Spanish Road Trip – Barcelona to San Sebastian

We opted in renting a car and driving from Barcelona to San Sebastian, with a stop in the Rioja region.  It seemed kind of romantic idea to drive through the Spanish countryside and see the sites along the way.  Realistically, it is probably as romantic as it sounds.  A road trip is a road trip, no matter where you are driving.  Just like when you take a road trip in the US, there are sections of your trip that are long, a little boring, and the some of scenery is dull.   However, there are still things that you will see and experience that would not been seen in a plane or a train?  So if you enjoy driving, enjoy taking road trips, and can handle making a wrong turn and getting lost once in a while, then I say you should experience a road trip in a foreign country, at least once. 

Here is what we encountered on our drive.

Once you get out Barcelona, the drive is actually pretty easy. Although I am speaking as the passenger.  My husband, the driver, might say different. However, I was really surprised how little traffic there were on the motorways.  The traffic you did encounter, most everyone was going the speed limit, and not always driving in the fast lane.  We didn’t feel like we were driving on roads with crazy, lunatic drivers.

We purchased a Driving through Spain book to familiarize ourselves with the motorway signs that we might encounter along the way.  My husband, who was the one going to drive, read some sites on general driving rules and tips for driving in Spain.  If you have never encountered a roundabout, familiarize yourself with how to drive in a roundabout.  Spain is full of them.  You don’t want to end up like the Griswold’s and be stuck driving in one all night.  Although there were a couple of times I thought we just might. Also ensure you have an old school paper map.  You know those things that you used to use before Google Maps.  We tried to use our cell phones as little as possible, and the map came in very handy.

Taking a road trip in Spain is a little different than in the US.  In the US, you are used to having services available at pretty much most exits, such truck stops, any fast food restaurant or Starbucks.  In Spain this is the not the case.  You will not see a McDonalds or a coffee stand right off the side of the road.

 On your journey you will probably see a lot of these signs.  At first when we saw this we had no idea what it meant.  We called it is time to potty time.  However, when you drive long enough (and do a google search as soon as wireless is available), you learn it stands for picnic area. These are similar to rest stops in the US. The area has some picnic tables that always seem to be under a tree for shading.  Which I am sure this is nice on a summer day. We never stopped at these, but I learned later that Spaniards bring food with them and stop at the picnic area. You will see gas stations.  We stopped at several along the way, and each one offered something a little different.  One was just a very small mini mart, another one had mini mart to it with small variety of hot food to choose from.  The best one we stopped at reminded me of a Spanish smorgasbord.  It offered various tapas, some hot dishes, salads and fresh sandwiches with the delicious cured meat.  They also served little bottles of wine.  It was a perfect Spanish road stop picnic.

When you decide to drive, you think we will stop off, see some sights along the way. However, it just didn’t seem that there a lot of signs with attractions or things to stop to see.  Where we were traveling, if you wanted to exit to go to a town or village you had to pay a toll to do this.  It is a little difficult to read and understand the toll signs when you are driving the 60 MPH.  So we never really ventured off the motorways.  Also with road trips you want to get to your destination and/or you are running behind, and want to or need to get to your hotel before a certain time.  Even though we did not make any stops or explore along the way, Spain provided a beautiful backdrop of scenery for us to enjoy along the way. Below are some picture from our drive through Spain.

In a future post, I will provide more information about what you need to know about driving in Spain, and things to consider when you are planning your driving adventure.