Category: Places

23rd May – 29th May 2024

History buffs will know how intimately involved the city of Gdańsk was to the start of the World War 2 but many, including me, will not be aware of how focused the Nazis were in their desire to secure this strageic port city as part of their invasion of Poland, or what a pawn it was in the relationship between the Third Reich and the Soviets. It was here that one of the first battles of the war was fought, and in an unlikely place, the main Post Office building. The Nazis, believing (correctly) that it was acting as as a base for the undercover operations of Polish intellegence operatives, attacked it in the early hours of 1st Sept 1939 at about the same time they were hurling shells from the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein at the nearby military outpost at Westerplatte. The 50 ‘Post Office workers’ who just happened to be quite well armed and good at fighting, managed to hold off the detatchments of German police and elite SS units in a seige lasting 17 hours, providing a David and Goliath narrative, but without the victory unfortunately. They eventually had no choice but to surrender and predictably the survivors were executed by firing squad along the side of the building. The facade of the building, which now houses a museum, survives with bullet damage still visible and there is a fabulous memorial sculpture outside.

There are a few other things that we wanted to see/do whilst we were here. The first was to see the famous Gdańsk shipyards. It was here in 1980 where organized resistance first challenged Communist dictatorship in eastern Europe. A strike by 17,000 ship builders saw Solidarity (Solidarność), led by shipyard electrician Lech Wałęsa, recognised as the first non-Communist trade union in the then Soviet Bloc. The move was one of the first successful steps in a campaign of civil resistance that contributed to the eventual collapse of Communism across eastern Europe. He was Time magazine’s Person Of The Year in 1981, was award a Nobel Peace Prize in 1983 and was elected president of Poland in 1990, being the first democratically elected president in Poland since 1926.( He only stood for election as he was exasperated by the views and allegiences of other candidates and his election slogan was ‘I don’t want to, but I have to’.) He saw Poland modernised, facilitated its membership into NATO and the EU and continued to positively contribute to the country’s future prosperity long after his presidency ended in 1995. Despite an abrasive leadership style and some quite conservative political views, he was the type of leader that today’s world is seriously lacking. He is now 80 and hopefully living out a splendid retirement with his wife.

Seeing the shipyards did not require any sort of special journey as that was where our campsite was located. There was space for about 8 vans lined up on a dockside near a small boat yard, surrounded by a moderately dystopian collection of abandoned warehouses and disused cranes. There were some active docks with large cargo ships being loaded and unloaded and fledgling signs of the revitalisation of some of the dilapidated buildings. Otherwise it was pretty quiet around us, until about 3-4am in the morning that is, when it became apparent to us that one area of warehouses near us has been converted into a drinking & partying district and drunk revellers made their way home past us, laughing, shouting and shrieking as they went. It was otherwise a great spot to watch the shipping channel, the yachts and motor boats coming in and going out of the marina and it was only a fifteen minute walk from the old town. The grittiness was part of its charm.

The other thing to do here is to visit the amazing World War Two Museum. This is housed in a very modern, eye-catching building, although mostly below ground level, and tells the story of the conflict in a way that focuses on the human toll of the war, rather than the military campaigns. It also is incredibly enlightening on how big a price the Polish people payed both in lives lost, its destroyed culture and infrastructure, and the loss of its self governance. The statistic that hit me hardest was the ‘percentage of the population killed or significantly wounded’. USA 0.9%, UK 3%, Poland 21%. It underwent such a program of ethnic cleansing that Poland is now still one of the most homogenous populations on the planet. The museum was incredibly moving and a highlight of the trip so far, in a moderately depressing way.

As for Gdańsk itself, the old town was quite lovely. It mostly escaped damage from Allied bombing but at the end of 1944 almost a million refuges from East Prussia poured into the city hoping to escape the Soviet Army. As the Soviets advanced a final battle raged and 90% of the city centre was destroyed by shelling and fire. It is a testament to the resurrection of post-war Poland that has seen the city rebuilt so impressively. It is hard to believe that most of the beautiful ‘old’ buildings are not original. The most impressive of these is St Mary’s Church, a massive brick construction that commenced in 1343, that is one of the two or three biggest brick churches in the world. Apparently. It is huge.

We had our usual day of ‘walking around a lot’, exploring nooks and crannies. Unfortunately this was interrupted by a spell of rain, for which neither of us was prepared for, so we took shelter in a coffee house. Fortuitously for us this served a fine version of the local cheesecake for whick Gdańsk is renowned. ‘We didn’t want to, but we had to…’ We also partook in our first Polish meal whilst here. The obligatory perogies were sampled (dumplings filled with a variety of fillings, mostly meat and cabbage) and other delicious plates of food involving various iterations of meat, potatoes and cabbage. It was very tasty, very filling, and very good value.

Our day to leave Gdańsk was Saturday and I managed to sneak in another ParkRun on our way. There are two runs here and we got up early and headed to the one to the southwest of the city centre in a suburb called Południe. It was in an area of parkland containing two lakes with the course being one and a half loops around them. The advertised parking was not an option as it was gated residents parking for the local appartments. We managed to find a corner of another carpark nearby to wedge ourselves into and went off to find the start. There were lots of long, lean club runners bouncing around, seemingly doing 3 0r 4 laps as a ‘quick warm up’, thus making me feel quite inadequate. It was hot already by 9am and my performance was no where near as good as last week’s PB in Świnoujście. It was a good job that the route was obvious because here there were no marshalls and no signs at all out on the course!

After Gdańsk we headed south, finally leaving the Baltic coast behind us and heading inland, vaguely following Poland’s most important waterway, the Vistula river, in Polish the Wisła, pronounced ‘Viswa’. We were heading to Malbork, ostensibly an itty-bitty place with nothing to see except it happens to be the site of the enormous Castle of the Teutonic Order of Malbork, the largest castle in the world measured by land area (52 acres), and a UNESCO World Heritage site. So there is definitely something to see here. It was constructed from handmade bricks over a period of 132 years and was completed in 1406, at which time it was the largest brick castle in the world. The Teutonic order were very much like the Knights Templar. Warrior monks who seemed to be creative at combining the teachings of Christianity with battling their enemies for power, territory and wealth. The castle changed hands many times over the centuries being variously occupied by Poland, Sweden, Prussia and Germany. Having undergone a long restoration in the 1800s it was significantly damaged again in WW2, and further by a fire in 1959. Another long restoration spaning 60 years was completed in 2016 and it is now absolutely magnificent.

We took a small detour off our vague trajectory to visit Malbork and it was well worth it. The entrance ticket for the castle included a very good audioguide, which walked us through a quite epic tour, talking us through the vast labyrinth of rooms, staircases and gateways. It automatically moved on to the next passage of information as we moved between stations and even though it was quite busy, everyone was moving in the same direction at about the same pace so it never got congested. Genius. Most impressive was the central heating system. Like the Romans, they had built underfloor heating ducts that were fed by hot air from furnace fires burning in lower levels. Far toastier in the winter than a damp, stone-built Scottish castle with a small log fire in the corner. We had a couple of nights here, our campsite having a great view of the castle across the river, an easy stroll away.

