Santiago de Compostela

Day 9 of the trip saw us crossing over the top of Portugal and into Galicia heading for its capital Santiago de Compostela. Allegedly the remains of St James the Apostol were brought to in 813 AD for burial, and pilgrims have been flocking here ever since.


the back of the cathedral


If you go upstairs you can "embrace" the Apostle??


Lots of carvings and pictures of this fella

35 degrees in Europe can be hard work, the green hills in this area start to give up a lot of the moisture they are holding onto and the humidity goes through the roof!! While we were starting to look for a place for lunch I suddenly caught the smell of BBQ and down below us to the right on a minor road we found this place. All you can eat for 20 euros. The place was packed with locals and tourists alike. Whoever though of stocking the fires so that the smoke drifted across the main highway was a genius !




When we finished this they just asked if we wanted more!!

I had been warned by my sister that access to the area around the cathedral was limited bordering on impossible and it was more by luck and ignoring some no entry signs that we found the entrance to our hotel right opposite the back entrance to the cathedral. We unloaded the bike and registered and for the first time on the trip we had to put the bike into a public car park for safe keeping. Never mind. Our hotel was an old monastery and while the rooms were sparse they were comfortable and cool.


The entrance to the hotel


Inside was nice

The next day was spent wandering around the old city and trying to find not only the religious parts (of which there are many, cathedral etc) but the other interesting places like the meat and fish market we stumbled upon.


fish market in full swing


Lots of interesting places to discover

The early evening nightlife in Santiago is fantastic. Once everyone has woken up from their siesta the street cafes and tapas bars come to life and it’s a great way to people watch while having a drink and some nice nibbles. In fact this was becoming our evening meal as we ate our main meal at lunch time as eating at 10.00 in the evening is not my thing.


Cafe culture in the evening - Great


Good beer, but beware at 8.2%!!!


Octopus tapas, mmmmm!!


Different buskers each night at this place

Zamora "in da hood"

We left Toledo and headed out across the wheat plains of Spain (rain this time of the year was mainly thunder storms at night!) stopping at Zamora which was just a mid point for a nights stopover but is a nice enough Medieval town in its own right. With 24 churches in the old part of town it has the most Romanesque style churches in all of Europe.


Great old streets again



One of the 24 chrches


At the end of the old city is the cathedral number 24

The other thing Zamora is famous for is Holly Week when the Easter brotherhood’s, parade through the streets (I’m sure some of the Zamoran’s have cousins in the deep south of the USA??)


Statue in the main square


The brothers in the hood!!

After a good walk and a beer or two around we raided the supermarket to get some food seeing as the restaurants don’t open until 10.00 and we were both getting very hungry.

Jousting with Windmills

Toledo turned out to be a fantastic place to stay and explore for a couple of days. The hotel was just to one side of the old city and with restaurants and souvenir shops and bars galore we had no problem in amusing ourselves. Like many of the old Medieval towns in Spain the buildings in Toledo are four stories high and very narrow. As a result the sun does not penetrate into these streets so easily and it stays a little cooler. 

On the edge of the old town

The Cathedral

The down side is when you walk into one of the squares at midday and it’s like a scene from the Chronicles of Riddick!! 

Tall buildings = Cool streets

The third day we fired up the bike and headed south to find the windmills around Consuegra. These are the ones that Don Quixote jousted with when he really went off his rocker!! Perched on the hillside just at the back of the town they are quite a sight to see. Even though we didn't set off that early we still beat most of the Spanish tourists and the coaches there. We were on the way back for a siesta by lunch time. 

Right Rocinante, on to battle!!

Great views from the hill top

Next was a run across the hot Spanish plains and north to Santiago de Compostela.

Andorra and into Spain

The ride on the Sunday was an easy 120km down to Carcassone. We stopped for a coffee in Cordes-sur-Ciel and arrived early in Carcassone. Check in time was also thankfully early and after parking the bike around the back of the hotel under lock and key we wandered of to have a look around one of the most “knights and castles” places that you can imagine.

Luckily the majority of the daytime tourists had left and we enjoyed a comfortable evening and dinner before returning to the hotel to find the bike had company of around another seven, or eight bikes from Germany.

Monday’s run into Andorra was another short day but the scenery got better and better as we climbed up into the Pyrenees Mountains. This was my first visit to this Principality and although great if you are looking for duty free alcohol, cigarettes, petrol (around 25 stations along the main road into town) or any other kind of electrical device from camera’s, computers to tazers!! I think other than a winter skiing vacation I won’t be coming back too soon.

Spectacular ride in

Tuesday was another short 120km day into Spain to the Parador in Cardona. During the 1970’s the Spanish government took over a lot of the old castles and grand houses in Spain and converted them into luxury hotels. The one we had chosen was a castle set on to of a hill. Thankfully like most places we parked the bike fairly close to the entrance and enjoyed a huge room and dinner that evening.

