Gibraltar Y España Rally 2007

Final Update on the Gibraltar Y Espana Tour.

Six intrepid Tractionistas are leaving the UK. The advance group of 4 cars leave the UK on the 5th of May and will be crossing the Channel and drive down to Bilbao to rendezvous with the wimp Tractionistas, who have sailed from the UK on a little cruise.

In Bilbao we meet our first contact, Jose, a proud CX owner. Jose has arranged some photo stops by the Guggenheim Museum. He will guide us to our first overnight stop out side Pamplona in the Duke’s Palace of Lerma

The next day we have our longest day. We avoid Madrid and pass through Segovia (to view the Roman bridge) and then head towards Avila for lunch with John Kiddell (a TOC member) and his classic car friends.

The expanded group will then head off to our next stop, the 15^th century Convent at Plasencia. At Plasceia  we will have a well earned rest day!

John’s group will return to Madrid and we will continue south down the “Route de Plata”. This is the old Roman silver route, so lots of straight roads, down to Sevilla, stopping at Italica (Roman ruined city). We will be “slumming it” in a 14^th century Arabian Palace for a few nights.

We hope to be able to display our cars in a prominent square in Sevilla while we look around this most beautiful of Spanish cities and enjoy a few tapas.

We next have a detour to Jerez for some product evaluation, i.e. drinking the local home brew, Sherry. We are being allowed to display our cars in the Tio Pepe Bodega. We next head for the hills and enter frontier land, up to Arco de la frontera. To stay in the Palace over looking a gorge.

Next morning we travel down to Gibraltar where we are displaying our cars in Macintosh Square along with the Gibraltar Classic Vehicle Association and we hope to be joined by a few more of our TOC Spanish members. Melvin Ford who is travelling down with a group from Alicante, while a few more are flying in from the UK for the weekend.

The group are staying at Ian Flemming’s favourite hotel, “The Rock”. The evening will test the driving skills of the Tractionistas, as we will have a treasure hunt around the rock. Hair pin bends and very steep hills. To avoid getting stuck we will have Gibraltarian “co-pilots”. 2 hours later we will have a relaxing meal at the Rock.

Next morning we have a tour to the WW2 tunnels and the remainder of the day to enjoy the city.

Monday sees us departing for Granada…..

Except for the Wimps who have organised a Transporter to return the cars to the UK while they go home by plane… The true Tractionistas are travelling back up through Spain and France.

More stories to follow when we get back…..