¿Buenos dias, amigos, qué tal?

The fire devastated landscape over the border in Spain

After four days at the dealership aire at Latour-Bas-Elne we set off again and headed for the Spanish border. This was only about 35 km away but involved a slow winding ascent into the hills and then a long descent on the other side. Looking up and to our left we could see the toll road, raised up over the valleys and burrowing through the hills. A much flatter but more expensive way to travel. There were no officials at the border post and we just drove on through carrying on towards Barcelona. On our way down th mountain from the border the landscape for miles either side of the road had been ravaged by recent fires and totally devastated. It was quite saddening to drive though it looking as it did knowing that most of the fires are started deliberately or due to carelessness.

Dinner in a lay-by

Our stop that night was supposed to be Camping Can Marti, an aire (or 'area' in Spanish) on a holiday park near Tossa de Mar, but when we arrived at the end of a single track road the gates were shut and padlocked. A big sign said “closed 01/09/2012”; a bit of a surprise as our information had said it wasn't closed till the end of September. Tricia suggested we have some lunch and decide on a course of action. There was no way we could turn round and it would be extremely difficult to reverse the van and trailer all the way back to the start of the road. The only solution would be to take the car off the trailer, unhitch it from the van, tow it back down the road with the car, reverse the van back and turn it round then reattach car and trailer. As Tricia started to make lunch a man emerged from Camping Can Marti and asked if we would like to turn round in the park. We jumped at the offer and I was able to make a wide sweep round just inside the gate and then, after thanking the man, we drove a little way back down the road and stopped in a pull-in to have lunch.

First night in Spain near Arc de Bera

Continuing on after lunch to find another aire we could get into we drove for miles but there were none signposted. By this time it was getting quite late so when we spotted an artic' pulling-up on some waste ground on the other side of the A340 just after we had passed the Arc de Bera, a Roman triumphal arch, we decided that would do for us too. We turned round at the next roundabout and then tucked in behind the artic' for the night.

Odissea Camper Area, Denia, home for three weeks

The night passed uneventfully and we were soon off again and, bypassing Barcelona, we headed on towards Valencia. Instead of taking the A-7 motorway around Valencia and risk having to pay a toll when it became the AP-7 we decided to take the V21, which was a dual carriageway road that looked as if it circled to the south of the city on our map. As we travelled along the V21 Tricia spotted a Repsol petrol station that sold GLP gas (Autogas) so we managed to replenish the tanks, we had put some petrol in earlier at great expense and had been running on that for a few miles, having run out of gas. Continuing on we quickly discovered that the V21 did not skirt the city at all but headed right into it and somewhere in the city we had to make a left turn onto the V31. When the time came for the turn I was in the wrong lane with no chance of changing lanes so we were forced to carry on till we could find somewhere to turn round. The road was three lanes wide in each direction so wasn't really a problem but cars were parked along the side of the road with some sticking out farther than others. Most drivers had turned their mirrors in but one hadn't and that was the one sticking out as we came past. We then had to stop while insurance details were exchanged but after that we managed to find our way back to where we should have turned and continue on out of the city again. Next time we will pay the toll rather than risk ending up in city traffic again.

BBQ night with Ken and Jenny 

We arrived at Odissea Camper Area at about six thirty in the evening and were welcomed by Ruben who said they had several pitches that would be suitable for Harvey. We chose the one at the far end of the site because there was room for the trailer and the car and, once settled, we had a look around. There were toilets, showers, a washing machine and a drier and all the facilities were clean and well maintained. The waste dumping area was easy to access and there was drinking water available so we had everything we needed and quickly decided we would stay for a week.

There is a camp site next door to Odissea and it has a bar called Delfin which also serves food so a very pleasant evening was spent in there drinking wine and cervesa. The beach is only about 100 metres from the site so on we spent an afternoon there and had our first swim in the Med.

The view from Coll de Rates

On Thursday we drove into Denia nad then followed the coast road to Les Rotes where we stopped for an iced coffee and to admire the view. Tricia spotted a guy climbing out of the sea onto some rocks with out his trunks on and we thought this was a bit odd till we found out this peninsula was popular with naturists!

Ruben had given us a map of the local area when we arrived and pointed out where the local markets were held and where the nearest supermarket, Lidl, was. So we got on our bikes and cycled up the road and found that there was Chinese supermarket just before Lidl and it sold absolutely everything. Checking out the items for sale in the middle of Lidl (they are all laid out the same which makes finding things really easy) I came across push bike saddles for 15 Euros. Cycling was big at the time because the Spanish equivalent of the Tour De France was on. The saddles looked really good and more comfortable than our original ones so we bought them.

Beer can recycling in Benigembla

Looking westward from the site there are some really interesting looking and very craggy hills so we decided to take a run in the car and do a bit of exploring. The first foray into the hills was a short one because we had to get back to the van for a previously arranged Skype call. This had whetted our appetite, however, and we decided to come back for a proper look later in the week.

