Our homeward journey is multi stage. Our coach returns us to Bilbao Airport. We traverse what I believe to be Rioja country and we do see some vines but not on the scale I was anticipating.
At the airport where we have the usual wait for the Vueling aeroplane to return us to London Gatwick. They disembark by row numbers – five at a time. I am not sure it makes things better as people are still not ready to move once their rows are called.
Then a transfer bus to the long term parking where the car awaits at the far end of a car park and the rain is pouring down from the sky in vast quantities. We rarely resort to remote parking – justified as it came as part of the package to stay at the hotel on the outward journey which brings back memories of the excellent meal at Sorrel unmatched during our sojourn abroad.
Northern Spain – potentially damper than would have been ideal. The Paradors I felt were a little lacking from the expectations we had of them, although we saw some others along the way. The rooms are inevitably standardised I suppose but the service levels I had anticipated to be higher than we experienced – are they suffering the same recruitment difficulties as the UK or as it feels is it deliberate to manage with as few as possible.
Some of the scenery was magnificent. Away from the towns on the Camino Way it felt that the English were far from welcome (Oviedo I am looking at you), however another day it might be another story. We have now seen places we might not have seen, I would like to come back and visit some of the Rioja wineries and Bilbao. There is also an interesting looking narrow gauge rail network – but I suspect the frequency and speed of trains might be on the low side!
