On Monday after a lovely refreshing swim ( we dont want to leave as it is just soooo hot) we pack up and head down towards the Spanish border. We decide to stay at St Jean De Luz, one of our favourite spots and it is only 45 mins to San Sebastian in Spain for our dentist appointments on Tuesday. We thought the aire would be packed but realise it is just too hot for most and there are only a few of us here. We do like it but we are drenched in sweat with no way of cooling down.
We have a wander through the town and could go for a swim, but it costs to use water here and we have paid to stay already so dont worry about it. We do stop for a drink in town before heading back home for tea. With all the windows in the van open it is dreadfully noisy. We didnt notice the traffic last year but it was still winter with windows and doors closed. It is so hot and noisy we hardly sleep at all. Everywhere we go we hear 2 stroke scooters and trail bikes which are revving madly and noisy. They are a pain in the arse. Scot reckons they musnt need a licence to ride them, there are so many of them, but he thinks the noise is good since you can hear them coming. We wont come back here again at this time of year if its hot.
We get up early and head off to the aire in San Sebastian where i hope we can park for at least the day. It is a 4.5km bike ride to the dentist from there so very convenient. All good and there were plenty of parks, but it is still and hot and after no sleep last night it will be unbearably hot here. It is high 30’s again and it is hot work biking into the city. I didnt realise how big San Sebastian is. The beaches are lovely and very crowded. We are wondering why so many people are at the beach on a Tuesday but realise later the Spanish school holidays have just started…buggar!
We find our dentist early and go into the aircon to cool down and wait. 2 hours later Scot minus a large back tooth and me with my root canal done in what i think is record time and only 360euro for both. I am so glad we came to Spain. In Aus that would have cost us over $3000 to get done. Next time i am flying here to have it done plus a holiday. The owner of Sada clinica was a lovely man and came out to talk to us. He pulled Scots tooth as he is the surgeon here. He works one week a month in the UK which is good for his English. We are both feeling relieved its all out of the way.
We head back through the old town, park up our bikes and have a wander. We could spend a lot of time here. When you look down the narrow streets you just see endless little bars, each one with tapas on the bar. We stop at one for a drink and some tapas to eat. It wasnt a good choice of food, hot tapas left to go luke warm on a stinking day was a slight recipe for disaster when 4 hours later in a supermarket near the border, bad stomach pain meant having to urgently find a loo!!! So hard to choose which bar to go into as they all look amazing. We could go into a different bar every day and not go into the same one in a few months staying there.
As much as we are always reluctant to go near cities this one was great and easy parking up, although some roads were a little confusing where we needed to go. This is the silver lining to a not so good teeth event, we get to see San Sebastian. Would love to come back here for more time.
We had our few hours wandering and biked back to the aire. We decided not to stay the night even though we had paid for it as it was just far too hot. We learnt a very valuable lesson here too. A young guy came to ask us if we had a pump for his bike. I was sitting in front of the van and Scot went and got ours out. But later we realised his mate could have gone in our side van door and taken our wallets, passports etc that were sitting on the bed whilst we were distracted and we wouldnt have known about it. Lucky for us these young fellows were German and that wasnt their game, but this is what they do in some countries. We have let our guard down a little too much, back to being more watchful.
We leave the aire and head back up to France but stop at a Spanish supermarket before the border for our Spanish shopping list. Blue water bottles, raspberries, blueberries, olives, San Miguel beer and lots of it, etc. It is about 9pm before we get to an aire just north of Biarritz.
