places to stay en route to santander
 

Anyone know of a good place to stay with secure parking (as car loaded ) ! Around Salamanca and Valladolid and in Santander itself ?

Re: places to stay en route to santander
 

Hi
the Parador in Salamanca is fabulous. Ask for a room looking down onto the city. Whatever you do do not go cheap and stay at the Hiblanc in Salamanca ( an absolute nightmare) . Best to stay outside of city ( say Burgos) and drive in next day to ferry.
Good luck
Laslo peady

Re: places to stay en route to santander
 

If Burgos is a possibility then the Landa Palace Hotel just outside the city on the main Madrid road (A1) is a great place to stop. See Trip Advisor for reviews. A little pricey, but if you fancy parador type accommodation then this is for you and its location is very convenient and it has good overnight parking facilities.

Hope this helps.

iant

Re: places to stay en route to santander
 

There is a place called Sotolotopolocios (spelling may not be quite right!).

After you have gone through Burgos and heading towards Santander, there is a hostal on the main road. It is a few minutes just after the petrol station.

Ingeniously the hostal is called the Sotolotopolocios.

We have stayed a lot.

It is clean and inexpensive, make their own black sausage and wine!

They have parking but I am not sure about secure parking for cars, however they do have a garage where they always let us put our motorbike overnight at no extra cost. If I can find our receipt I will post additional details eg tel no and web/email if they have it.

The people are very friendly and speak a little english but I think they know us now as we have been so many times and recognise our bike!

It is very clean and do lovely food.

They have some very `special' rooms too! The grounds are also well worth a walk around.

Hope this is of some interest/help.

Re: places to stay en route to santander
 

In the end stayed in Bejar in the hotel Colon good postion for exploring the town and a fantastic spa in the basement. Had 4 gins,5 glasses of wine and 8 tapas (not just me) came to 22 euros in the hotel bar. Can't say the same for value in Santander paid 85 euros (by mistake) for a small dish of eels and they looked like something from I'm a Celebrity !!

Re: places to stay en route to santander
 

We had a leisurely trip and stayed over in Toledo - as it's only around 4 hours from Santander you can get a good bit of sightseeing (siteseeing?|) - and it's worth visiting. We stayed in a little boutique hotel - "Pintor El Greco". Has an underground, locked car park and is 5 mins from the centre of Toledo in the old town,

Re: places to stay en route to santander
 

I never had to sleep over, it only takes me about 11 hours coast to coast

Re: places to stay en route to santander
 

I know its not so far but isn't it great if you have the time to see some of these fabulous spanish cities

Re: places to stay en route to santander
 

Yes of course, great if you're not in a rush, enjoy it why not:thumbup:

Re: places to stay en route to santander
 

We would agree that with a couple of wee stops and a short meal break it is a 11hr run. However having made the trip several times now we almost always have a break.

When we have long days we have driven Ayamonte/Santander in the day and stayed overnight then had a very pleasant half day in what is really a very nice holiday resort. On wednesday we arrived a little late from UK and the sun was really warm and crowds were walking the promenade.

The arrival and departure times of the boat mean that on the UK leg you would have to leave CE at 03.00 to be safe for the 45min check in deadline. On the Spain leg if the boat is late or there are delays unloading you leave Santander at about 14.00. At this time of year that means the bulk of the drive is in darkness and the weather is not always good.

We have taken the easy route and now break the journey both up and down but in an asymetric way. Plasencia is about half way but northbound we go past to the Salamanca area and stop over there with an easy run in after a nights sleep. Southbound we head to down Caceres and then head to Ayamonte in the daylight and have lots of daylight left to unload and take the house out of mothball state and freshen it up.

The good news is despite the heavy rains this year there has been no adverse affects and the weather is just perfect mid-afternoon temps of 20* cool evenings and gin clear azure blue skys. Get on down here asap.

Re: places to stay en route to santander
 

Presumably you drink Bombay Sapphire then :rofl::rofl:

Re: places to stay en route to santander
 

Is there any other gin.

Re: places to stay en route to santander
 

Another good place to stop en route that we have used several times is the Hotel Dona Brigida on the outskirts of Salamanca. It's easy to get to from the motorway and is excellent value if you check out Expedia or the like. Quite often do half-board options as well. It's a very large modern golf hotel but lovely large rooms and very relaxing for a one night stay.

