1st May VITORIA GASTEIZ – LEON

We (Brett) had a very long drive today 180 miles across the plains of Spain (and yes it did rain); it was a very boring journey, it just went on and on, and the countryside was very uninspiring mainly fields of cereal, no houses or roads. We had a couple of strange occurrences though; at the start of the journey a lorry passed us, he was honking his horn and waving out of his window at us – we thought there was something wrong with the van, or that the bikes had fallen off! But nothing appeared to be up, then I realised that we could see him, as he drove past, therefore it must have been a right hand drive vehicle and maybe he was British and he was just being friendly? Then, about 100 miles later, a Portuguese lorry passed us; the passenger wound down his window and he was waving and smiling at us (in a friendly manner, not a ‘there’s something wrong’ manner) – now what was that all about? We have absolutely no idea.

So we arrived in Leon and decided to have a look around the town to see if there was anywhere nice to eat and to buy some food anyway as we’ve run out of most stuff (and we like to have ingredients just in case we’re caught short) – there was nowhere open (well there were some bars FULL of men playing cards) but even the shopping centre was shut at 6.00 p.m. now I know we’re not good with this siesta thing but this was ridiculous. We consulted our ‘Rough Guide to Spain’ only to find that 1^st May is a National holiday i.e. and all the shops are shut, so it was left over two day old pasta and tomato salad for dinner (yum!).

We’re going to stay here for a couple of nights; tomorrow we’re going to visit the Cathedral – there’s supposed to be some nice glass in there.