Apologies for being a bit slack over the last week … apparently it has been noted 😦

Since leaving Murcia we stopped off for a couple of nights in Santa Pola before arriving in Playa San Juan where we are still parked up.

In Santa Pola we parked by the beach, just near the marina which was very tranquil, enabling Mika to sunbathe until her solar panels with full …which took until approximately 10am each day – the sun has definitely decided that Spring is here.

Santa Pola at this time of year is a quiet, normal town with a very long stretch of promenade providing good running and walking territory and if you want to venture slightly further, pretty good cycling too.  It was nice to relax for a few days before arriving in Alicante when we knew it would be pretty full on!

We have been to Alicante (and Playa San Juan) a few times before as we have friends who live here that Keith met in 1998 when he spent a couple of months in Alicante.  Some may say he was studying Spanish culture via night school (ahem), others would interpret it as watching the football (World Cup, France), drinking beer and living in a cave …. yes, he really did live in a little cave just below Alicante Castle!

Anyway, I digress – when we were in Barcelona (2008) Miguel (one of the old friends) and Elisa (the new girlfriend, now wife) came up for a few days …. the rest is history – it is home from home!

As we knew we would be staying a few nights we booked into a new Aire (Camper Aire Campello Beach 9-12 euros a night) which is two roads back from Muchavista beach near San Juan.  It only opened back in November and isn’t very big (40 spaces) but is in great location for the beach as well as having the bus and tram stops on the doorstep to get into Alicante should you want to go further afield.

We spent Wednesday through to Sunday enjoying good food, good drink and great company – we have been well looked after and on Saturday not only did Keith get a game of Squash in, we also managed to consume more meat than most carnivorous animals would eat in a week at Miguel and Lisa’s house in the form of a Bar B Q… not complaining though.

The weather has also changed in the last week, the sun is shining, the wind has died down and the shorts have been dug out of the cupboards – it reached 30 degrees in the middle of the day on Monday…. no wonder I had such a bad run in the morning!  Needless to say the temperature has now dropped back down to slightly more normal levels …. it was around 20 degrees yesterday although dropped off sharply in the afternoon and over night.

Playa San Juan is a beautiful long beach with mountains in the backdrop.  At this time of year it is perfect as it is still very quiet, although I am sure that the quantity of people will start to ramp up after Easter.  Unlike Alicante, Playa San Juan (and San Joan D’Alacant, the local town) is mostly made up of second homes for families from Madrid, so it has quite a different, more Spanish feel to it than a lot of touristy beach resorts …. we have been talking about coming back for the winter in the future and our eyes have even strayed into the odd estate agent window!

Having got over the weekend, despite planning on moving on last Monday, we have spent a few extra days here walking and relaxing. We popped into Alicante yesterday to have a look around and I am still always mesmorised by the size of the rubber trees over here …. I am obviously doing something wrong when pruning mine… although I am sure that if they ended up like these, the neighbours may complain 😦

I just love the way that the trunks and branches grow – it makes you feel like you are looking up at an Ent (one of the very large talking trees from the lord of the rings)

We plan to move on at the end of the week so that we can meet up with Keith’s sister and brother in Law who are flying out to meet us in Valencia … fingers crossed the weather will be as good as it has been recently.

It’s a bit depressing really as we are surrounded by hundreds and thousands of little (and some not quite so little) yellow blobs hanging off of trees in every direction we look, but we can’t make a tarte au citron as despite Mika’s comfort and array of utilities, her oven is just not quite hot enough.  I wouldn’t mind, but they don’t even appear to make them in the patisseries …. suddenly Spain has gone down in my estimations 😦

Having left Tomato country we moved into Murcia – ‘the land of the Allotment’ as they call it in Spain, or ‘Europes Orchard’ in Wikipedia’s words.  Murcia is one of the smallest autonomies in Spain but it is known for its food and drink… although I am guessing that they must export the lemons as from what we have seen they have more than enough to share with at least Europe, possible the rest of the world!

Our first stop in Murcia was Vera which is slightly in land from a very british and touristy coastline.  The Aire (Area Auto caravanas Indalo 9 euros a night inc. elec.) was roughly 4km outside Vera itself down a dirt track, nestled in the hills looking up at the mountains  – a beautiful tranquil setting which oddly, the Aire shares with a Padel and Tennis center.  The town itself was far more peaceful and normal than those we had passed through on the coast and as the weather was reasonable when we arrived and we found a nice butcher we even managed to have a bar b q!

