Ron Garner 2024
The 40th anniversary meeting of the Spanish Morgan Club beckoned and we followed.
Click on any image to start slide show.
As on previous adventures we had BENE, our ’67 DHC, shipped to Southampton, England. Ship schedules are not rigid so we sent the car early, had it collected by a transporter and delivered to our longtime friend Geoff Roberts’ home in Sussex. I should note that despite leaving it at the port in Baltimore almost two months earlier it arrived at Geoff’s only a day before we did. They say stress builds character?? Two days later we drove it to Brittany Ferries in Portsmouth UK and began our Spanish adventure with a 36 hour cruise to Bilbao in northern Spain.
The highlight of our brief stay in Bilbao was walking (we do a lot of walking!) in the old section of the city, dropping in for drinks and tapas at local bars and trying to decipher menus that we eventually figured out were in the Basque language. Yes, Google Translate can decipher Basque. Eventually we found our way to the landmark Guggenheim Museum. Striking! Well worth a walk around. Inside the art was just re-runs of works that I admired while an art student in LA a hundred years ago and unbearable noise. Every surface reflected and amplified the chatter of tourists. Couldn’t wait to get out.
In and around the Guggenheim
On the Road with CLASSICS ON THE ROAD….
Next came a hood-up drive in light rain to the Silken Ville de Laguardia hotel in La Rioja to meet fellow Morganeers. Nice digs, four stars; very unusual for us. This set a new standard. The days when we stayed at nondescript B&Bs with chickens in the front yard are forever gone. All the hotels on the tour were top tier and after the tour, when we continued traveling on our own Kathi filtered Booking.com for our new standard. So for the first time in the eight tours we made in Europe we enjoyed only four star hotels with spas, amenities, and fantastic locations.
Why not, after all this is our last tour.
The Spanish Morgan Club engaged Classics on the Road to organize the meet. ( See: https://www.classicsontheroad.com/title/morgan-international-meeting/ for the detailed itinerary). They did a terrific job. Everything, and I mean everything was accounted for: the route obviously but also hotels, cocktails, breakfasts, dinners, gas and lunch stops, places to visit, and evening entertainments.
Most impressive were the guidebooks; large format, turn by turn instructions with maps and notes. Before the group started driving each morning two fellows drove ahead and placed large yellow arrow signs at all the turns. Impossible to get lost! There was also a back-up car to handle break downs (one flat tire, one unfixable glitch needing recovery) and professional photographers. The basic tour was three days with an optional four day extension tour. We did all seven days.
It was unlike any club meet I have experienced in all my 52 years puttering with Morgans. Of the 32 participating cars the overwhelming majority were Brits. Only one car was older than Bene. La Rioja is a well-known wine producing region. The daily drives explored very steep and winding roads up and down mountains with many hairpin switchback turns. It was strenuous driving! About 100 miles/day for the 7 days. BENE’s unassisted steering made the hotel bar most welcome at the end of each day.
Keeping up with the Aeros, Plus Sixes, and +8s was challenging but BENE never complained. Each day had a destination. We typically set off at 9am and ended around 4ish. Dinner was, by American standards, served late beginning with cocktails at 8pm and continuing on and on and on.
In the first three days we visited San Millan de la Cogolla (origin of the Spanish language) for a tour of the monastery and had tours of two very large wineries. The guided tours were of course interesting but it was the drive getting to and from these destinations that was memorable. Sometimes there were extraordinary vistas over the mountains, sometimes, sheer cliffs of rock rising up on each side. Cows (cattle?) were frequently in the road and there were occasional confrontations with a guard dog protecting his herd (another reason to drive with the sidescreens in place).
The Extension Tour took us west and north visiting La Olmeda Roman Villa followed by a breathtaking day of driving in the Picos Europa Mountains and ending in Santillana del Mar and the Bay of Biscay.
Whew; exhausting! (note: More pictures from Classics on the Road are at the end.)
And then: Continuing on our own…
After the club meet we settled back into our preferred routine: 2-3 hours driving someplace then stay on a day or two to walk about. Our original plan was to visit a friend in Valencia and then continue to Barcelona for the ferry to Rome. Our friend in Valencia told us he would be out of town on business so on the spur of the moment we decided to stay in the north. Good thing! Disappointing at first yes, but call it luck or serendipity: Valencia was struck by massive flooding and we just missed disaster.
Traveling solo we went west to Gijon, Santiago de Compostela, and then south for a few nights in a winery in Resende, Portugal. Up to that point it was all mountains.
After Resende we looped back north with stops in Salamanca, Valladolid and Leon. Remarkable cities. No more mountains. The terrain was now as flat and expansive as Kansas. All the cities were scrupulously clean and each had a unique old quarter where we could walk for hours to stumble into a local pub-like place for tapas or whatever was on the menu. Final stop was Santander and the ferry to Portsmouth.
And then… heading home.
For us the weather was perfect. Hood down driving for five weeks. The ship timing was also perfect. The day after arriving in Portsmouth we drove to Southampton, found a few pubs to visit, and delivered BENE to the port. After that it was an easy taxi ride to Heathrow.
A few afterthoughs:
We started touring Europe in our Morgan in 2012. After that ‘one time only’ trip we made two trips per year until Covid stopped the world. Before every trip we rationalized that “this will be the last tour”. So after fourteen years maybe we have finally come to the last Last Tour.
But gee… I just got an email: “Gabriel mentioned she was organizing an anniversary event for the Swiss Morgan club at Andermatt in 2027”. Hmmmm…
Acknowledgements:
Touring would be impossible without both professional and personal help. Susan Silverman of All Shores Forwarding in NJ has organized shipping our Morgans back and forth since 2012. Our current insurer for European travel is Tourinsure. Diego Sainz de la Maza of Classics on the Road managed the day to day running of the tour (hello also to Celia). And a special thanks to Eduardo Sanchiz (president Morgan Sports Car Club Espana) and his wife Maria for welcoming us to Spain in ’23 and then inviting us back in ’24. On the personal side we could not do without friend Geoff who is there whenever and wherever needed.
And of course my navigator/booking agent:
More pictures by Classics on the Road
