On the road (3) A (hopefully) sunny September road trip to Spain COMPLETED - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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On the road (3) A (hopefully) sunny September road trip to Spain COMPLETED
On the road (3) – A (hopefully) sunny September road trip to Spain
Pre-trip report – part one:
Dates: Friday 3 – Sunday 19 September Adventurers: Me, Cheryl (37) and DH Mark (44, turning 45 on the first full day of this vacation ) Destinations: Mark’s parents’ villa in Moraira, Spain, driving through France and back to get there Meets: None planned Celebration: seeing some beautiful places in Europe
This time, it’s going to be bigger and longer than ever before – and that’s saying something after our previous excursions! This time, we’re off to visit Mark’s parents’ villa for the third year running, but for the first time, we’re driving, rather than flying. It’s in a beautiful part of the world, located in the village of Moraira in the Costa Blanca, between Alicante and Valenica. We first headed there in September 2008 and had another return trip back there in October 2009. Having seen what the weather was like during our second visit, we decided to go with September, as it had been much warmer then, which had allowed me to do some swimming in the villa pool and I was hoping to get the chance to do that again.
The next issue was trying to plan everything out. We knew we had two full weeks, but it was going to take some time to drive down and back and I didn’t want to retrace our steps on the two journeys, as I wanted to experience different routes, cities and places on each leg of the trip. Life was made much easier, when our originally planned Disney cruise from Barcelona to Dover became a road trip around Normandy and the Loire Valley. That allowed us to cross off a number of the sights that I was originally going to do on this trip, meaning that our drive down became a lot quicker than I’d originally envisaged.
Eventually, I came up with a set of plans that would see us having two long driving days, followed by two nights in that city, to allow some time to recover, as that had become an issue on our Switzerland road trip. We also opted to leave on the Friday night, rather than the Saturday night, as we’d originally planned. We decided that we could leave work a little earlier and then drive an hour when we got into France to lessen the drive the next day.
On the way back, I allowed ourselves five nights to get from the villa back home. I also figured that it made sense to return to Valencia, which we’d loved when we’d visited in 2008, as part of the journey back. It was an hour and a half away from the villa, heading towards Barcelona, so at least it meant that once we were done there, we could just carry on driving.
My biggest problem in planning this was the sheer volume of things I wanted to see on the way there and on the way back, and as I said earlier, without too much backtracking. In the end, the plan was to head down towards Bordeaux and then through the northern part of Spain and down towards Madrid. From there, we’d head down to the villa.
On the way back, we’d take the coast road along the south eastern edge of Spain, through Barcelona, and then into France, before heading inland for the Dordogne region. It would then be a straight drive from there up to Paris, where I had managed to secure a staggering offer for the Triannon Palace Versailles, part of the Waldolf Astoria collection. During the Hilton’s January sale, you could get a hotel room during any weekend in 2010 for half price and I secured a room there. I got it for £184 and, when I checked a week later after the offer was finished, a similar room cost around £500. It would certainly be a great way to end our stay.
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Sounds like quite an adventure .... have a great time!
I have been to Nice, France and loved it there ... I was born in Southampton, but that is all I have seen of Europe ... I am jealous!
Cheryl
Your plans sound great, I hope you have a great time and some good weather
I am looking forward to your return trip report already!!
Have a good time
Emma
Pre-trip report – part two: turning our plans into reality
For ages, we didn’t buy anything else for this trip, mainly because most of our money was going into our other two road trips, but once those were out of the way in June, that’s when I got to work. The first thing to book was the Eurotunnel crossing, then I finally settled on a hotel in Bordeaux for nights two and three.