After a couple of restful nights in Vera we moved on to Categena where we stopped at an Aire (Dolores 10 euros a night inc. elec.) which was roughly 7km from the center and 1km from the nearest town which had a handful of decent bars for tapas and football….I have to remember the important things in life.  Despite not arriving particularly late, we were lucky to find a space as four French motorhomes travelling together arrived just before us causing a bit of a commotion as it wasn’t a big place.  In the morning, after a trip to the market to stock up on fruit and veg we headed into Cartegena and were suprisingly disappointed, perhaps we were having a bad day – although it is odd that we both felt the same – it just didn’t feel like the city had any soul.

Despite it not giving either of us any reason to want to come back, it did however have a rather spectacular roman theatre which was worth a look….

Leaving Cartegena we thought we would head towards a campsite in a natural cove south of San Pedro del Pinatar, an area that we had been told about by a couple we met in Toledo a few months ago.  The cove is enormous and looked very pretty, although in parts we could see that it was very built up.  As we started to get close it became evident that it wasn’t our kind of place …. the campsite was enormous with hundreds of static homes, caravans and motorhomes, so we quickly decided to bypass it and move on to Murcia.

We arrived at the Aire (Camper Park Huerta de Murcia 12 euros inc. elec.) mid afternoon and followed the same 4 French motorhomes in, yet again thankfully there was one space left for us 🙂 The Aire is roughly 9km from the center of Murcia, just outside a little town called Alquerias which has ample bars and restaurants and it also has a cycle path into the center of Murcia nearby…. most importantly it is surrounded by lemon trees.  I would almost go so far as to say that they possibly had to dig up some lemon trees to squeeze the Aire in…. it isn’t a bad spot!

We jumped on the bikes on Saturday morning and headed into Murcia to find the market (what a surprise) and for a wander around.  In complete contrast to Cartegena, Murcia has a lovely old town with lots of tiny streets and boutique shops.  Having walked the streets of the old town and soaked up a bit of the atmosphere in one of the main squares as there was a concert/show on, we wandered over to the western side of town and found another market surrounded by lots of restaurants and bars heaving with people.  Nice for a drink, but definitely a lunch / tapas stop for next time we visit – it looked great.

On Sunday, with the sun shining and the wind blowing a gale we thought we would head out to explore the lemon groves and local towns a little today falling upon a little bar where we managed to get a bottle of beer and a glass of wine for 1 euro 60 – all quite pleasant 🙂

Having left the snowy mountains behind us, we headed back down to the coast to thaw out stopping in what you could call a summer coastal resort called Almayate for a night at an Aire (AMR – 4 euros a night excl. electricity). I describe it as a summer coastal resort as there is a long coastal road which has a number of ‘secure parking areas’ for motorhomes, a handful of bars/restaurants, several campsites and a lot of beach but not much else. To be fair, the little towns along the road all seemed fairly nice, it was just the concept of the secure car parks dotted between the towns on the main road with no pathway to walk along which bothered me – if you are inviting tourists to the area, at least invest a little in their safety 🙂

Anyway, getting off my high horse …..although the people running the Aire were lovely and full of suggestions of where we could go in the area, we only stayed one night before heading back up into the mountains to explore Granada!

Like Ronda, we weren’t sure if we would make it this year as there has been a huge amount of snow in the Sierra Nevada but we struck it lucky with a couple of clear days and a bit of rain. We parked up at a campsite (Camping Maria Eugenia, 17 euros excl. electricity) which was roughly 5km from the center and headed into town for to have a look around and try out some of their tapas. The camping was nothing to write home about, but it was a safe place to park in the city, the owner was friendly and it had a bus stop outside the entrance if you wanted to use it (naturally we walked everywhere :)). As we don’t use the campsites for much more than emptying and filling up the 17 euros was more attractive than 27 euros which was the other alternative.

Granada is obviously famous for the Alhambra, the Sierra Nevada … and if you are foodies like us, for its tapas 🙂  Every drink that you buy comes with a ‘free’ tapa, but instead of the usual nuts and crisps that you get in other parts of the country, you can choose from a menu of delicacies. Obviously the quality/ingredients vary hugely depending on the type of establishment you are in but we were lucky in all but one bar where they over-did the grease a little. (Note: Some bars do charge a bit extra for the tapa with a drink, rather than a drink on its own).

