A late arrival by way of a German motorhome meant that we had company for the night although Astorga seemed perfectly tranquil at night and a secure feeling nightstop.
Next morning we slotted in to the queue for the services (lots of motorhomes arrived just to use the services) and once sorted we were on our way. A couple of hundred kilometres to Chantada, our destination Aire. We got TomTom to route via another Aire en-route so that we could research it for Club Motorhome.
As soon as we entered Galicia it was clear that we had swapped gently undulating plains for mountains with much use of the gearbox needed to make good progress uphill and down. We pulled in at our research stop and found it excellent! Right on the side of a lake with plenty of open spaces, picnic areas, a bar and brand new services. We used the bar of course, just to see if it was OK, then pressed on to our destination for the day.
The town of Chantada is large and by just driving through, pretty uninspiring but the Aire on the edge of town is a different matter. Recently constructed it is beside the new football stadium and is on landscaped parking which leads down to a river walk.
We walked along the river in both directions and were quite impressed with how clean and well kept it all was, and a popular walking area for the locals too, we struck up conversations with a few along the way which gave us a chance to practice our Spanish - we leaned that the English like to buy old houses and do them up, there are a mixture of French and Italians in these parts but the politics are not good so they don't mix well, an old lady was picking a certain type of flower to be made into arrangements for the San Juan festival on the 24th etc etc. Sometimes we cope well with the language and other times we are complete rubbish, today was a good day.
We have paella on the menu tonight and the temperatures are high at 25 degrees. Hopefully the football stadium won't create too much noise and we'll get another peaceful night......
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