Sunday morning (2nd June) we left our tapas town and crossed the border. It’s always a surprise when we first notice, we’ve lost an hour travelling into Spain from Portugal. Portugal is in the same time zone as Ireland but Spain and France (and the rest) are an hour ahead. How do people on the border see time? Probably differently to us. How do you meet friends? Does the Spanish friend happily gain an hour extra in bed which they lose later when they have to go back over the border home? I don’t know.

We would be travelling on motorways again today and we happened to stop at a motorway services with beautiful views. So often the services are named for the beautiful thing nearby but you never actually see the beautiful thing from there. Like the one near St Mont Michel, there’s no view but they do have a huge photo of the island on a wall in the cafe. In Spain at the services near Vigo there’s a view of the bay and the surrounding hills dotted with houses. We just had to stop.

We also passed Santiago de Compostela – the end point of the Spanish Camino. We could just make out the twin spires of the cathedral in amongst the buildings of the town. It seemed like we may have the the local council to thank for deciding that no building would be taller than the cathedral, making it possible for all to see the old building from the motorway.

Our spot for the night was near the town of Ordes, not much further on and we were driving along narrow roads to an old railway station. We parked up and were soothed and surrounded by nature all around – grass, trees, shrubs and flowers. It was hot but also shaded so we went for a walk along the greenway and it was so quiet – only bird song and a couple of electric trains. Although the station and the railway line was no longer functioning, there was an electric train on a track high up in the trees. It was disconcerting at first to hear the train while walking on the track – grass covered with no actual tracks. Your brain goes to: There’s a train coming, get off the track! But your eyes discover: That’s ok, it’s up in the trees.

When we got back to the van we were very well disposed to this parking place and we noticed a shady corner with trees near one of the parking bays. We immediately took the opportunity to move. The van was still out in the sun but we could set ourselves up under the trees. Bliss. My tablecloth (from Sines) got its first outing as we settled down to lunch. There were lots of locals taking advantage of the area including what might have been a scout troop running their own sports day. We were very contented under the trees in the shade until nightfall.

The next morning we were a bit groggy, the time zone change does that and the clock seemed to wake us too early. We had a lazy breakfast but we couldn’t stay long. For one thing there’s a 24 hour limit on parking and for another the temperature was rising. Time to head for the coast again.