Being Saturday it was very quiet and a lovely drive up into the Pyrenees with patches of frost and light snow adding highlights to the scenery. At this point I should perhaps apologise for the lack of photographs – to be perfectly honest we've travelled most of this route before and felt no need to take more photos which would eventually get lost in our “archives” anyway.
If we had felt like it, the signs revealed that the Col de Somport, the road across the top, was open but as it was of no real interest this time we chose instead just to take the road tunnel, a free 5 mile or so access to Spain through the mountains. Not sure at which end the border was supposed to be but spotting road signs in Spanish sort of gave us a clue! The road became “autovia” here, a motorway style fast and well-surfaced carriageway as it started down the mountain.
The weather forecast had told us that, though remaining bright, it would be significantly cooler to the south of the Pyrenees and this turned out to be due to some quite thick mist and fog patches, not really enough to slow us down but it did remove some of the views. We made very good time but had previously worked out that Valencia was maybe just a little too far for one day so had selected a Spanish Aire from our books around halfway, where we arrived for a late lunch.
Carinenia is a small modern town mostly known for it's role as a wine distribution centre with several bodegas around the town. After lunch we took Jamie for a walk but there was really not a lot to see; the aire was newly built next to a modern sports centre and a railway museum although everything appeared to be closed. A sign informed us the railway museum opened on Sunday morning but we'd planned to be away before then.
When we arrived there was no-one else in the 7-van area but by teatime it was full and indeed on Jamie's last walk for the night we noticed a handful of units parked in the sports centre car-park.
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