On fine EU funded roads we drive south..

We disembarked our ferry at 7am on Tuesday morning having been up since 5am to get the dogs ready for an early confinement in the car, a reversal of the embarkation process where we are escorted through the non public parts of the ship.  It was just getting light as we headed out of Bilbao towards Madrid and just beyond.

 Nothing much about on these new EU funded roads

 

 A map to hand just to get a sense of where we are going and a valuable back up if the GPS fell out of the sky and made the Tom Tom redundant!

We arrived in Aranjuez, pronounced something like A-ran-hewer  with a lisp employed on the hewer bit, at lunch time and after checking out the new one way system three, or was it four times , it might have been five times actually...we finally located our hotel. We had decided to break our 750 mile journey from Bilbao to Trujillos and settled for somewhere just south of Madrid.. Aranjuez was enroute so we had pre-booked the accommodation in the UK making sure that they were happy to have the dogs.  We booked in and carted all our overnight gear into the room; travelling with the dogs is like having a baby with you, dog beds, dog food, dog bowls, chews, poo bags, just no buggy!  Once the room was sorted we took advantage of the fantastic weather and went walk about.

 Just across the road from the hotel is the Royal Palace...pink brick and ivory stone embellishments.  It was quite stunning and enhanced by a couple of fine looking Labs posing in front of it.

 The avenue to the Palace

 

Leaving town the next morning, more one-way exploration, we passed the  Plaza del Torros, a bloody great Bull Ring that seats 9000..least said I think.  This next stage of our journey was some 225 miles or thereabouts.  We crossed through a number of mountain ranges all on excellent roads, through remarkable tunnels, crossed extensive crop filled plains and gradually the countryside started to change and the miles and miles of olive trees stretched before us.

 

 Turning off of the impressive main drags we are now heading towards the tiny settlement that is going to be home for the next few months

And here we have it, a traditional farm building now converted to holiday accommodation.  We are in the midst of acres and acres of olive groves that we can walk the dogs in which was part of the attraction.  Tomorrow will start to explore so for now Adios, Buenas tarde.