Next on the ‘wandering-south-through-Poland’ section of our travels was the city of Torún. Another place we had never heard of. Situated directly on the sandy banks of River Vistula and home to about 200,000 people, the old town of Torún is one of Poland’s oldest cities. It was first settled in the 8th century and then expanded in 1233 by our old friends, the Teutonic Knights. A lot of history happened, the city passed between lots of different factions and countries and finally was restored to Poland after WW 1. Although its people suffered many atrocities during the war, Torún’s buildings did not suffer any damage as a result of either of the world wars. It is now another UNESCO World Heritage Site with large sections of intact city wall, several beautiful churches, a ‘leaning tower’ (nowhere near as impressive as Pisa) and many surviving Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque buildings, none of which I took any photos of.

Its most famous son is Nicolaus Copernicus. Born in 1473 he was a polyglot, a polymath, obtained a doctorate in canon law, was a mathemetician, astronomer, physician, classics scholar, translator, govenor, diplomat and economist. In 1517 he derived a quantity theory of money, and in 1519 he formulated a key economic principle. But his life’s work was the writing of a book in which he formulated (quite correctly!) that the earth revolved around the sun, not the sun around the earth. The book was published just before his death at the age of 70 in 1543 and it made a pioneering contribution to the scientic revolution. Makes one feel a trifle ineffectual, does in not?

Torún’s other contribution to Polish culture is gingerbread. Made here since the 1300s with excellent growing land for the wheat and a good supply of honey from the surrounding villages, it has become an important part of the history of this country. So much so, that a 17th-century epigram by poet Fryderyk Hoffman speaks of the four best things in Poland: “The vodka of Gdańsk, Toruń gingerbread, the ladies of Kraków, and the Warsaw shoes”. We bought a packet and ate it whilst sitting on a bench in the shade of a tree in the main square. It was tasty but a bit dry and would be much enhanced by a quick dunk into a cup of tea.

This place was also crawling with many large groups of school children, bused in from who knows where. In one tense moment we got wedged between two groups moving in different directions down a narrow side street. It was noisy, there was no room to manouver, none of them were looking where they were going. It’s a miracle we got out of there alive……

17th May – 23rd May 2024

It was only a 30km drive to get to Poland, which was still on the island of Usedom. The only thing that told us that we had arrived was a signpost informing us of the various different speed limits for different vehicles in different areas, in Polish of course. Here was our first exposure to a language of which we knew nothing. Many of the rules of pronounciation that we ar familiar with were thrown out of the window, decorated with little accents, strikethroughs, dots and the odd tail. They have a total of 17 letters and letter combinations that are unknown to English speakers. We were in trouble! Luckily many Polish people speak some, if not excellent, English, and as previously mentioned, having Google Translate is like having a Babel fish. (Google this too if you have never read Dougla Adams’ Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy). We did not have plans to go very far today, only to the town just on the other side of the border, Świnoujście. Roughly prounounced ‘Schvin-oo-jzay’. Here we initially tackled two immediate tasks. Doing laundry and getting some cash. Laundry was easy. The internet directed us to a nice modern laundrette which took card payments, provided all its instructions in English and had a nice big car park right next door. Perfect. In the meantime Nick had to take a 10 minute walk to find an ATM, and having ‘hunter-gathered’, returned to his washer-woman with his catch….a fistful of funny money. Poland has retained its currency, the złoty (pronounced ‘zwoh-teh’), since joining the EU in 2004. One złoty is equal to about 20p and I have yet to see any coins smaller than that. Change is often a bit arbitary and prices seem to be always rounded up (never down) to the nearest whole zloty if paying with cash. Who are we to complain? How are we to complain???!

Chores done we found a campsite about 2km from the town centre at the marina. It looked out onto the shipping channel which gave access to the town’s rather unexpectedly busy port. Świnoujście is a major ferry terminal for the many massive ferries that cross between Sweden and Poland and many other freighters that carry cargo across the Baltic, thus providing an important link between Scandinavia and the rest of Europe. It also has purportedly one of Poland’s best beaches, also touted as it’s largest and longest. The town was always regarded as a health resort, but in recent years it has seen an influx of serious money and the building of many large, global brand hotels, appartment blocks and a rather swanky new promenade lined with restaurants, shops and bars. This new strip is built a block inland from the beach offering shelter from the omnipresent cool breeze coming off the Baltic. It may be sunny, but the wind chill can be significant. We didn’t really know what to expect of this place but found it quietly humming with the small crowds of shoulder season. It was clean and what wasn’t brand new was well maintained and cared for. There were dedicated cycle paths and walkways everywhere and, the yardstick by which all places should be measured for civility and respect, there was zero dog sh*t. I even saw a council contractor wiping bird poop off park benches.

We had an outing to the famed beach and it was quite epic. A vast expanse of white sand dotted with people most of whom either had all their clothes on or who had deployed their wind breaks. The glorious sunshine was not enough to counter the relentless cool breeze. We attempted to ‘relax with a book and soak up some rays’ but it just wasn’t quite warm enough. The locals know this and were still all wearing coats. It was only us tourists, mainly Poles and Germans, who were determinedly willing summer to be here. The Baltic coast does deliver a summer. It’s short and sweet – July and August only. Non negotiable. Otherwise, put your clothes back on and find a sheltered spot to sit in. And whatever you do, don’t even think about going swimming……

Our trip to Świnoujście coincided with a Saturday, and that meant that I was able to do another ParkRun. Number 2 on my ‘Not-A-ParkRun-Tour’ tour of Europe. The course was 2 laps through a section of a rather lovely tree-filled formal park, only a hop-and-a-skip (on an electric bike) from camp. Here there was no helpful welcome briefing in English, no marshalls out on the course and no yellow signs with direction arrows marking the route. Instead the course had been permenantly signposted with some rather subtle ParkRun signs, often hidden in the foliage so it was more a case of ‘follow the leader’ to find the way. I found myself running alongside a chap who was a bit older than me, and luckily knew the way. It soon became apparent that we were matching each other stride for stride and so we struck up a conversation of sorts. He was Polish and spoke some German, but no English, so I murdered some very rusty school level German to try and chat with him. Running with my new pal, Irek, delivered me my ParkRun PB of 31m26s, and at the end he told me (via Google translate) that he was ‘happy that we had found each other in the crowd’ (of 39 runners). I understood his sentiment.

Back at camp there was the ongoing amusement of the constant procession of ferries and ships going by with the added entertainment of watching the tugs and pilot boats doing their work. The ferries were enormous from our conservative distance across the channel but it got quite exciting when one was moored up on the dockside right alongside the campsite. No idea why it was here but it had arrived and off-loaded so I guess it was waiting for a delayed embarkation slot. It was quite a spectacle. No safety barriers errected here, no, just a thin tape to indicate where you couldn’t approach. I’ve been on large ferries and seen cruise ships what I thought was ‘up close’ but being so close to such a massive vessel on the dockside was quite remarkable. Mildly amusing was the fact that just prior we had been watching some fellow campers manouvre themselves into ‘the best’ positions with water views along that section of dockside whilst simultaneously annoying each other in mini battles for territory. The ferry eclipsed it all, and then filled the air with the hum of its generators, even after the engines were turned off. What’s the Polish for Schadenfreude……?

