Scottish Borders
This is the ‘short’ version of this write up..the long one with pics is in the dropbox link..
This is a very comprehensive piece extracted from my forthcoming books on the Z4 E89.
If you’re planning a road trip to the Pyrenees/Picos/Northern Iberia I hope you find it useful..comments and questions welcome!
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/764d...e-Up.pdf?rlkey=pohmq1ald0hm1357b1mvcr645&dl=0
# Three Z4s and a Jag, Northern Iberia — two great mountain ranges and a furnace in the middle
We'd been threatening this one for a while: a proper Z4 convoy through Northern Spain, in June, when the Pyrenees and the Picos are at their best and the meseta is doing its level worst. Here's the honest version — what delivered, what didn't, and what I'd tell anyone thinking of doing the same.
## Where this comes from
For context, since I'll be dishing out opinions below: this isn't a first rodeo. It's our fourth Iberian tour in five years — over sixty days and more than twelve thousand miles inside the country between them — and back home I've organised more than a dozen NC500 convoys and dozens of other road trips in and around Scotland. The Iberian specifics aside, the convoy-craft is the same wherever you point the cars: how to size the group, space the days, plan against a real map, and keep a mixed bag of cars and people moving and happy. So when I bang on about hotel gaps or five-hour days, it's hard-won rather than theoretical.
## The cars and the crew
Four cars, seven of us at the peak. Gerry and I drove down from Scotland and met Steve and Roz at Portsmouth, where their white Jaguar F-Type joined us on the boat to Santander. We picked up Tony and Karen and their blue E86 Z4 Coupé at the first hotel.
So the line-up was: my Atacama Yellow E89 35is, Gerry's Interlagos Blue E85 Z4M Roadster (S54), Tony & Karen's blue E86 Z4 Coupé, and the white F-Type. (Tony also runs a supercharged E86 M Coupé, but judged it too thirsty and too potentially troublesome for a trip this long, and brought the naturally-aspirated car instead — a call that looked wiser by the day.) Gerry's wife Marianne flew into Biarritz and joined him mid-Pyrenees. Steve and Roz peeled off back to Santander after about a week as we turned west, leaving three of us for the long haul.
Three of the four cars were open-top — which matters for the heat, more on that below. We'd originally planned for as many as six cars and twelve people; we travelled as four and seven. That gap turned out to be the single most useful planning lesson of the whole trip — enough that it gets its own section later.
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# Part one — the drive
## The Pyrenees — the reason you go
We ran the N-260 essentially full-length, Ripoll across to Sangüesa, west-to-east and back again on mostly the same roads. If you want a single comparison: it's the Spanish answer to the NC500 — not one hero corner, but a signature route that goes on and on and never settles. Tight technical sections through gorges, then it opens out into fast sweepers with proper uphill overtaking lanes, then it changes again. The surface on the Spanish side is excellent. The defining quality is that you genuinely can't predict what's around the next bend. The run through Andorra was the visual peak of the whole trip — snow still on the tops in June.
One practical note: slower Spanish traffic won't pull over, and often can't — there are few places to do it — but the climbing lanes mean you rarely need to take a risk to get past. Wait for the dual-lane bit and it sorts itself out.
The contrast came when we crossed to the French side: noticeably busier, and markedly more aggressive driving — worst of all on the Saturday we crossed back. If you can choose, don't be on the French side at the weekend.
## The middle — fast, open, and hot enough to cook you
Once off the mountains and heading for Galicia, the character changes completely: wide, smooth, very open roads across vast plains, flat to gently undulating, big patches of woodland. Easy, fast, pleasant — but transit, not a driving day. And here's where you really feel the heat. We hit +38°C on the meseta.
I watched in my mirror as Gerry put his roof up at 32. I held out, air-con on with the roof *down*, and made it to 35 before the air-con finally lost the fight — then I gave in too. Roof up, air-con on, bliss. We passed two accidents near Santiago. Whether the heat had anything to do with it I couldn't say, but it's a reminder that on a 38-degree day the driver wilts before the car does.
And note the date — this was our window, late May into June, the *cool* end of the season. +38 is the floor, not the peak. Go a month later and that's the everyday number, not the bad afternoon. More on timing below, because it's the first decision you make and it shapes everything else.
