The ruined Ermita de Santiago, which both of us ran past on our trail runs.
Summer 2026 family trip began after volunteering at parkrun in Gibraltar with a drive to Granada and its eponymous campsite, in the dusty half-built suburbs on the outskirts of the pretty villgae of Peligros. It was hot, overcast and windy but the site had a pleasant pool with views over the city. Dylan and I played ball in the pool while the girls had a heart to heart as Maya got her head around ‘45 days’ away from her friends. After coconut dal and rice we played Go Fish and failed to stream the England footie, waking to learn we’d reached the World Cup semis.
Easy runs around quiet Sunday morning suburbs for Faye and me, then the drive north continued. Wanted a quick Burger King lunch but no gluten free at all in the first one so found another, meanwhile seeing a jackknifed lorry on its side with its cargo of fruit strewn across all three carriageways. Past busy Madrid then to Monte Holiday where we’ve stayed before, near the village of Gargantilla del Lozoya. Chickpea and peanut butter curry on a spacious, grassy pitch, cooked while kids cooled down in the pool. A quick check of the itinerary showed our ferry in a couple of days’ time was from Bilbao, not Santander as assumed, so a quick change of plan required!
One banana that nobody, not even the dog, was going to be eating!
Next morning saw easy trail runs around the area for Faye and me, including a trail past the old Ermita de Santiago. After getting supplies in shabby Burgos and a sushi lunch from a tired old Carrefour, we drove up a hill to Camping El Roble Verde, an hour outside of Bilbao. Apart from loads of flies and the kids needing swimming caps for the pool, it was a nice enough place, and we had an empty pitch next to us which the kids turned into a family football pitch where the dog joined in with them. Faye braved a mid-afternoon easy run, then I banged out a pressure cooker paella for dinner, and we played our usual game of Go Fish before bed.
Final day in Spain started for me with a hot, hilly and demanding long interval session around the rolling mountainside reads, before we said goodbye to the van and hello to the Brittany Ferries route to Portsmouth. After the standard mediocre buffer lunch on board we all had an afternoon nap in our internal bunk-bedded cabin, and that evening we took it in turns to go to the ‘posh’ restaurant in pairs. Due to a waiting staff mix-up Maya ended up with four Coca Colas! The kids watched some of the France vs Spain game in the bar, where they were befriended by an old English couple who thought they were older than they were.
Before leaving the ferry the next evening Skye got a shower and had all the sticky balls from the Spanish undergrowth picked off of her (we call them ‘derdudders’, therefore she was ‘derduddered’), and we did the usual buffet-sleep-restaurant routine, me enjoying some nice french chesses instead of dessert. And then, there we were… England!