We spent three days in Granada, one (more late afternoon/evening) exploring the bars and cafes, one walking the Alhambra and the last (rainy) day wandering the streets of the old city – all of which were hugely interesting.

Despite having visited many a Chateau in France, the Alhambra is a class of its own. It isn’t as refined or regal as some of the Chateaux we have visited, but the setting and views are amazing

and the detail in the carving of the ceilings and walls is incredible and some of the courtyards quite beautiful.

Although the skies had clouded over and the sun had disappeared the views from the Alhambra out to the Sierra Nevada were still pretty spectacular

I am sure we will be back, if nothing else to get a baked potato (oddly also served as a Tapas in some bars) as there are some things you just can’t do in a motorhome 🙂

After leaving Granada we unintentionally climbed further into the mountains (1300+m) to get back down to the coast, thankfully although there was still a bit of snow by the side of the road the real white stuff was still a couple of hundred meters above us ….. looking very beautiful, and very thick!

Over the last couple of months we have predominantly been in ‘Orange’ and ‘Olive’ country – where at points we could buy 5kg of the most enormous, succulent Oranges for 2 euros….. what a treat, we have now moved to ‘Tomato’ land…. Almeria is apparently the largest tomato producer in the world…. and very tasty they are too.

We parked in a car park next to the beach roughly 4km from the center of Almeria as the service area we had planned to stay at apparently shut last year. The location however was stunning and it was half way along a cycle path/promenade – perfect for us for a couple of nights enabling us to visit the market on Saturday (where they had the most enormous variety of tomatoes ranging from 1 euro a kilo up to 13 euros a kilo), have a good walk exploring the town and soak up a bit of sunshine and sea air.

When we left Almeria this afternoon and headed to Aguas Amargas (Bitter Waters) the temperature was 19 degrees …. A proper summers day for us Brits… we almost dug out the shorts!

Aguas Amargas is a little town in a national park just along the coast from Almeria. We parked up in the river mouth and walked up into the hills above the town to take in the views…. Tranquil.

We have now been on the road in the motorhome for 6 months …. strange as it doesn’t seem that long ago when we left Bagnoles De L’Orne – not sure if that is a good sign or a bad one!

Distance Walked / Cycled 2915km

Distance Driven just under 6000 miles

After much debating we decided to head inland and up into the mountains to Ronda, a place we have wanted to come to for a long time but never made it.

Concerned about the forecasted snow, we researched all the routes into Ronda – all of them are apparently stunning, none of them an easy drive – finally we opted for a smaller road which turned out to mean that it wasn’t very well kept, dissolving slightly at the edges (a bit disconcerting when you are nearly 800m up the side of a mountain) and rather bouncy in parts, but beautiful all the same.  We were heading for an Aire which was supposed to be 12 euros a night, but ended up at the campsite ‘Camping el Sur’ (18 euros 52 per night exc elect with 5% disc.).  The Aire is owned by the campsite, but currently closed due to it flooding, so we had no choice except to opt for the slightly more costly option.

After a quick wander into Ronda to stretch the legs, take in the beautiful views and get a map we settled in for the evening in a cold, but very tranquil location.

We had been keeping our eye on the weather forecast and knew that there were chances of snow on Saturday night however, we woke at about 6am to rain…. which turned into snow and looked like it was going to hang around for a while.

Having waited a couple of hours until it slowed (and plugged Mika into electricity as the solar panel was covered in snow), we set off into town to explore and were not disappointed by the added ‘charm’ the snow added …. although, like the locals, we were a little nervous as to what may be coming later in the afternoon as it looked like we were in for a good few days here ….

That said, despite the weather forecast and the colour of the sky, it didn’t snow or rain on Saturday, nor Sunday – so, although not beautiful bright blue skies, we were still able to enjoy some of the walks and sights.

For those of you who haven’t heard of Ronda you can read up on it here – it is a beautiful old town built around a canyon with three bridges joining the two sides and a lovely walk through the valley below enabling you to look up and admire the main bridge on one side and the mountains on the other.

the views from the bridge down into the other side of the canyon weren’t too bad either ….

Ronda is set in the most beautiful location, every direction you look in leads you to a mountain encrusted with snow in the distance with beautiful old buildings balancing on the edge of a cliff looking like they are about to fall over – it is stunning.  The area not only has lots of walking and mountain biking but it also has its fair share of good bars, restaurants, a decent market and lots of patisseries …..so we will definitely be back when the weather is a little warmer.