By morning it was gone and the Marine Shipping website advised that it had sailed at 0130. I’m not sure how it left without disturbing us. It was time for us to go too and we continued eastwards along the coast, or the ‘Polish Riviera’ as I have dubbed it. Our next stop was in another beachside resort town called Meilno. Our route there was mostly on a main road that is in the process of being upgraded from a single carriageway that passes through the towns and villages to a snazzy, new dual carriageway. This meant that the journey was 50% fast and smooth and 50% slow and lumpy, with roadworks. There is a lot of freight on this road and in the summer it must also be the route for all the holiday makers coming to the beach resorts. It will be a relief to everyone when it is finished. The final 20km or so of our journey was on a very pot-holed minor road and it felt like Davide was going to be shaken to bits. We did arrive in one piece, selected a campsite with a view and settled in. Meilno is home to another glorious expanse of sandy beach that stretches for miles. As a non-port town it was developed in the post war, communist era as a resort town where ordinary folk could come and have a holiday with state provided accomodation and entertainment. The legacy of that origin lives on as the town has continued to cater to middle-of-the road Polish families and there are countless small holdiay appartments, hotels and cabins. The ‘strip’ was inhabited by a parade of identikit, budget restaurants serving affordable menus of exactly the same food: Kebabs, pizzas, sausage and chips, chicken and chips and fish and chips -substitue mashed potato on request. The tourist tat shops all sold exactly the same plastic chaff and there was a scattering of fairground type rides and some large marquees set up containing arcade games and penny-pushers, or should I say ‘zloty-pushers’? There were a few people around, but again, despite the fact it was a hot, sunny Sunday, it felt quite empty. This is another town waiting for the onslaught of Summer proper. Meilno sits on a narrow isthmus between the coast and a large lake, and this was our view. It would have been the perfect place to break out the paddleboards if it hadn’t been blowing a consistant 20 kph for the entirety of our stay here. Another day.

There was a lovely walking path along the beach front, including a long section of boardwalk, and the ubiquitous bike paths and walking tracks along the lake shore too. This made for a nice loop to walk, and so we did. The beach itself was dotted with a few folk but there was no-one in the water. We tested the temperature.

It was a refreshing 10 deg C. Baltic by name, Baltic by nature. Polish people have a reputation for being quite stoic. This is one of the reasons why, I think. They are made to swim in the sea when they come here on their summer holidays. A highlight of our time here was calling into a roadside seller of smoked fish. The smell lured us in we passed as the smoker was open and cooling and we couldn’t resist buying a few pieces for our dinner. It was delicious.

Next on the journey was the Pomeranian town of Łeba, pronounced ‘Webah’. This is another coastal resort, similar to the others, but it has an ace up its sleeve. It is next door to one of the jewels in Poland’s crown, The Slowinski National Park. This covers an area of nearly 200 sqkm with forest, a large lake and about 32km of Baltic coast. It’s main feature is a large area of sand dunes that are shifting continually east by about 10m/year. It is one of the few places in the world where dunes meet living forest. There is apparently much wildlife to see here, although our only sighting was a slightly mangey fox that had obviously been habituated to humans by being fed.

Less ‘nature-y’ is this area’s history as a site for long-range rocket testing in the war. Along with the V1/V2 rocket program in Peenemünde, there was a lot of impressive ordnance flung off into the Baltic from this bit of coast, its infamy being explained in a slightly tired, open air museum half way along the path to the dunes.

Our stopping place here was the rather euphamistically titled ‘Soul Camp’. It was a (nearly) lakeside, grassy site with several (empty) A-frame type cabins, a (cold) pool, a (closed) bar/foodtruck, an (unmanned) office, an interesting (lock-free) unisex shower hut and space for about eight campers with only one other van here when we arrived. There was a number to call on the reception door, but no-one answered so I sent a text and we settled in. We never did see any staff here. I eventually got a text back to say leave the cash payment in a lock-box when we left, and so, after two peaceful days, we did. The few other Germans that were here did the same thing. Seems a very relaxing way to run a business.

The national park entrance was an easy 5km cycle from camp, and then another 5km through the forest to the dunes along a very elderly and very uneven concrete road (apparently constructed using POW labour). It was very beautiful, although a bit of a bone-rattler as our bikes don’t have any suspension. There are no vehicles allowed in the park except for electric golf cart style buses which made it very peaceful….except for the hoards of children. This was our first exposure to the phenomenon of ‘Polish School Trip Season’. From here and now, whenever there has been something or somewhere of note to visit, there are coach loads of backpack-wearing children, of all ages, being marched around in loose crocodile formations. The young ones are all a-chatter and excited, the teenagers are trying simultaneously to look cool and surly, and naturally group themselves into emos, jocks, geeks and jokers. Kids are the same the world over. We shall henceforth be spending our time trying to avoid them. Also, no German Shepherds were allowed in the park, although a nearby sign indicated that frogs were permitted.

We cruised into the park, past the school groups, who were being forced to walk at least one way, and having stopped to peruse the rocket museum and survived a visit to a porta-loo, we headed to the dunes, where we saw the fox, tied up the bikes, took off our shoes and hit the sandy hill.

They really were quite amazing. The higher we climbed the breezier it got and by the time we reached the highest point with the best view it was quite blowy and not an ideal place for our planned picnic. I guess we had failed to consciously acknowledge the basic concept of the mechanism of ‘shifting sand dunes’ happening as a consequence of a stiff wind. We descended, dodging school children, some unable to resist the urge to roll downhill, and found a moderately sheltered spot in which to eat our sandwiches with a reduced risk of grit b’twixt our molars or embedded in our corneas.

Łeba was bigger and a bit fancier than the other coast towns that we had visited, but again felt quite subdued and waiting for the craziness of summer. I can imagine that in peak season ‘Soul Camp’ isn’t quite so tranquil, and doesn’t have the same ‘let yourself in and make yourself at home’ vibe. After two nights here we headed off. Next stop Gdańsk.

11th – 17th May 2024

Berlin. A city which has seen so much change in the past eighty years. War, division, fear, reunification, rebirth, rebuilding, optimism and reflection. It was definitely a place we both wanted to see. I had visited a couple of times as a young child in the latter part of the cold war, my military father having been posted to Northern Germany twice in my childhood, and Nick had been here on a school trip as an 18 year old, months before the fall of the Wall. Our plan was to stay outside the city, in the nearby, picturesque town of Potsdam and visit Berlin by train.

Potsdam is full of charm and has plenty to offer the tourist in its own right. It is a popular daytrip destination for both Berliners and tourists from further afar Its main attraction is the UNESCO World Heritage Site, Sanssouci Park, the wonderful royal summer palace and gardens of the Prussian king, Fredrick The Great. The original palace, built in the 1740s, is fairly modest in its scale and Rococo style but he built the Neues Palais, the New Palace, in a very grand Prussian Baroque style about twenty years later mainly as a place to accommodate visitors and have parties. Hulluva guest house, Freddie. He is buried near his beloved Schloss Sansouci in a very unprepossessing grave covered with commerative….potatoes… This is a nod to the fact that he was instrumental in bringing this previously unpopular vegetable-disaffectionately known as ‘the devil’s apple’-into the hearts, cuisine and bellies of the Prussian, and laterly the German, people, where it has resolutely stayed

Our camp in Potsdam was another glorified car park. It had a few power hookups, but they were all taken, so we found a sunny spot on the perimeter and let the sun power us through our solar. Sanssouci was an easy 1km walk from here and the old town an even easier 2km cycle. We spent some time cruising the old town which was buzzing with people wandering the streets in the sunshine. Lots ice creams were being eaten and the pavement tables were full with happy people drinking beers listening to the quite talented buskers.

