And….exhale….we are in Spain! We got off the boat this morning at 7am after 35 hours of calm waters, sunshine, delicious French Food and about 300 over 60s passengers (and no, we didn’t join in the card making classes or bingo in the entertainment suite) As we had missed the 24hour crossing we were left with two nights and a day on board and, quite frankly, we loved it. Great facilities, french food, room with an amazing view and 30seconds from the sun deck which played a mixture of Jack johnson/Michael Buble all day. Only negative was not being able to thump the couple who proclaimed that ‘the French food was all well and good -be we all know a Burger King would be better’. Oh and despite my best efforts on the sun deck – I am still about the only person I know who has never seen a dolphin….one mission for the trip has become clear.

Interesting morning….driving during Spanish rush hour. The Spanish zest for life apparently also spills out to a zest to come as close to death as possible – in my next life I am coming back as a Spanish car insurance salesman. After a strong 60 miles we found our campsite just outside the Rioja making town of Haro. We walked in to town (in 32deg heat) and made it abundantly clear to all in the bar in the town square that we were tourists buy attempting to order water in Spanish. I am getting my nose in the language book tonight – by the time we get to Barcelona I will be able to string some sort of sentence together without adding French and Italian in there.

Right I am off to sample a glass of Rioja!