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LOCKDOWN LOOKBACK THE MOTORCYCLE YEARS
Co-incidentally as the Lockdown in the UK eases with most shops being able to open (as long as they meet the correct criteria), then I have arrived at the final part of my Lockdown Lookback series.
This last part covers a trip to Spain and Portugal in 2018 and with just a ferry booked to Santander in Spain and a return ferry back from Santander about 17 days later, I travelled without a plan.
Other than knowing that I probably wanted to spend some time in Portugal and maybe get down to Andalucia and Granada I was pretty open to letting the trip unfold. The backdrop to the trip was that I had been scheduled to leave a few weeks earlier, but sadly my father had passed away meaning I delayed my trip. Brittany Ferries were superb in accommodating my changed plans and they really couldn’t have done more to help me.
When I did set off for the long journey down to Portsmouth I was really looking forward to getting away, but without doubt the trip was tinged with great sadness with the all too recent loss of my Dad, especially as I knew that he would have followed my trip and regular updates with great interest.
But that’s life and it’s true that we just have to get on with things – so although I had a fantastic trip, with good hotels, fabulous roads and the most perfect of weather it’s fair to say that although I got on with it I wished then and I still wish now it had been under better circumstances.
Some of the roads were a real revelation and I decided during the trip that I would probably head that way again in 2019, especially to spend some more time in Portugal – however the 2019 trip was canceled after I fractured my knee and I ended up being off bikes for just about a year. So I was set to head that way again this year (at the start of July) but of course the Covid 19 pandemic has put paid to that, and although I moved the trip back to September of this year (2020) I decided a week or so ago that I would cut my losses, stay in the UK this year and head back that way in 2021. Of all the places and countries I have motorcycled in Spain and Portugal take some beating.
The nature of this trip and the area(s) covered means that choosing a selection of pictures was really difficult, and even though I have managed to whittle them down to those in the gallery below, there are still a lot!
So if you have in mind a trip to Spain and Portugal, make yourself a drink, click on the first picture and enjoy scrolling through the gallery that opens up …and just for the record the T- Shirt in the first picture is the one I wear to start every road trip and so far I think its done about 18 or 19 European trips (and it’s still got some life left in it).
