Originally Posted by Chiclanagir (Post 10463654)

Now the next question (we´ve booked) is where is the best place to stop overnight on the way? We will be heading up from Seville.

Originally Posted by John & Kath (Post 10463685)

Depends how you want to do it and which port you are departing from.

Lets say you are leaving from Bilbao and you want to do the bulk of the drive the day before we stay at the Cuidad Burgos which is right alongside the motorway and is about 90 mins into the port we aim for about £40.

From Santander then we tend to break halfway at Salamanca or Valodollid.

From Gijon we break at Salamanca and have just booked one night at the Vincci Hotel £36 and our usual room has a super view of the Cathedral which is illuminated at night and looks fantastic. We actually like the Tryp Montalvo better but that was £40 so economy calls.

All our hotels tend to be about 10 mins from the route de la plata.

Our ferry is from Santander and leaves at 9.15 pm so hopefully should be able to get to Salamanca or Valodollid easily in the first day.

You are futher south than us so you might wish to break sooner at say Caceres where we book the Barcelo again looking for less than £40. It will all depend on what time you boat sails and how far you want to travel on the second day. We check out our hotels on Booking.com and HotelClub.com and somtimes if the one we want does not show expedia.com

Originally Posted by Chiclanagir (Post 10463958)

We leave at 9.15 pm from Santander so should be able to get to Salamanca or Vallodolid easily in the first day.

Originally Posted by John & Kath (Post 10464091)

With a boat sailing time of 21.15 you have all of the second day to do the second half of the trip so either would be a good choice. We reckon about 2.75 hrs from Valodollid but then we do get a move on and the motorway north from Placencia is new and almost empty. You can check in as late as 45 mins before sailing so perhaps Salamanca is a more balanced break point or even Caceres.

Originally Posted by John & Kath (Post 10464091)

With a boat sailing time of 21.15 you have all of the second day to do the second half of the trip so either would be a good choice. We reckon about 2.75 hrs from Valodollid but then we do get a move on and the motorway north from Placencia is new and almost empty. You can check in as late as 45 mins before sailing so perhaps Salamanca is a more balanced break point or even Caceres.

Originally Posted by Bri and Katee (Post 10465793)

Same here Mitzyboy.

We book the ferry that gets in am/lunchtime. Then a straight 9 hour drive down to Pinoso (nr Jumilla) We stop halfway to refuel and a mealbreak, its about 800k but easily do-able if you can split the driving between two of you. We tend to get to ours around 9-10pm.

Once you get past madrid its plain sailing all the way down.

Originally Posted by John & Kath (Post 10465936)

For us it's about 850K and with proper rest breaks, food and fuel about 11 hrs we have done it in a oner about 10.5 hrs but we now take the extra day and see some of the cities on the way. Of course the direct route for us is down the route de la plata through Sevilla and Chiclanagirl has even futher to go all the way south. For us it's an age thing takes a while to get the joints moving after too long in the saddle so an evening walk around some of Spain's nicest cities is just what the doctor ordered.

Originally Posted by Chiclanagir (Post 10466702)

Exactly, I would rather make it a nice easy journey seeing parts of Spain we wouldn´t otherwise see or else we may as well fly.

Now another question is it worth getting a Satnav? We do have some rather heated arguments over my map reading skills!