Travel stories of a caravan duo, plus a 5th Wheel and Isuzu truck in Europe

Tag: pool

Autumn Roses

We have spent the past 6 weeks in a lovely seaside town called Roses, in Spain, just over the French/Spanish border and have very much been acting like tourists, cycling along the prom, eating in the local tapas bars, chatting to other British caravanners about the occasional thunderstorm or windy day we were having, or swimming in the Med or the pool. But. … same as in the UK, autumn has arrived! Just not on such a grand scale!!

The nights are drawing in, getting dark by 7.30pm, mornings are darker until sunrise at 7.30am and evenings are a little chilly, resulting in the reappearance of my faithful fleece! Another downside to this weather, is the abundance of flies during the day and bloomin mosquitos in the evening! They drive David mad!! Me, the flies just annoy, and the mozzies feed a family of 20 on me, so frequent applications of anthisan are a regular occurrence after dark! I hope our neighbours have not heard the frequent cries of “oh, you b**tard, David, quick, rub here!”

This will be our last post for a few weeks, as we are jetting off to the USA with friends Mike and Brenda. We are flying from Barcelona to New York, spending 5 days there, then flying to Detroit, arriving on my birthday!

In Detroit we will be joining a few hundred others at “Motown A GoGo”, a celebration of Motown bands and singers, organised by a British man and held in the area famous for the Motown museum and Berry Gordi’s recording studios. On Friday 25th we will attend Mike and Brenda’s wedding, along with a few others, being performed in one of the actual studios.

After the wedding, we are taking an Amtrak train to Chicago, spending a few days there, before collecting a hire car and driving down part of Route 66, to St Louis, and Louisville, where we will pick up the Bourbon trail. Here we will no doubt visit a few distilleries, sampling their wares, maybe even purchasing some!!! From Louisville we head across to Indianapolis before heading north back up to Chicago. We fly back to New York and Barclona mid November, where we head south, so news updates will continue….

One day we took our snorkelling gear to Montjoi Bay, a secluded bay a little further around the coast, and spent the day at this deserted beach. At one point in the afternoon, there were a dozen people there, most had arrived on yachts or canoes! The water was cool, but not particularly clear, not many fish there, despite us taking tasty bread rolls along.

One day, we took a ride out with Mike and Brenda to the local Hyper shopping mall, and found this amazing Cadillac, reminding us that we are just weeks away from our visit to the USA.

Brenda and I also visited Salvador Dali’s museum in Figueres, housed in an old theatre that burned down, so Dali purchased it, renovated it and used the interior to display his artwork, paintings, drawings, ceramics and jewels.

One of Dali’s most unknown works is called “Explosion of Mystical Faith in the midst of the Cathedral” and is worth studying, the photos probably don’t do it justice. Its a stunning piece of artwork, which Dali worked on for 15 years (1959 – 1974) and is still claimed to be “unfinished”, showing the virgin saint surrounded by a nebula. The second painting shows his first attempt that was used as his “study” attempt, without the layers or colour and depth of bodies.

The Last Post & Port

Steaming from Barcelona to Zaragoza to Bilbao – South to North – Literally!!

We spent 5 days chilling at Vilanova Park, a site we have been to before, just outside Barcelona, we caught up on shopping at our favourite supemarkets, Alcampo and Mercadona! Such small pleasures please us!!

We filled up with cheap fuel; bought several bottles of decent Spanish wine to take back to the UK; caught up with our washing and generally spent the morning doing chores then afternoons around the pool.  The temperature was still hot, 35c and our air con in the trailer was playing up, the fan works but was only throwing out warm air so we had to rely on cooling the trailer by closing blinds, cooking outside and a big fan that we have keeping us cool at night.

We have only ever been to Vilanova Park outside holiday season (October and March or April) and we so surprised to see such a difference, thousands of people everywhere, kids in the pool (Irish and French school holidays started mid June), iced cream and take away bars open and daytime and evening activities, through to a kids disco at 7.30pm and adult entertainment until midnight!  Still very few staff, rushed off their feet. It was lovely to be recognised by one or two waiters!

Early Sunday morning we left Vilanova and drove 3 hours up to Zaragoza, a huge city in the middle of a desert like flat pain, often called The Windy City.  On arrival, the temperature had crept up and reached 43c, with a boiling hot wind that made everything hot to touch, our outdoor plastic chairs, the crockery in the cupboards, and even our lounge seats were hot to sit on!  We sat in the pool for a while, dried off quickly in the hot air, then had cold showers.  Luckily the wind disappeared overnight and when we left Zaragoza in the morning the temperature was a cooler 26c! 

Monday we took a slow drive up to Bilbao, stopping a few times for a break.  We went from sea level to Zaragoza at 350m, to Rioja at 600m and back down to sea level at Bilbao! 

The landscape changed from grey flat plains in Aragon (Zaragoza) to hilly wind farms through to lush green valleys in the Rioja area, surrounded by an impressive bank of cloud.  This is why Rioja produces such brilliant wine, a flat plain with surrounding mountains, the warmth of sunshine and just enough moisture to produce grapes. We then went through the rocky mountain range, beautifully craggy and stunning but much cooler than we have been used to. 

We stopped at some services about 40 miles short of Bilbao and decided to try a bit of wild camping for the night, in the car park!  Surrounded by lorries, we woke to 16c and fog!! First time we have ever done that, probably won’t do it again, far too noisy. We soon headed off to Bilbao Port where the temperature crept back up to 24c once we had got over the mountains.

We were one of the last onto the ferry, and spent a lovely calm 24 hours heading back to England and no doubt, much cooler temperatures!

And finally, to cap it off…….

So in the past week we have gone up and up and up to sweltering record temperatures then down to more sensible ones; up and down in altitude as well as fuel and beer prices! We had cabin numbered 8123 from Rome to Barcelona and 8321 from Bilbao to Portsmouth! We have travelled about 2000 kms on three ferries and driven only a third of the journey! We have been stopped by Customs to inspect the interior of the trailer and also waved on without any inspection at other borders. Overall a very interesting journey back to the UK.

This will be our last post until the end of August when we head back to Spain!