Set off at about 9.30am for Salamanca (middle of Spain NW of Madrid). This is a change from the original plan. We were going to go to La Coruna next, right up in the top left hand corner of Spain, but having looked at the map we realised that the road from there heading east was not too good. We have got to be in the Bilbao area by Monday 19^th May as we are booked into a Camping and Caravanning Club International Rally so have now decided to cut the corner off and head northeast via Salamanca.

Very scenic route with some quite big climbs – passed by/over the Serra Gralheira on one side and the Serra de Caramulo on the other. Small toll motorway south out of Porto - €7.05 then free motorway all the way to the border which we reached after just over three hours. Quite strange, the Portuguese motorway ended at a small roundabout in the small border village of Vilar Formosa (the passport booths had obviously not been used for years) then the road leading away from the roundabout (in Spain) was a single lane road for about ten miles! It then turned into dual carriageway lined with bright yellow gorse bushes for the rest of the journey to Salamanca. Approx 330km total.

Lots of lorries about today – we don’t usually get any when we travel on Sundays.

Found the caravan site easily (despite TomTom directing us wrongly again at the end). It is tiny, only about fifty pitches and we were led to one which we could drive straight into – brilliant.

Weather not great at the moment but we are looking forward to visiting the centre of Salamanca as we know nothing about this area at all.