At first, this had seemed so easy. As we’re loyalty members with the Holiday Inn chain, I just figured we’d stay there, but after our experiences in Normandy on that road trip, when we discovered that literally everything in France seemed to close for business, including quite often restaurants I did a bit more research. Sure enough, the restaurant there was closed on a Sunday. After ending up in McDonald’s during our previous road trip, as the only thing open on a Sunday, that was not a game I intended to play again. :
After a lot of searching around and checking with Trip Advisor, which has become my best friend during recent trips, I settled on the Pullman Bordeaux Aquitaine. Not only did it have good Trip Advisor ratings, but it also had a restaurant that was open on a Sunday, a very important consideration for us, as at least we had a back-up plan, should everything else fail, that didn’t involve McDonald’s. Even better, we got a great rate through Expedia that included breakfast, so it was a perfect solution.
From there, the purchases continued gradually. I sorted out a hotel for our first night’s stay in Arras, an Ibis, which had good ratings on Trip Advisor. I also sorted out the hotel for our first night’s stay on our way back from Spain. Sure, the Express by Holiday Inn in Onda, about an hour’s drive up from Valencia were OK, but heck, for €45 (about $54), I really wasn’t too worried. It was too good a deal to pass up.
I also sorted out a hotel for the following night. After much debate between Perpignan, Narbonne and Carcassonne, all of which were on our way back, I opted for the middle of the three, Narbonne and for the number one rated hotel there, called Campanile, which looked great. Not only did it offer free parking and free Internet, but there was even a pool next door. Score!
That only left us with a couple of nights to sort out. I waited and waited and waited to see if the deal that the Hilton were doing, with 30% off their rooms, would be extended past 6 September, as that was the date we were due to get to Madrid, and having read good reports about their hotel at the airport, I figured we’d stay there. I already had some good prices of around €129 a night (about $155) and I was tempted to go for that, but I held firm and waited and was rewarded. They extended the offer to 30 September and I scored a room for two nights for just €89 a night (about $107). Result!
The only other two nights that hadn’t been filled by hotel bookings yet were the night we’d be spending in Toulouse and the night at Rocamadour, both on the way back. After a stay where I work, following a late night meeting, at their local Express by Holiday Inn, I had enough points to book a stay at the Crowne Plaza in Toulouse, using some of our points and supplementing it with a $60 charge.
I did a fair bit of looking around for a hotel in Rocamadour. As it’s in the midst of the Dordogne Valley, unsurprisingly, there aren’t many chain hotels around there. I eventually plumped for one called Hotel du Roc that had good reviews on Trip Advisor, that offered free parking, free Internet and breakfast at a reasonable price, and best of all, it was just £39 a night (about $60), so I went for that. I figured it couldn’t be that bad, and heck, if it was, it was only for the night and we never had to stay there again.
All the hotels booked, my thoughts started to turn to admission to places either on the way down or back or while we were at the villa. I knew that I wanted to take one of the daily wine tours that the tourist office offered in Bordeaux, during our day there, so I paid for that not long after. It would take us out to Saint Emillion, which I’d wanted to see anyway. The cost was €30 each (about $36) and it sounded like a lot of fun.
That was really it as far as planning went for this trip. I’ll be honest as well. So many people I talked to were surprised that we had hotels booked for every night on the way down and on the way back. The fact that so many people were surprised, in turn, surprised me, as I couldn’t imagine embarking on a trip like this and not having the plans in place. : Imagine arriving somewhere and then struggling to find somewhere to stay for the night. To me, that would be my biggest nightmare! Not a relaxing way to enjoy our vacation....
As we got closer to our departure day, as I always do, I started to look at the weather forecast for our various destinations. Two weeks out, I was freaking out slightly, not because the weather was going to be bad, but because of the opposite problem. When I see temperatures into the mid 90s and the word “humid”, it’s a sure sign that we’ll have a miserable time, as neither of us do well in hot conditions. I can’t begin to tell you how glad I was when those temperatures finally started to drop into the more manageable high 70s and low 80s, the closer we got to our vacation.
So, here in full, are our plans:
Friday 3 September:
Take the Eurotunnel across to Calais and drive to Arras.
Saturday 4 September:
Drive down to Bordeaux.
