Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms st-malo to costa blanca

Driving down to Spain in the Aero,in June.
Any tips on route and accommodation.

How long do you want to take over the trip? It's about 1,200 miles (depending on your ultimate destination) so that could effect the route. Also, do you want to drive on Autoroutes or secondary roads?

If you can flesh out your intentions a bit, then I can probably make some recommendations. In the meantime, have you looked at this site for accommodation on the way down - Paradores. Whilst they do vary in quality in our experience, most of them are in interesting characterful buildings and the best are excellent.

We've booked through Brittany Ferries on two occasions, both times taking the Plymouth - Santander Ferry which was excellent. The first time we toured the Paradores in Northern Spain and the second time travelled north to St Malo. This was in a +4 and keeping off the motorways as far as possible. Great

Thought we would keep off the autoroutes as much as possible, we are going near Torrevieja.Departing Portsmouth to st-malo returning Santander to Plymouth.Have been looking at b&b in France for possibly one stop going down and maybe two nights around Pau. In Spain maybe two one night stops.On the return trip, two stops the second one near Santander

At work so don't have all info with me, but near Pau I would highly recommend Chateau de Projan. We stopped here with Speedmog a couple of years ago on the way back to Santander and we really enjoyed it.

The property has been imaginatively restored, the owner is an architect, and the family who manage it were very helpful - Richard & Christine Poullain. Richard does the cooking and the overall experience was so good we stopped an extra night.

The telephone number is: +33 05 62 09 46 21 and there is one entry in TripAdvisor. You may also find this site useful for B&B's in France.

Another essential stop imho is Bilbao for the Guggenheim Museum. The Frank Gehry building is fantastic, and whilst the Richard Serra installation - The Matter of Time - is impressive, some of the other works presented when we have visited have not been of the same quality imho. Last time we stopped in Miro Hotel which is almost opposite the Guggie (and has secure parking), but we have had good reports about the Hesperia Bilbao too.

HTH

Ditto to everything Aeroman said....

Hi many thanks for the advice, trip now all sorted staying in a mixture of small hotels,b&b`s and paradors.

Bill