Just back from a week in Northern Spain…

Used the direct ferry from Cork to Santander…

The outward sailing was a bit of a disaster – hit a storm in the Bay of Biscay and had to divert around the worst of it…

Added 6 hours to the journey and gave me a right dose of seasickness…

Landed in Santander at 8.00pm and had a miserable 100Km ride to the hotel in driving rain…

That was the only rain I saw on the trip so can’t complain too much…

Great weather for the rest of the week – got up to 28 degrees at one point…

The Picos are awesome – lovely s.cenery, very little traffic (in May at least), loads of bikes around and a great variety of roads…

Lots of really tight, twisting mountain roads but some lovely sweeping bends too…

Saw a lot of police in the towns and villages but none on the roads:devil:

Waters were calm for the return trip so no problem there but it departed 6 hours later than planned – got off the boat in Cork at 2.00am…

Can’t recommend the Picos enough as a destination – it’s an awesome place…

Got lucky with the weather though – the week before was dreadful and the forecast for the few days after I left didn’t look great…

Not sure how I feel about the ferry – its a long time on the boat, especially when it doesn’t go to plan…

Still, its quicker than riding down through France and cheaper than getting the bike shipped…