I am afraid it will only mean something to you if you are familiar with the TV series ‘On the Up’ from the 1990’s

We worked our way cross country from Sanluca to arrive at Puerto Santa Maria which is a pretty town on the coast across the river from Cadiz. Not having been able to find any cheap/free Aires nearby, we decided to opt for a campsite ‘Camping Playa de las Dunas de San Anton’ (16 euros inc elec. with ACSI) which was almost on the beach, but most importantly had easy access to both Cadiz and Jerez. The campsite was fairly busy with a mixture of French, English and German predominantly, some staying for a couple of nights and some for the winter months, but all seemed to be very friendly and welcoming.

We were concerned that Puerto Santa Maria would be a bit industrial, but quite the opposite, it has a really nice old town complete with its own castle as well as a very plush newer addition in the form of the marina ‘Port Sherry’ and town called ‘Pueblo Sherry’ where the wealthy business people obviously live, commuting into Cadiz each day… an all-round nice place to be.

We took the catamaran over to Cadiz to explore a little further on Monday and although we had been here before and had good memories of the endless cobbled lanes, we wanted to see how it had evolved over the years. It has had a fair amount of investment and is still a really interesting place to visit with lots of little boutique-type shops, two castles (his and hers), as well and a lovely promenade all the round the edge of the town….definitely worth a day trip at least.

On Tuesday we ventured out on the train to Jerez (Sherry – for the English) mixing our cultural visit in with a little sherry tasting …. 🙂

The town of Jerez itself is an inland version of Cadiz – lots of beautiful buildings, cobbled lanes and interesting areas to explore. It is famous for its horses, is the birthplace of flamenco (for some reason I thought that it was Seville) in addition to being where sherry comes from – I am sure that the town comes alive at night, but we didn’t stay late enough to sample the evening entertainment.

From what we could see there appear to be 5+ different types of Sherry – Fino (similar to a very dry, white wine), Oloroso (Slightly less dry, but with a bitter after taste), Oloroso Dulce (Didn’t get to try this one, but I imagine a sweeter version of the Oloroso), Crema (Smooth, sweet and tawny port-like) and Amontillada (again didn’t try this one) … all quite interesting though. As with Porto in Portugal, the town itself has the distilleries dotted around it and offer tastings and tours however, having done quite a few vineyard tours we decided to opt for the ‘bodega’ option which meant visiting one of the 6 ‘Sherry’ bars around town and paying 1 euro for a ‘home-made’ version of one of the above. All the bars / cafes in Jerez served Sherry, but these bodegas offered a bit more of an atmosphere and a ‘tasting’ option if you wanted to partake.

We both decided that the ‘Crèma’ Sherry was more to our taste and found a little place where the guy persuaded us to try a ‘farmers’ version – I think that just means it was a little less refined, no certification and cheaper – but nevertheless it was as nice as the others we had tried, so we bought a bottle (ok – 2 litres) to take home with us.

Moving on from Puerto Santa Maria, we decided that as we were in the area we would take a trip to Gibraltar so headed along the coast, through some beautiful hilly countryside down to Linea de Conception which is the Spanish town which joins with Gibraltar. We parked up in the Aire (9 euros per night) and looked out at the big rock sticking out of the water …. Quite impressive

After a peaceful night, with passports and £ Sterling in hand we walked across to Gibraltar, stopping briefly while the Easyjet plan landed on the runway which crosses the road blocking anyone from entering or leaving the country …. Slightly quirky 🙂

The sun was shining, although it was bitter with the wind, so we walked up to the ‘Upper Rock’ through the national park, first taking in the views out to Algeria …

And then catching up with the locals…

Although we were oddly quite excited by the concept of being in Gibraltar I don’t think either of us knew what to expect and despite finding the very expensive camera lens that I have just bought for £50 less, we both had a bit of a reality shock on prices. As we still had some M&S vouchers, Keith bought some boxers in Marks and Spencers (can’t go wrong with M&S underwear) and oddly, Gibraltar apparently has the largest Morrisons’ store in the portfolio …. they even have large jars of marmite (Thank you Gonzo 🙂 )… we managed to hold back though and didn’t buy anything else.

Needless to say that we enjoyed the visit, but it won’t be one of the places that we would be rushing back to as there isn’t a huge amount to do there apart from eat in English style bars and restaurants and shopping…..