Potsdam has the original Brandenburg Gate, another of Fredrick The Great’s splendid errections. It was completed in 1771, 20 years before he decided to build another one in Berlin and call it the same thing. Potsdam’s gate now stands alone as the remains of the city wall was demolished in about 1900. It was the perfect backdrop to our ice cream and beer sampling in the sunshine. A nearby square looked like it was hosting a market but it was in fact a wine festival. Here there were also lots of happy people cooking in the sun getting quietly, and in some cases noisily, sloshed on local German wines. We resisted.

Unfortunately, after this foray into the old town, Nick sustained another rear puncture. Two in two days. Unlucky. Luckily we were just about home and managed to walk it the last 200m or so. We had no spare tubes, but did have some patches and resolved to fix it ourselves this time. It took an hour and a half, some trial and error, a bit of swearing, fleeting moments of marital disharmony, moderate sweating (remember we had deliberately parked in a sunny spot) and a liberal distribution of grease and dirt over all four of our hands but we managed it. The isolated puncture was located and patched successfully and having realised that our bike pump was actually non functional we remembered that we were actually carrying a footpump for the van tyres, and this worked a charm. The thorny issue of re-connecting the electric motor was also successfully navigated. We were very pleased with ourselves.

We spent half a day wandering through the gardens and parklands of Sansouci. The four or five palaces of various shapes and sizes are dotted throughout the park and we decided to make the day about the park and to appretiate the buildings from the outside, rather than buying tickets to do the interior tours. There were formal and informal areas, formed and unformed paths, mown grass and unmown meadows. It was charming. The modest crowds, (because although this complex has been likened to Versailles, Versailles it ain’t), were concentrated mainly around the palaces, so there was plenty of quiet and lovely, peaceful corners. Weary with wandering, we slowly shuffled home and had a nice cup of tea.

We took a day trip against the traffic and headed to Berlin. The station was an easy and safe 4km cycle from camp, with Potsdam also boasting a fabulous network of cycle lanes. With the bikes locked up in a seemingly safe place we bought some tickets, found our train and were soon on our way to the capital. This was, as you can imagine, an efficient, clean and pleasant experience. The main station building is an epic structure of glass and cavernous space, built in the grand spirit of the late 19th century heyday of train travel unlike most other modern and modest station buildings. It provided quite a welcome to the city. I didn’t take a photo for some reason.

With the mantra ‘you can’t see it all’ in our heads, we gave it a bloody good go. Well, to see the things that we wanted to, anyway. I had no recollection of Berlin at all, but Nick did quite vividly remember his time here in early 1989 when the city was divided into East and West by the infamous wall. We took in a few of the classic sights starting with The Reichstag and the other, more famous Brandenburg Gate. In the past there were fences and barriers here to keep people in their place. Now there were still fences, but to cordon off the construction sites that will become a massive fan zone being prepared for the Euros Football tournament which Germany is hosting next month. Nick had found an old photo of himself here, and we tried to recreate it despite it missing his old friend, Ed.

We took in the spot where Hitler’s bunker used to be. Here he holed up in the final weeks of the war, here he married Eva Braun, here he died by his own hand, here his body was removed and burnt. Here is now a completely normal, un-paved car park with only one modest information sign. The lack of any monument is a deliberate act to deter it becoming a shrine to those who might feel the need to celebrate their idol.

Someone who has been memorialized in modern art, face profile form is Georg Elser, the man, who in November 1943, nearly managed to assassinate Hitler. He played a long game, guessing that Hitler would return to a Munich beer hall to repeat a speech a year after a 1942 gathering. He moved to Munich, made his own bomb from explosives he stole from his work at a munitions factory and spent many months of nights in the beer hall hollowing out a pillar near the lecturn and packing it full of the explosives . Hitler, Goebels and many other leading Nazis did indeed return to the venue for a meeting but the bomb exploded 8 minutes after Hitler left building, his onward travel plans having been brought forward due to bad weather. Eight were killed but Hitler, as we all know, was not. Elser was caught, sent to Dachau concentration camp, and killed on the orders of Hitler in 1945 just before he himself died by suicide. Esler’s exploits were only discovered in the 1960s when Gestapo records were made public and in Nov 2011 a 56 foot sculpture depicting his face in profile was errected in the city. It’s very cool, and apparently lights up at night, which is even cooler.

The holocaust memorial was only built in 2005, so not a memory lane item on the agenda. It is an epic, city block-sized sculpture of concrete blocks that you are encouraged to walk amongst, the ground levels and the heights of the blocks changing so that one moment you look down on them and the next they tower above you. It was both sombre and a place for reflection but also a place where children and grown ups alike could have fun playing peek-a-boo. I think both are equally valid ways of remembering the normal people this momument was built in memory of.

Our next stop was Checkpoint Charlie, officially Checkpoint ‘C’ in the Berlin Wall. It was the highest profile of the check points and the only place where allied military personnel were allowed to cross. All of the original structures and watch towers on both sides have long since been removed with most memorabilia being transferred to a nearby museum, but on its original site there is a mock-up of the guard house as it appeared in 1961. I took my place in the queue to take a photo. Near here are segments of wall left as a memorial and in other places there markers on the ground where it once stood. Nick clearly remembered seeing the intact wall and passing through Checkpoint Charlie on his last visit.

Our wanderings took us past the Gendarmenmarkt, allegedly Berlin’s most impressive square. It houses three large buildings: The Deutscher Dom, originally a church and now an exhibition space, The Franzosischer Dom, a French church and domed tower, and the Konzerthaus, a concert hall. I am sure it is all marvellous, but currently all closed off for construction and renovation. Onward we marched. We crossed the river, passing by ‘museum island’, another UNESCO site of five impressive Prussian-built buildings housing museums and another exhibition space and found ourselves coincidentally in the Nicholas Quarter, a place to stop for lunch. Nick had identified a local Berlin delicacy that he wanted to sample – Königsberger Klopse. Veal meatballs in a creamy, anchovy flavoured sauce. I was in! We found a little family run restaurant with sunny outdoor tables that was serving the aforementioned, served with a pile of potatoes, and to add to our light lunch, I ordered Schweinhaxe, a whole slow cooked, crispy skinned pork knuckle served with potatoes, veg and gravy. It was all delicious. There was masses of food. We ate it all. Good job we were putting in some kilometers today to work it off.

Our post-lunch waddling took us back over museum island and via a bike shop to get some spare inner tubes and a new pump. Next stop on our tour was possibly the most exciting of them all. An Atlas Obscura special, the David Hasselhoff Musuem. I know, I know, how thrilling! Many of you may not know that The Hoff, as he is affectionately known, is incredibly popular here in Germany. This started when he sang his 1988 song ‘Looking For Freedom’ at the recently fallen Berlin Wall at a New Year’s Eve event in 1989. It became an anthem for German reunification and he became the darling of the German people, many saying that he was instrumental in helping Germany unite (?!). All of the publicity certainly helped to boost his musical career, which possibly might not have done so well based purely on his singing talent…. We headed to the museum to see how this city had celebrated and glorified its favourite former Baywatch actor, turned crooner. Poorly, is the answer.

In the basement of the hostel-style Circus Hotel, unsignposted and unadvertised, near the toilets and the baggage storage room, is a short dead-end corridor. This is the museum. There was a mural which he had signed, a few pictures, and a cabinet of crap. Surely The Hoff deserved better? So did we. We had walked 2km out of our way to get here! We were amused, took the obligatory photos and then it was time for the long walk back to the station and then to get the train back to Potsdam. We had walked 13km and were quite weary by now. The bikes were just where we had left them, of course, and they carried us home in no time with no real effort. I love this electricity stuff.

