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For a short moment, the quiet night we’d anticipated looked set to be blown out of the water. Three Spanish families arrived together in their motorhomes shortly before 9pm, with two either side of us. One was parked so close that Sophie could have reached out and tousled the hair of the little darlings who had their heads out the window in moments. To be fair, their father did have a word about this with them, but this probably was because he was concerned they’d likely wreck the window mechanism.

The Spanish are a great family motorhoming nation, unlike much of the rest of Europe. Given the risk that it might potentially be a noisy evening, we immediately decided to leave them to their fun, and the SatNav was primed in seconds with a new spot for the night. Then as quickly as they’d arrived, they’d gone again. It seems they only stopped to empty their toilets, a job done impressively by a lady running around with her handbag across her shoulder.

So with normality returned we breathed a sigh of relief and had a very peaceful night. Late morning we chatted to neighbouring fellow Autotrailers Ian and Lynne, then we were off.

En route to Logrono, we were reminded again of the stunning backdrop to this part of the world, with its massive crags, but wide open plains, and not to mention the very many bodegas.

Logrono’s Park4night was actually very impressive. It’s a massive tree lined carpark, which was very popular today, and you can walk into the town across a bridge and through a park, which would take about 15 minutes. Unfortunately, with a combination of uncertainty about which way to go, plus the blister on Sophie’s foot, it took us a bit longer, and we’re not sure we saw all the bits we should. It did remind us though that our personal preference is for smaller towns. Anyway, we survived and were still talking, and enjoyed a quick onboard lunch before an emptying out session at the official aire around the corner.

Next stop was Estella, where we found a handy opportunitistic free parking spot, which we fitted in, to perfection. This placed us perfectly for a stroll around the streets and an opportunity for Sophie to photograph more medieval bridges. It was a pleasant town, but we were both pretty tired after our visit and were then on our way out, this time to check out a Park4night at Artajona.

With Park4night you have to make a judgement based on a few photos, if you’re lucky, and a handful of reviews, mostly not in English, and so often there are some hilarious machine-translations. It looked like the ideal spot to me and it was a relief that it exceeded expectations. So we’re sat in the smart and solid carpark of the fortified little town, set high over the plain, with amazing far-reaching views. As the sun was doing a great job of lighting the place, despite the presence of dark, foreboding clouds, we summoned up the energy for a visit, and very nice it was too. So we’re looking forward to another lovely night parked in a superb spot.

*** Just to mention that our blogs can be up to a few weeks behind reality, as we’re always in catch-up mode ***