2013 - 2014 Blog
Weeks 17 & 18 - Slowing down.
Well, we have now reached the Med and have set up at Camping Javea, this is a site we have visited before and although we try not return to sites we researched Camping Moraira last year and felt it was difficult to access with our old van let alone the new and this time we researched, then went and had a look at the new ACSI site in Calpe but it was very soulless and looked full to bursting.
Although Dirkje has family in Calpe she doesn’t know the area very well so we had great fun showing her round, Cumbra de Sol summit, Guadalest, Cap de Sant Antoni etc., etc..
Last Wednesday we delivered Dirkje safe into the hands of her family, after taking her to look at an appartment in Calpe town centre she is to rent for five months. What a place, there are two double bedrooms, large lounge with a south facing balcony overlooking a quiet courtyard, a kitchen with a separate utility room and a bathroom with bath and separate shower. The rent apparently includes water, electricity, gas and internet and is considerably less per month than we pay for site fees alone.
The caravan now feels quite strange after having Dirkje with us for a month, but I’m sure we will soon get used to it.
We have looked back over our blogs and realised that we have been rushing around since early September and although we have enjoyed every minute - No - Not every minute. The visit to Al-Ko and the decision to get a new caravan were minutes that we did not enjoy at all, it has left us exhausted so now we are on our own we are going to have a few days off doing nothing. Not that SWMBO ever does nothing, she will do sewing or embroidery or something.
This opportunity for relaxation has been brought about, in part, by the news that friends we were going to meet in Portugal over Christmas will be staying in UK until, at least, after the holiday so now we don’t have to rush across Spain and into Portugal. Unfortunately their daughter has hurt her back and needs her family around to help with her recovery. As a long term back sufferer I have great sympathy with anyone who has back problems, not only is it extremely painful and debilitating you are immediately thought of as swinging the lead as there is nothing to show as with, say, a broken arm or black eye.
We were invited to a barby with Dirkje’s family at the weekend. Mella and her mother are Rumanian, so spoke Rumanian to each other and English to us and Dirkje, the children, ages 6, 7 and 10 years, spoke Rumanian to their mother and maternal grandmother, Spanish to each other and the younger two could manage a little English for us while the oldest was easily able to hold a coherent conversation in English. The middle child could also understand Dutch.
I speak only two languages - English and Gibberish, although there are many that insist I only speak the latter.
It was interesting that during a conversation about Rumania Mella felt that the rule of Nicolae Ceaușescu were good times for the country and that he should never have been deposed and together with his wife , Elena, was not legitimately executed. She did however explain that she was at the time a small child and lived in a very remote part of Rumania where her family were able to keep animals for slaughter and grow food that made them generally self sufficient so she was never hungry.
We had seen a poster in Javea for a Tapas Festival in the fish market, it ran all day Sunday with competitions between the posher restaurants in town to make the best tapas then, in the evening, from 6:30 till 10.00 the same restaurants would make the tapas for the public who could buy them at just €2.00 each. Our sort of event. We arrived a little after 6:30, the fish market was deserted although there were some tables with blue linen table cloths on them. We saw a young lady with a sign that indicated she was selling €2.00 tapas tickets and asked her when the event would start “soon” she replied “by seven o’clock?” I asked “well, perhaps by seven thirty” was her response. Unfortunately by ten to seven we had lost the will to wait and went back to the van to eat. Mañana
As part of our new relaxation rather than take the car to the shops today we took the bikes. Nigh on gave me heart attack. It was the first time they had been used for over a year.
My Kindle died today. I had noticed a shop around the corner called PC Solutions so popped in to ask advice. They were very pleasant and helpful but said they had no expertise with Kindle and suggested I visit an English chap in nearby Benitatxell who is, they told me, an expert. Expert my backside! As we walked into his shop he was telling a lady about her kindle “ . . . it’s the screen gone and it’s not worth repairing . . .” I explained what my problem was and without looking at the offending article he declared “ . . . it’s the screen gone and it’s not worth repairing . . .the new screen is €40 and then with my charges it’s not worth repairing . . . ”. Well a new one costs over €200 and would have to be bought back in UK and posted out here so the old one would have most definitely been worth it but given his manner and way of talking to his customers there was no way I was going to give that pig ignorant twerp any of my money.