On Wednesday we decided we would stay for a second week and on Thursday we saw Ruben and another guy erecting a gazebo on two of the pitches. When we asked what it was for we were told it was for a meet of a motor-home club and as Motor-home Facts was mentioned I assumed it was them. Ruben asked if we would like to join in as they were going to have a BBQ on the Saturday night and a Paella on the Sunday afternoon. We were a bit reticent at first but when we found out that other campers on the site, Germans and Dutch, were going we paid our 12 Euros. On the Friday Ken and Jenny turned up from Motor-home Facts and then I found out that the meet was really for a Spanish club called AC Pasion (pronounced Athy Passion) and Ken was a member of this group also. Over the course of the weekend we found out that Ken and Jenny live near Torrvieja, which is close to Benidorm, and Ken had organised a couple of meets for Motor-home Facts members previously at Odissea in Denia and at their sister site in Calpe. The BBQ was a bit of a let down because, although the food was good, we didn't get to eat it until about 10 o'clock. Spaniards eat late anyway but everyone was seated and waiting from about 20:30. Still, we had drunk a few cervesas and sangrias by then and were in good spirits. Sunday's Paella, on the other hand, was really terrific. There was so much left over because of the amount that had been cooked that people were putting it in Tupperware boxes to take home and we got enough for two more meals.

Will it or won't it? Castell de Castells

We went to the Delphin that night with Ken and Jenny and got some good tips for places to stay around Torrevieja. After that weekend we decided to stay a third week.

On the Tuesday of our second week we packed a picnic lunch and set off into the mountains; heading for a village called Castell De Castells because I thought it had an interesting name. First stopping at a view point at Coll de Rates for a photo opportunity. When we got to Castell de Castells, we drove into the village looking for a somewhere to stop and have lunch, a park or a square with benches to sit on. We didn't find any and the streets were so narrow we were in danger of getting stuck with our little Corsa. In the end we had to retrace our steps and beat a hasty retreat. We carried on to Benigembla, where there were murals of Spongebob Squarepants characters on the road through the village, but still couldn't find anywhere suitable for a picnic.

After driving around a bit more, still hunting for a picnic spot, we decided to check out a beauty spot that we had passed previously and meant retracing our steps back towards Castell de Castells. We found the road and followed it for more than the marked 4km, with it getting narrower and more like a farm track, without seeing whatever it was that was being advertised. However, we found a nice spot under some fig trees and had our lunch. After lunch we continued along the road, which suddenly improved, and ended up at Vall de Ebo where we saw a sign for the Cove de Rull and decided to investigate. The cove was similar to Cheddar Caves or Wookey Hole with spectacular stalactite and stalagmite formations; some had quartz crystal in them that sparkled in the lighting. After leaving the cave we continued on to Pego and then back to Denia.

The road to Vall de Ebo

Odissea Camper Area has another location a bit further down the coast at Calpe which Ken and Jenny had said was much nicer than Denia so we decided we would go and have a look for ourselves. The new site is in a residential area quite a way back from the beach but has been really nicely done with good access to the services area and nice modern toilets and showers. Having said all that, after a look around Calpe beach front we decided we preferred Denia.

Another Brit couple turned up on Friday and we decided to make their acquaintance. They were Welsh and had been motor-homing in Spain for about six years. Terry and Natalie were making their way around the coast to Cadiz and had decided to stay here until the Monday because they liked the beach. I got some good website URL's from Terry and we took them to the Delfin for a beer on the Sunday night, which turned into a late night/early morning session.

Calpe sea front

After waste dumping on Tuesday morning we went for a cycle ride after lunch to Oliva. We cycled along the coast road past the very imposing Oliva Golf Hotel and along to a beach front camping site called Eurocamp. The caravans and motor-homes were parked in the dunes just back from the beach and we thought this would be a good place to bring Harvey until we realised that we would probably take up three pitches.

Castillo de Denia

Yesterday, Saturday, we cycled into Denia and spent the day site-seeing. The castle was quite impressive; entry was only 5 Euros for both of us and the views from the battlements are pretty spectacular. After the castle we found a street with several cafés where we sat out and had Tapas for lunch. After lunch we chained our bikes up near the port and had a wander round the old town then headed back to Les Deveses, where Odissea is situated. On the way back we checked out a “fixer-upper”, a house in need of some remedial work, with a large piece of land but it didn't appear to be for sale.

Today we have been very lazy and just sat in the sun reading and pottering about. Tomorrow we will be busy again packing everything up and getting ready for leaving on Tuesday; when we will be heading for a proper camp site, Camping La Manga, at Cartagena.

