Spain Day 5 Driving to Bilbao July 18, 2015

We met for breakfast at 8:40. It was an excellent buffet of fruit, pastries, hams, eggs and more. The view was very nice, too.

I know my plate looks a bit unhealthy, but I did follow up with yogurt. So, there's that.
We wanted to see more than stores in Andorra, so shortly before 10, we headed out to see St. Esteve church, which was just minutes away. It was a cool, comfortable walk and we saw more of where Andorrans actually live.
The Romanesque church was built in the 11th-12th centuries. We arrived before it opened for the day, which gave us time to explore the outside and the nearby square.

The square overlooked the street below, where I saw several of these:

They appear to be lights, but I cannot find any info on them in guidebooks or the Internet.
When we entered the church, the organist was practicing, which really added to the visit. The church had been restored in the 20th century. This is why the interior is so much more modern than the exterior leads one to believe.

I liked the church. The side chapel is reserved for prayer and still has the old stone walls. That was really cool.

They had the most unusual holy water fonts. I've never seen anything like them.

I loved the side door. It looked like what you'd expect on such an old church.

By 10:30, it was warming and we headed to the Pyrenees department store, which was catty corner from the hotel. They didn't have as much on any one floor as some of the other department stores did. As usual, the food particularly interested us.

Okay, Doritos, fine. But, Old El Paso? Really?
Our next stop was the post office. After all, Andorra is a "postage stamp" country. We mailed postcards to friends and family, but also to ourselves. This would be a cool souvenir. Being a stamp collector, I also asked about that and the clerk acted very used to that. I picked out some nice ones, before we headed back to the hotel to pack up.
At 11:50, we checked out and left my husband with the luggage in the lobby. The daughters and I headed next door to the McDonald's because they had a McCafe that looked incredible. We took pictures with the sign and went in to choose something. The macarons were just too tempting and there was a bulk price. Since there was a line, we left the older daughter to buy them.

The younger daughter and I hiked up the hill to the car, where we put 10,20 euros into the machine to pay our bill. It was much cheaper than we expected. My daughter chose to drive again and we headed out at 12:16 with 17505 on the odometer.
At 12:30, we stopped at a gas station near the border to clean the windows, which still had sand on them from Barcelona. We saw many, many vehicles entering the country. At 12:39, we stopped at the border to ask for passport stamps. The guard took our passports and we waited a while, but he came back without stamping them. Evidently, he was a Spanish border guard and we already had that stamp. The traffic on the other side just came to a standstill. I guess, Saturday is a big shopping day.

Driving through the Spanish countryside, we saw some nice little towns.

We also saw a lot of open fields and countryside, of course.
At 2:45, with 17681 on the odometer, we stopped at the Fraga rest area on the AP2. We were able to park the car under cover. Thank heavens, because it was so hot-96.8! The restaurant was cool and busy. It operated like a cafeteria, with folks walking along the counter pointing to what they wanted. My husband had been wanting paella and since none of the rest of us will eat it due to the fish, this was his chance. He also picked up a plate of fruit, including a donut peach, which we shared with our younger daughter. The head on the shrimp was a turn-off to the rest of us.

I chose brocheta de pollo, because the meat on the stick looked good. I didn't expect it to come with all the other stuff. It was good, if a bit greasy. We needed dessert, hence the apple pie, even if it didn't seem Spanish.

Even with two good sized bottles of Coke Zero (look at how the label looks like regular Coke) the bill was only 29,55 euros, which I charged to MasterCard to take advantage of my good exchange rate and cash back.
We filled the car with 29.78 liters of diesel for 34,60 euros and set off at 3:55. It was 99.5 degrees! The road now reminded me of the American West: dry, scrubby, mesas, etc.

At 4:14, we had major excitement-we crossed the Prime Meridian! Luckily signs warned us it was coming and we were prepared to snap photos. It was seriously cool on a really long driving day.

Shortly after 4:30, we paid our first toll of the day for 12,60 euros. Still no idea why. It began raining not long before 5, both on us and in the plain. (The joke for the day.) We passed wind farms, as the temperature dropped to 89.6 degrees. I really wish farmers would put out signs, so that we'd know what we were passing.
With the odometer showing 17824 and a heavy rain outside, we picked up our toll ticket at Zaragoza. 50 kilometers further and we stopped at the Tudela rest area. We were off again at 6:05. The elevation increased as did the mountains around us. In all, it was a lot more mountainous than I would have expected. At 7:51 and 18082 kilometers, we had the shock of the 32,05 euro toll. Good grief! Trying to find that much cash was nuts, so we put it on my MasterCard.
We soon found ourselves in the outer areas of Bilbao. At 8:10 and 18102 kilometers, my daughter having done yeoman's work by driving all day pulled into the Holiday Inn.

(We'd chosen the Holiday Inn so that my husband could get points.) By the time we'd unloaded the car and my daughter and I went back to put it down in the underground parking garage, it was raining again. We chose level -3 to avoid other cars as much as possible. The elevator, unfortunately, took us up to the courtyard. So, we had to sprint to stay as dry as possible.
The view out our window was not great:

And the bed was a bit weird for a double bed, what with the big separation in the middle, but it turned out to be comfortable.

Seeing no restaurants nearby, we gathered in the hotel restaurant at 9 for dinner. My younger daughter and I each ordered Oroyo white wine for 2 euros. My husband's red wine was 2,95 and my older daughter had Pepsi. I ordered a club sandwich for 8 euros, my husband lasagna for 10, my older daughter the Special Burger for 9,50 and my younger daughter the chicken sandwich for 9. Service was incredibly slow. Perhaps it was due to the wedding reception we could hear elsewhere in the hotel. The food nothing to write home about.

Look at that sauce on the lasagna! Argh!
By now, I had a headache. So, I headed to my room, while the others went off to get info on transportation for the next day's outing.