The following day I contacted the Kindle helpline on t’internet they explained how to re-boot the device when this had no effect they pronounced life extinct. Confirmed that a new one would have to be bought in UK and despatched to a UK address but did offer a good discount on a replacement. Well I thought I will use the Android tablet to read books and replace the Kindle in April when we get back, and we chucked the kindle in the back of the car to take down to the rubbish next time we went. A couple of days later Sue found the Kindle kicking about in the back of the car and on a whim pressed the “on” button to her surprise it started and has been working perfectly since. Bloody computers!!!
We met up with Dirkje today to take her shopping. She was looking for a bike, but not just any bike - an electric bike. She has one in Holland and we did offer to bring it with us but when she investigated the cost of bringing it back it was considerably more than the cost of a new one. Sue and I had done a bit of investigation the day before and found several at prices ranging from €699 to €2000, one however had caught our eye at a shop in Javea that also hired them, it seemed just what Dirkje needed. I asked for the hire cost for five months which worked out at €218 per month or €1090 for the full five months.I suggested that surely they could do better for a five month continuous hire and the owner replied “ . . . no but I will let you buy one for €1000 and in five months you could easily sell it for €750 . . .” the ticket price was €1500. A no brainer. When he repeated the offer direct to Dirkje she almost tore his arm off.
After the bike buying we went for a drive to the hills above Javea trying to find Los Mollinos. We found them but it was to late in the day for the one hour each way walk to the monument so we will return.
Last night the rain rained in stair rods - none of your namby pamby English drizzle, this was thumping on the roof and keeping you awake stuff. This morning it was almost necessary to swim across the roads to get to the showers - well I exaggerate a bit, there was an awful lot of water lying about but now (early afternoon) most have dried up and although there are lots of heavy black clouds there is also lots of blue sky and the temperature is very pleasant.
We have now been at this site for two weeks and apart from Christmas 2011 when we spent three weeks at Vila Nova del Milfontes this is now the longest we have spent in any site while travelling. Listening to the BBC European weather forecast just now with it’s warnings of heavy rain with risk of flash flooding and extreme high winds for the southern Iberian coast I think we may just hunker down here until the system has passed through.
There is a bar/restaurant on site that is currently struggling with what appears to be a boycott. We were told on arrival, by another camper, that we should not go there as there were new owners who were rude and unpleasant. We obviously went and found a most pleasant man who is loosing money hand over fist and not understanding why. He is on his own night after night. We plan to go for a meal tomorrow night, and if it’s good suggest to all the people we know on site that they try it too. We did, it was, we will.
Week 16. Starting to relax.
As well as being Week 16 this is also Week 120. It is sixteen weeks since we started this latest trip but 120 weeks since we originally moved into the caravan and started our retirement travels. During that 120 weeks we have travelled around 25000 miles by car much of it with the caravan on the back, flown another 12,000 miles or so and visited ten European countries some we have visited several times in the period as well as Sue spending 52 weeks at work.
Well back to week 16.
We didn’t expect to be moving so soon but Sue was adamant one night in “Fuentes Blancas Cat. 1" was enough so it was a 245km trundle down the A1 from Burgos to Madrid and then another 50km down the A4 from Madrid to Aranjuez. I don’t often comment on the actual journey but this was for me a stunner. That it is non-toll all the way helped. During the drive we passed over three mountain ranges each as high or higher than Mount Snowdon’s 1085m (3560ft) so, as you can imagine, the scenery was superb. Being saturday, even the road around Madrid city centre (described in our guide book as the Spanish M25) was pleasant and reasonably easy to navigate.
We arrive at Camping Internacional Aranjuez, it is quite a large site and on Saturday, when we arrived, was hopping with Spanish holiday makers enjoying the weekend in the many permanent vans etc., and, as many will know, the Spanish do like to party, most of the many children were rushing around wearing “Flintstones" costumes for a fancy dress competition. The entire site was buzzzzzzzing. We prepared ourselves for a long noisy night as we went looking for a pitch long enough and wide enough for comfort.
