Vantastic Lukas: Let yourself drift towards Portugal

Atlantic here we come

The few cold days in the Pyrenees were enough for us to want to move on to the warmer climate as quickly as possible. But I couldn't really say goodbye to France yet, so we drove to the Atlantic coast to the Great Lakes region near “Landes”. There we first stood right next to the Dune du Pilat - the largest shifting dune in Europe - and enjoyed the proximity to the sea. Bianca in particular, who feels very drawn to the sea, was happy to hear the waves rushing again.

Spontaneous reunion

Unfortunately, the weather in this corner wasn't really pleasant anymore and I also caught a bad cold. In this state I didn't really want to and couldn't cross the border into Spain. So I met an acquaintance again who lives in this corner of France. Willy - also a carp angler - showed me once again how hospitable the French can be and how much information they give you, even though you've only met them twice. He visited us one morning at a lake with fresh croissants. We were happy to see each other again and Willy gave me some tips for the waters in the area. I didn't feel like fishing at this point, but he convinced us to follow him to a lake nearby. So we followed him until we landed at a lake where, according to Willy, we would have peace and quiet and where there should be a few large fish roaming around.

Absolute peace and quiet by the lake in the pine forest

In fact, the lake radiated an eerie calm, almost something mystical. In the middle of a dense pine forest full of ferns. I wanted to relax there and of course also position the fishing rods. Bianca was somewhat surprised that I still felt like fishing despite my needy state. “I think only an angler understands that” or something like that was my answer to her astonishment. The lake turned out to be not easy. The few fish actions on the surface confirmed Willy's statement about the low population on this lake. The place was still incredibly beautiful and drilling too much wouldn't have been particularly conducive to a quick recovery anyway ;).

Apart from a large tench, I didn't catch anything during those days. The weather felt like it was changing every minute from sunny to cloudy, stormy to calm, and the temperatures in our shady spot in the forest were already so low that the auxiliary heater was running quite often. On the fourth day we were visited by a man from the gendarmerie who kindly pointed out to us that we were not allowed to station our vehicles at this place.

Go on

So we had to leave the place a day earlier than planned, what the heck. We packed up the junk and drove to a parking lot not far away in the evening, near what seemed to be a popular surfing spot. We noticed this the next morning when the parking lot quickly filled with cars and people all made a pilgrimage to the sea with their surfboards. We watched the spectacle again before doing tedious things like shopping and doing laundry. We only finished it in the dark and headed for a nearby spot in the middle of the forest next to a graffiti-decorated wooden hut. We planned to spend another night there the next day, but nothing came of it when a young man came in the afternoon and told us that there was a party going on that evening in the hut we were parked next to. If he had asked if we wanted to attend, we might have considered staying.

So we quickly decided to drive across the Spanish border, which was not far away. We had no problems with controls or anything else as we continued on the toll-free country roads along the sea in mild temperatures. In the evening we found a nice spot with a view of the sea. A bit busy for our taste but good, it was just the weekend and the temperatures exceeded 20 degrees again the next day, so many people went out into nature.

Our journey now continues slowly over the Asturias, towards Portugal.