The next day we headed north from Berlin to Peenemünde, on the recomendation of our friend Phil, who lives next door to my parents. This place, originally a sleepy fishing village, is situated on the northern point of the island of Usedom, on the Baltic coast. Known now as ‘Berlin’s bath tub’, it being a very lovely piece of coast with lost of safe boating within 3 hour’s drive of the capital, it was identified by the Nazis in the 1930s as the perfect place to build a research and manufacturing facility for the fledgling technology that was to spawn the V1 and V2 rockets of WW II. Thus it became one of the most important military-industrial sites in all of Germany. The inhabitants were relocated and the area was covered with hundreds of acres of concrete and buildings to support the huge endeavour. A massive coal-fired power station, and a port to supply it, was built to produce the energy needed to produce the hundreds of tonnes of liquid oxygen needed to propel the rockets. There was an airport, a railway, thousands of personnel and all the support infrastructure. There is a test launch site here from which the first man made object was propelled into space, so Peenemünde is not only infamous for being the home of the first real weapons of mass destruction, it is also famous for being the birthplace of space-flight. In 1943 the RAF staged its largest single bombing raid of the war, sending about 500 planes to destroy the plant. The powerplant and the oxygen extraction building survived, but much of the other infrastructure was damaged or destroyed. Then the Soviets further smashed it up it after the war.

Nowadays this place is only partly returned to its original state of natural peacefulness as it is home to a world class, but very low-key museum about the rocket program. Most of the exhibitions are housed in the surviving power plant building with a few outdoor exhibits including an example of both the V1 and V2 rockets built from spares. Of note, the V stands for Vergeltungswaffen, the German word for vengence. The museum told the story of this place in a very measured and neutral way, a testament to how relationships between countries can be rebuilt and flourish despite the horrors of war. We had the obligatory few hours here and it was well worth the trip. There is also a guided tour of the ruins of the area, which we didn’t do.

Instead we took a ferry across the inlet to the tiny fishing and holiday village of Freest. Here there are, according to a local fish restaurant owner, only two things to do: one can either take a walk around the small harbour then have a fish sandwich, or one can have a fish sandwich then walk the harbour. We took the latter option, substituting a beer for a fish sandwich, and adding in a short walk on the beach. I dipped my toes into the water. Although this is nearly the Baltic Sea here it was suprisingly warm. For the Baltic, that is.

One of the highlights of our stay here was the place that we found to camp. This was a grassy area belonging to the local sailing club and overseen by Rolf, the ‘Hafenmeister’, the harbour master. He spoke no English, but a combination of sign language, my very dusty GCSE German and Google Translate helped us make friends. We managed to grab the prime waterfront spot, overlooking the inlet, the marshes and the small yacht marina. It was beautiful. A couple of times a bunch of kids and teenagers came down, rigged up their sailing dingies and went out racing and there was a fairly consistent procession of yachts passing past, all making use of the persistant easterly breeze that blows here. This is was dubbed ‘Putin’s Wind’ by one lady we met.

Peenemünde’s main harbour is also home to an eye catching, large 1960s Soviet U-boat which houses the largest submarine museum in the world (allegedly). It is quite impressive up close from the outside and that was enough for us. We took a stroll with a picnic on our second full day here. Having battled a few gazillion mosquitos and come across a couple of naked Germans (normal for Germany) our route was unfortunately cut short by coming upon a large chain link fence and some scary signs warning of not going any further due to ‘the danger of death due to unexploded bombs’, a problem that will probably blight this area forever. Sorry, chaps.

The island of Usedom is shared between Germany and Poland, with the border running through it. We bade our farewells to Rolf and gave him our glass recycling so he could collect the deposits for his ‘kaffeekasse’ or ‘coffee cash’, seemingly a euphamism for a tip. We only had a short drive today, but it was take us all the way to Poland. A place that was physically close, but far removed from our comfort zone. A completely different and totally incomprehensible language and a new currency. Our brief journey through Germany had been amazing, and we hadn’t expected to enjoy this country so much. It is clean and organised, the roads are great, the food is hearty and the people are really friendly. Oh, and we may have mentioned the war, but I think we got away with it……

6th May – 11th May 2024

Davide had spent a few months parked up, winterized and under a cover at my parents’ place in Shropshire, all of us waiting for spring and the next trip. He was made ready again and before we packed him up we had to have a quick overnight trip to Nottingham. This was for his first service and to have our snag list addressed, namely that the alarm and tracker kept setting each other off as they were installed too close together and the fact that the whole central screen unit had stopped working. We had a night at the on-site rally field by the motorhome/caravan dealers and apart from an hour’s walk at noon we spent the whole of the next day (plus 2 cups of coffee, a spectacular plate of bacon and scrambled eggs, a cup of tea and much screen time)) sitting in the dealer cafe whilst he was dealt to. All was fixed by 5pm and we headed back to Shropshire where we had a few days to get loaded up before the off. We now had the paperwork to support being 4000kg on the road, rather than the standard 3500kg, so now we were a) legally not overweight and b) had weight allowance for a few extras – like our paddleboards. We had fresh haircuts, six months plus of prescriptions, clothes for three seasons, 480 decaf Tetley teabags and three jars of Marmite. We were ready. We bade our farewells to my folks and departed. First stop on the grand adventure…Wigan, where Nick’s brothers live. Of note here is that I was driving Davide for only the second time, and all by myself. Nick was driving his brother’s car that he had very kindly loaned us for the past 7 weeks and which we were returning. We were both a bit nervous but my driving was magnificent and I managed just fine without his ‘help’.

With Davide just fitting on Rick and Catherine’s driveway and blocking it from either of them parking on it, we had a great evening with the brothers and sisters-in-law and it gave me a 24 hour window to get my paddleboard repaired at the very nearby inflatable boat repair centre. Two years ago, in a French heatwave, some of its glue had failed and it needed remedial work, with time for the glue to cure before it was rolled up again. Job done, we scooped it up in the morning and headed off to our next port of call, Beverley, Yorkshire. Here we were guests at a weekend of birthday merriment for our friends Jon and Sally. We had secured a spot at a small campsite in town a mere 1.5km from their house and spent the weekend cycling to and fro for the various well catered, well lubricated, house-based celebrations with a great bunch of people. Some of us even managed Beverley ParkRun

Bringing your whole home to a house party and sleeping in your own bed is really the way to go. It also means that when you stay for 3 days and are the last to leave, your hosts don’t go off you. On bank holiday Monday, after sneaking in a quick load of laundry in our host’s machine- when on the road never look a gift washing machine in the mouth – we had a trip out to the beach with Jon and Sally and their girls which included a frisbee lost in the sea (Oops, Nick….) and the obligatory icecreams.

Then it was time to head to Hull and get our ferry. Our embarkation was possibly one of the most relaxed we have had yet. This Hull-Rotterdam route mostly carries freight and only sails overnight, thus they have all day to clean, restock and load up all the commercial vehicles and trailers. On this trip we were accompanied by about 20-30 new static caravans because, little did we know, that this area in Yorshire is a major manufacturer of mobile dwellings. Who knew? We were on the ferry by 5pm, had found our cabin, settled in, had 3 trips back to the van to collect forgotten items and deactivate the alarm, had a drink in the sun on the outside deck, been to the bistro for our dinner and had arrived in the bar for a digestif all before we set sail ahead of schedule at 8pm. We did not make the most of the ferry’s extensive entertainment offerings (quiz, cinema, casino, nightclub) as the battery levels were low from the weekend of excess and we retired to our cabin early.