Re: places to stay en route to santander
 

Larios with Nordic Mist

Re: places to stay en route to santander
 

Personally I like Tanqueray No. Ten Gin - my son introduced this to me - he asked for a bottle for housesitting when we were in CE ;)
I've also flirted with Saffron Gin and some of the Dutch Genevas are very pleasant too.
Of the Spanish gins, Larios is a very good gin with a mixer but as a basis for a Gin cocktail I do like XORIGUER - Mahon Gin

Re: places to stay en route to santander
 

i make my own gin in my still .we had a couple of pints of it last night in ayamonte.i passed out about 3am.at 6am i got fone call from my dinking buddy.that was wicked stuff he said.i know it tasted like rocket fuel i replied.then he said thats what im ringing to warn you about.what ever you dont fart.im ringing from seville.:rofl:

Re: places to stay en route to santander
 

The old ones are always the best ones :rofl::rofl::rofl:

Re: places to stay en route to santander
 

beter to hear an old one than to hear a lot of ex pat babling on.:rofl:

Re: places to stay en route to santander
 

however i myself am guilty of babling on.especialy after a couple of bottles of brandy :rofl:

Re: places to stay en route to santander
 

Has anyone tried the LD Lines land-bridge route to Spain? ie Portsmouth-Le Havre and St Nazaire-Gijon. It's £300 cheper than Brittany Ferries in the summer - although you have to drive from Le Havre to St Nazaire (4 hours apparently). I was thinking of trying it out.

Re: places to stay en route to santander
 

hotel zamora in zamora - only a slight detour but worth it! secure parking and good cheap tapas in the backstreets. book with cheaprooms .com/lastminute.com or similar. last year I booked and it was cheaper with breakfast than without!!!

Re: places to stay en route to santander
 

I think some has already posted this route either on this thread or one of the others on this subjectand from memory they recommended it . This was sometime in the last month or so. I think part of this might be good for going to Cork which we shall be doing sometime next year so do report back Mike.

Re: places to stay en route to santander
 

I said in a previous post that I would report back on my “Land Bridge” experience.

The “land bridge” is operated by LD Lines (I have no other relationship than as a customer and this post is simply for information and has no commercial intention). They have a reasonable web site once you cotton on to the navigation which provides plenty of information about the service including detailed maps of the port facilities etc. When I compared prices it was around £300 cheaper than the Santander route, but I emphasise that this is a personal observation and not a recommendation (I don't want to get sued :-) ). There is the cost of fuel for the bit between Le Havre and Saint Nazaire to factor in, of course.

Portsmouth to Le Havre. Check-in at Portsmouth for the 08:30 ferry was very slick. The gate has ANPR which recognised my car number and had the ticket printing before I'd actually stopped. The barrier has a passport scanner which checks your passport (although a man double checked) and we were through into the parking lanes within a minute. There is a new terminal building with loos; WH Smith; Costa Coffee; coach load of screaming kids; in fact everything you need in a ferry terminal :-) . Embarkation onto the catamaran was quick and efficient (although we got stuck in the line behind the driver who didn't listen to the tannoy or thought he knew better about boarding times and wandered back at the last minute – how annoying is that when you arrived at a reasonable time and were in the first lane in order to get a quick start at the other end!. The ferry is large and spacious with: three large lounges each with a bar/servery for drinks and snacks; plenty of aircraft type seats; two TV areas showing cartoons for the kids (and adults in one case). The crossing took 3½ hours and we started disembarking at 12:00.

Le Havre to Saint Nazaire. The drive to Saint Nazaire took around 4½ hours plus pit stops with (avoidable) tolls of around 12€50. We choose to use the route via Caen and St Lo which passes close by Mont-St-Michel (always good for a photo!). The ferry terminal is just up river from the big bridge and is well sign-posted from the outskirts so is easy to find. We arrived at St Nazaire at around 19:00 which seemed a bit early but we were checked through and boarded right away. The check-in was - well it was French! - after a chaotic pushing match in a portacabin (when will these foreigners get the hang of queuing? :-( ) we were issued with a boarding card and a cabin ticket and passed through security to the assembly lanes and straight onto the boat. Another short queue to pick up our cabin key and we were aboard. I hate to think what it would be like turning up just in time for a full boat so take my tip and leave plenty of time for check-in.