…. A busy week, we have taken a holiday from our normal routine to live it up in Seville with our first visitor this year – Richard (Gonzo) Lowe. We arrived in Seville on Sunday and parked up in a secure Aire by the Port (12 euros a night +3 for electricity). The Aire is part of the car park of an import / storage business of new cars before distribution and they also have a large mechanic workshop, so although it was pretty quiet overnight and the weekend, the nature of the business meant that they had to have 24/7 security which is always a bonus.

We really struck lucky with the weather as from Sunday through to Thursday afternoon we had beautiful clear blue skies with the temperature raising to 17/18 degrees during the day, going down to 4/5 degrees overnight – making it a bit more difficult to select the appropriate clothing when we were leaving the motorhome at 10am and not getting back until the early hours the following morning …. A minor price to pay.

Seville is a fantastic city and although we had been there before when we were living in Barcelona, we obviously had far too good a time as neither Keith nor I can remember much more than the size of the cathedral … it is pretty impressive

And even looks rather nice at night ….

We made Richard walk to every corner of the city both during the day and night…. Obviously to take in the sights, but with additional motivation of trying another little tapas bar 🙂  Every time we left Richards hotel we walked in a different direction and found more narrow streets with interesting shops and bars…. A maze of lovely places.

The city is full of history and beautiful buildings – our favourite (over and above the cathedral) has to be the Plaza de Espana, which I am sure was under scaffolding last time we were here as I don’t remember it being anywhere near as impressive.

Unfortunately, as I don’t have a wide angle lens (or fish eye) I couldn’t get the whole building in one photo as it is so large… but hopefully this gives you a taste….

Whilst soaking up the culture and eating a few more tapas and the odd Paella, we did manage to take in some Flamenco music, but unfortunately didn’t get to see any Flamenco dancing … we have to leave something for our next visit after all 🙂

We left Seville on Friday morning and headed to the coast to a small town called SanLuca Barramera where we spent a couple of tranquil, yet windy nights in an Aire (F.O.C) by the beach. The town was buzzing on Saturday morning with the bars and restaurants serving the locals the normal pre-lunch aperitif and tapas, all centered around the vibrant market. As always, we explored the town and then took advantage of the lovely promenade to help blow away some of the city cobwebs (and rich food and drink we have eaten over the last week!).

Our last night in Portugal was spent roughly 10 meters from the border, surrounded by rugged hills in a carpark by the side of a river in a little village called Pomarao. It was very peaceful and very beautiful, a lovely way to end a fantastic time in Portugal.

Although we didn’t really expect very much from it, Pomarao had some fantastic routes heading off into the hills, so we were able to get a lovely long walk in before we stopped in a café to toast to our last night in Portugal and watch the sun go down.

After seven and a half weeks we have finally moved on from Portugal back into Spain and I can’t think of a better way to have started ‘Spain part 2’ than El Rocio.

It deserves its own page on our blog as it is one of the most unusual places that we have ever been to. Whilst settling in at the campsite (Camping La Aldea – 16 euros a night inc. electricity with ACSI), an English lady stopped as she was riding her bike back from the town and all she could say was ‘It’s amazing – I had to tell someone and you have obviously just arrived, it’s absolutely amazing’ – which pretty much sums it up.

El Rocio is one of those places that you couldn’t ever believe exists, you would probably expect to come across a town like this in the mid-west, but it would be much smaller and less authentic. We struck it lucky as Sunday is apparently a sacred day, when four masses are held at the church by four different bishops as part of the pilgrimage, so we think that it was slightly busier than normal, but there were hundreds, if not thousands of horses here – all being ridden by what appear to be fairly well to do Spaniards in traditional attire – mostly holding a gin and tonic, rum and coke or a beer as they rode.

The main festival / pilgrimage is the weekend before Pentacost Monday, when thousands of people come on horseback to El Rocio blocking all the roads leading across Andalucia with horses and carts …. I imagine pretty spectacular. The celebration this weekend was religious, but I think that mainly the families use it as a good excuse to get together and have a party and a good old Flamencan sing song.

