After leaving Italy we drove along the southern French coast, heading towards Spain (then Morocco). We were aware that we were travelling in France when our route to the motorway was blocked by farmers staging demonstrations against the agricultural situation in the Occitanie. Roadblocks had been set up preventing our joining the A9 near Nîmes. Our hearts sank as we had experienced French farmers’ demonstrations in the past when whole motorways were closed for days.
We had no idea how widespread the effects of the demonstration were or how many motorway access roads were affected. The surrounding roads were becoming gridlocked and we needed to get away from the area of confrontation. We came across some commercial vehicles all heading (we hoped) in roughly our direction of travel; so we joined the convoy and followed them along bumpy country roads and through rural towns with narrow streets and tight corners. We were confident that, if a huge car transporter could negotiate that cross-country route, there would be no problem for our little truck. However, at one point I did have to fold in our wing mirror when we met a group of HGVs travelling in the opposite direction. We were extremely relieved when, after an hour or so, we reached an access road that allowed us back on to the motorway to continue our journey south.
We stopped to buy boxes of wine at Les Vignerons Gruissanais (€4 a litre) in preparation for Morocco where alcohol was expensive and not easy to come by during Ramadan (due to start the middle of February 2026).
Almost a week after leaving Italy we reached Spain. Travelling was more relaxed in Spain as there were roadside hotels / restaurants dotted along our route where you could have a meal and stay overnight in the car park. We stopped south of Valencia where we had a delicious three course meal for €14 a head.
After travelling in Italy, France then Spain, our language brains were totally scrambled and we found it impossible to find the correct words in the appropriate language. I cringe to confess that we ended up speaking “Franco Spitalianish” – which really meant speaking English VERY LOUDLY with a slight foreign accent. However, after a couple of glassses of Rioja, our Spanish ears slowly returned.
