Travel stories of a caravan duo, plus a 5th Wheel and Isuzu truck in Europe
This week we took a leisure cruise up and down the River Sal, five hours of gentle boating to view birds and local fishermen, riverbanks and scenery. Lunch was cooked on board, chicken starter, fish main, fruit dessert and free flowing drinks all for £12 a head.
Suitably chilled and a little sun and wind burned we returned to our local beach to catch the sunset.
All aboard!
As the sun was setting we watched locals pulling in their catch.
A good selection of food has been experienced in our first week, along with a little bit of exercise in the form of dancing. A giant 1kg seabass, a kilo of tiger prawns, fish and chips and lots of chicken tikka massala, butter chicken, mutton rogan josh, vegetable pakora, tandoori chicken skewers and nan breads, all devoured at sunset before boogying the night away.
The bill shown is £25 in the UK !!! Cheap as chips!!
And, Graham befriended a couple on their honeymoon who introduced him to a sheesha pipe 😁😁
Following a short travel hiatus, we are on the move again, just us two and Benny the car. Bessy will be enjoying a sunny holiday in storage in Torrevieja until the summer.
David and I have left Torrevieja for a few months to relight our travelling wanderlust, starting with a return to the UK for essential services, Doctor, MOT, dentist etc. Our route up to the ferry has taken us from the Alicante area, north through the La Mancha wine region to Toledo, north through Madrid to the Duero wine area then up to Santander. This post is a diary of our journey. Our next post should be from Dubai or Vietnam, fingers crossed 🤞.
Driving up from Alicante towards Albacete, we were surprised by the number of roadside castles and forts, all stunningly perched on hilltops, surrounded by rows of heavily trimmed grape vines, pink blossoming almond trees and white blossom cherry trees. Some castles were surrounded by windmills perched on the crest of the hills.
TOLEDO – World Heritage Site
Fact: there are over 20 churches, chapels and synagogs, one Cathedral and one Mosque as well as several convents in Toledo, thanks to its Christian, Islamic and Judaism roots and more recently Catholic influence, that’s almost one on every street corner. This partly walled medieval city is heaving with tiny cobbled streets, steep hills and ancient buildings, dating back to Roman times (128BC) and the old areas still exist within this modern looking clean city. The Jewish Quarter is full of dusty workshops with monacled men in waistcoats tapping away at silver jewellery and tea sets, as well as the famous Toledo steel knives. Toledo is also famous for its silk and the hand made roof tiles found throughout the City, AND, its very narrow streets!
The centre is dominated by a huge Gothic cathedral, a large college and so many architecturally stunning buildings all accessed through streets so narrow that locals have permanent scrapes on the rear wheel arches of their cars. Taxis whizz around the streets, buzzing through strolling tourists without any problems, at night the traffic can only be described as manic until 9pm, when locals are jam packed in restaurants and the streets become the opposite – deadly quiet. The only constant noise is the rushing of the Tagus river.
At night the buildings took on an ethereal look, cool and calming yet bright and invitingly stunning.
Here’s one for the ladies, a snapshot of several exquisite Llaudro ornaments!
Price tags, a tad over €25,000!!!
SANTA MARIA DE LA VID MONASTERY
It was recommended to us that we stop halfway between Madrid and Burgos on our way to the Ferry Port, and what a lovely stop it was. After a long day walking the streets of Toledo, we experienced relaxation and quiet at this ex Monastery Hotel, in a little village way off the beaten track.
In the Duero valley, right on the Duero River, the monastery was originally founded in 1152 and was run by a Dominican Order until the mid 1800s when it closed for a few decades. Opening again by the Order of St Augustine it was run until 1991, closing with plans to change its use to a hostelry and conference centre, retaining the working church and various museums which are open to the public.
To top it off, next door was a Bodega and restaurant offering the most amazing wine and food! We stopped there during the area’s Tapas Route, this was their contribution, a crispbake with the lightest ever jamon topped with a fresh salsa and violet mayonnaise……simply heaven!
In the late afternoon, the Monastery was open for a tour, despite it being fully in Spanish, I thoroughly enjoyed the peace, tranquility and splendour of the building.
Dinner that night was outstanding, cheese pancake to start, cook your own steak…. but Dessert was the highlight. I couldn’t decide between Green Apple sorbet with a coconut foam or Violet ice cream so we ordered both!!
Next stop, Santander Ferry!!
Our 90 days in Spain began sunny and warm. We stoppd in Benicassim, just outside Valencia, returning to the familiarity of Bonterra Park and settled into our new living arrangements (caravan and full awning) comfortably. Several trips to the camping section of Decathlon and the local camping shops enabled us to set up an excellent kitchen and dining area in the awning, easily completed within a week and our chilling afternoons began! David has been able to rediscover his cullinary skills again, the kitchen in the caravan being far too small for him!!
Our daughter Caitlin was able to book a few days off work for a much needed break, thankfully the weather was still warm and we helped her chill out and relax.
Her plane flew into Valencia late Monday night so Tuesday was spent eating and drinking and wandering along the beach.
Wednesday we took her up the coast route to Orepesa and across the mountains behind the Desert of the Palms, stopping for a paella lunch at a high mountain top restaurant.
