Bordeaux to San Sebastián

3rd June 2019

The next big city on our list was Bordeaux. Unfortunately, we were on a bit of a time crunch so we decided we’d only spend one full day exploring. Turns out, one full day was all we felt like we needed. It was a beautiful city but it felt like a smaller version of Paris. As terrible as it sounds, we were a little “over” the city and tourist things. We were really looking forward to getting to the coast. In saying that, we did have a lovely day and enjoyed our first gelato! 

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Later that day, while sitting outside at Starbucks, we had a pretty eye-opening experience. We were minding our own business, making use of the free wifi when a few carloads of cops pulled up and quickly started blocking off the road at the intersection. They started yelling and singling people to get back. Some people turned and walked away, others ran inside. Morgan and I were starting to get on edge, trying to work out what was happening. A young French girl could see we looking confused and translated to us a single word that ran cold down my spine … “bomb”. Sitting on the curb was a tanned duffle bag that had been left unattended for some time. Morgan and I decided we weren’t about to take any chances so we left the area entirely. Walking down the street, there were more truckloads of cops coming in. Including the bomb squad. What made it scarier is that there had been a package bomb that went off in Lyon, France only 10 days earlier. I don’t know what the result of the bomb scare was, whether it was just that, a scare, and everyone was being careful or if it was actually a bomb. Either way, I think I’d rather not know. What we found amazing was the efficiency of the police and how there was no way they were taking an unattended bag lightly. 

On our way out of the city, we made the last-minute decision to make our way to Dune du Pilat on a recommendation made to us by a fellow van traveler. We didn’t really know what we were in for, all we knew was it was a sand dune. Wow, did we get a surprise! We arrived and walked through a park and out of the blue came a MASSIVE sand dune. Thank god it had stairs from the bottom to the top!! The views were amazing. On one side was Forrest, the other side was the Arcachon basin. We had actually timed it really well and arrived just before sunset. The only thing that would have made it more perfect was if we had a few beers to savor in the moment.

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4th June 2019

The next day, we hit the coast again as we arrived in Biarritz. Unfortunately, I don’t have too much to say about Biarritz because it absolutely poured with rain for two days straight. We spent the best part of two days drinking tea, watching movies and feeling a little homesick. We certainly had cabin fever by the end of our two days. Luckily on our third morning, the weather finally broke and we were able to drive to San Sebastián. We said Au revoir to France and Hola to Spain

We arrived in our camp spot for the night and man, it was a tight squeeze!! We definitely had a few hair raising moments getting our van into the right spot to allow juuuust enough room to open our door! 

After two days of being stuck inside the van, we kind of “let loose”. We ended up doing our own version of a pub crawl through San Sebastián. We just couldn’t help ourselves!! The wine was €1.20 per glass and €3 for a pint of beer! Now, don’t even get me started on the tapas! They were delicious! We had a range of different seafood & meat tapas throughout the night. And if that wasn’t enough, we finished the night off with a burger.. and one last beer. The next morning we thought it was wise to check our funds. Much to our surprise, our night out didn’t cost us much at all! Spain is incredibly cheap compared to France! We love Spain already. 

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Our original plan was to have two nights in San Sebastián but unfortunately the weather took a turn for the worse again. We decided to pack up and squeeze our way out of our tight campsite and start the long journey from San Sebastián to Portugal.