The streets are all sand and the bars are set up so that they have high tables for people to ride up and drink a glass of wine or beer whilst still on horseback … all quite impressive. As you walk through the town you are surrounded by people on horseback, or horses drawing carts full of people – every now and then one of them breaks into the traditional flamencan song, or there is a group with a guitar …. It is quite a scene which carries on into the night ….. all a bit dangerous considering the streets are poorly lit and oddly, horses don’t have any lights fitted 😦

If you are in the area near Seville we would highly recommend a trip here for the day. It is quite a sight and also quite a party town … just beware you don’t go over the limit if you are driving as when we left this morning they were stopping a large percentage of cars and breathalysing the drivers.

We have spent the last week meandering our way along the southern coast of Portugal and after a long dry patch, making good use of the bikes to visit some of the smaller coastal villages and more remote countryside.

The distances are small and there is very little green space in between the towns as where one set of empty apartment blocks finishes another is quick to start. Some of the towns are a bit concrete and ghost-like for the winter months, others are actually fairly normal and quite pretty, having a Portuguese community who live in them all year round, only supplemented by the northern European invasion during the summer months…. either way, you can’t take it away from the Algarve – it has some fantastic beaches and even at this time of the year, the weather isn’t too bad.

Our first stop after Alvor was Silves, a pretty little town slightly inland with a castle sitting up on the hill looking down on it. The town center itself is fairly small with part contained within a wall, and the rest mainly consisting of winding cobbled streets around a little market. We parked up in a car park which has been converted (by the majority vote rather than town planning) into a motorhome site for the winter, where 100+ motorhomes from a mixture of northern European countries were parked up uniformly, each with two chairs facing into the sun, some with a dog, some towing a car, but most here for a couple of months at least. Our two immediate neighbours were both English, one set (who actually live in Northern France) had been there since November and the others were newcomers, having arrived just before Christmas. Everyone knew each other and some had been coming to the same car park for several years … just a bit of an odd concept for us, but I guess somehow they have converted the car park into a community – it was clean, tidy, quiet, very welcoming and most of them put money back into the local economy by buying local produce, so can’t be much wrong with it really if you don’t mind living in a carpark 🙂

Moving on from Silves we put a pin in the map and decided to opt for Albufeira, mainly because it was half way between a few places that we fancied visiting and we thought we could cycle to them, but also because it sounded like it was a little more than just a beach. The Aire itself is located near the football stadium and bus terminal. It is quiet and clean, with everything that you would normally get on a campsite for 8 euros including very friendly people who run it…. not bad. Albufeira on the other hand is a concrete resort with nice beaches. The town itself, to put it politely, is not very attractive – I would describe it as having drunk and smoked a little too much for a few too many years and it is now looking slightly overweight and could do with a good long session in rehab. I am sure that during the summer months the streets lined with closed bars and discos are vibrant but despite the sunshine, it just looks a bit run down and tired in January …… ouch, I am showing my age :).

As we had decided to stay two nights, we took the bikes along the coast the following day stopping at the far end of Praia de Falesia to eat our lunch whilst admiring the long sandy beach, before working our way back along the coast dropping off down to each beach village to see what they were like, evidently we had just chosen the wrong town to stop in as the others seemed to be far nicer – possibly because they were also much smaller…. He ho, just because it doesn’t suit us doesn’t mean it won’t suit the next person.  We did make up for the poor choice of location by having a delicious bar b q in the evening, having bought far too much meat from the butchers for two people 🙂

Leaving Albufeira we decided to stop in Faro to have a look around the beautiful (but small) old walled town, stock up the fridge and do the washing. We parked up in a large car park near the old town and battened down the hatches as it started to rain and blow a gale. Thankfully, although the rain was torrential and the wind got up to 25mph, by the morning we were once again looking out at beautiful blue skies (although a little fresher).

Wanting to get one more beach in before we leave the Algarve we headed towards Tavira, looking to stay in a small beach village called Manta Rota for a couple of nights. Generally we have been avoiding the motorways, happy to travel on the smaller, quieter roads as they lead you through more interesting places – however we have now mistakenly introduced Mika into some off-roading. We turned off of the main road and saw signs highlighting that there were road works but as they didn’t say that the road was closed, or suggest an alternative route, we continued on past the digger, onto the red clay (which was quite wet due to the recent heavy rainfall), continuing on through a few puddles and some rather narrow spots for 1.5km, where we arrived at the Aire. As we were driving through the Aire to find a suitable place to park we were wondering why everyone was looking at us weirdly until we got out and had a proper look – Mika was caked in thick red clay mud … apparently the road was closed for roadworks and there was a pretty good tarmac version that led straight out through the center of the village ….. needless to say that we took the tarmac option on the way out 🙂

The Aire (4.50 a night or 7 euros inc Elec) was quiet, located just next to the beach and the village itself, despite being touristy, was ‘cosy’ with a really good butchers, a handful of restaurants/cafes and a nice little supermarket that was cheap and even sold marmite (no – we didn’t buy any…. mainly because we have a jar on route to Seville next week) :).  After a brief walk around on Friday afternoon, we decided to take the bikes into Tavira on Saturday for a look around. Tavira has a lovely old town with a castle and it sits on the mouth of a river – one of the more normal that we have come across on the southern coast.

