Next, up to Granada..
Snow on the Sierra Nevada
A quick stop at ACSI campsite Suspiro del Moro at Otura, south of Granada, where we did actually check in, but I got such an unfriendly “welcome” and John wasn’t happy with the facilities, so we beat a hasty retreat and checked into another ACSI site, the Reina Isabel at La Zubia.
Reina Isabella site
This is a lovely little site, including a well-heated facilities block and plenty of hot water, an on-site shop with fresh bread daily and a bus stop across the road for the short journey into Granada; they also, for a small charge, booked our tickets for the Alhambra, which was a great help.
Granada viewed from Alhambra
Please don’t risk just turning up at Alhambra thinking you’ll get in, as it’s very unlikely! We arrived at the site after lunch on the 2nd Jan and the first available tickets were for the afternoon of the 4th, so we spent 3 days there in total, enjoying looking around Granada before the Alahmbra visit, which was amazing, even the traditional little
Alhambra Restaurant
restaurant close to the entrance! I haven’t included pics of Alhambra itself because mine just don’t capture the essence of the place, you have to see it for real.
7th Jan found us close to Fuengirola, where we parked up for 3 nights on the car park of the holiday complex where our friends Carol and Bryan were renting an apartment for several weeks. We enjoyed our time with them, getting to know the area, watching when they played, and won, their bowls matches and letting them beat us at cards in the evenings!
The Rock!
Next on the list was Gibraltar, where we parked for 24 hours on the harbour at La Linea de Concepcion, from where we made the short walk up the road to the frontier between Spain and the Rock; on the afternoon that we arrived we just had a stroll around then, next morning, we took a guided taxi trip up the rock and took the touristy pics of the harbour and the monkeys.
The Rock Auditorium
Hello to Edna and Robert Johnson, from Australia, whom we met on the harbour, just before leaving; we were surprised to learn that Robert’s aunt lives about 2 miles from us! We met up briefly with them again on the ferry crossing from Santander to Portsmouth.
First pitch at Los Llanos
Los Llanos by the beach
We moved on a few miles and camped close to the beach at Playa Los Llanos, 8kms west of Tarifa, (where Spain is closest to Africa); the area all along there for several miles is very popular with windsurfers.
Los Llanos sunset!
Three nights at Conil de la Frontera followed, the first on a camperstop on the seafront, from whence we and several others were moved to a carpark after a knock on the door by a friendly local policeman!
John finds the hot seat!
The other 2 were a few kms out of town at Camping La Roche, an ACSI site, where it was a bit chilly in the the evenings as you’ll see from the photo!
By the time we left Conil we needed to go in search of LPG again, but this time we did at least have the shiny new connector! An online search suggested that the nearest was several miles away at Jerez and it wasn’t easy to find. We didn’t stay to look around Jerez because it was a hot afternoon, more suitable for sitting in the shade with our kindles than going on a foot slog, especially as the main attractions there are the bodegas, of no interest to John as he doesn’t drink. Hence we drove on to the farthest point West of our trip, staying 4 nights on the beach at Chipiona.
Roast lamb, Chipiona style!
Prickly Pear
We met some French folks, from the Cote d’Armor, who lived only a few kms from where we used to have a house. It is a popular camperstop, with a couple of restaurants on the beach, one of which has a bread van deliver every morning. I wanted to visit Cadiz so we then headed back and found a camperstop listed carpark next to the harbour at Puerto de Santa Maria, as we’d read that it was an easy train or catamaran trip from there to Cadiz; I’m so glad we did because we spent 2 days just mooching around Puerto’s town and harbour. SatNav took us on a tour through town en route to the harbour, as you can see!
SatNav takes us through P. de S.M.!
This one doesn’t sail!
I loved the place, the architecture was very colonial. We then had a night on the ACSI Playa las Dunas site just outside the town (laundry time!) then a night’s wild camping on a spot we discovered whilst looking for the campsite. We decided in the end to drive to Cadiz, so we parked up and looked around the old town, but much preferred Puerto de Santa Maria.
Sevilla Tourism Office!
We wanted to stay on the south coast for a while longer and headed back to Chipiona for few days, before starting our drive north with a planned stop to visit Sevilla. We parked up for 2 nights on the Area Ac Sevilla Centro, one of the listed camperstops, situated a nice stroll along the riverbank (where we found the tourist office) from the centre.
Plaza…
..de…
..Espana
By far, the most memorable part of our stay was visiting the Plaza de Espana, it has to be top of the list of “must see’s”; my photos don’t do it justice.
After leaving Sevilla we spent a night at the Camping Carlos III, at La Carlota, which I found on Camper Contact website, as we wanted to break the journey to Cordoba.
The mighty mosque!
Mosque interior
The 11th century mosque at Cordoba is high on our list of sites headed ”Well, glad we went there”!
The beautiful old bridge on the edge of the town is also a real photo gem.
Still heading north, we struggled next day to find somewhere to put our heads down, eventually leaving the main road at Valdepenas when we saw from the main road what seemed to be a lorry park at a service station on an industrial estate; it transpired they had toilets and showers and, also, locked gates overnight, but I didn’t make a note of the co-ordinates. Leaving there, we set off to Consuegra and a listed camperstop at the foot of their (apparently) famous windmills; we didn’t actually stay on that spot because the co-ordinates took us to a large carpark on the other side of the town. It’s quite a rundown town, but we got a very warm welcome at the tourist information office, where I caught up on my emails, which kept us out of the rain for a while too.
Toledo
Toledo was another free night, in a carpark just across the road from the town walls. We had a walk around, in the rain, in the morning then I went back for the afternoon and John stayed in the ‘van, because his knees were still suffering from the walking in Sevilla! We’d visited Toledo many years ago, but had forgotten much of what we’d seen and, also, the fact that it’s so high and inaccessible (fortress towns usually are of course!) that you need to take several escalators to reach it; it’s well worth the trouble though to see this fantastic UNESCO heritage site. We were getting a bit fed up with the rain by this time, so when we stopped off at the ACSI Camping International site at Aranjuez we didn’t bother to venture into town and hence missed seeing its Royal Palace which, at the time, we didn’t know was there to be honest! We’d spent 10 days in Madrid about 15 years ago, so on leaving Aranjuez we skirted around Madrid’s ring road and made the Burgos camperstop our next stop.
Burgos
No surprise by now that we arrived in pouring rain, but we were disappointed to find that it was situated right next to a busy roundabout and under some large trees, which made it very dark; however, a German couple next to us gave us the co-ordinates (N42.35139, W3.68056) for a large, open carpark on the other side of town, which was a great improvement, so we had a couple of nights there. During our chilly Sunday morning wander around the interesting old town a lot of the riverfront was out of bounds to make way for the final stage of a marathon.
Our final 2 nights were spent about 30 miles from Santander, so that we would have only a short drive on the day of the crossing. It was spent on an idyllic, listed, free camperstop in the Parque de la Naturaleze de Cabarceno, on the Area Lago del Acebo.
Beware Elephants!
A tranquil stopover
There’s a village a few metres away, with shop, restaurants and even a zoo! Hello here to Gill Williamson, whom we met there and who also did the same crossing as us to Portsmouth. The start of the crossing was delayed by about 7 hours (we’d been notified a few days in advance) so instead of arriving back late evening on the Thurs we didn’t get back until about 6 a.m. on the Fri, which worked out well as it saved us from having to find an overnight stop in the Portsmouth area, before our 200 miles drive home.