Day 2: Destination Zaragoza
Hello everyone, Alex here. It’s the morning of day 2; the ferry has successfully docked at Santander. Only 30 minutes earlier we were still in the canteen filling our bellies with croissant and cornflakes ready to take on main land Europe and the first leg of our epic drive through seven countries! Docking doesn’t take long for this magnificent ferry that has been our home for the last 24 hours. We jump into our respective sports cars and take on our first challenge: the roads! For the inexperienced European drivers amongst us, oh wait, that’s just me, I had to remember to drive on the right side of the road, literally.
Our aim today is to reach Zaragoza in Northern Eastern Spain, this is approximately 200 miles away from Santander. Having left the dock the open road is upon us and it’s not long before the scenery becomes centre of attention, with stunning cliffs, mountains and bridges almost at every turn. A random British driven Jaguar temporarily makes it a three car trip as we race….. I mean head towards Bilbao. This year walkie talkies have made it on to the itinerary list and we enjoy some good banter with various nicknames being coined, the fantastic four soon become Kenndogg, 20 cent, Main Brain and err… Sami. We also take the opportunity to take try our photography skills, which came out very well.
We enter Bilbao and the first test of the trip arises. The two cars are split up coming off a roundabout as a local chap nearly takes out the front end of the Audi and Sami is forced into evasive action. Dan and I in the lotus are force to take the next junction. With only one sat nav (in the Audi), no mobiles and the radios down (battery) we soon realise that somehow we have to find our way back to the others; the problem is we are now heading out of town with nowhere to turn. Luckily the next junction is not far and we are able to head back into Bilbao and soon find the guys parked up in the local Park. We head through the very picturesque park to find and take pics of the local Museum a few may know… The Guggenheim? Incidentally, this area of Bilbo was featured in the opening scene of the James bond film The World is not enough.
We return to the cars to find they have attracted quite a bit of attention from the locals. After fighting off the paparazzi (ok slight exaggeration) we jump in the Audi and Lotus and continue along the northern half of Spain but not before taking our first proper photo of the two cars together.
With Ben in the driving seat of the Audi we soon realise which of us have the heavy foot as the Lotus is going flat out just to keep up. Some of the local livestock appear to fall over as the Lotus steams past with Dan’s feet sticking out the window, weird. With Ben doing what seems to be mach 2 we soon require petrol so here we are at our first petrol stop.
We arrive in Zaragoza early evening and Ben and Sam use their experience with the sat nav to quickly find us the local holiday Inn. We park up and are quickly find the bar and restaurant.
A few tired eyes but in high spirits as the day goes almost too well, a theme that amazingly continued throughout the whole trip.
The menu is presented and we end up doing a “close your eyes and pick a random dish” for what to order as our Spanish proves a bit rusty. Our meals arrives which consists of what looks like bean soup and a plate of peas. We retire early, tired but excited, ready to take on day 3.