How the Visigoths contributed to the fall of Rome

Montagut - Roses - L'Escala

Weather: Have gone straight to Blogger avoiding my iGoogle page so I can live in blissful(ish) ignorance of weatherforecast.  Can it get any worse?  My guess is "yes".

So, Montagut and one last walk.  It looked like a very small village we were walking to.  In fact it was a church, a campsite and a hotel, all closed!  

The walk involved crossing a stream so David did some civil engineering and constructed a stepping stone crossing.

After watching David totter across I took off my socks and shoes (and later my shirt to dry my feet!) and walked across.  Nice thought tho'.

It was a lovely campsite but we were ready to leave after a Dutch couple dared to camp next to us and David felt he had to work our boundaries.

Normally he grills our tea outside the van but this called for more extreme measures.  However we were paid back the next morning when we opened the door all bleary eyed with sleep on our way to the block to find the couple looking straight in to our van waiting for the show to start!

So for David's blood pressure it was time to leave and we drove off to Roses to meet our lovely friends Lindsey, David and Kenzo the dog.  They met us at our campsite which was a bit of a trailer trash place, but the alcoholic presents (V nice) they brought lessened the shock.  Last time we went to the restaurant we ate at outside Roses there was lovely sunshine and it was pretty busy.  This time we were the only sit down customer and when the gale was at its worst David managed to borrow a jacket off the owner's son.

But it was good to see the Baileys and we had a nice meal and a good catch up and scarpered early the next morning.  I'm sure Roses is lovely in the sun but it's not a great place in the rain.

Off to L'Escala and a happy re-union with my brother and sister-in-law.  More alcohol and more food but the next day they disappeared to Barcelona.  Was it us?  I like to think it was the freezing cold weather.

David has just reminded me about the Visigoths.  As we lay in bed this morning listening to the rain I asked for a brief explanation of the Irish political parties (I know, but cold weather can do this sort of thing to your mind) and as a bonus David threw in a summary of the factors leading to the fall of Rome.

He would like me to repeat them here but you will have to wait for his turn as a guest editor next week. I'm going to ask my family to edit the blog next week but I'm open to offers from outside the family too if you're feeling creative!

Marketing in Montagut

Montagut
Weather: Yesterday :-(  Today more :-|

What to do in Camping Montagut?  Well we didn't fancy canyoning but we needed to top up supplies so we decided to have a walk to market.  There was a local one Sat and another Sun.

So we checked the signposts and the map at the bridge and took careful photos for when we got lost.  Although we are getting better.  These walks were marked with yellow stripes on rocks and trees so we have an arrangement that if we haven't seen a stripe for 5 mins we go back to the last one and look again.  Seems to be working for now.

Saturday's market was at St Jaume de Lleirca.  Very nice walk but maybe 1.5 hrs each way was a bit too much energy to expend on a market of one man and his van!  Still, we loaded David's rucksack with fruit, had a very shivery picnic in the playground and got back to spend the afternoon hunkered down in the van watching the weather getting worse and worse.

That wasn't a blue sky through the skylight, it was black!  Needed 3 gin and tonics and a bit of good old Saturday night telly and an emergency dash to campshop for chocolate bar to lift the depression.  Spain is meant to be sunny isn't it?  I have all my creams and lotions etc packed carefully in thermal bags so they wouldn't melt in the sun, what a waste of time, and I have told Caroline not to bring any sun cream as we have tons still!! 

Anyway, today dawned bright and sunny.

 So off we set to market in Tortella, and we were going to treat oursleves to lunch at the camp restaurant so David didn't even take his rucksack.
Spirits high this morning, although as the pics show the clouds did appear.

Tortella was a lot buzzier than St Jaume with 2 market stalls but also 3 or 4 village shops were open and lots of people around coming out of church and have their pre-lunch drinks.

Shorter walk and 2 stalls - double bubble.

Oh and no rain today - triple bounce!

Getting ahead of ourselves

Montagut

Weather:  Getting a crick in the neck looking for the next patch of blue sky

So what’s going on?  Spanish sun, German engineering, what’s going to go wrong next?!