St Thibery's shady olive groves

My sleuthing in the Departmental Archives, in Carcassonne, turned up an almost total blank so I'm not convinced that my family came from this part of the world despite an ancestor, Guilhaume Ferrier, giving Belcaire as his home town, on his marriage certificate, when he married in Edinburgh in 1758. I might come back and have another go next year.

The Plane trees of the Canal Du Midi

The site we were on was only a short cycle ride from the Canal du Midi and the tow-path is lined with Plane trees making it a very pleasant cycle ride through dappled shade. Plane trees are everywhere with many roads lined with them and it is said that these were planted by Napoleon to provide some shade for his marching armies. They shed their bark in odd shapes and the trunk looks a bit like a surrealist painting but they are very pleasing to look at. Along the tow-path we stopped at a mooring for a boat hire company and viewed the boats whilst drinking iced-tea. The boats were fantastic, some accommodating up to 10 people in relative luxury but they are very expensive to hire.

Eating Cassoulet at Camping La Pujade

Leaving Camping La Pujade was bit traumatic and involved Harvey's right front wheel being on the very edge of a drainage ditch that ran down the side of the road as I tried to avoid the trailer grazing a large boulder that had been placed at the entrance to the site. The trouble did not end there because after turning off the Carcassonne to Narbonne road on to the Bezier road at Trebes I had to negotiate a narrow bridge with a ninety degree turn at the end and just to make it more difficult a large truck was sat on the other side of the bridge waiting to cross. The trailer did clip the kerb that time. The road between Trebes and Bezier must be the worst I have ever driven on causing us to shake, rattle and roll the whole way.

When we got to Bezier I missed the turn onto the ring road and started heading into the city. Realising my mistake I took a left turn with the intention of turning round in the entrance to a building site, however there wasn't enough room to get the trailer to change direction so after going backwards and forwards a few times I was in a bit of a quandary. Luckily a lady, who spoke perfect English, came out of one of the houses on the other side of the road and told us that there was a turning circle at the end of the road. By this time a car was noisily announcing its intention to turn into the building site and a tipper truck was trying to leave so I managed to back onto the road and continue up it until I found the turning circle. It had been designed for cars and was in the form of a square so I had to mount the kerb on every corner but eventually managed to head back the way we had come.

St Thibery Motocross track

We arrived at St Thibery Moto-cross park in the mid afternoon only to be told that there was nowhere to dump our waste water. The tanks were full because there had been nowhere for us to dump at Camping La Pujade so things were a bit dire. We enlisted the help of a German family, whose daughter spoke fluent English and French, and finally got it agreed that we could use our macerator pump to empty into the chemical toilet disposal point. That done we set ourselves up on the site. There were no pitches as such just a large expanse of gravely hard standing in an olive grove with some electric and water points scattered about. The olive trees providing a bit of welcome shade for the motor-homes.

Our German neighbour was a bit concerned when he saw our air-conditioning units and went to some lengths to explain that they would trip the electric for the site and we would have no hot water for the showers. I managed to assure him, taxing my limited German to the extreme, that we knew this and only used the electricity to boil the kettle but I didn't mention the microwave oven. Having seen a moto-cross bike in his trailer I asked him about it and was told that he rode in the classic events and had had an accident cracking some ribs which has put him out of action for three months.

In the evening we headed into the village and found that a Jazz Festival was in full swing in the square in front of the Mairie and it was on all weekend. There were tables and chairs filling the whole square and it was heaving with people. Food was being served, a shame we had just eaten but we indulged in some crepes, and the wine and beer was just €1.50, the cheapest we had found so far. The normal price for 2.5cl of beer is between €2.50 and €3.00. The music was pretty good too, so we determined to come back for another look and some food on the Saturday or Sunday night.

The fountain in Agde - Tricia with Sid and Laurie

We had arranged to visit our friends in Agde on Saturday morning not thinking about it being change-over day and the roads being like a UK bank holiday. Only allowing ourselves about 20 minutes to travel the 11km meant that we ended up spending about 45 minutes in a queue on the main road before deciding to take to the back roads. Once Vias market had been circumnavigated we found it was quite easy to get into Agde by the back road and find their house.We had a lovely afternoon and evening in Agde, had a dip in their pool and ended up staying the night and travelling back to St Thibery after lunch on Sunday. Laurie and Tricia went shopping to the supermarket in the morning and checked out if the filling stations sold GPL. One did but as usual getting Harvey in and out was going to be interesting. It was so hot that while we were shopping in Hyper U we bought an electric fan.

A meal with the Glanfields

On Sunday night we went back to the Jazz Festival and had calamar (squid) and a pork escalope with frites which was pretty good for €11.00 for the two of us.

It was Laurie's birthday the following Tuesday so we arranged with Sid for us to come over for a surprise visit. The four of us went for a walk around the town in the afternoon, stopped for a café frape in a café near the river and saw some remarkable murals. After a cooling dip in the pool we went out for a meal together at the Poivre Rouge.