We were blessed with a flat crossing but slept poorly besides and were rudley woken by the Captain’s announcement over the tannoy at 7am. This was essentially “Time to get up and buy a hearty breakfast-even though you are not hungry-before we arrive in an hour and three quarters”. After a shower we found a coffee and a toastie and found a window out of which to watch our arrival into the Port of Rotterdam. This was unexpectedly huge, and is, according to extensive (Wikipedia) research, apparently the only one of the ‘ten largest ports in the world’ that is not in Asia. Unfortunately our early alarm call turned out to be unecessary as, due to a gas leak somewhere in the port, our arrival was delayed by an hour. Major incident not forthcoming, we finally docked, disembarked and once we had smiled sweetly at the the nice Dutch border officer and assured him that of course we were only staying for 90 days, we were off!

In America we have have spent a whole week driving across a state. We were across the whole of The Netherlands and into Germany within two hours. Our feet did touch Dutch soil/tarmac once as we had a brief pitstop in a rest area, but otherwise this was going to be the limit of our time in this small country. Instead we were off to Düsseldorf for our first stop. Here we were seeing our new friend Anke who we had met with her sister, Meike, on a campsite in Lyon last September when we were all there for the Rugby World Cup. The fledgling friendship had been sealed by them gifting us a coveted collapsible washing up bowl, which we had named in their honour. Our farewells had included them uttering those foolish words “If you ever come to Düsseldorf, get in touch and we shall show you around”, and now, like it or not, we were on our way. Unfortunately Meike wasn’t in town during our visit, but we had arranged to meet Anke for dinner.

Our roost for the next two nights was a car park right on the banks of the Rhine/Rhein, only a ten minute walk from the Alt Stadt, the old town. After a very wet start to the year the river was in full flow and was busy with barge traffic going in both directions. Boats travelling up river made very slow progress, laboriously pushing against the raging torrent, down river they were flying and it was a miracle they had any control at all. We passed several hours just watching them.

It was great to catch up with Anke again. She speaks excellent English and is great company. Despite having a sore knee she stoically gave us a guided tour around the Alt Stadt. This took in the market, a local mustard shop and a quintiscential Düsseldorf bar, Uerige. Here they sell mostly the local brew, Alt, a copper beer neither an ale or lager. It is a hybrid. It is made with the pale malts and Saaz hops of a classic German Pilsner, plus some darker roasted grains. Then it employs an aggressive, top-fermenting ale yeast that attenuates the wort completely to reduce the sweetness. (Beer Geek 1001). Anyway, the beer is served in small 200ml servings by waiters walking around with trays laden with the pre-poured, froth-topped glasses. Empty glasses are continually and automatically replaced by full ones, unless you indicate for them to stop being delivered, with a running tally being marked with a felt-tip pen onto one of the beer mats on the table. So simple and tickled Nick enormously. There is a similar tradition in Cologne/Köln, the nearby, rival, up-river city. Their local beer is lighter in colour although apparently tastes very similar. Dinner was in an Argentinian steak restaurant where Anke’s family are well known, which is her explanation for hugging the manager on our arrival! We forgave her the non-German choice of fayre as the tapas-style starters were delicious and the steak was divine. After dinner she insisted that we sample another local delicacy – Killepitsch. This is a full strength herbal liqueur served in red plastic souvenir shot glasses from a ‘hole-in-the-wall’ window on the side of a bar. It is dark brown, sweet and will put hairs on your chest -and possibly on the inside of your stomach too. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, we all opted out of a late night as we were still in recovery mode and Anke was working the next day, and we made plans to meet for brunch on Thursday, which was to be a public holiday.

The next day we did our usual thing of ‘walking around a lot’ We had no real agenda or hit list of things to see. It was misty and cool and we found ourselves exploring the docks and their industrial area. It wasn’t the most scenic of perambulations but it is always interesting to see the parts of a place that explain what makes it tick and what it is founded on. We finally found our way back to the Alt Stadt and refuelled in the market with some very delicious Bao buns. So far our food choices had been fairly un-German. We continued to explore the city centre, which included many designer stores that we bypassed. There is obviously some money in Düsseldorf judging by the shopping and the cars that we saw. On the topic of money, one very unexpected thing that we discovered about Germany is that is is being very slow to embrace contactless payments. In many places they do not even accept card payments at all and cash remains king. This is disconcerting as I have finally started to use ApplePay regularly and really am not used to having to scrabble around for real-life money. Our trips to ATMs will need to be much more regular.

Back at Davide we did some more boat watching and had a 6 o’clock beer sat on a low wall on the promenade. The sun was shining by now and it had warmed up considerably. There was an air of ‘Friday night’ as people were heading home, or coming into town on the eve of the public holiday. This had been a great start to the trip. The next morning we drove about 7km to a suburb village down river of the city called Kaiserswerth. We met Anke again, walked through a lovely riverside park, saw some castle ruins and the old town, and had an enormous plate each of smoked salmon and scrambled eggs for brunch. Very lovely. It was then unfortunately time to say our goodbyes to Anke again, but we have a vague plan to meet up again later in the summer down in the south somewhere.

Our next destination was Hannover. Reached easily by thumping along one of the huge network of very well maintained and free autobahns. The Germans mostly drive very well and there was not much swearing from my driver at all. As many of you will know, large parts of the autobahn network has unrestricted speed limits and there is only a problem with driving fast if you stuff it up. On a practical note, this means that when performing a slightly lumbering overtaking manouvre in a laden van cars can appear suddenly in your rearview mirror – when only a split second earlier there whad been empty space. Another curiosity of Germany is that heavy commercial trucks cannot drive between midnight and 10pm on Sundays or public holidays, such as today. This meant that the roads were clearer but that all the rest stops and service stations were all chock-a-block with trucks which were parked up and waiting to get back on the road, often partially blocking fuel pumps and thoroughfares. It was chaos.

In Hannover, selected purely because it was equidistant between Düsseldorf and our next stop, Berlin, on the A2 autobahn, we stopped in one of the Northern districts which had a dedicated motorhome stop – a Stellplatz. Here we could plug in, get water and dispose of waste. Important to do every few days. There was a tram stop right outside the campsite but as there was also a fabulous network of bike lanes and bike paths we decided to break out the bikes instead and explore under our own steam. Our day of exploration took in the Royal Gardens of the Herrenhausen Palace, the 17th C summer residence of The House of Hanover. The palace itself was destroyed by a bombing raid by the RAF in 1943 and was modestly rebuilt between 2009 and 2013. The formal and informal gardens rival those of Versailles and were well worth a visit.

A bike path down a long avenue through the nearby Georgengarten Park took us to Hannover’s Alt Stadt and we spent some time wandering the streets and squares looking at the old buildings and churches. Our meanderings were significantly influenced by hunger pangs and we found ourself in the covered market which was a temple to food and drink. We just couldn’t resist sharing a plate of bratwurst and chips with mustard and mayonaise, accompanied by some Pilsner. Finally! German food!

In the middle of town they have, slightly randomly, created a surf wave on the river and there was a constant supply of hardy souls who took their 10-30 second turns (depending on ability) to do a few tight turns on the 15ft wide wave, under the gaze of many tourists and passers by. The last surfers we watched were in Nazaré, Portugal.