Enjoying our little campsite at Albarracin but the tap in our Gourmet Centre went wrong.  So we found a Dethleff dealer not too far away and the receptionist at the campsite called them for us to say we would be going there the next day.  Early start and off to Zaragoza.  Not too despondent as we were going to visit the town at some point.  However once we located the garage and fought our way in through the gale that was blowing our expectations began to drop.  As David noticed, the Dethleff manuals were still to be unpacked (that’s the edited version of what he actually said).  So after about 45 mins of nothing much happening the guy said he didn’t have the part we needed and called a dealer in a place called something like Monserat a 3.5 hr drive away.  Off we went again. 

Our lunch stop was in a very inferior carpark to the one at Planet Carrefour in Benidorm.  Made worse by the fact that a trailer full of pigs had stopped in the same car park.  I made David move further away before he ate his ham sandwich.  We passed several lorry loads of lovely fat pigs obviously destined to become Iberian hams.

 Spirits lifted at the 2^nd dealer.  Mega place with loads of Dethleffs.  But guy went into parts department and returned to say they didn’t have the part!  He looked at our faces and agreed to call another dealer.  This one was near Girona, which is where we were meant to head for next week. 

Not sure in what way they thought this was an enticing place to stop for a drink!

David was too tired to go on and we couldn’t have got there before the mechanics went home so we stopped in an aire.  The idea is that the town provides free or very cheap overnight parking for motor homes and in return you go and spend your tourist euros in town.  So we were obliged to leave the very nice aire to walk into town and have a couple of beers.  Tough life.

Next to the aire was a playground with a small but very exciting climbing frame.  This notice was a map of the climbing equipment.  But I took the photo because there was no graffiti!! 

I don't do rocks and water!

Things looked up today when we arrived at the Girona dealer.  They were expecting us and there was a café right next to the garage so we could have second breakfast while they fixed the tap.  The café owner obviously felt challenged by an order of toast and tried to offer us various toppings.  We asked for butter.  Not sure what we got but it tasted a little like fried bread with sugar on top.  No matter, the van was fixed and we have driven on to a lovely campsite back up in the mountains, and even better, the weather forecast is looking up!!

Social climbing

Albarracin

Weather: same old same old.  What the UK gets only 2 degrees warmer usually.  One night my legs were aching so much with cold that I dreamt I was wading through a reed bed wearing stilettoes.

Seems like forever ago so I can’t remember exactly how we ended up here.  Nice camp site though.  Many for people who like bouldering? Que?  I hear you say.  Well a very nice young man from Glasgow who asked to borrow my pegs for to hang up his freshly laundered smalls (he used the birdy ones Margaret), explained that it’s when you climb big rocks, boulders, with no aids except for a padded crash mat to fall back on.  Not for us.  We just enjoyed a leisurely stroll round the very attractive town with a lunch at the end of it.  The stroll did include an unaided climb towards the town walls so we felt we fitted in with the sporty vibe at the campsite.

 

Just spotted this photo from earlier on - David was warming up for one of our bike rides.  

Bigging up Benidorm

Beautiful Benidorm!

Albarracin

Weather: The hardy Dutch are sunbathing but with an air temp. of 14° we’re piling on the warm jumpers

Not a lot to tell.  After plenty of walking, cycling and eating we left our lovely campsite at El Berro and optimistically made our way back to the coast to try the Costas again.

On the way we stopped in a supermarket car park in Benidorm for lunch, as you would.  Well it wasn’t just any supermarket it was a ginormous Planet Carrefour that was open even though it was Sunday.  And this meant we didn’t have to eat a day old baguette for lunch and crack open a tin of beans for dinner.  The other bumper bonus was that we got the piñatas for my birthday and a teeny tiny bucket and spade set for little Nyah.