Remarkable murals in Agde

It was market day in Agde on Thursday and we had arranged to go over and have a wander round in the morning and go to the beach at Cap D'Agde in the afternoon. Tricia managed to buy some shorts and a dress and I got a fairly masculine looking man-bag for 3 Euros (not a wrist strap in sight).

The beach at Cap D'Agde was mobbed of course so we had to pick our way amongst the bronzed bodies in order to find a postage sized patch of sand and then expose our, still white, skin (OK then, my still white skin as Tricia tans really quickly).

Laurie and Archie having a dip in the pool

There was a good view of Fort Brescau, out in the bay, which brought back memories of a previous visit to Sid and Laurie in Agde in 1993 the upshot of which was that a not so good day became known as a Fort Brescau day. OK, on that previous occasion we took a boat trip out to the fort to discover we had arrived just as it was closing for lunch and the boat returned for us just as it was reopening. We had to spend two hours on the beach with no shade and no swim things or lunch.

Cap D'Agde beach with Fort Brescau in the distance

Before we left the UK Tricia had been told about a fantastic bridge that was somewhere in the Herault region and, on asking our friends about it, we learned that it was a viaduct on the A75 about 40 minutes north of Agde so we decided that we had to go and see it for ourselves. Tricia also liked the look of a mountain village with a châteaux called Najac so we determined to do both together. There was a visitors centre at the Millau Viaduct where the whole process of the construction was explained and even Tricia found it fascinating. It is an amazing feat of engineering considering that they built the bridge deck from either end sliding it out a few centimetres at a time until both halves met in the middle.

Tricia with the Millau Viaduct in the background

 We climbed a path up to a viewpoint and took pictures looking down on the bridge and the valley. I also got a few photo's of an eagle that was circling above the valley.

It was a bit further to Najac than we had calculated from the map so we didn't arrive until mid afternoon and the climb up into the village in the blistering heat just about did for us so we had a look in the church, which was lovely and cool, and then headed back down to the car and hit the road back to Millau. Since the toll on the bridge was €8.30 we decided to wend our way down into the valley and go through the town instead. Stopping for a coffee in a little café  where we watched the para-gliders flying off a nearby crag.

The Châteaux of Najac

On Wednesday we went to St Guilhem-Le-Desert which is a quaint mountain village that had built up around an abbey. We left the car down below in the park and ride and the bus took us up the narrow, twisty mountain road. After wandering round the village and the abbey for a couple of hours we had lunch on the beach, that is, on a sandy bend in the river below. After lunch we headed for Agde where we spent the night. Our friends were in Spain for a week but left us the key to their house so that we could use the pool. The following day Tricia did some shopping in the market whilst I spent time in the library using the free WiFi. I was planning our onward journey into Spain and looking for Aires that might be suitable for a motor-home the size of Harvey. After a last dip in the pool it was back to St Thibery and the roar of motocross bikes. The local club must be practising for a competition at the weekend.

The Abbey at St Guilhem-Le-Desert

We took Harvey to the Blue Elephant, a self service jet-wash, on the Friday to see if we couldn't spruce it up a bit. That was fun, we got soaked but managed to get a lot of the accumulated road muck off and Harvey is now looking much better. I even spent some time with the Autosol, later in the day, polishing the wheel trims to a mirror shine, while Tricia scrubbed the fly screens.

A street in St Guilhem Le Desert

Despite having spent two weeks near Carcassonne we didn't get a chance to visit the medieval city so we decided to go back there on the Monday of our last week in St Thibery. We had been there about 20 years ago but it would be interesting to see it again. It is an amazing place but unfortunately it is extremely commercial with every other shop being a café, a restaurant or a tourist tat shop. The entrance fee for the châteaux had gone up a bit too so we decided to give that a miss.

La Cite Medievale, Carcassonne

We left St Thibery on Thursday and headed down the coast, partly on the A9 to get GPL, to Latour-Bas-Elne which is just south of Perpignan. As usual gas is non-existent off the auto-route but even in the services getting to the pump can be tricky. There was a dangling height barrier of 3.3 meters designed to set off an alarm and stop trucks from entering the small vehicle pumps. As Harvey is 3.4 meters it would have set off the alarm so I drove round and parked by the adjacent truck pumps while Tricia went and asked if we could go under the barrier. She came back and said that we couldn't go under the barrier but we could enter the pumps from the “out” direction go around them and turn back again inside the barrier. This turned out to be much easier than it sounds, and several cars were doing pretty much the same as we were, so we managed to fill up both our road tanks and our domestic tank.

Now Harvey is parked on an Aire that is part of a motor-home dealership which has electric hook-ups and dumping facilities but no toilets or showers, so we will have to use our own. This will be our last stop in France for a while, the next will be near Barcelona and we will be heading that way on Monday.