After quitting my corporate job, my mini-campervan adventure comes to an end
Home-from-home for Jennifer Sheahan's excursion around France and Spain. Pictures: Alan Landers
Regular readers - this is my final instalment on my September mini-campervan adventure around France and Spain.
If you read my previous three, you’ll have followed me as I quit my corporate job, hopped on the ferry to with my partner, and drove down through the west of France, spending some time in Île de Ré, La Rochelle, and Bordeaux.
The past week has been spent camping in the French Pyrenees, taking a quick day-trip to , and finally enjoying a gastronomic extravaganza in án. I write this from the relatively luxurious Salamanca ship as I sail back to real life on .
I love the mountains. I love looking at them, I love climbing up them, I love cycling around them, and I love skiing down them. So camping in the Pyrenees has been a real highlight of this trip.
We stayed in , a stunning little campsite nestled in the Val d’Azun with beautiful views of the surrounding mountains and endless walks and cycle routes nearby. The roads are a little narrower and windier through the mountains, but still a relatively easy drive.
We accidentally arrived in time for the Fête du Ciel - a weekend of paragliding, hang-gliding, and hot-air ballooning - which happened to take place right on our doorstep.
Days were spent going on short hikes with beautiful views, interspersed with languid lunches while watching the sky fill up with colourful flyers and relaxing in the campsite’s gorgeous hot tub and sauna in the evenings. I would have happily stayed for weeks.
The one thing that would drag me away from the mountains is the promise of good food. San Sebastián in northern is the epicentre and has been on my list for a long time - so long that I was worried I had built my expectations up to unreasonable levels.
Turns out the opposite was true - I thought the food would be good, I didn’t think it would be life-changingly so.
The whole style of eating is a joy - food is typically served in small bites, and days are spent drifting from one pinxto bar to another in search of the next delicious mouthful.
Foodies flock here from all over the globe, and if there’s one thing foodies love almost as much as eating good food, it’s talking about it. Everywhere we went, we got chatting to some couple or group who had just come from another pinxtos bar and couldn’t wait to tell us what we should eat next.
The food beat my expectations, and the craic was an unexpected bonus. There are too many amazing pinxtos bars to narrow down to a short list, but some great places to start are Bar Sport, La Viña, Bar Nestor, and Ganbara. The local wine, txakoli, is a crisp white that is naturally sparkling and not to be missed.
If you tire of walking around in search of pinxtos, there are plenty of great restaurants you can sit down at too - San Sebastián has one of the highest densities of Michelin-starred restaurants in the world.
And if you need a break between meals, the city itself is a joy to stroll around. There are two stunning beaches, small, pretty islands dotted off the coast, coastal hills for gentle hikes and views, and plenty of galleries to occupy your time.
We didn’t find a great campsite nearby that could accommodate our tent awning, so we turned to . If you read my previous article, you’ll know we had people staying in my home while we were away, and we did the same here.
We were generously hosted by a lovely woman in a very central apartment and were given plenty of local recommendations. So far so good for Home Exchange.
We’ve spent much of our time on the ferry back talking about highlights, what worked well, and what we’d do differently next time. Overall we both loved the trip and would do it again in a heartbeat.
I loved the route we followed, driving was easy, the ferry has been a joy, and the campsites were exceptional.
Our camper is tiny. It’s a seven-seater Nissan Serena that was converted by the fantastic Pathfinders in into a mini camper-van. They squeezed in everything we need - a stove, plenty of storage, a sink, a comfy bed, even a shower.
The reason it’s so small is because my house and therefore my street are both tiny and parking anything larger than this car is not an option. I also don’t have space for a second car, so it doubles as my primary vehicle.
While this suits perfectly now, it does mean we need to add a tent awning to give us living space and somewhere to change. That can be a little limiting - you need a campsite to set up a tent, whereas a larger but fully self-contained van can park up anywhere.
That said, the size makes it easier to drive and to park in underground car parks - which was convenient for our day trips to and Bayonne. Ultimately though we will upgrade to a larger van that is fully self-contained in a few years time.
Which leads me to the thing I get asked most about - the loo. If this topic is too much for you then I’ll leave you here - thanks for reading and enjoy the rest of your day.
For those of you less squeamish, here’s the lowdown. My van is too small to fit one, so I bought a combo of a pop-up privacy tent and a folding camping loo, which is perfect for a pee.
This is lined with compostable bags which you then fill with the absorbent and scent-neutralising material of your choice. The most popular and best option is kitty litter, which you buy in any pet shop, but I have read reviews that absorbent gel crystals, cedar wood shavings, and sawdust work well too.
You dispose of this in the same way you would dispose of children’s nappies or pet waste.
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