A hop and a skip from the centre of the city is the 190 acre Maschee Lake, an artificial lake created by the digging out a river and surrounding marshlands in the 1930s. It is used for countless recreational watersports and has separate cycling and walking tracks around its perimeter. It looks like an amazing facility to have in the middle of the city. We cruised a lap and then headed home.

The next morning was Saturday and that can only mean one thing to a small section of society…..ParkRun! This trip was not to revolve around finding ParkRuns to do, my non-runner husband informed me, but if we happened to be in the vicinity of one on a Saturday morning, that was ok. I was in luck, Hannover had a ParkRun and it was in Georgengarten Park, where we had cycled through the day before. I think that Nick is a secret ParkRun fanboy, although he hides it well, so he insisted on coming with me. We headed off on the bikes in the morning and found the start with tons of time to spare. This was on that long avenue which was a rather grand setting. The briefing was helpfully in English as well as German and the field a modest 120, despite such a prestigious setting. I had a PB of just over 32 minutes and so, as Sally from Beverley declared, my ‘European ParkRun Adventure begins’. Sorry Nick!!

The morning’s fun was slightly marred by a flat tyre on one of the bikes. Luckily we had some of that foam stuff to do a temporary repair and fortuitously there was a bike shop on the way home which could do an inner tube change for us on the spot. The shop was co-located with a Seat car dealer and we sipped complimentary coffees and teas in the showroom lounge whilst we waited, which was a bit surreal. The bike shop, which was very new, then said that our repair would be free in exchange for a five star Google review. Yes. We can be bought.

We arrived home finally, had breakfast and a shower, then headed off back up the A2 towards Berlin.

16th Dec 2023- 10th Jan 2024

I am writing this in the last few days of April having procrastinated the final post in epic and unsurpassed (even by my standards) style. I don’t know why I run out of steam at the end of each of our trips, but I do, and I have, and here I am over 3 months later. I work quite well under pressure and as the ferry for our next trip is in less than a week’s time I feel suddenly motivated.

If one wants to escape the wintery weather of northern Europe by travelling to coastal Spain, one does not head to the north or north-west. The reality of travelling in December and into January finally caught up with us and the jumpers and coats that we had been driving around for months were pressed into service, along with the hats, scarves and gloves. As a rule, living in a van is best in the warm and dry. Cold and dry is okay, warm and wet is doeable. Cold and wet…well let’s just say we survived.

The second phase of our Spanish travels took us into Galicia, which stole our hearts with its emptiness and its rugged and beautitful coastline. The whole region is flavoured by the paths of the Camino de Santiago that cross it and the its provision to the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims that walk to its heart, Santiago de Compostella. It is such a massive part of Galicia’s identity and economy but at this time of year, aside from the occasional hardy soul, the pilgrim trails were deserted. Most of the countless auberges were closed and many of the restaurant and cafe owners had shut up shop to have a break before Christmas. We saw the Camino trail markers everywhere, constantly reminding us that in summer, this whole area is humming (figuratively and literally) with countless sweaty, unwashed folk nearing the end of their long treks having spent weeks and weeks walking all day and their nights sleeping in crowded, noisy, bed-bug infested dormitories. Sign me up!

Our first stop was in Padrón, home of the eponymous pepper, which when fried in lots of oil and sprinkled with salt is one of the most glorious tapas dishes. It also hosts an epic weekly market, which coincided with our visit. We arrived the day before and wandered around the small town. Like every village, town and city, it was adorned with Christmas lights and looked quite beautiful after dark.

The whole lead up to Christmas, and how they celebrate it in Spain and Portugal has been quite different from the capitalist carnivals of other places I have spent time at this time of year (UK, USA, NZ, Australia). Aside from the pretty lights and the odd Christmas market there was almost no hard sell on buying gifts, special food, excess food or doing anything particularly different. It was so refreshing to not be bombarded with crass Christmas advertising and marketing and cheesy festive soundtracks for months and months. There were also no Christmas cards for sale even if there had been the remotest thought in my head to send one. In fact, there were no greeting cards for sale, full stop. Just not a thing here.

Anyway. Padrón. We stayed in a carpark next to the empty market square and presumed, when we woke late the next morning, that we must have been mistaken on the timing of the market day because we had not heard any noises that might indicate that one of Spain’s biggest markets had been set up. Wrong. They had just done it very quietly. The morning was icy cold so we bundled up, made hot coffees to walk with and set out to investigate. The market was massive, lots of cheap clothes, bags and shoes, plenty of ham and cheese, some plants, the occasional vegetable stall and plenty of stalls selling useful things. There were NO Christmas gift stalls. In fact, nothing about the market suggested that Christmas was only 8 days away at all. Heaven! (I am a grinch. It’s official.) We bought nothing but were drawn into a large food tent cooking hot, meaty sandwiches on a large open charcoal grill at it’s entrance. A few butchered Spanish words and lots of gesticulating saw us each served with one of said sandwiches which truely hit the spot.

A coastal meander from here took us to to ‘The End of the Land’. Literally. A village called Fisterra at the tip of a pennisula that juts out into the Atlantic. Beyond the village is a handsome lighthouse, and for some, this is the true end of their Camino pilgramage, a four day walk beyond the classic finish at the cathedral in Santiago.

One of the biggest advantages of travelling in this low season is how quiet it is and the complete lack of competion for camping spots. Our journey here had brought us via a beautiful beachside camping area that was purpose built for campervans by the local council. It had services, a nearby beachside bar, an epic sunset and was free. In the summer it would have been full to the brim. Now? Only 2 other campers. This was the situation for the whole of the rest of this trip. Fisterra was a planned 2 day stop that extended to 4. The campsite had a great view, was right in town and was peaceful, quiet and cheap.

We did an great couple of walks to the lighthouse and back, sat out some rain and explored the village. This is an active fishing village with a small fleet that sells its catch dockside at a rather swanky fish market. This has a viewing gallery where you can watch the deals being done and the fish still flopping around in their death throes and eels trying to escape their crates.

A shortish drive from here, across the Galician lowlands, was our next stop, Muxía. Another fishing town, another pilgrim destination. Some pilgrims end their journey here, not Fisterra. This area of the Costa da Morte (Death Coast) has a rich pagan history with its large coastal stones being imbued with beliefs of magic, healing and sacred powers. Many centuries later it is said that the Virgin Mary appeared here to the Apostle St James who was preaching the gospel to the local people without much success. Having arrived in a stone boat which broke up into three pieces and became big coastal rocks, she then encouraged him in his work. There is a chapel here to commemorate this story and thus this is the desination for the pilgrims.

We parked on the dockside which was again deserted and after strolling our own mini-camino to the chapel we hunted out a place to have dinner. This was easier said than done as most places were either shut completely, or in true Spanish style, shut until 9pm dinner service time. We discounted one place that seemed quite busy with a bunch of smelly fisherman having ‘after work drinks’ but we found one other reasonable looking place that had customers. There were two couples sat at tables, one of which finished and left not long after we arrived. We managed to order some food and wine with the help of sign language and Google translate at which point the other couple got up from their table, put on aprons, and went into the kitchen to cook our meals. We were the only customers. A private dining experience.

From Muxía we headed into Santiago de Compostella. Our campsite here was perhaps one of the oddest on our trip. It was only a short walk from the city centre and definitely one of the most secure camps we have had. The views were non existant though as it was a lockup industrial unit. It was a slight mission to find the entrance which was tucked away down a back lane, liberate the key from the lock box and then master the technique of magic wiggling to get it to open the massive double doors.

