Northern Spain (or somewhere else)?
Northern Spain (or somewhere else)?
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Boxster5

Original Poster:

960 posts

126 months

Sunday 5th October
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We have our ferry booked for early next September; Newhaven to Dieppe - early so 08:30 crossing. We’re staying in Newhaven the night before.
We’re toying with Northern Spain so would be travelling down the West coast of France - stopping somewhere at the midway point.
My only reservation is the weather in Northern Spain appears to quite changeable in September - is that the case? We’d be happy with low to mid 20’s at that time of year and not really a fan of rain!
Just starting to look but any recommendations of places to stay (we normally stay in Airbnb’s) - we’re away 3 weeks so possibly basing ourselves in 2 or 3 different destinations.
Looking for decent sized towns or villages with good restaurants so out in the sticks probably wouldn’t work for us.
Or should we look somewhere else? We’ve done most areas in France.
Ferry is booked so that’s the only definite.

bennno

14,532 posts

287 months

Sunday 5th October
quotequote all

Head for San Sebastián. Cognac is a good stop over point.

mart 63

2,266 posts

262 months

Sunday 5th October
quotequote all
We toured across Northern Spain last September, we had a few days of rain. We were up there June and July this year and had rain.

mikef

5,850 posts

269 months

Sunday 5th October
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bennno said:
Head for San Sebastián. Cognac is a good stop over point.
Agree with San Sebastián. Assuming you’re blasting down the motorway, and depending how far you can get, we usually stop off at one of the modern hotels at Futuroscope, Poitiers, just off the A10 autoroute. Can be reasonably cheap out of summer holiday season.

miniman

28,678 posts

280 months

Sunday 5th October
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Boxster5 said:
We’re staying in Newhaven the night before.
Sorry to hear that.

chip*

1,464 posts

246 months

Sunday 5th October
quotequote all
I stayed in the town of Cangas de Onis as it's conveniently located to Pico de Europe
If you fancy something different, maybe book a parador, something like this:

https://paradores.es/en/parador-de-cangas-de-onis

Didn't stay in this parador, but I did have a lovely evening meal there!

Llanes is worth a visit (renown for seafood restaurants).

FlyVintage

229 posts

9 months

Sunday 5th October
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We returned yesterday from a 10 day stint in Spain - mostly spent touring the wine areas around Burgos (so pretty far north). Even at nearly 3,000ft elevation where most of the interesting vineyards are it was absolutely baking hot in the day and they had not had rain for weeks. However, the early mornings were certainly cool enough to need a cardigan (yes, I’m old and not particularly stylish). Pretty much all the vineyards we visited were of the same opinion; this hotter September weather was now the norm for them and they were having to adapt to suit.

bennno

14,532 posts

287 months

Monday 6th October
quotequote all
bennno said:
Head for San Sebastián. Cognac is a good stop over point.
If you’ve got time then we went there and continued on to Porto and the Douro Valley - both were incredible.


Boxster5

Original Poster:

960 posts

126 months

Monday 6th October
quotequote all
Thanks guys for the replies so far - something to go on and the weather seems OK.
I was trying to avoid the larger cities such as San Sebastián although I’m aware it has great reviews.
Thanks for the Douro Valley suggestion - I had considered this as well as we love Portugal too.
We normally head to France late June/early July but this year had to change to September following my wife’s triple ankle fusion.
We were in Epernay, Avignon, Collioure, Beaune then Ghent in Belgium and weather in general was great (sometimes in the low 30’s) although the Mistral wind starting blowing near the end of our stay in Collioure dropping temperatures by a good 10-15 degrees and the weather in Beaune was pretty miserable.

Spitfire2

1,960 posts

204 months

Monday 6th October
quotequote all
Some.great places to visit in Northern part of Spain. One that surprised me was Cabarceno which was a fabulous way to spend a day.

quarryman111

99 posts

184 months

Monday 6th October
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Given that you’ve already done a fair bit of France, personally (if you can and dependent on where you are in UK) I’d bin the Newhaven ferry and head from Portsmouth or Plymouth directly to Santander or Bilbao. Then N.Spain is your oyster!

paulwirral

3,662 posts

153 months

Tuesday 7th October
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If your avoiding cities , your missing out by not going to San Sebastián , you can try logrono . It’s big enough but not huge , also Hondarribia is very nice , on the coast and great restaurants . There used to be a small ferry there to hendaye if you fancy going back france for a couple of hours , just because you can .

Shnozz

29,615 posts

289 months

Tuesday 7th October
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paulwirral said:
If your avoiding cities , your missing out by not going to San Sebastián , you can try logrono . It s big enough but not huge , also Hondarribia is very nice , on the coast and great restaurants . There used to be a small ferry there to hendaye if you fancy going back france for a couple of hours , just because you can .
Logrono is stunning and certainly would recommend.

Also very much enjoyed Lerma - the Parador is lovely old hotel that we stayed in during a trip through.