## Galicia — be honest with yourself
Fisterra and the "end of the world" are worth seeing. The roads, though? About what you'd expect from Essex on a sunny day with no traffic. Pleasant, unremarkable. Go for the destination, not the drive. The coast did at least take the edge off the heat — around 35 at Fisterra, but shade and a sea breeze make all the difference.
## The Picos de Europa — the second great range
The run home through the Picos is fabulous, and very nearly the equal of the Pyrenees. The classic contrast between the lush Atlantic-facing side and the dry rain-shadow country was less stark than usual this time — recent rain had greened the lee side — but the variety of roads more than made up for it, with some genuinely fast, open running once you're over onto the dry side. And again, that same trait as the Pyrenees: the scenery keeps changing when you least expect it. The Parador at Fuente Dé, lit up against that black wall of rock at dusk, was jaw-dropping — a beer on the terrace under those peaks is a fine way to end a trip.
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# Part two — what we'd tell you before you go
The drive is the easy part to sell. The lessons below are the bit that actually makes or breaks a trip like this, and most of them we learned by getting something slightly wrong first.
## When to go — late May into the end of June
I'd narrow "June" right down. The window I'd aim for is roughly the last week of May to the end of June, on several grounds — with the heat setting a hard back-edge to it.
The weather has settled by then. The wet, unreliable end of winter and early spring is behind you, while the meseta hasn't yet reached the sustained furnace it becomes later in summer. (We had the settled weather this trip; the wider pattern is the regional norm rather than a cast-iron guarantee.)
The landscape is at its best *because* of that earlier rain. The Atlantic-facing side is green and verdant; the rain-shadow side is still golden rather than burnt. That's the payoff for going before the heat sets in — both sides of the hills are at their most attractive, green one side and gold the other, rather than green-and-dead-brown.
It's quiet, and it's mostly local. Through late May and early June the roads and the Paradores were overwhelmingly Spanish. From July the mix shifts — French and Dutch plates, more British, more of everyone — and the whole region fills up.
Now the back-edge. From the end of June the temperature climbs progressively, hotter and hotter through July and August, and it doesn't really break until the middle or end of September. The heat and the burnt landscape are the same story: the same sun that cooks the driver is what turns the rain-shadow side from gold to dead brown. Miss the window and you collect both at once — the meseta furnace *and* the scenery past its best. Remember we still caught +38 inside our window; that's the case for going before the end of June in one number.
The one honest counterweight: go too early and you're there before the locals reckon the season has opened. A number of bars and smaller hotels were still shut, waiting on what they treat as a later-June start. You're trading full availability for emptier roads and unburnt scenery — for a driving trip I'd take that trade every time, just don't be surprised by the odd closed shutter at the front end of the window.
## On weekends — disappear when the crowds appear
A pattern worth planning around: at weekends the Spanish, and especially the French, appear in huge numbers from nowhere — at local attractions, beaches and honeypot spots above all. Midweek those same places are quiet. So front-load your sightseeing and beach stops to weekdays, and use the weekend for transit, for the high mountain roads the day-trippers don't reach, or simply for being somewhere out of the way. It's the same lesson as not being on the French side of the Pyrenees on a Saturday, generalised: when the crowds surge, be elsewhere.
## On booking — early is almost always right
The general rule: the earlier you book, the more you control. Four reasons, one genuine constraint.
Choice of accommodation. Book early and the good hotels — especially the small, characterful ones — are still open to you. Leave it late and you take what's left.
Ferry cabins. The same logic, sharper. Book the boat early and you get the pick of cabins; leave it and you can end up down in an inside cabin, which is a poor way to start or end a trip like this.
Price. We compared the same hotels at six-to-nine months out against two-to-three months out, and the later booking was almost invariably dearer. Booking early isn't just about choice — in most cases it's cheaper too.
Group size. The bigger your convoy, the more this bites. Small hotels have few rooms; leave it late and there simply won't be enough under one roof to keep the group together.
The one real constraint: some hotels only open bookings six months out, so you can't always book as early as you'd like. That caps the front end — but it's an argument for being *ready* to pounce the day the window opens, not for leaving it late.
## On the size of the convoy
If there's one planning variable that touches everything else, it's how many cars you run. The bigger the group, the more every problem scales — and not linearly.
Accommodation, as above: small hotels can't take a big party under one roof. Catering and preferences: a group of seven has seven sets of dietary, pace and comfort needs, and reconciling them at every stop and every dinner takes real effort. And photo stops — the thing you actually came for — get materially harder. Most pull-offs and laybys simply can't swallow four, five, six cars; you'll find the odd spot that can, but you can't count on one being there when the light is right. Through towns it's worse still: the longer the convoy, the more certain it is that someone gets stranded at a pedestrian crossing or a red light, and the group fragments.
