The next five pages of My Pics feature photos from Reflexia's unplanned road trip around France and Spain in 2008. The full story has now been moved to the Articles section for ease of reading. It contains all the same pictures as appear on these pages, but with a comprehensive write-up.

Click here to read the full article, or here for a PDF version that may be more easily viewed / printed.

For this gallery, I have provided a more brief summary of each photo.

Following a couple of short stays in the Normandy city of Rouen during the autumn of 2008, I decided that my longer-term French study was destined to take place somewhere else, so I cancelled the course and instead took off on an impromptu road trip south. A day and a half later, after a titanic voyage down through all of France and half of Spain, I arrived in my Renault 4 at the city of Alcalá de Henares, to the north-east of the Spanish capital, Madrid. The photo above was taken outside the rail station where I parked the car for a few days.

It was hardly the most inspiring spot for a photograph, so I snapped another (below) before leaving the town, just to prove that my Reflexia really did make it all the way to Madrid at the grand old age of twenty-four.

Whilst visiting my friend in Alcalá, I was rather surprised to pass a classic Renault 4 van parked in the centre (below). It was an F4 that had the early front grille, and so would appear to be from the early Sixties. My friend believed its year could be ascertained from the number plate, although with the vehicle being older than her, she wasn't so sure what this year might be. Further pictures appear at entry number MC191 in the Mystery Cars section. I left a card on the windscreen, so if you happen to be - or know of - the owner, then get in touch.

After four nights, it was time to move on, and just minutes before driving off having not yet decided where to head next, I received an email reply from Asier Castellano, my friend and fellow Four fan who I had met five years earlier during my Interrail trip. We arranged to meet that evening in his home city of Donostia in the Basque Country, so I drove flat out again in retreating north across the cold, wet Spanish plains. Unlike the heavy snow I'd faced on the journey down, I instead had to drive through a deluge. The rain eased off a little as I passed one giant black bull hoarding after another, and I eventually found one with a stopping place nearby, from where I could take a photo of the R4 (below).

It was at this same spot that I snapped the picture below, looking in the opposite south-easterly direction, towards the mountains shrouding the northern fringes of the Spanish capital.

Once I arrived in San Sebastián, Asier came to meet me on one of his motorbikes, and we finished off the night with a couple of beers in the local bar. On this bank holiday occasion, Luis, the other former R4 owner with whom I had stayed on the previous visit, was out of town. However, Asier did his very best to fit me in around his holiday plans, and we arranged to meet the next morning at the edge of the bay where I was promised that, weather permitting, he would bring along his classic 1960s Cuatrolata for me to see.

Pictures from this trip continue in the next entry, #MP39. Just click the navigation arrows below.