And don’t think that the Spanish are sniffy about Planet Carrefour either.  It seemed to be the weekend for confirmation and we kept seeing little girls all dressed up in huge frilly white dresses, then as we walked past the restaurant in Carrefour we saw it had been set up for a huge dinner to celebrate a girl’s confirmation.  I guess that if you liked the meal you could buy it in the supermarket to eat another day.

What??

We ended up at an almost deserted campsite on the coast at Javea which was like a Daily Mail version of Benidorm.  But we got my bike fixed (again) and after David almost had an apoplexy when a German couple ignored hundreds of empty spaces to park next to us, we have moved on back to the mountains.  Colder, still almost exclusively Dutch, but much better than the coast.

A day in the life

Casa Blanco
Weather: Just wondering why I packed so much sun cream.

We have actally got some lovely evening sun so whilst I relax after a very nice late lunch of bruscetta, salad, mixed grill with chips, fruit salad, cafe con leche, a bottle of wine and 2 small beers all for €26 for both of us !! I thought Id reveal a little more about life in our snail shell..

Lounge diner - note the fruit bowl is a very useful Lakeland Plastics mixing bowl with a rubber bottom so the fruit doesn't get thrown around the van at every bend in the road

The cloakroom/broom cupboard

According to Dethleff this is our Gourmet Centre (not sure the meals we produce qualify as "gourmet" but there is usually a nice pot of tea on the go)

The bedroom with door to the ensuite very handily sited for middle of the night trips

Blurry bathroom with mirrored door to airing cupboard/linen cupboard/spare loo roll and kitchen roll cupboard and winter coats cupboard on right.

Shower cum dirty laundry store

Heated towel rail (unfortunately prone to rain showers)

Might look like just an oven but it is used more as bread bin cum cake tin especially when need to prevent baguette from being thrown around the van en route.  As can be seen from relection in door, the cake tin is very close to bedroom for midnight snacks :-)

Dishwasher basket - the dishwasher was taking the photo.  Versatility is key.

Entertainment centre - unfortunately we're nearly at the end of series 3 and relying on Caroline to bring out series 4.  It will be special features and other "addictive extras" once we run out.

Melt down in Murcia

El Berro
Weather: Strong cross winds threatening to blow us off our bikes (leaving us weak and cross)

David fancied some sun.  So he picked out a resort right on the beach and we set off on the long drive over.  The last part of the drive was the least attractive part of Spain so far and as we spotted the high rise hotels along the coast I finally put 2 and 2 together and realised that the "La Manga" bit in the campsite's name was the same La Manga as the sports club.
We passed a couple of people on mobility scooters on the way in and found this was a favoured way of getting round the 1000 pitch site.  There was a list of activities to join in with but they had missed off the first one we spotted on our way through - watching a man dyeing his wife's hair.
We were pitch 95 in Sector P-Q.  Scary.
I had to take to my bed, worried about seeing a big bouncy ball and being marched off to see "Number 2".
But half a kilo of langoustines, 1 kilo of strawberries and a gin and tonic later a very tired David agreed to another day's driving to escape.

When we picked out the next campsite we didn't read the description properly and missed the part that warned about hairpin bends and said to call ahead for help at the final bend.  But we finally arrived and luckily it is a really nice campsite in the regional park of Sierra Espuna near Murcia.  My soul is restored to me - artistic license.  And best of all, the guy next to us is a bike nut who serviced my bike for free (well a couple of bottles of wine) in an attempt to sort out my gears.

So we've had a walk (didn't get lost once) and a bike ride (tricky when you're on a mountain and you don't like hills), tried out both bakeries and we still have to decide which of the 2 restaurants to eat lunch at tomorrow and to do another walk.

Apologies to Ana the hairdresser.  My hair dried before I could "do" anything with it!

If it's any consolation weather wise we did have to get our fleecy quilts out again last night.

It's been a long time since you had those

 Granada

Weather:  In Sierra Nevada mountains days are hot but not too and nights are lovely and cool giving rise to goose pimples which as David commented I haven’t had for a long time.

 As we drove across to Granada we kept catching sight of the Sierra Nevada mountains which still have snow on them - fantastic views.