Saint Nazaire to Gijon. We had an outside cabin which was adequate and comfortable. No TV but you can rent a DVD and player from reception. If you want to save money you don't have to have a cabin – there are pullman seats for the intrepid – but I don't think I could sit up all night before a long drive in Spain. There is a bar/bistro and a restaurant which served a good variety of meals – French oriented as you would expect on a French ferry. (Funnily enough all the ship board announcements were just in English). We settled for chicken and chips and a bottle of vino followed by an early night. Breakfast (at extra cost) was very good - buffet style with most of the makings of a full-English if that's your bag. Arrived and disembarked right on time at Gijon at 12:00.

Gijon to Sevilla. Gijon is at the start of the A66 which goes to Seville so once you've picked up the motorway then navigation is simples. There is a small toll (with manual gates!!), around 12€00, on the bit through the Picos mountains. There is a 70Km bit missing between Benavente and Zamora – take the N630, which, although a single carriageway, is not too busy and has plenty of passing opportunities ( a word of warning: slow down through the villages as at least one had a speed trap). Otherwise your sat nav will take you via Valladolid adding 60kms or so. Actually a lot of the motorway wasn't shown on my sat nav – which is 2010 – so it must be very recent. The distance from Gijon to Seville is around 5km shorter than Santander to Seville. We stopped over at Salamanca at the Puerte Romano hotel which we can recommend – not the cheapest but has garage parking and is a short walk over the Roman bridge from the city.

Hope someone finds this useful

Re: places to stay en route to santander
 

WOW more than 'useful' - THANKS for the excellent info!

Jon

Re: places to stay en route to santander
 

back in March the OH and I loaded the dog into car and came over on the chunnel driving down thru the France Western route, taking 3 days for the 1500 mile trip to Andalusia. Stayed in Travelodge style places and had a very enjoyable trip.

Re: places to stay en route to santander
 

To add to my previous post - the return trip:
Check-in at Gijon was of the "portacabin" variety with a fairly lengthy queue but once you were through they were loading the ferry on an ad-hoc basis so no long waits in a marshalling queue. The ferry was as before except that it docks at 06:00. They started tannoy calls to breakfast at 04:30 and a reminder to return your cabin key by 06:00. However we had checked the night before and found out that actual disembarkation was 07:00 so we had a lie in.

The procedure at Le Havre could not be more different - or more chaotic! They refused to open the check-in gates until 90mins before sailing. Arriving cars lined up in one of 5 lanes as they chose (no organisation to it at all) they then opened only 3 check-in booths so you can imagine the mad scramble as vehicles vied for position. The check-in process seemed twice as long as anywhere else. We had arrived 2 hours before (speedy French roads :) ) but I was seriously concerned that we might not make it on board. To make matters worse we were queue jumped by a pair of motocyclists who didn't even have a booking and wanted to buy a ticket as well as check-in. When I remonstrated (I admit a little heatedly, but we had been queueing for over an an hour) the motocyclist (a Brit) threatened to remove my specs and spit in my face - charming:rolleyes: So not a fun experience. The crossing was a bit rough but we did get back to Blighty on time (and in a torrential downpour)

Re: places to stay en route to santander
 

Hi John
I wondered if you could recommend an hotel in Caceres. We are taking the ferry to Bilbao which arrives at 07:30 so we should get to Caceres mid afternoon and have time for a good look round. I believe you recommended Caceres on another thread.

Re: places to stay en route to santander
 

We have stayed in 3 different hotels the most convenient and the one we have stayed most often at is the Barcelo. It is very close to the motorway and well up to Barcelo 4* standard although we have not eaten in the restaurant they only open at 9pm but the bar meals are good enough. It's just to far from the center to walk comfortably so when we have gone into town we have crossed the road and caught a bus. We aim to spend between between 30 and 50 euro for a double room for the night and this one falls in the middle if you shop around. I'll report back on the other 2 later.