We had no food with us on arrival so went to the restaurant to eat. At 7:00pm, far too early for the Spanish, we were on our own with the waiters full attention. There was a good choice of food on the menu as well as a Menu del Dia option at €13.95 wine included but we elected to eat A la Carte and for three including all drinks the bill was a very reasonable €60.00 or €20.00 (£15.11) per head. The food was good and plentiful.
The site is despite it’s rural feel is just a couple of hundred metres from one of the towns premier tourist attraction, less than 2km further is Aranjuez town centre, and what a town centre. Aranjuez has had a royal palace within it’s environs for five hundred years, since the time of King Felipe II
Today we visited the Palacio Real De Arunjuez we thought the entrance fee was very reasonable at €9.00 as it seemed to include two other museums - Casa del Labrador and Faluas Reales. Unfortunately Casa del Labrador was not included which we found only after walking a great distance to it. Tickets must be bought for a specific time slot as it is a guided tour only, tickets can only be bought at the main palace and they are about an hours walk apart. Still the palace we saw was stunning with many grand, beautifully furnished and decorated rooms. Taking photos was forbidden so I cannot show any of what we saw, although this is not a UNESCO World Heritage site for nothing.
Aranjuez has over the years been planted with many varieties of trees but the one that stands out is the huge Plane tree imported specifically from America some date back two hundred years. The camping ground was at one time part of the palace grounds and boasts many of these shady trees
Our last day at Arunjuez and the morning was taken with that exciting task - laundry, but this afternoon we took the car to the local supermarket for supplies, more excitement, and then went into town to catch the road train for a tour round. The train commentary was in both Spanish and English so making the trip more interesting than with Spanish only.
This is the first site we have been on so far that all the folks we have spoken to, be they English, French, Dutch or Swedish are travelling south to the sun. Up till this site everyone else was going home for the winter. How sad is that?
It’s moving day today we are moving a little south but mainly west to within 100km of the Mediterranean coast to a small place called Villargordo del Cabriel, I say small it’s actually just a tiny dot on the map and the site is 3km outside the village down a road that the sat-nab says is unpaved.
The journey to our new location was very pleasant and quick being on motorway standard roads except for the last 30 or 40 kilometres when we were detoured off onto a minor road that, as well as being a switch back, rising to over 1200m (4000ft) showed the countryside at its best. The sat-nav says that for the last 5 odd kilometres we should “ . . . navigate off road . . .” fortunately this is not so, there is a brand new black top right to the site.
The site, Kiko Park Rural certainly lives up to the rural bit of its name, it is miles from any where and from its high vantage point you can look down into the valley below and not see a single habitation light. With no light scatter the stars are quite brilliant.
After we arrived and set up camp we went looking for a supermarket. The sat-nav took us to the closest around 15km away but when we got there it was closed but that didn’t really matter as it was more of a village corner shop with a limited stock. With nothing for dinner we went to the site restaurant, the menu choice was, at this time of year, limited to a “menu del dia” - menu of the day, which offered a choice of two starters, two mains and two puds The food was very good and together with a bottle of local wine, a bottle of beer brewed in the sites micro brewery and a bottle of mineral water the bill amounted to €44.00, just €14.60 (£12.22) per head. This site majors on summer adventure activity - rafting, canoeing, mountain biking etc., etc, so as you can imagine the scenery and remoteness is it’s winter attractions, the second day we had to travel 25km (15m) to the nearest “proper” supermarket.
We had a fab couple of days here driving in the surrounding hills and mountains but although sunny with clear skies, at this altitude it’s cold, so reluctantly, after just two nights, we decided to head off a couple of days earlier than planned.
Me and my big mouth! When we left Kiko Park Rural and set off for Valencia it was - wait for it!! - bloody snowing. OK it was not on UK scale but snow nevertheless and when we reached Valencia it had been raining.
Buckets!!
This is not what we signed up for. Where is the 30 degrees the guy in reception boasted it was the day before cos it’s a struggling 18 degrees now. Still when you turn that into “old money” 65 degrees Fahrenheit is still quite warm
Week 14 & 15. On into Spain.
