As we entered Spain the roads became wider, but much less well maintained, and we bounced down the valley to the ski resort of Formigal.

The signage and markings were “in your face”, the buildings modern and everything seemed more ordered but very sterile. Formigal is skiing on an industrial scale. No quaint Alpine village here just vast tarsealed car parks and apartment blocks. Unappealing, but almost certainly efficient.

This, however, proved to be more about Formigal than Spain in general and the landscape changed and we soon passed a pretty little village by Lake Lanuz.

The SatNav took us to the only Aire we’d been able to find in the town. This turned out to be a car park in the middle of a housing estate, not the cute village perched on a hilltop we’d been promised.

We parked alongside the two campervans that were already there, Neil had a snooze and I took off on the bike to try to find the tourist office. I soon discovered that we were just below the village, it was 5 minutes up the hill and was as quaint as promised.

We spent a night in Jaca and took a walk to the St Michael’s bridge, which was built in the late Middle Ages and restored in the 1950’s.

The next morning we explored the village a little more and walked around the citadel before heading to San Sebastian.

This drive was pretty spectacular as the new road cut through the Yesa valley alongside lakes and rivers with numerous viaducts and bridges. We were constantly on and off autoroute as some sections were still being built.

There was a lot of “YesaNo” graffiti along the route that we can only presume was opposition to the new road but don’t know for certain.

As we approached San Sebastian clouds swirled around all the hills above the town.

Negotiating the numerous one way streets and height restrictions in the centre of the town was a bit of a challenge and we ditched the SatNav in favour of intuition.

There was a park for campervans on the seafront that we were trying to get to and it really was like trying to escape from a maze. We were determined, and after half an hour we eventually  found a way through. Fortunately there was space available so we parked and set out on the bikes.

The climate betrayed the fact that we’d arrived on the Atlantic coast, with a cool wind blowing cloud in off the sea. The ocean also had a bit of a swell. This felt quite different to where we’d spent the last several weeks.

The town is fairly large and it seemed as if most of its residents had come out for the afternoon. There were lots of pedestrianized areas and a long wide esplanade that vaguely reminded us of Brighton.

If a town wants to become cycle friendly they need look no further than San Sebastien. It has managed to integrate cycleways, roads and pedestrian areas in the most impressive way.

There are kerbed cycleways with a system of traffic lights and road signage which separates them safely from pedestrian and road traffic. You can get around the whole city on these lanes, and they’re well used.  There’s even section on the seafront where a lift takes you up to the next level on a headland.

We spent all afternoon in San Sebastian and loved it.

In the early evening we headed off to a campsite in Zaurutz, about 20 minutes drive down the coast. This is a real surfy town with a large surf club stationed at the campsite.

It’s in the heart of basque country and the young woman serving in the bar proudly taught me how to say “thankyou” in Basque. Ok, so now I knew two words of Spanish and one of Basque! Didn’t really help at the petrol station though where only signing worked with the attendant.

During the evening the sky darkened and we began to hear distant thunder. By about 10pm there was a large storm, not much rain but incredible thunder and lightning. As we looked up through the skylight of the campervan that night we watched the most dramatic forks of lightning illuminate the dark clouds.

Tomorrow we would head back into France, namely to St Jean du Luz a small Basque fishing village just over the border.