The Parador (old castle) set on top of the hill

Very medieval !!

All the Paradors serve a variety of the local dishes of the area. I had the stuffed Guinea Fowl. Very nice.

As we have come down through Spain the temperature has slowly risen to the high thirty’s, as expected. What was a surprise were the roads, especially from Teruel to Cuenca. I think I can safely say that this road would rank with the best motorcycle riding roads in the world. Good road with lots of bends and great scenery. 

Albarracin town start of a great ride through the sierras

By the time we got to Toledo we were baking in the mid afternoon sun and desperate to get to our Hotel. Once again we scored not only with it being in the heart of the old city but when asked where was the best place to park the bike the reply came “just park it outside the door. Perfect!!

Paris to the Tarn district

I left Claire and Fontenay on the next Sunday morning after a week of odd jobs and larger ones with me lending a hand to Polo to pull down the ceiling in the living room and putting up a new one. Traffic around the outside of Paris was light and remained so for the rest of the day. It gave me a chance to get back into the travelling frame of mind. Just before lunch I thought I felt something rough in the driveline but it seemed to disappear and I forgot about it. I made good time and arrived in Guere by two o’clock. Unfortunately the check in didn’t open until five!! The downside of Sunday afternoon in France is that there is nothing open, so I headed for McDonnalds (always open!) to waste as much time as I could. The poor weather that I had encountered in the afternoon was still hanging around the next morning as I chatted to the Belgium quartet on Harleys that had also stayed there. Luckily it dissipated as I got through the massif central mountains and continued south west down into the Tarn region. I got to Pear Tree Cottage at around three in the afternoon to join my Mum and my Sister for the next two weeks to relax and enjoy some of the wonderful sights there are in that region.







During the thirteenth century the kings of France and England built “new” fortified towns or “Bastides” in the Tarn region laid out to a plan of streets to a grid pattern with a central market place. These medieval towns were built on hills and surrounded with defendable walls. All this means that they were sturdy and still survive today and as such are a delightful window into what it must have been like to live in those times. Towns such as Cordes-sur-Ciel and Najac have occupied most of our time as the weather has steadily got better with the European summer suggesting that it may have finally arrived??









On one of the first days I decided to do a little maintenance on the bike and after adjusting and lubricating the chain noticed that there was a fair amount of play in the brake side of the rear wheel. It only took a moment to decide that it would not make sense to risk continuing on to Spain with it like that, especially considering that all the hotels are booked and we are going to be on a fairly tight schedule. So with that in mind I sought out the local Yamaha dealer “Warmup Moto” in Albi and over the weekend they managed to procure a full set of bearings and have the work done by the Tuesday afternoon. Great service with a smile and at the 200 euros I had expected.



Next step is that Claire will join me on Friday and on Sunday we will start to head for Carcassone and then the Pyrenees and a couple of nights in the principality of Andorra.

I can’t believe that I still book economy class on an airline and expect it to get better!! But needs must and thanks to Mark Campbell in Melbourne I was duly deposited at the airport at the unearthly hour of 23.00 for a 01.30 departure. 24 hours later I was at Birmingham Airport freezing my jewels off. It seems that the British weather is the other thing I expect to get better!!

So the last two weeks has been a rush of trying to get the bike ready, fitting all the bits and pieces for not only this years trip but the big adventure to Siberia next year. The pannier frames and spotlights, the steering damper bar end weights and hardwire for the GPS. Thanks to Mike Dorrington who not only looks after the Tenere in the UK but also MOT’s it and then lets me use his workshop to do all these bits and pieces

in the workshop

New steering damper

LED Spotlights. Bright!!

The first weekend was spent up at Donington at a campground right next door to the race circuit. Not only that but also right next door and on the flight path of East Midlands Airport where the flight finish at around midnight and start again at four in the morning. If you don’t like sleep then that’s the place to camp!!. I was attending the UK Horizons Unlimited meeting and where I’ve been to the Australian one about four times now this was around four times the size with talks and shows going on all the time, too many to see them all. I left early on the Saturday afternoon as the sleeping bag I had taken just wasn’t up to the English summer (another good reason for not being able to sleep) but that one was my own fault. AN enjoyable time as they always are but it does start to loose the intimate feeling when the numbers are over 800 people.

Freezing nights!

Lots of people there

Last week was rushing around trying to get things ready for the wedding in September. Both Claire and I have given notice at the relevant register offices and the rings have been bought. We also managed to get her some good buys on bike clothing so she is better prepared for whatever the weather throws at us around Europe. Monday was a run down to the channel tunnel and thirty easy minutes later we were in Calais looking for a hotel. Yesterday was the run home to Fontenay en Parisis along the back roads meandering behind a surprising amount of large truck’s through the Somme region for the first time. I fully intend to go back when we have been around Spain to get some pictures and to try to find Claire’s Great Uncles grave.

Loaded for two