#5 Spain to France February - March 2014

THE FINAL POST:

We spent 15 relaxing days in Torre del Mar in the Andalusian province of Spain. The campsite Camping Torre del Mar was perfectly located on the edge of the town and on the Mediterranean.  Upon arrival we had the choice of 2 spots. One with sparse greenery and the other closer to the toilet facilities which I thought would be the better as, well, people just go there for showers, etc. How wrong was I? The dish washing sinks were on the side closer to us and two times a day there were the sounds of Babel. As many campers live there for 5 months, they set up semi permanent residence and can't move their campers to fill up with water nor empty their tanks, hence the dishwashing.

Camping has come a long since tenting and the first caravans and motor homes took to the road.

Caravan, living room, sunshade - The perfect set up complete with gated doggy area.

After a mere five minute walk towards town we came to the first restaurant: Brujas. The first meal we had there Brian declared it to be the best salad he had ever eaten. Another night we had the Argentinian steak on the Hot Stone. Tender, delicious and fun.  We had previously met 4 Belgians there, plus at another bar, aand one of them was kind enough to take a photo of us. They were an interesting group who had been ccoming to Torre del Mar for 30 years - one couple to the their camping car and the other to an apartment.

Cozy glow of the pyramid heater.

                             The Very Hot Stone                                The Belgians                                               

My meal at the Tanit Restaurant: Goat cheese, honey and salad YUM.

In some of the restaurants the bill is brought in a pretty little box or something
 cleverer such as a small clog.
I suspect it started when bills were presented outside and the closed box would stop the  bill and the money from flying away in the wind.                 

Again we rented a car for 3 days but in this area there was not as much to discover, however, we met up with a couple from France, by prior arrangement, at a weekly market.

Ruth and I belong to a Facebook women-only-group named LIFT (Ladies In France Together with over 2700 members). LIFT Facebook page. We women support one another; it is a goldmine of information about daily life in France, networking for some and a lifeline for others. How Ruth and I became friends on LIFT I don't remember but knowing that Ruth and Ian were staying in the next town and it was she who had been giving me daily weather updates while we were being rained upon in Portugal, we decided to meet in person for the first time. 
It was a very well attended market with mainly British vendors plus a few Spanish artisans. At Le Cruce Restaurant lunch was a choice of soup or salad, a main course of grilled fish, dessert plus a glass of wine for €10 ($13) each. Very tasty too!

Ruth, Ian and Brian

The next week they invited us to their town for quiz night, including a fish and chip dinner; sadly we didn't win but put in a good showing.  We arrived at seven just as the sun was setting over the sea.

The Mountain roads up to Competa were hairpins with wide corners and again Brian was in his glory driving up and down the hillsides.

We stopped at a Bodega (wine cellar) and bought regional olive oil and honey but no wine. Sweet little store.

A narrow road the GPS led us down. We had to pull in the mirrors...Thank goodness we 
were not in the RV.

Thursday is market day in Torre del Mar and what a market it was. We wandered aisle after aisle and finally Brian opted out for a coffee. I, of course, soldiered on. We bought avocados, oranges, cherries and a few other items.

Fresh Fruits by the Kilo (2.2 lbs) and all so reasonably priced

Boots for €15 and shoes for €10    
Just don't expect them to be leather...

The Dried Fruit and Nut Stall

THE FISHERMEN

Early in the morning they gather on the beach. The boat takes the net out as the men hold the stern line. The boat semi circles around then back onto the beach.

The boat is put on fenders and rolled back up the beach

 Heave Ho! Tugging and rolling to its resting spot

All this work for a tiny amount of small fish that are whisked off to a few restaurants.

Maybe it is because this activity is illegal, maybe it is because they are small and not numerous, but whatever the reason these little babies are sold at a premium.


In the In the opposite direction from town we found this little bar/restaurant with a thatched reed roof. We spent a comfortable hour watching kids playing in the sand and then, as if on queue,  along came two riders







Spain is not a particularly pretty country but it has its moments. A trip along the coast proved to be scenic, as most coasts tend to be.

SCENES OF TORRE DEL MAR

The wide tiled boardwalk - these are quite common along Spanish seafronts

Mausoleum in town - to our surprise the dates were mid to late last century

Hamburger and beer joint.

There were a number of Chinese establishments: All you can eat buffet restaurants, Beijing and China Bazaars with of course everything being imported from China. Nail Salons in 
America and Canada mostly tend to be owned by Vietnamese. The shop I went into was owned by Chinese and I had a pedicure for €10 ($14). The salon did not have the big vibrating chair but rather just a vibrating foot bath and that was adequate. A pleasant experience.

Busy Monk parrots in a palm tree just outside the campsite.  Common in the cities of Spain they are the only parrot that builds nests with sticks. They are extremely vocal but not annoying and definitely colorful.