None of this is a reason not to travel together — the company is the whole point. But size the convoy with clear eyes: every extra car buys you company at the cost of friction, and the curve steepens the more you add. Size your planning for the convoy you'll *probably* have, not the one you hope for.
## On choosing your companions
This is the soft factor that matters most and gets discussed least — and it's the natural partner to the point above. That one is about how *many* cars; this is about *who's in them*.
A long-duration trip is a different animal from a breakfast meet or even a weekend away. People you can happily run alongside for a morning, a day, or a single weekend can — over eighteen nights — become a source of friction for any number of reasons: cultural or political outlook, dining habits and dietary expectations, driving style and pace. None of it shows up in a short outing; all of it surfaces over a fortnight on the road.
The harder problem is partners. On a trip like this they're usually brought along, and in most cases they've never met one another. The camaraderie among the owners — the shared-marque, shared-enthusiast bond — doesn't automatically extend to the people in the passenger seats. A partner who wasn't expecting this pace or this duration, or who has different expectations around food, comfort or the daily rhythm, can find it hard going; and assuming several partners who've never met will simply get along for two-plus weeks is, often, a bridge too far.
So the recommendation is plain: don't take anyone — driver *or* partner — on a trip of this length whom you haven't already spent real time with on several separate occasions, and ideally on a shorter trip first. Try something smaller and local, and watch how people get along *both* on the road and afterwards in the bar or over dinner — the second half matters as much as the first. One of these trips runs to around £5,000 a head; it's a lot to spend to discover, a week in, a low simmer of dissatisfaction with the group or friction between your partner and the company you've chosen. Vet the company before you commit to the mileage.
## The one that nearly caught us out — drive times
This is the bit worth passing on. When the route was being modelled, drive times got estimated from straight-line ("crow flies") distances plus a rule-of-thumb. The trouble is that under-counts three ways at once: straight-line is shorter than the real road, the assumed average is optimistic, and the moment you add scenic detours the gap explodes. Days that came out at five hours on the model were really seven to eight in Google Maps with the actual roads and loops in.
We spotted it on the ferry and worked out what had gone wrong. No harm done in the end — and only because the hotels and the gaps between them had been spaced back in 2025 using Google with real routing. The accommodation held; it was just the later drive-time numbers that were fiction.
**The lesson:** plan your hotel gaps in Google Maps with the real roads and your scenic waypoints forced in (or it'll quietly route you down toll motorways), and treat Google's time as a *floor* — a convoy with photo stops won't average the limit on a mountain N-road. Never book a multi-week trip against a straight-line model.
## On pacing — the five-hour day and the rest rhythm
Two rules of thumb, both earned over many trips and many years, and both about endurance rather than enthusiasm.
First, the day. Even for a group of reasonably hardened drivers, target around five hours of *actual driving* — wheels turning — on the road. That isn't about how much you can stand; it's what leaves room for everything else a good day needs: a relaxed start out of the hotel, fuel and coffee stops, a proper lunch, and arrival in good time to settle and recuperate before dinner. Shorter or longer days happen, often dictated by where the hotels actually are, but five hours is the number that keeps a day civilised rather than a slog. Note the distinction from the drive-times lesson above: five hours is the target for the wheels actually turning — the *elapsed* day, with stops and lunch and photos, is longer again.
Second, the week. Day after day of long-distance driving turns wearisome, however good the roads. The rhythm we'd recommend is something like five days on, two days off — a pair of stationary days to rest, recuperate, deal with the laundry and let the trip breathe. Without it, even a great route starts to feel like a never-ending road trip rather than a holiday.
## On stops — fuel, toilets and coffee are one problem, not three
These sound trivial and separate; on a convoy they're neither. Every stop costs real time — four cars to peel off and reassemble — so the trick is making each halt do several jobs at once. Fuel, toilet, coffee, water and a leg-stretch in one well-chosen stop beats three scattered ones, and it's one of the biggest levers on how much of the day you actually spend driving.
Fuel is the one to respect. These are thirsty cars, and rural Spain runs a long way between stations — easily 50 miles in many areas, and we had days of over 100 miles between fills. Worse, plenty of stations still marked on the map are now closed, so never push your luck on a hopeful one. Fill at half a tank, not on the warning light; trust a station you can see over a closer one you're hoping exists; and bank fuel before a mountain stretch or a quiet Sunday. Confirm 98 (premium) if your engine wants it.