After a good days cycling and walking Keith braved the cold and only just beat the rain to cook a nice chicken roti wrapped with bacon and stuffed with sausage and faranata on the Bar B Q….can you tell we are liking the fact we can cook outdoors a little 🙂  Later in the evening the skies opened and the rain continued to fall all night….

Having finally managed to get to sleep, we woke to be an island in the middle of a lake – our neighbouring motorhomes having abandoned their pitches. This photo was taken about 6 hours after the rain had stopped and the water had receded …. alot

Thankfully no harm done and despite losing our matt downstream (we spotted it right in the middle of the deepest bit of water), we found it the next day as one of the neighbours had retrieved it after the water had gone down and it was hanging on their line.

Dried out, we headed inland hugging the border a little, stopping overnight in Mertola and then on to a mining town called Minas de Sao Domingos.

Mina de Sao Domingo is situated between two reservoirs and our parking spot was idyllic (despite the grey clouds and rain) … the photo didn’t do it justice, so I am afraid I left it out.

The mines were one of the largest in Portugal, dating back to Roman times when they mined for gold and silver, but more recently owned by an English family who mined copper for 110 years, finally closing in 1967.  The town is dusty and the kind of place where you expect to see horses coming over the horizon any minute, instead, you can walk for miles through the red landscape (and we did …a nice circular walk of 18km) with the odd abandoned mine shaft or building popping up sporadically …..

very beautiful in an odd sort of a way….

So we have finally made it to the land of sunshine, beaches, bacon butties and carparks full of motorhomes – only joking, we still haven’t found a decent bacon buttie 😦

I am painting a bad picture and I don’t want to as we are having the most fantastic weather, the temperature in the last week has risen to between 16 and 18 degrees during the day, going down to about 8 degrees overnight with beautiful blue skies – you can see why it attracts so many northern Europeans.

First stop on the Algarve was Sagres which is about 6km east of Cape St Vincent, Portugal’s most westerly point. We had been told that we it was a place ‘not to miss’ for the sunset and whilst here we thought it would be rude not to have a Sagres beer or two 🙂

The sunset was stunning and the beer was pretty good too, however we were disappointed to learn that Sagres beer is not actually brewed in Sagres, but just outside Lisbon and, worse still, it is owned by Heineken…. Portugal has suddenly gone down in our estimations …. Thankfully we still have the pastries and some lovely wine to turn to in a time of despair.

We parked in the Fortress car park along with 20+ other motorhomes and walked out to the Cape.

The car park was enormous, so despite the growing community we didn’t really notice the other motorhomes and it was very quiet – it was also an excellent location to watch the sun slowly disappear behind the clouds and into the sea.

Having drunk the beer, seen the sunset and visited the cape, there wasn’t much left to do in Sagres so we moved on to Lagos for a couple of nights. Lagos has a nice old town with twisty cobbled streets but the northern European influence has definitely taken a hold with estate agent after estate agent, blocks of luxury apartments overlooking the marina and we spotted no less than three indian restaurants ….. definitely for the Brits. Not in the market for a new apartment yet as ours seems to still be working really well for us, we parked our ‘apartment’ up just by the sports stadium in an Aire which cost us 3 euros a night plus 2 euros for 100Litres of water. Despite there being between 30 and 40 motorhomes each night, it was peaceful and only a short walk from the center of town.

After spending the rest of the day exploring the town itself, we set off to the market in the morning to stock up. Although the market lacked in fruit and vegetables on the day we went, it made up for it in fresh fish and Keith took the opportunity to try out his culinary skills on a bit of squid …. Cooking up a very simple recipe with olive oil, salt, pepper and a bit of lime – worked a treat… not a rubber band in sight!

