanish countryside, much of which had been scorched by this seasons wild fires. It could have been a very interesting journey but was an absolute nightmare on a road which made us think we were back in England, bumping and rattling all the way at low speeds for 25kms or so.

Francine decided it would be best to avoid another corner-cutting exercise in favour of an autovia. That threw us another curve ball in the form of a long contraflow with some exits blocked, including the junction that we wanted. After a 22km detour to double back on ourselves, we finally arrived at our área de autocaravanas, behind the local bullring. The bullring is apparently still used as such.

The aire claims space for 15 vans and has a service point to dump grey and black water, and to refill with fresh. With no mains hook-up, we needed to fire up the fridge on gas, likewise the hot water. Since we are usually on a campsite with power, and having an electric induction hob, we hardly ever use gas these days so it was a bit heart-in-mouth but the gas worked fine. (We had actually tested it before finalizing our travel plan.) We’re at 850m/2800ft so we suspect it’s likely to get cool at night.

Once settled and after a much needed two beers to get over the rather stressful journey, we wandered into town see our other Gaudi building. I sat in the square with a wine while Francine went in.

This Gaudi building, Palacio Episcopal [the Bishop’s Palace – it sits beside the Astorga cathedral], looks relatively plain on the outside, not something this artistic numbskull expects from Gaudi. When Francine returned with her pictures, the interior is somewhat different.

We stopped to sip a little more wine before sauntering back downhill the 15 minutes to the bullring parking area.

Throughout the evening more motorhomes arrived at intervals, in some cases shoe-horning themselves into spaces. One in particular seemed to shun a good-sized gap and park quite close to us. Odd. It them opened its side window facing our door and gave us the benefit of its conversation. I moved Frodo into the more generous space away from it. You do have to get use to the proximity of vans in such places.

Technically, aires have rules which are summarized as, “you can park and sleep but you are not supposed to show camping behaviour”. That means no levelling of vans (happily this aire was quite level), no sitting outside with table and chairs (should there happen to be room) nor open your windows (don’t increase the footprint of your van). You can open roof vents. The rules may or may not be frequently policed.