Toilets sort themselves if you anchor them to fuel and coffee. Don't count on public loos — they're scarce. But almost every Spanish bar and café has one, and they're usually in very good condition; buy a café con leche and it's yours. Motorway services do fuel, toilet and café in a single stop — another quiet vote for the motorway when you just need to cover ground and tend to the basics.
Food and drink run on Spanish time, and the Spanish week. Lunch late, dinner later, shutters down in the afternoon — plan around the clock rather than fight it, and remember that many bars and cafés don't open on Mondays, so don't bank your lunch or your loo stop on a Monday-morning village without a fallback. And in the heat the driver needs refuelling as much as the car: at 38°C with the roof down you dehydrate fast, so keep water aboard and drink before you're thirsty. A wilting driver is the real hazard, not a dry tank.
## A word on Google Maps in a convoy
We used Google Maps for two jobs: the original route planning, and live navigation on the road. Both worked — but a convoy exposes a flaw you won't see travelling solo. Three or four phones, running the same app to the same destination, would regularly disagree — sometimes wildly — on the route, especially near cities. Same start, same end, three contradictory answers. Get separated at a junction and the apps don't reconverge; they each "helpfully" commit to a different line and the convoy scatters.
Two takeaways. On the road: agree the route between cars, and don't trust the apps to keep you together near cities — they won't. In planning: don't accept whatever line Google draws by default. Add plenty of waypoints, force the correct selection of roads, and confirm it's taking you down the roads you actually want rather than the fastest toll-road default.
## A radio in every car — quietly essential
If Google's habit of running four cars in four directions is the problem, a decent PMR radio in every car is the fix — and honestly it's closer to essential than optional. The key word is *decent*: a set with real punch. The cheap blister-pack handhelds that give up after a few hundred yards are worse than useless, because you start relying on a link that isn't there. Spend on range and clarity.
What it buys you is constant, low-effort coordination nothing else provides. The mundane keeps everyone sane — someone needs a pee, the next café con leche, a fuel stop — and the second a hero-level photo op appears you can call it before the car ahead disappears round the bend. When Google tries to send the convoy four ways near a city, a word on the radio pulls everyone back together in seconds.
It also spreads the load. Drivers drive; co-pilots work their phones — scanning ahead for fuel and coffee, sharing the navigation and planning, calling the turns. And the running commentary earns its keep: warnings on grockles, potholes and speed cameras all passed back down the line as each car meets them. We had long silences too, which is the point — it's not about constant chatter, it's that the channel's open the instant you need it.
## In praise of Spanish motorways — at the planning desk *and* on the road
A counterintuitive one: don't write off the motorways. They earn their place twice over — once when you're planning the route, and again when you're actually driving it.
On the road, they're better than "transit" implies. In Spain most are toll-free, typically two lanes each way, and they run through genuinely lovely country — the viaducts and tunnels alone are a spectacle, and they open up views of the landscape you wouldn't otherwise get. At the 120 km/h (75 mph) limit they're already pleasant — though in practice plenty of traffic runs well above it; many are surprisingly twisty and engaging, and sitting at a notch above that turns some of them into a properly entertaining drive rather than mere transit.
But the bigger case is a *planning* one. When you're drawing the route, deliberately build the motorway bypass *into* it around every town and city you'd otherwise have to thread through. The motorway skirts the whole mess — the navigation headaches, the crossings, the convoy-fragmentation that urban traffic guarantees. Don't treat that as a fallback you fall into on the day; design it in at the desk, as the connective tissue between your driving roads. N-roads for the driving days, motorways to stitch them together and to carry the group cleanly past the cities — that's the combination that works.
So the strong recommendation, for a group especially: at the planning stage, route *around* towns and cities wherever a motorway will do it, and avoid threading the convoy through urban centres wherever you possibly can.
## On speed, cameras and the unmarked hump
A candid word on pace, because Spain is a world away from France here. In the areas we drove, fixed speed cameras are few and far between, and every one was flagged well ahead by Google Maps or Waze. We saw nothing of the mobile or pop-up traps France now runs — the only enforcement about was the odd low-key Guardia Civil check, and those felt aimed at local traffic rather than touring foreigners. On the open road, within reason, the pace you keep is largely your own affair; we tended not to go more than 20–30 km/h over the posted limit, and in much of the mountains the national limit is academic anyway — the roads simply won't allow it.
