valrose

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

laslopeady

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

iant

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

Diddymiddy

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.

valrose

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 !!

MikeJ

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,

anonimouse

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

valrose

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

anonimouse

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

EsuriJohn

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.

MikeJ

Presumably you drink Bombay Sapphire then

EsuriJohn

Is there any other gin.

Golfister

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.

Fredbargate

Larios with Nordic Mist

MikeJ

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