Lospacoshombre

Hi All,
My friend and I are planning our dream road trip, one which is both our dream, which is to travel through Spain to the Costa Del Sol in an open top Sports car.

We are ferrying over night to France from UK and then driving down to firstly Benidorm then onto the CDS (home).

The journey will last 5 days and we intend to stay over in 4 locations, one being Benidorm.

As yet the places we intend to visit and stay over are a blank canvas. Towns such as pamplona, etc seem nice places to stop on the map, but really we would like some personal experience of hidden gems that may be worth seeing.

The route is not set in stone with only the agreed overnighter in Benidorm being set.

My friend has also expressed a wish to visit a vineyard, maybe one that could acomodate us for the night would be better .

Any suggestions from my learned friends

regards
Al

steviedeluxe

I was very impressed with my stay in Pamplona earlier this year. But it may be a shade big to use as just an overnight stay. Cuenca would be my tip for an overnight stay, with fantastic photo opportunities.

pwwm

Dont do it in the height of summer I have had a couple of rag tops, loved them, but far to hot to drive in August, you get burnt, but have fun, we sold ours after moving in 2003 as preffered air con with hood up, still miss it though sighhhhhh.

EsuriJohn

Before you get to Pamplona if you take the French west coast route you could pass through Rijoca and several of the vineyards have expanded into the overnight business and vineyard tours with spectacular wineries.

Domino

sorry, cannot see the reason for Benidorm.
take the Western Route through France,
http://about-france.com/tourism/rout...ugh-france.htm
a reasonable overnight stay is Angouleme.
drop down to Pamplona, marvellous views from the frighteningly high (1mile plus) roadways clinging to the side of the mountains,
MISS Saragossa, unless they have suddenly found some money there are interminable major roadworks on the main roads around there.
Try to get to Madrid via Sona using A15/A2, round Madrid massive ring roads so unless you want to go inside the city you don't see much except roads.

An alternative alternative is to drive to Bilbao or Santander and then drop down to Burgos and Valladolid to Madrid

Catch the A4 (E5) down to Bailen, driving thru the Valdepenas wine growing region and see all the windmills, then the A44 to Granada, this brings you only 80-100k from the CDS, there you can take the A44 down to Motril or the A92 to Malaga.

plenty to see, plenty of places to stay, just stay out of the sun, even with the ac on it will get through to the steering wheel and you!

enjoy the drive, I did it twice, taking 4 days each time. coming thru the chunnel in the afternoon/evening and overnighting at Calais to get an early morning start does help.

enjoy the trip and remember the French alcohol testers now required in the car.

kr

MikeJ

Heartily agree - did this once with a mate and we had to have the hood up all the time to prevent burning - and we couldn't rest our arms on the doors either. The only place where it was cool enough was in the haut auvergne so you might plan to travel via the Milau viaduct which is worth seeing.

Retired in Euskadi

I am now retired, living in the Basque country with my wife who's from here.
We've done the UK-Basque country trip thro' W France about 20 times over the years, so I'll suggest a few places.

*Use Portsmouth-Le Havre, St Malo or Caen if possible. Anything else means a lot more kms.
*Caen-Laval-Chateau Gontier-Saumur in about 3hrs. Saumur is a nice place for a coffee break. Caen-Saumur is about 190mls. Avoid Tours; horrible bottleneck.
*Saumur-Poitiers-Angouleme, about 200km
*Next, head for St Emilion. I'd use the N10 & then turn off at the D670 towards Libourne, otherwise, from Angouleme to St Emilion will seem like ages on the twisty D roads. St Emilion would be a good place to stay overnight if you think you can make it that far in a day, which is do-able.
*Head back towards Bordeaux & then to get round it, head for the airport, signed Merignac as it takes you on the Western side of Bordeaux.
*Then it's follow the man in front down the N10, now named A63. Come next year it'll be a toll road, but so far since Caen, you have paid no tolls.
*When you start to see the Pyrennees, if you fancy a last stop in France, avoid Biarritz & go to St Jean de Luz (Nord). Only 2-3 kms from motorway & a lovely little town.
*Back onto the A63, head for St Sebastien (Spain) & you'll meet 2 tolls, one costing about €2,the other €1.50 or so.
*Once in Spain San Sebstian (Donostia in Basque) is a lovely resort. Good parking.
*If you want Pamplona, fine. It's called Iruña in Basque!
*If you want Bilbao & the Guggenheim, fine. The motorway will get you there in about an hour & cost around €7.
*Otherwise, take the motorway to Vitoria (Gasteiz in Basque) & Logroño; great for "pintxos" (tapas), as is Donosti by the way.
*Go to Laguardia for a hilltop wine town; arrange a visit to either Marques de Riscal vineyard with its Frank Gehry designed Guggenheim lookalike hotel, which is expensive, but presumably good. From the town take a look at Domecq's bodega, Ysios, which I reckon has a better style of building.
*If you head south via Zaragoza, try to stop at Belchite, about 35km south. It's been left as a monument, totally in ruins from the Civil War.
*You may want to then head south west, via Madrid to be in the Benidorm direction. Zaragoza is a bit on the east side.
*Alternatively, try Vitoria-Burgos-Valladolid, all dual carriageway & non-toll. Then look for a castle or two, such as Peñafiel, Medina del Campo, Coca.
*Segovia worth a stop to see the Roman aqueduct & sample suckling pig.

South of Madrid, sorry, not too familiar as yet.
As for the Portsmouth-Santander ferry, it's always expensive I find & the Bay of Biscay can get rough.
Hope some of that helps.

Lospacoshombre

wow thanks retired !!!!

regards
Al