The thing that'll actually catch you out isn't a camera, it's a speed hump. Plenty of villages and towns enforce their 50 km/h limits with them, and some are vicious. Most are marked; a few aren't. Take an unmarked one at village-approach speed and you'll launch the car and everything in it — so scrub right down to the limit through every town, humps or not, and shout a warning back down the radio the moment you meet one. It's exactly the sort of thing the radios are for.
## On motorcycles and livestock — what else is using the road
Two things share these roads with you, and both want planning for.
Motorcycles, in numbers. The Picos has been marketed hard as "the Spanish NC500, but better," and the bikes have come — big groups of UK machines hover around the range, plus a lot of Spanish-registered riders elsewhere. Two consequences. First, you're contesting the same fuel and the same café tables: a group of fifteen to twenty bikes that beats you to the station or the bar has just set your timetable back, so factor them in and get in before the rush where you can. Second, and more serious, riding standards vary wildly — many competent, some out of their depth, and a few mad, bad and riding on or over the white line, which is a very unpleasant surprise mid-corner. The defence is pure road-craft: never clip an apex, buy the longest sight-lines you can, position for vision over speed, and treat every blind bend as though something's coming the wrong side of the line. Sometimes it is.
Livestock, unfenced. In rural and mountain country, expect cattle, goats and wild horses in the road — routine, not freak. They give no warning and own the tarmac, so the same habit covers them as covers the bikes: ease off where you can't see through, keep something in reserve, and read the verges as well as the road.
## A note on the locals — guiri, inglés, escocés
A quick cultural aside, because it's good to know how you'll be seen. The everyday Spanish word for a pale northern-European tourist is *guiri* — not aimed at the English specifically (Germans, Dutch and Scandinavians all qualify), and more mild teasing than insult, closer to "tourist" with a raised eyebrow. A sunburnt guiri in an open-topped sports car is, let's be honest, fair comment, so wear it lightly.
For Brits specifically you'll hear *los ingleses* — "the English" — used loosely for anyone from the UK, the same conflation we make ourselves. The correct *británicos* exists but rarely gets an outing.
And the Scots? The distinction's recognised but not the default. Spaniards know fine well that Scotland's a separate place — whisky, football, the pipes and the independence question all register, and there's real warmth there (the "anyone but England" thing is alive and well). Say *escocés* and it lands, often with a grin; leave it unsaid and a Scot gets folded into *inglés* like anywhere careless. A convoy flying the Saltire and talking whisky tends to get upgraded from *guiri inglés* to *escocés* once it's clocked — and treated all the better for it.
## On Spanish catering — adjust your horizons
A last point, and an important one for a group. These areas aren't built for international touring and don't expect it; the catering runs on Spanish terms, with Spanish expectations. Some people find that a stretch — particularly because the local reading of a given dish or drink varies enormously from place to place.
Our running joke, from a previous trip, was the café con leche: well over thirty of them, no two alike. Some arrived as a small espresso affair with nothing on the side; others as a near-tanker of milk with a rumour of coffee in it, parked next to a substantial biscuit or even a slice of cake. Be ready for the ambiguity — and, if you let it, the fun of it.
Anyone expecting English breakfast tea and a traditional English spread will need to readjust. Go with the local grain rather than against it, and the food becomes part of the trip rather than a running battle with it.
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# Part three — logistics and the verdict
## On reliability — what actually broke (almost nothing)
Worth recording, since it's the question everyone asks: across 3,300 miles the convoy was near-faultless. The only mechanical notes of the whole trip were some Ferodo DS2500 pad-transfer spotting on my 35is's discs — cosmetic transfer film rather than anything structural — and a couple of non-starts on the Jag and Gerry's E85 M, both down to obscure key-fob gremlins rather than anything mechanical. Nothing held the group up or threatened a day's driving. For a fleet of older performance cars worked hard in serious heat, that's about as good as it gets — and a quiet argument for taking the car you trust over the fastest one you own.
## On the Paradores
Without exception, outstanding — a veritable oasis every time. In this heat, in open cars, a cool, calm, beautiful building at the end of the day isn't a luxury, it's recovery. If you take one booking lesson from us, lean on the Parador network.
