Less than twenty minutes away from the medieval town of Santillana Del Mar we found our home for the night. It was another old town, not quite as big but just as full of stone houses, walls and roads.

The town of Cartes provides parking for motorhomes beside the park where geese and ducks ramble freely. There’s also a (17km) greenway for walking and cycling that leads to the coast and a playground with zip wire and table tennis table. All for free and quiet at night.

We arrived just time to have a ramble around the old part of town before dinner. Dinner was salad. At one of the motorway services we had a surprisingly tasty salad. I’m not a great salad eater or maker but I did think I could replicate this one.

The ingredients had been sitting in the fridge for a day or two… but were still within date so I offered to assemble my version of Motorway Salad. In case you would also like to replicate a motorway salad, here are the ingredients… bag of salad leaves, mozzarella cheese (the one in the bag of water not grated), ripe avocado, sun-dried tomatoes, tapenade, extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper.

And the method… wash and dry the salad leaves, take the mozzarella cheese out of the bag, drain and lay on a bed of leaves, slice the avocado, dot it and the sun-dried tomatoes around on the leaves, drop dots of tapenade likewise. Sprinkle the olive oil, the balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper over everything. Done and Yum. It also looks great… forgot to take pictures, sorry.