Unfortunately google maps doesn´t allow me to add all the places where we were during our trip, but to have a visual representation, I added just the main points. From the odometer, we calculated a total of 10078km trip.
Unfortunately life happened a bit differently than expected in 2023, so the blog, the plans and pretty much everything changed and we had to adapt to a new reality. In spring of this awful year while we were visiting my parents in Romania, my father unfortunately passed away unexpectedly. This turned our life upside down in a split second. We had to think quick and make some considerable changes. Temporarily we relocated to Romania, to help my mother. At the time of my father´s passing, we were about to leave and go back to Spain, we had the airplane tickets already purchased. They were non refundable, so we decided to jump on the plane, and go back to Spain, pick up our car and come back with some of our belongings. This was in April.
The second annual Citroen C6 meeting in Portugal was in August… we wanted to go badly, but the situation here is was the easiest. My mother was not capable to be left alone, and I had nobody to bring to take care of her for a prolonged period of time. She was okay with our assistance so the crazy idea emerged, what if we take her with us? She likes to travel… the car is the most comfortable ride we can ever imagine, and worst case scenario we have to go with a different pace, slower, more stops etc…. But if we are going, and our trip is anyway much different from the rest of the trips… why not ask my mother n law if she would like to come? She expressed her desire to do so previously, and this was the perfect opportunity for her to experience a wonderful trip across Spain…
I have to tell you, it was not an easy journey 🙂 But it was a good one, and we were able to show a bit of Europe to both my mother and my husband’s mother. They were truly amazed. We took them trough Hungary, Italy, France to Spain, where they had the pleasure to jump into a pool and behave almost like silly children for 2 days thanks to our lovely friends, visited other friends to experience a giant paella, and after a short rest we continued our journey to Portugal to the Citroen C6 meeting in Caramulo. Here we meet “old friends”, was quite lovely to see the handful of people gathering with their lovely Citroen C6’s from all over Portugal and Spain as well.
Caramulo was not far away from the Atlantic Ocean, so we took the mother in laws to the ocean to see it… They were thrilled again!
The next day was the day of the actual meeting, where we meet friends, had a lovely day, visited the museum, had a lovely lunch at a local restaurant.
On our way back, we made a stop in Barcelona, where we took a Tourist bus for a ride. My mother cannot walk to much, she gets tired very easily so the only way to get her see things was by some vehicle. The tourist bus was perfect for this! From Barcelona, we headed to France, visited Oradour-sur-Glane, the martyr village turned into a very sad museum, and arrived to our dear friends in France. On our way back we did a little detour, to go trough the Mont Blank tunel, and decided that on our road back to make another detour toward Croatia.
Right now we are still trying to figure out life, and expect changes, and try to adapt as good as we can. While our beloved Citroen C6 are still in main focus, we can’t spend the required time and energy we would like on them. Xavier is “sleeping” waiting for better days (we surely hope they WILL COME) and Maudette is here with us, but soon she will go back to Spain again.
A few photos from the trip:
Maudette was a lady, she behaved absolutely wonderful. We had a single overheating scare while we were heading toward Portugal. From out of nowhere the water temperature raised absolutely instantly from normal to very very high, on a road that was going up, and bendy, while outside was scorching hot… I was driving… We suspected a cooland leak, (it was so instant!), but luckily there was no sign of any issues. We waited a few minutes and the temperature returned to normal. We were able to continue our journey after this, but oh boy, I lost a few strands of hair at that moment :)))
We had to postpone our return home with about 3 days, to meet our beloved mechanic in our home town, who scheduled us for a front break pad change and oil change. (it was due). They did a quick general checkup as well and we started our journey back.
I don’t know what life will bring, but we would like to go to the next Citroen C6 meeting with the Portugal team. Next year it might happen as a collaboration in Spain! I will keep you posted (hopefully) if there is some important Citroen C6 related event.
Sadly I am not sure if we will be able to attend the planned 2024 Norway trip 🙁 and it’s quite difficult to squeeze in, and organize the one in Spain/Portugal 🙁 But we will try to get there again!