## On the ferry — a genuine no-brainer
Unless you're going to France for the joy of France, take the boat. Portsmouth–Santander is zero stress: you arrive relaxed and ready to drive the good stuff, rather than having hammered down the autoroutes first — burning fuel, tolls and tyres, paying for hotels along the way, and running the gauntlet of France's now-endemic speed enforcement. Ours was £1,195 per car including the cabin and the upmarket lounge with food and drink laid on — so the figure already absorbs two days of meals each way that a drive-down crew pays for on top of everything else. Count what driving down actually costs you and the ferry stops looking expensive. (Tony and Karen drove through France both ways and can give you the other side of that argument.)
One honest caveat before you book, though, because not everyone's a natural on a boat — and this isn't a quick hop. These are 45,000-tonne ships, about the size of a medium cruise liner, and you're aboard the best part of 30–36 hours each way. Two things make it. First, get an outside cabin with a window: an inside one's cheaper but feels claustrophobic over a day and a half, with no daylight and no real connection to the outside — and a proper cabin with its own en-suite gives you somewhere to lie down when you want it. Second, don't skip the club lounge. It's about £80 of that £1,195 and the best-value part of the whole ticket: a quiet room up at the front and top of the ship, cracking views front and side, and blessedly free of kids tearing about. There's a rolling all-day buffet from early till late — breakfast, lunch, dinner, mid-morning and afternoon snacks, and bottomless hot and cold drinks, wine included. For a convoy it's the perfect place to gather everyone, talk the route through and start the trip together.
And the elephant in the room: the Bay of Biscay. Its reputation for a wild crossing is well earned in legend, less so in practice — I've done it seven times now, in June, July and September, and most have been smooth and quiet, with the odd medium swell. I'm genuinely prone to seasickness, and the fix is dull but effective: lie down in a cool, air-conditioned cabin and let yourself settle into the gentle roll. If you're nervous, throw some motion-sickness tablets in the bag — and a decent cabin with its own en-suite is reassurance enough on its own. Travelling this end of the year the odds of a properly rough one are low, but they're not nil, and it'd be dishonest to pretend otherwise.
## The numbers
- ~3,300 miles door to door
- ~£700 fuel (≈ 21p/mile)
- £1,195 ferry per car (cabin + lounge, return)
- ~£200/night per couple, ~£175 solo, food/beer/accommodation
- 18 nights away
- ~£5,000 a head all-in, solo
## Why the Z4 and these roads are made for each other
A closing thought, because it's the thing I kept coming back to at the wheel. Most fast cars are tuned for speeds you can't legally reach — they spend a public-road drive bored, idling below their window. The Z4 isn't. Its sweet spot is the 40–80 mph band, where the steering loads up, the chassis starts to move and the straight-six comes onto its mid-range — and that band is *exactly* what a Pyrenean N-road or a Picos mountain lane grants you. In much of the mountains you can't reach the national limit anyway; with this car you don't need to, because the joy lives below it. Car and road resonate on the same frequency — you're working the car's sweet spot and the road's sweet spot at once, legally, all day.
The roof seals it. An open top turns moderate speed into maximum presence: at 50 mph with the roof down you get the pine and the wet rock and the sea air and the engine note unfiltered, the whole landscape in your peripheral vision rather than a slot through a screen. Touring is a high-bandwidth activity — you're there to absorb the country, not transit it — and the roadster is built for precisely that. (The heat is the one tax on it, which is the whole argument for going late May into June, before the meseta turns the open top against you.)
And the E89 earns its keep by being two cars. Roof up, it's a tight, refined coupe that'll do the ferry-and-motorway slog to reach the good roads and shrug off Galician rain; roof down, it's the hooning roadster the mountains want. That's the exact shape of this trip — a long expedition that contains the meander. Spain gives you both halves; the Z4 answers both. Gerry's E85 is the purer, rawer statement of the same idea. Between them they bracket the ideal — and Northern Iberia is about as complete a stage for it as I've found.
## Would we do it again?
In a heartbeat — though I'd plan a few things differently: size the accommodation for the convoy you'll probably have, not the one you hope for; vet your companions on something shorter first; cap the driving near five hours a day and build in rest days; and go late May into June, before the season's heat burns the colour out of the place. Two great mountain ranges, a bit of furnace in the middle, and the best company. A long way off the obvious Alpine default, and all the better for it.
*A full planning brief with the route detail, costs and lessons-learnt is available if anyone's seriously planning their own — give me a shout.*
