Mixing business and pleasure in travel is something that doesn’t always work but something I try to do as often as possible nevertheless. If nothing else it takes the edge off the boring A to B business travel. There are certain complications, mixing scheduled and unscheduled mindset is just one of them, but at the same time it gives you a rough outline of what you’re doing and where you’re going which can be a good thing (sometimes).

At the end of July we took off on a road trip to Portugal and back. Through the flat north of Italy, into Abruzzi national park, down to La Spezia and Cinque Terre and along the coast to Monaco. Cote d’Azur and Provence are some of the nicest, although incredibly crowded parts of France in the summer. Of course it depends where you try to go as there are quite many Provençal roads that take you to some amazing places where you can feel quite alone. We drove up to Grand canyon du Verdon then onwards to Gorges du Galamus in Pyrénées-Orientales. From there we drove all the way to Portugal in a long single day. Over the mountains through Andorra and into northern Spain where we didn’t have much time to stop as we already spent most of our pre-conference time.

Eventually we made it to Avanca (near Estarreja/Porto) where the AvancaCinema conference was held in a small primary school (that was a bit of a surprise to say the least). Things run slowly in some parts of the world and when we got there (on time) most things weren’t even ready yet. So we took off on a hunt for a campsite on a beach as close as possible. We found one in Furaduro which I guess is a typical summer holiday town next to a long stretch of sandy beach with decent waves coming in.

The conference itself was partially interesting, if nothing else it blew away many preconceived ideas I had about academia and it should take the edge off when I attend the next one. And to further demonstrate how slowly things run, it’s now the end of November and the conference proceedings still haven’t been published even though they’ve promised them first by the end of August, then by the end of October, then….

So rather than hang around for longer than it was absolutely necessary (they did have some amazing cakes at the opening dinner) we chose to take off. Not to the south of Portugal as originally planned (will have to wait for some other occasion) but north through Galicia to the bay of Biscay, Picos de Europa NP, the amazing Guggenheim museum in Bilbao and Biarritz/Anglet for some surf scouting.

We got caught in torrential downpours back in the Pyrénées where we tried to get some climbing done (just one morning on a low granite wall) so we ran back towards the sunny and windy Provence. Swimming at Pont du Gard, climbing at Dentelles de Montmirail… good times.

Dentelles really are an amazing place to climb. A long, serrated, narrow saw of limestone jutting out of Côtes du Rhône vineyard country. Perfectly oriented so that you can either climb on the sunny or shady side of the rock, depending on the season. There is one drawback though. The wind. The maestral/mistral making its way down to Rhone delta can get up to such speed that it can make climbing a bit of a problem. At some point I felt like I might be pulled off the wall and my glasses were shaking like a flag in the wind. So violently in fact I could hardly see. I was stuck in a relatively comfortable position with decent holds on a 5b route but I knew it would be a bad idea to continue. So I aborted, leaving one biner in the wall as a souvenir for someone who finds it.

All in all we did 6555km in two weeks. The kind folks at Citroen Merlak rented us a Berlingo for a price well below the normal rate for which I am extremely grateful. In return we made a proper test drive which revealed some issues I have with the car. The first and foremost being the lack of 6th gear. With the number of motorway kilometres we do in a typical week it would be essential. At an average speed of 69km/h on everything from motorways to mountain roads we got by on 6.1 l/100km (38.6mpg) of diesel. Not bad, but not that great either by my expectations. Simply closing one rear view mirror at 130 km/h will give you a half litre improvement. It has to be said though, those mirrors are amazing while reversing. As is the space the car offers. Perhaps too much for most people, but it sure is comfortable if you’re on the road and living out of the car.

The rest of the photos as slideshow:

An overview of interesting articles that came through my Google Reader subscriptions recently.

An overview of interesting articles that came through my Google Reader subscriptions recently.