Moving slightly further along the coast we stopped at Alvor, a small fishing town on the river mouth. I am sure that the town itself used to be quite pretty, but unfortunately it is currently in that transient stage caught in between the ‘local’ fishing village and ‘Tourist’ town, lots of shops closed down and generally looking a bit unloved and deserted. However, the seafront and the walk out to the river mouth is beautiful and they have invested money in making it easily accessible, so I am sure that the rest will follow over the next few years.

The Aire is effectively a large sandy car park on the seafront and costs 4.50 euro a night plus 2.50 if you want electricity, but it is quiet and friendly (I think more than 50% of the motorhomes are here for the winter) and very well located if you want to walk/cycle anywhere. We walked out to the lighthouse at the river mouth and then back along the river on Saturday and then on Sunday got on the bikes and rode round the coast stopping briefly at Ferragudo, where they had a very large flea market, and then onto Carvoeiro, where we sat and ate our lunch on the beach before turning back and stopping for a slightly over indulgent ‘Bolo de Raina’ in Portimau. The Portuguese eat Bolo de Rei (Cake of the King – large polo shaped bready cake with cristalized dried fruits, sultanas and nuts mixed in) and Torta de Rainha (Cake of the Queen – a folded bready cake with sultanas and walnuts) between Christmas and New Year and we had been looking for a decent Torta de rainha, but hadn’t found one as they are less common and the ones we found looked dry and un-appetising …. This one however looked very inviting …. even more so having just cycled 30 miles. Sold by the kilo, this one was probably around 400g ….. probably more like a four person portion than two, but it was heavenly 🙂

As we have now been away for a reasonable length of time, we have had time to learn a little about living in a motorhome, what is and isn’t important, what we would change / add / not bring with and we have decided to upgrade …..

……ahem, perhaps not 🙂

Where does time go? We have spent the last few days not moving very far, but enjoying some beautiful scenery and making the most of the weather which on Friday and over the weekend was getting up to 16 / 17 degrees during the day and only going down to about 7 degrees overnight – perfect.

Whilst in Batalha we met an English couple who recommended that we visited a tranquil little reservoir called Barragem de Pego do Altar, so whilst in the area we thought we would stop by for a night, it was definitely beautiful and tranquil….

As it is still Christmas holidays we joined a selection of other motorhomes who were also seeking out tranquillity …. a handful of Brits, Germans, Dutch, a couple of French and a couple of handfuls of Portuguese. It is apparently one of those places that people keep going back to year after year and has built up a bit of a reputation within the motorhome community. Unfortunately, despite being a beautiful and tranquil place in the middle of nowhere, you couldn’t walk very far unless you wanted to walk on the roads, so that – and slightly too many motorhomes in a reasonably small area for our liking – led us to take the decision to only stay one night and move back towards the coast to a little town called Porto Covo.

Porto Covo is a small Portuguese holiday town with good surf which meant that it had lots of car parks along the cliffs. Although there is an Aire in the center, it was busy and not particularly attractive so we parked up in a car park just at the edge of the town where there were a handful of other motorhomes and stayed for three nights. The sun sets were beautiful and there were two long ‘trails’ that start in Porto Covo, one for walking only (fishermans trail – running 120+km) and the other for walking/cycling (Historic Trail – running 200+km). So we relaxed, walked and ate – enjoying a lovely traditional Portuguese dish called ‘Arroz de Tamboril’ (monkfish and rice stew, although this version had prawns and a couple of clams thrown in as well).

The restaurant we found was actually a patisserie and the guy serving us was the butcher – a bit of an odd combination, but we happened to have bought some Morcilla (Black pudding) and Farinata (Spiced pork fat and flour sausage) from him earlier the same morning, so we can only assume that his wife ran the Patisserie/Restaurant and he, the butchers. Despite not eating any meat from the menu, the food was delicious from the ‘Chocos’ (Squid), through to dessert 🙂

Needing to move the motorhome to empty and refill, we continued along the road towards the Algarve where we are still uncertain as to what we will find and whether we will like it. But for now we have stopped in in Aljezur for the night where we are preparing ourselves for the last 40km or so when we will hit the southern coast of Portugal. The town itself has a castle dating back to the early 11^th Century (although there is proof of artefacts dating back to the iron age) and it used to be the only ‘safe’ Port between Lisbon and Sagres, but as it is no longer on water (the river appears to have dried up) and judging by the traffic passing through it, it looks like the main attraction is a stop off point before you get to the Algarve coast…