              Town lighthouse                         Having fun outside the Mexican-style restaurant

Sunset over the mountains

It was time to leave so we packed everything away, said goodbye to our neighbors and headed east along the coast.

A little bit inland we saw hundreds of plastic greenhouses; everywhere imaginable there the were. All these vegetables will be sold in Spain or exported to countries such as France. We are now at home (at the beginning of April) enjoying fresh petits pois (peas in a pod) from Spain!

If France is the bread basket of Europe Spain is the vegetable patch

The City of Almeria

  Map of Southern Spain - click for perspective

Further on we passed this unusual scene. The caves are massive. We have seen TV programs showing modernized caves in which people now live. They are cool in summer and warm in winter. Look near the right hand corner for the green  sign to gain an idea of the size of these caves.

We spent two nights at the Los Elscullos campgrounds in San Jose surrounded by the Parque Natural. It was  a quiet and peaceful place but we did meet a few French folk and had a franglais conversation or two.  A short walk across fields to the beach and we discovered an old fort "Le Bateria de San Felipe" guarded by this gigantic pirate!

The fort dates to 1765.

It had several spacious rooms with high arched ceilings. I imagined it to quite comfortable and well stocked from sea and land.

Flowers of the fields

The newer part of Benidorm

The next stop was in Javea (pronounced (Habee-aa).  Camping Javea.  What a surprisingly lovely little community it was. We walked into town, along the boardwalk - again beautifully tiled and next to the ocean.

It was too early, by Spanish custom, to eat but we found a pizzeria that was open and specializing in made to order.

We wished this place had been open in the off season:  hahaha

Javea at sunset

The next morning it wasn't until 9:30 we were finally able to leave the campgrounds as the office wasn't open til then and we had to be refunded for the electric key.   Grrrrr.

We made it through Barcelona unscathed but then the GPS took us on a coast road that was a nightmare of traffic, lights and roundabouts. Interesting roundabouts though.

 We arrived at our destination of Santa Susana Resort on the ocean at 6:40, just as the sun was setting.  Camping Bon Repos




We enjoyed a pleasant dinner in the campsite's busy restaurant . I wish we had had more time to spend here as it was within walking distance of a shopping area and the ocean.

The next morning we drove many hours to Bordeaux only to be halted by the gendarmes ('route barrée') at the  bridge which led to our chosen campsite. There was a festival happening with Chinese boats, decorations, lanterns and many pedestrians.

Street decorations in Bordeaux

After putting up with a tantrum from our GPS we said  F@$* IT!, let's just go home and if it is too cold in the house we will just plug in and stay in the RV.

It was just becoming dark as we arrived in our driveway. The house temperature was acceptable, we unloaded only that which was necessary and went SPLAT! 

It had been a long day and the end of our journey.

We had returned safely from our  five week trip and we were happy to be home.
It has taken me 8 months to post this last segment.  Somehow life got in the way and I just never returned to our blog.

We hope you have enjoyed traveling with us and as we are planning to make a similar trip this coming year I will make an effort to post in a more  timely manner.

A bientot from France!

#4 Portugal to Spain

Portugal

Again, we rented a car for three days and one day we stopped a shopping center with a Primark Store.  I wandered about the store and as I came back to Brian I saw him talking to a woman, but in a way to suggest he knew her.
It was Josie from whom we had purchased our French house and her husband Mervyn! Quelle surprise! They live in England most of the year and winter at their house in Spain. However, this trip they were in Portugal for two weeks staying at a friend’s villa. It was lovely to catch up with them and even discovered that two of our neighbors were wintering in Portugal. How remarkable is it that we should be in the same store at the same time over 1200 kms from our respective homes? Simply amazing!

These are yellow flowers everywhere. They close up for the night and in the rain, they are apparently good little seeders.

The Portuguese have a very good school system. Most of the people we have met speak English very well and some speak as many as four languages. Portuguese, which is the 5^th most spoken language in the world, is complicated and developed from the Celtic tribe the Lusitani, Latin, Arabic and from Galicia, now part of Spain. Although some of the written words can be guessed, the spoken words do not necessarily resemble them. To me the accent sounds Russian with a hint of Arabic.

Our fellow campers in order of numbers: Dutch, German, English, Belgian, French and Portuguese with most all of them being able to speak English well. It is unfortunate that the English-speaking world does not fully promote learning a second language early in our education as it can enrich all of our experiences (written by the two of us who struggle later in life to learn french).

We took the coast road north and what magnificent views of the tumultuous sea we encountered.

The next day we drove into the mountains. It was misty but dry as we wound around the hilltop roads occasionally spotting a terraced area. Brian was in his element driving as if he was in a hill rally from his earlier years. I was very impressed how he handled the little Fiat.

Orange tree high in the mountains!

 

Orange Bridge in a valley - only greenery where a river once flowed.

Cork trees were numerous and numbered. We could only surmise what the single digits indicated.  Portugal is a main producer of wine bottle corks.