We were quite sad to leave Le Cormier and had the weather been better would probably have stayed another few days at least but as it was all we were getting was not suntanned but rusty.
Leaving Le Cormier we followed Mikes instructions carefully, there were two villages that were a little narrow but then the road was good all the way to Pons and our next site. The first “narrow” village we were through almost before we noticed. The second? Well now that was a different story.
Approaching the village of Preuilly sur Claise we started through a single track bit of road that swings right and then to the left going into the village I spied an arctic coming the other way so stopped and waited till the traffic cleared. Proceeding on we got ourselves into the single track bit and almost round the bend when I saw that at least three more arctics were committed to the one way bit from the other direction. They unfortunately weren’t in a position to back out but with nothing behind me I was: and did. We then employed our secret weapon - a pair of two way radios - and Sue walked round the bend and radioed me when there was a sufficient lull in the oncoming traffic for me to get through. Turning left in the village centre we started down a hill past a line of cars parked on the right. I was using all the remainder of the narrow road when one of the parked cars pulled out and started to drive towards me (I suppose technically she did have priority but where was I and the two or three vehicles behind me supposed to go). She finished up on the pavement and we all went past. Unfortunately more heavy lorries had arrived in front of us and although they stopped to allow us to turn right at the bottom of the hill we could not get through the narrow section of road at the exit of the village and managed to gridlock the whole shooting match. Fortunately one or two cars at the main pinch point managed to move enough for me to get by while removing only the dust on the sides of the van. Great fun.
The remainder of the journey was incident free and we arrived at our next site Moulins de la Vergne mid afternoon. Having no food we were pleased to find the site restaurant open and booked a table for later that evening. Arriving at the appointed time we were met by a lonely barman (hugging an electric radiator) and shown to our table. There was a good choice as only one other table was occupied (by the only pig ignorant Dutch couple I have ever met). The menu choices were a little limited as the restaurant was closing for the winter in a couple of days and as items were going out of stock were not being replaced. I had an almost vegetarian meal, starter Carpaccio (raw beef) main confit of duck and pudding creme brûlée. It was all delicious.
With just one full day here we decided to visit Ile d’Oleron, the second biggest island in France, the biggest being Corsica.
The island is accessed by a long, long bridge and although it has but one road running from bridge to island tip we still managed to get lost and unfortunately saw little of the island in the time we had available. The drive back to the site was however very picturesque and to top it all of we found a supermarket that was selling diesel at €1.257 (£1.08) a litre.
Up bright and early today to complete the last section of our journey through France and enter Spain. We had elected to go on the motorways and pay the tolls as keeping to the toll free routes would have almost doubled our five hour journey time and cost more in diesel than the €26.50 toll costs. The roads were all good with just the last few miles as we reached the extremities of the Pyrenees mountains becoming a bit hilly (that's good old fashioned British understatement) we were beginning to wonder about the statement in the ACSI book that our next site was “. . . high in the hills . . . many opportunities for mountain biking . . .”
As it turned out the site is just under 150m (500 feet) above sea level but it climbs in a very short distance. It is very steep. However the road is very good and to our well match car and caravan it presented no problems, when we arrived at the site we found that the views are stunning.
Having no provisions the sat-nav located a supermarket for us and off we went. Eroski are a large chain of supermarket, not quite on the scale of Tesco, but still big and on a Friday afternoon they were closed. “ . . . they will be open tomorrow but are closed today for a holiday . . . “ we drove around but did not find another so bought basic provisions in the site shop - thats when we found out how expensive it is.
The following day dawned bright and sunny so before shopping we had a wander along the cliffs - it is beautiful. The style of building puts us in mind of Switzerland on Sea, very strange.
Eroskie is open today and the inside is huge, selling every thing from food to clothes to televisions but no fresh milk.
Having bought our supplies we went looking for a parking space to look around this fascinating place - Zaraultz. The whole place is packed with Spanish weekenders, there is not a parking space to be found anywhere we continue through the town and along the sea front towards the next town. The promenade continued right to the next town - quite a way, and with waves crashing over the sea wall it was wet on the road never mind the pavement.