Another campsite, another load of Dutch people.  Is there anyone under 50 left in Holland?

And then we met the camp dog.  Turns out he is a street dog but he made himself very at home at the campsite and after we left there were moments when I thought David was going to turn round and kidnap him.



We arrived on a Sat and there was no bus from the campsite to Granada on Sun so we decided to drive into the local Nature Park for a walk on the Sunday.  We went to the visitors centre and they showed us a walk, we asked if it was well signposted and stressed that we always get lost.  They lied to our faces and said we couldn't get lost.  20 minutes later when we returned to say we couldn't find where the walk started they lied again and said that once we started we'd just have to follow the signs.  After 2 hours the signs ran out.  After 4.5 hours we got back to the van.

The Alhambra - fabulous.  We spent 4 hours looking round the wonderful gardens and palaces.  The one place we missed was the Moorish baths and because we'd been goody 2 shoes and eaten a low cal Solero each instead of a good old Magnum I just didn't have the calorific energy to go back and find them.   Washington Irving wrote some tales of the Alhambra when he spent time here so I'm going to try and down load some and hope I can remember the setting well enough to take me back there whilst I read them.

After lunch we wandered round the Alcaiceria district which was very hilly so we topped up with ice-cream and cake.  Silvia had also recommended a good area for tapas but we had to catch the bus back for the hair appointment I'd booked through the campsite.  Disappointed to miss that opportunity.

The arrangements were very sketchy, neither the hairdresser nor I knew each others names and she was going to meet me off the bus because she was going to cut my hair in her house.  But it all worked out in the end and for 10 euros for a shampoo, cut blow dry and lift home I'm happy.

Only issue is that David insisted on singing the Abba song "aleandro?" all the way round and it's now very hard to remember to call it the Alhambra

Snap,carckle and POP

Ronda and Humillerado
Weather: Well we've found scorchio and it's more a case of sweatio

We had 4 very peaceful nights down on the Costa de la Luz and little did we realise at the time that the sufer dude beach at El Palmer was one of the Times 20 secret Spanish beaches. It was good but not that good.
But it was getting hot so we decided to move on after 1 last night.  Should have left earlier.  First the lone ranger mozzie who seems to be living in a secret place in our van started his night time sortie.  Then just after I'd fallen asleep through exhaustion after fighting the mozzie off and resigning myself to sweltering away in hiding under the covers, David woke me up searching the van for the source of a noise which he said was electricity arcing.  Turns out it was the big pylon over the fence in the natural park and it had a red light flashing on top.  But puzzle was over so we fell asleep for a little longer until the snapping and crackling got really loud and woke us up.  Then there was an almighty bang and the power went off.  That would have been OK but the pylon carried on snapping and crackling and popping.  So we left our lovely little campsite before we popped too.

On to Ronda, which I remembered as a lovely little town from my visit 20 plus years ago with my friends Nicola and Wendy.  But then all I really remembered, apart from the bridge, was crying with laughter as Wendy drove us up the windy roads without changing out of 4th gear.  Not fair really to laugh at her as I couldn't drive because I'd broken a toe running out of the sea to avoid a jelly fish, which turned ot to be a carrier bag!  Anyway, Ronda now seems huge but still has its charms.

The campsite we stayed in was so full of rules eg no TV, no radio, no music, no ball games and if you don't want peace and quiet go to another site, that we couldn't relax, so we moved on after 1 night.

Humillerado  According to everything any tourist reviews, or tourist info and even the camp reception info said there were lost of cycle rides and walks near this campsite.  But we could only find 1 map:

so we took a photo and had a nice little wander but moved on again after 1 night.  With our track record we don't take risks.

The only thing I will remember is the receptionist at the campsite.  He was almost cartoonishly handsome with quite a big head and large almond shaped eyes that even David remarked on.  He was quite small and when we first saw him he was sitting in a chair with a huge pointed back to it that made him look like a little boy.  I was instantly reminded of the prince from Shrek!

"Go on, let me in"

"OK I'll have a scratch instead"