It was so rainy that…How rainy was is it???

Our neighbors' wash under an umbrella!!!  Hahahaa

The majority of Portuguese houses and buildings are painted white with colored borders but some buildings are even more colorful.

  

Not open for lunch so we had to find another place.

                                                                                                                  

Boulevard in Lagos by the Marina

                                                  

We ate in a little place across from the marina – egg on a hamburger - When in Rome - Brian said it was very tasty 

I located a place to purchase a bedspread for the new bedroom (impossible to buy a good one in France at a reasonable price) and while there I asked the owner about the ease of being in business in Portugal and she replied that is was very difficult. Last year the government had changed the rules, again, and now all of a business's inventory had to be online, all sales were processed online and there was so much paperwork that many small businesses just closed their doors rather than dealing with the changes.  The cost of benefits for a minimum wage employee is 38%. In our business in the U.S. we were paying 28% (which included workers' compensation insurance). It truly is a shame to discourage entrepreneurs from growing their companies and hiring employees who in turn will pay taxes, but sadly it is this way in France as well.

Wild flower

After two weeks it was time to say goodbye to Portugal, to some of the staff who had become friends and to our French, former truck driver, neighbor who spoke English with a Birmingham accent. Everyone was so kind at this beautiful site and it was a shame the weather hadn’t panned out as hoped. It truly is the Rolls Royce of campsites.

A poor family being battered by rain. It was not unusual to see horse drawn wagons.

    Spain February 13        

These are just as big as the Toros

A stop a McDonald’s for WIFI plus lunch.  Soup, salads and the usual fare was served but at much reduced prices than in France.

 Angus patiently waiting, hoping that at least one french fry makes it to back to the camper.

Online I found a campsite not too far away from the border but when we arrived the receptionist rudely stated they were not affiliated with the ACSI and wanted €26 for the night. We have paid only €16 each night so we left that unfriendly place and I located another a bit further on and even though it was a wet sand pit we stayed the evening. 

We set the GPS to Conil de la Frontera and hit GO but, after only one kilometer it was the end of the road for us! Recalculating! Detour! 

We drove through the port city of Sevilla. The bridge over the river has a ‘reversible’ middle lane that changes driving direction as traffic flow demands – very clever.

I read in our campsite book about a place near the sea with terraced pitches and all the amenities.  Perfect!  However,  when we arrived we were told we would have to stay in the area for dog owners and to go find a spot that was not too muddy. At each place we learn something new. The lovely spot in Lagos had been described as “terraced” and it was set up in a way that each layer with 8 spots overlooked the lower terrace. Terraced this time meant the RV would be sitting on a slope sideways, side by side, not really a problem but it was too muddy and sandy. The day was wet, cold, cloudy and windy and we were definitely not happy campers so after a brief heated ‘discussion’ we ventured on to the lovely area of El Puerto de Santa Maria. In the town the GPS took us through some narrow streets and we started to worry that we were not at all heading towards a campground but voila! there it was right across from the ocean. Shortly before we found Las Dunas Camping we passed a not so dense forest of trimmed pine trees. They created a canopy over an undulating  pine needle floor - I thought it was a most beautiful and serene setting. So happy, then were we, that it was within walking distance. Inside the forest park, a young woman was living in a tent, a man on a bike, a family out for a walk, it was all so peaceful.  My photos cannot do justice.

At the edge of the forest was a beach. In the summer months this would be a fabulous area for families

  

During the miles we past beautiful white trees but I have no idea what they are other than ghostly and snowy looking with a light scent.

We rounded the tip of Spain driving in an northeasterly direction and before Algeciras we passed miles and miles of extreme wind farming. 

     

 The blade in Spain falls mainly in your lane

 (by B. Bingham)

Behind Algeciras, a densely built up port, we saw the Rock of Gibraltar. As it belongs to the British there are no signs, no lookout points, nada. It was hazy and this is the best photo I could take. We'll stop there next time.

 





Just outside of Estepona we stayed at a sweet  site, “Parque Tropical,” in amongst its lush landscaping. There is a year round pool and a beach close by.

The coastline between Estepona and where we are, a distance of 125 kms/85 miles, is jam-packed with high rises to the extreme. From the sea to 5 – 10 kms inland up to the highway and then up the sides of the mountains there are 1000’s of apartment buildings. Close to Estepona the buildings were Mediterranean-style with tiled roofs, innovative, beautifully colored and only six storeys tall. But further along and near to the ocean, they were less appealing. Close to and high up in the mountains some were very pretty and a few were mere concrete shells of projects started, never to be finished.

              It is difficult to imagine living in such a concentration of people

 We are now in Torre del Mar a town on the ocean with many quaint, older style high rises and modern hotels but also with a campsite on its edge. It is such a treat to walk into town via the street or the oceanfront paved boardwalk and so far the weather has been perfect.

                                 Until next time - buen día