Road trip to San Fermin, Pamplona
Sun 14 Jul 2013Crossing Spain pretty cool and recently achieved for the San Fermin festival in Pamplona. (including the incredibly stupid "Running of the bulls")
The fantastic and well priced hire car was a Volvo C40 5 door hatch. This car was an outstanding drive, with great handling at high speed and ultra comfortable seating. The only downside I could find was the curious position for the start stop button. Seems every time I turned the car off, I would bump the wiper stalk, causing the wipers to fire, then the car would stop leaving the wipers in a mid screen position. If that's the worst of it, then the overall mark is "very good".
While it did not have cruise control, it had a speed limiter. First time to experience this. Preset the highest speed and rest your foot comfortably on the accelerator... the max speed the car was then controlled. If you put the foot to the floor, then it would override and accelerate.
This is good for a number of reasons. You retained attention, avoided speeding fines, and it probably operates the car more fuel efficiently (it has always been a bug with me that cruise control will open the throttle as much as possible to maintain a speed, where this way, speed will drop depending on your foot position and the incline).
The car was also fantastic on the diesel - offering 1000km + per tank... The acceleration was great, and it never seemed or sounded like a diesel.
The Drive.
The course we took was from Barcelona (Sants train station) to Heusca (pronounced "wesca"). The open highway was wonderful, direct, flat and fast for this section. Police were rare and the only time I got into trouble was a couple of cycle cops stopping me for going through a red light. (I used to the magic phrase Soy Australiano, to get away with out a fine.)
From Heusca to Pamplona, we opted for the scenic northern route, which included some regional road and a lovely winding section along a gourge and river, past an amazing shear cliff peak.
There was then an unfinished brand new highway, with a break in the middle where we followed along a lake, finding a road side spot for a swim (marked on the map). The summer water temperature was about 24 degrees.
At the end of the lake we got back onto the other end of new highway which went most of the way to Pamplona. It was the weekend, so few trucks and not many cars.
This drive is highly recommended.
San Sebastian
Went for a drive down to the Atlantic coast. While enjoyable to drive the peaks and valleys, San Sebastian is a popular tourist town with amazing sights and a great beach - so it was overcrowded ... and impossible to find a park (I opted for a loading zone and waited in the car while the others went the beach).
Related Links:Hertz Rental Cars