Thursday we drove to Valencia and hired a 19th floor apartment close to the Science and Art Parks, with stunning views over the city and back towards the port. We spent the afternoon and evening exploring the old port town and the sea front before returning her to the airport very early the next morning. David and I decided to spend the day in Valencia and hopped on the Touristico Autobus, a tour of the city took over 3 hours in the midday traffic! Well worth it as we got to see some amazing buildings and sights.
The Assut de l’Or Bridge is a white single-pylon cantilever spar bridge in the City of Arts & Science, crossing the Turia Gardens, built in 2008 by Valencian designer Santiago Calatrava. The name means “Dam of the Gold” and refers to the dam located nearby. The pylon curves backwards, held in place by concrete counterweights in the road. The 29 parallel cables supporting the deck carry 6 lanes for cars, an extra lane for trams and another for pedestrian and cycle traffic.
After a few weeks of down sizing, from Samson to a 2 bedroomed flat and then to a caravan, we were ready to set off! Space is not something we can say Bessy has plenty of but we managed to pack away summer and winter clothes, an awning, laptop and some family tree paperwork (just in case I needes something to do!).
After negotiating A1M diversions and then the M25, we arrived mid afternoon in Abbey Wood, South London. Surprisingly, the warden asked if we had been before, he remembered me! I said “yes but in a 5th wheel!” Fame at last!!!
Stop 1 of our new travels was a short stay in Kent to meet up with friends, Angela and I had a good chat and David and Peter had a good drink!! Peter is a whisky man and David is a bourbon man so they used the evening to test a Welsh whisky that had been finished in bourbon barrels, given to David by his niece. This was compared to a Scottish whisky, and an American bourbon, so a good night followed a delicious BBQ.
Stop No 2 was at Chertsey right on the River Thames. On Saturday we visited a local riverside hostelry for a refreshing glass of something before returning to the campsite, which was full of weekend campers trying to offload kids, unpack and put up tents, feed kids, sleep then pack it all away the next day! Very stressful watching!
Sunday was a gloriously sunny day, we noted the skies above were devoid of airplanes from 11.00am onwards – realised that President Boden was due to visit Queenie in Windsor that afternoon, dropping in for afternoon tea, so they must have cleared the skies for his helicopter to land without any bother!
We had a lovely catch up and long lunch in a riverside pub in Staines before returning to our abode for the night.
We hit the M3 on Monday morning, the sat nav telling us that the journey to Stop 3 was only 3 hours and 10 minutes, all was fine until we came off the M3 and hit the A303!!! Then our speed was an average 7 miles per hour! So slow we were able to take photos from inside the car of people wandering around Stonehenge….
5 and a half hours later, our aching bums arrived at Twelve Oaks farm outside Newton Abbot, Devon! A privately run site, working farm with cows, sheep, chickens, and toilets and showers that have won awards for Superloos for several years in a row!
We managed to fit in a swim in their outside heated pool.
Newton Abbot was a strange town, the old animal market had been rebuilt into flats, the high street was boringly filled with charity and cheap shops and a large supermarket dominated this very boring town, made famous by its small horse racing course outside town. However, the odd building jumped out at me….
Our stop in this area was to catch up with friends Carlos and Wendy, who took us out to more cultural places, thankfully!
We explored the small boutique shops in uphill and downhill Totnes, our calves did not thank us the next day, not being used to steep hills!
We had a day out to a small village called Stoke Gabriel, narrow winding lanes into the village and smaller narrow winding lanes out, but well worth it. Lunch was at a Dart Riverside “shack” with the most amazing food, which we then walked off around the local church yard and grounds. The local gardens were full of beautiful coloured flowers that were full of bees and butterflies.
There has been a church on the hill overlooking Stoke Gabriel Creek for over one thousand years. A church was listed in the Domesday survey of 1086, and at that time there was a yew tree in the churchyard already thought to be several centuries old. Today that yew tree is between 1200 and 1400 years old, making it amongst the oldest trees in Britain, its boughs grew down and re-rooted itself forming a covered walkway around the trunk.
Legend says that if you can walk around the tree backwards seven times without stumbling you will have a wish granted. I tried; it’s harder than it sounds!
The legend is remembered in this verse:
Walk ye backward round about me
7 times round for all to see
Stumble not and then for certain
One true wish will come to thee
The refurbished 15th century interior has several pews that were specifically built for local families that donated large amount of money, several gravestones mention the family name of “Churchward”, one such family. The organ was first mentioned in history in 1880 when the building was extended to add a heating stove and an organ pipe to the current harmonium. It was refurbished in 1960 but replaced with a more modern organ in 2010.
The best part of Stoke Gabriel Church is the 15th-century oak screen separating the nave and the chancel, the screen is decorated with painted panels depicting Old Testament prophets and New Testament saints. It is pointed out that the prophets are shown wearing Tudor caps, assuming the artists were obviously portraying the figures from their knowledge of contemporary clothing.
Next stop was to meet an old school friend in Taunton, Somerset, staying on a Cider farm. Don’t get excited, the weather was not great and the farm was quiet, the owners kept well away and we saw no activity except the growing apples in the Orchard. However, we had lots of visitors during our stay, very friendly colourful peacocks and white pea hens, guinea fowl, rabbits and a friendly loving cat, who found a hot spot on my lap for over an hour!
After a “stuffing” at the local pub on Sunday, we took a walk alongside the canal that runs through Taunton, and encountered more beautiful wildlife.
We left Taunton after one day, heading north for stop number 5 on the outskirts of Birmingham, the Clent Hills.
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