Visit Chateau de Villandry and Poitiers on the way.
Stay the night in Bordeaux.
Sunday 5 September:
Tour Bordeaux and then take a wine-tasting tour out to St. Emillion.
Stay the night in Bordeaux. Monday 6 September:
Drive down to Madrid.
Visit Bayonne, Biarritz in France, San Sebastian, Burgos and Segovia in Spain on the way.
Stay the night in Madrid.
Tuesday 7 September:
Explore Madrid.
Stay the night in Madrid.
Wednesday 8 September:
Drive the rest of the way to the villa.
Visit Novelda on the way.
Stay the night at the villa.
Thursday 9 September:
Open day with no definitive plans – we’ll take it as it comes.
Stay the night at the villa.
Friday 10 September:
Open day with no definitive plans – we’ll take it as it comes.
Stay the night at the villa.
Saturday 11 September:
Open day with no definitive plans – we’ll take it as it comes.
Stay the night at the villa.
Sunday 12 September:
Open day with no definitive plans – we’ll take it as it comes.
Stay the night at the villa.
Monday 13 September:
Open day with no definitive plans – we’ll take it as it comes.
Stay the night at the villa.
Tuesday 14 September:
Drive to Valencia and visit the Oceanografic there and possibly the Science Museum.
Drive to Onda and spend the night there.
Wednesday 15 September:
Head towards Barcelona.
Visit the monasteries at Poblet and Monserrat.
Drive to Narbonnein France and spend the night there.
Thursday 16 September:
Visit Narbonne/Carcassonne
Drive to Toulouse and spend the night there.
Friday 17 September:
Explore the Dordogne region, visiting Cahors, Les Eyzies des Tayac, Sarlat and the Gardens of l’Eyrignac (if time)
Stay the night in Rocamadour
Saturday 18 September:
Explore Rocamadour
Drive up to Versailles, Paris.
Hopefully arrive in time to see the fountains at the Palace of Versailles, which only perform on limited dates.
Stay the night at the Waldorf Astoria in Versailles.
Sunday 19 September:
Drive to Calais and take the Eurotunnel back home.
I’ll be starting the trip report sometime after that....
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That was really it as far as planning went for this trip. I’ll be honest as well. So many people I talked to were surprised that we had hotels booked for every night on the way down and on the way back. The fact that so many people were surprised, in turn, surprised me, as I couldn’t imagine embarking on a trip like this and not having the plans in place. : Imagine arriving somewhere and then struggling to find somewhere to stay for the night. To me, that would be my biggest nightmare! Not a relaxing way to enjoy our vacation....
I ALWAYS book a hotel too. Once when I was younger, my mom, sisters and I took a road trip and we had no resevations. Thinking we would just find some place that looked good. Little did we know there was some sort of track meet at the area collage and NOTHING was available anywhere. We ended up driving about an hour away from where we wanted to be and it was about 10pm. Since that day - I always book something.
Sounds like a very busy but fun time. I do hope you get to enjoy some relaxation time at the villa. It is nice to be able to combine the "doing" vacation of the road trip with the "relaxing" vacation of the villa.
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This time, we’re off to visit Mark’s parents’ villa for the third year running, but for the first time, we’re driving, rather than flying. It’s in a beautiful part of the world, located in the village of Moraira in the Costa Blanca, between Alicante and Valenica. We first headed there in 
Life was made much easier, when our originally planned Disney cruise from Barcelona to Dover became a road trip around Normandy and the Loire Valley. That allowed us to cross off a number of the sights that I was originally going to do on this trip, meaning that our drive down became a lot quicker than I’d originally envisaged. 
It would certainly be a great way to end our stay.
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Pixie Dust
After ending up in McDonald’s during our previous road trip, as the only thing open on a Sunday, that was not a game I intended to play again. 
: 
Even better, we got a great rate through Expedia that included breakfast, so it was a perfect solution. 
Holly: 
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