We have been here a week now but don’t seem to have done anything or been anywhere. Sue has had an horrendous cold and spent a couple of days in bed and this morning, the day we had chosen to move on we overslept not waking up till just before 10:00am. If we had packed up and gone then it would have been too late when we arrived at the new site. Still never mind we will go tomorrow, or the next day, or even the one after that.
We popped out to the shop today and as we left the site, still on private land, two policemen were entering they looked as if they were going to stop me but lunch must have beckoned as they did not. I assumed it was that I had not put a seat belt on. On the way back from the shops we passed them going the other way, by their reaction at seeing me it was obvious they wanted a chat and I saw them turning round in my mirror. They stopped me near the top of the hill and one jabbered quick and long in totally unintelligible Basque the only thing I could understand was the seat belt clunk click action he was doing so smiling I did lots of nodding and “Si Señor” ing and after a few minutes he gave me a thumbs up and said the only thing of the encounter I understood “Adios Señor”. I “adios”ed him and fled.
Moving day today we have had enough of the rain and yesterdays bright and warm sunshine reminded us of what we are missing. We are not going far some 200 km south west to Burgos where we are told that there is a magnificent cathedral (third biggest in Spain).
We were quite excited until we arrived at the site. Hated it. Why? Don’t actually know, just hated it.
I will try to be a bit more objective in my site report.
Week 12 & 13. A journey in France.
We had a long way to go today so we set our alarms and got up early, very early, seven thirty - well that is early for us.
It’s moving day and the sat-nav says we will be travelling for over six hours. Well Desmond is the most optimistic sat-nav I know so we know he will have underestimated by a couple of hours.
When the alarm went off I thought I had gone blind it was so dark. Dark enough and rainy enough to make trying to pack up impossible so we waited till dawn then packed up in double quick time so we were only 40 minutes behind schedule when we pulled away from our first and only French site of the trip.
At over 500km today’s trip was always going to be long so we had decided to make it as short as possible by taking toll roads something we very rarely do.
We arrived at our destination Le Cormier Camping eight hours later. Also €53.10 in toll charges poorer.
“. . . that’s a French site . . .” I hear you cry. Well it is in France but it is owned and run by a Welsh couple Mike and Cath. They are the most welcoming couple you can imagine. We arrived in pouring rain, Mike came out with a large umbrella for us to shelter under while he gave us a tour of the site and told us of the relative merits of each pitch then helped us set up while Cath made us all a most welcome cup of tea.
We have been here for two days now and it stopped raining a little after lunchtime today.The first night was interesting with a thunderstorm as close as I ever want to get. The thunder started while the lightening was still daylight bright and was so loud it rattled the van, you could actually feel it moving. We discovered next morning that the site electrics had all been tripped.
We hid from the rain for the next day and a half, Sue was going stir crazy so we went for a drive to an area close by covered in many lakes large and small but we were disappointed that the lakes could rarely be seen from the road and many of the bird hides and other observation points seemed to be closed.
|t was market day in Loches today so while Dicky recuperated from a foot problem Sue and I went for a look see. Markets in France seem to be different from those in the UK where the object is to be as cheap as possible, here the price seem to be largely irrelevant. Is is quality that counts, some of the goods being sold are damn’d expensive but all were top quality and although we didn’t try any the street food looked particularly yummy.
Our last full day here and we have elected to visit Chateau de Chenonceau. It seems that with a plethora of local chateaux this is the one. It was a little unfortunate for us, not for the chateau that today was a public holiday and the whole world and his brothers children had chosen today to also visit. It was packed but still a intreating and interesting place to visit even if you could not take pictures because of the crowds.
On our way back to Le Cormier we stopped in Loches to use the cash machine, double parked behind some cars properly parked. The traffic prevented Sue from getting out so I jumped out and went to the machine just a few steps away unfortunately there was a short queue and so it took perhaps five minutes to get our dosh by which time a bus was trying to get past the car giving increasingly irritated hoots on his hooter but when I ran back mouthing “désolé” and waving my dosh he gave a very French shrug and smiled as I jumped in the car and drove away.