Then we had to manouvre Davide into the tight space between another stored camper and a scary looking concrete post. This was the base for a camper rental business and a vehicle storage facility, as well as accepting overnight campers. Amenities were scant and it was cold inside as there was obviously no sunshine to help warm us up. This may have been one of the reasons that we had the place to ourselves. Be even weirder if it was busy, and probably unbearably hot in the summer.

We had a couple of forays into the city, wandered the narrow streets, visited a museum and of course visited the cathedral, the conventional end of all of the pilgrim trails. As a registered pilgrim you can attend a mass here on your arrival if you so desire, and its crowning glory (quite literally) is an exquisite carved and painted stone edifice inside the main doors called ‘The Portico of the Glory’. No photos permitted. Look it up if you are interested!

We obviously also found several spots to sample more tapas, more vermouth, more coffees and the occasional beer. Our endeavours also took in a brief spell of gift shopping. Our main present to each other was already taken care of, but we had a €20 budget to buy a small thing for each other to open on the day so we split up for a nail-biting, frantic thirty minute rapi-shop. Who says Christmas shopping can’t be exciting…

Then it was Christmas eve. Our gift to each other was three nights ‘on dry land’ in an AirBnB. When Nick asked me what my criteria were for our chosen property, these were the main ones: a bath, a big comfy bed, a cozy living room with a real fire, a nice big smart TV, and some splendid isolation. It also needed safe parking for Davide on site. After spending many hours reviewing every single available property in Galicia we found a little gem, and this is where we were heading next. On our way we stopped at a Lidl to get the festive provisions for our stay. This might not have been our first choice for our shop but it was the only supermarket nearby that didn’t have underground parking or a height restriction to the car park. In fact it did us proud and although we couldn’t get many of what we would see as ‘traditional Christmas Fayre’ items, we came away with enough food for a week at half the price that we were expecting. No Christmas crackers to be seen though.

Our cottage was a mere 20km from Santiago and we had a few hours to kill before it was ready so we parked up in the sun in a nearby village waiting to receive our text to say that we could check in. Finally, the message came and we beetled over there. Our host met us with a freshly baked cake from the bakery they run and we quickly settled in. It was tiny but perfect. Davide was parked right outside, the fire was a one touch, thermostat controlled pellet fire – so all the ambiance with none of the hard work , the bedroom was on a mezzanine with a massive bath, the views were of distant hills and horses in the paddock in front and there were no close neighbours.

The kitchen had everything we needed except an oven but that didn’t matter as we had our own gas oven parked right outside. We had an amazing few days and it was great to stretch out. The three days was obviously dominated by the planning, preparation and eating of food and Davide did an excellent job of cooking our Christmas stuffed chicken. We also watched many movies including that pinkest of films -Barbie. We were sorry to have to leave and quite astounded at the amount of guff that we had brought into the cottage when it came time to pack it all back up again. We rolled on

Next we headed up to the north-west coast and a town called A Coruña. This is the second largest city in Galicia by population and partly inhabits a pennisula at the end of which sits Torre de Hércules (Hercules Tower), a Roman built lighthouse which is apparently the oldest lighthouse in the world still in operation and a UNESCSO World Heritage Site. We found a free parking spot overlooking the city from an elevated roadway to its west from which there was an epic view over the bay and the pennisula and on a coastal promenade that headed back towards the city. There was space for about 15 vans but we only had a couple of co-campers. The road was quiet but it was obviously a popular route for cyclists and walkers, well it was until mid afternoon when the wind and rain hit. We knew it was coming and we were prepared for it, but jeepers, it was relentless. For 20 hours! Gone was the view. Gone was any prospect of even stepping outside. Gone was being able to hear the TV over the din of rain on the roof! We were happy though. We were warm and cozy thanks to our diesel heater and we had infinite cups of tea and treats.

Eventually at about midday the next day the storm was gone and we emerged, blinking, into the sunlight. It was definitely time to stretch our legs and explore our surroundings. We set off down the promenade which was busy again with lots of other people appreciating the sunny, dry day. We had an epic day afoot, following the coastal path down into town, past the octupus sculpture, the millenium obelisk, along the rocky coastline to the city beach, up and around the headland to admire the Torre de Hércules, around to the marina and funky harbourmaster’s building, through the old streets to the beach and then back up the hill to our perch (via a stop for a beer or two-after walking 14km we were very thirsty).

The second night in our camping spot was not quite as secluded as there were more vans staying the night and the addition of a very intriguing, yet highly annoying, late hour rendezvous of a couple that arrived in separate cars, parked right next to us and played their music very loudly before heading off separately again. Hmmmm.

After here we were heading east along the coast and picked a campsite in a largish village called Valdeviño. It was selected as being the only place within stiking distance that had the following qualities: 1) it was open, 2) it had power plug ins and hot camp showers, 3) there was a laundrette nearby. We do shower in the van from time to time, but it’s not the same as having a proper long soaking with mains heated water.

We arrived at the hillside camp which was a terraced marvel of retaining walls and a steep paved driveway. Check-in was via a very sophisticated website and automatic number plate reader. As we were the only residents for the first of the two nights that we were here, and it only cost us €11/night, it was going to take a while for the owner to recoup his civil engineering costs and technology investment. The camp faced west and from its elevated position had some epic sunset views. We made use of the facilities and warmer, dry weather to do some cleaning of Davide, inside and out, and of ourselves, and having also done all our laundry on the way in, we felt like brand new.

The next day we headed out on another 14km loop walk which took us over the hill out the back of camp, through a gum forest, down a lane to the beach, up to a headland lookout and then back along the coast to our village. It was another gorgeous stroll that was deserted aside from the odd passing car. This trip was starting to feel quite exclusive! We thought we might have camp to ourselves again, but – horror of horrors – two other vans arrived in the evening! What? Share? Hmmff! The other thing that came that night was the next storm with more crazy wind and rain. Davide has internal privacy shades for the front cab windows but since it has been colder we have been deploying our external insulated front ‘eye mask’ screen too. This keeps us much warmer and cuts down on condensation and although is waterproof, is definitely not, in its current form, designed to withstand a strong wind! We woke in the middle of night to an unholy flapping and spent a damp and chilly few minutes prancing around outside in the dark restraining and removing it then trying to fold it up to get it into the garage locker. Sorry to our neighbours for the din of slamming doors and stage whisper shouting and swearing. Modifications needed.

The next day was New Years Eve and we continued eastwards and headed to a town called Viveira. This was a moderate sized town of 16000 people in the Lugo province on the river Landro. There was a free parking area close to the town centre and we thought that we we might find some New Year festivities to soak up and perhaps there may be some fireworks at midnight. That was the plan anyway… We arrived and found our parking spot which was some designated campervan spaces in a large municipal carpark next to the town’s small football stadium. There were a few other vans and although it felt a bit desolate, we were comforted by the presence of our neighbours. And then they all left. Back to solo camping then!

We explored the town in the afternoon. There was a terrible rock band playing awful music really loudly in the square and a very weird display of lifesized models in ‘olden days’ dioramas circling the church. This included a full sized model of an elephant. We were not entirely sure how this fitted with the medieval theme. There were a few bars and restaurants that we thought might be open later for some merriment, even if only from the sidelines, and we went back to Davide to recharge our batteries for the upcoming late night.

And then the next storm arrived. Now we were alone in our dark, deserted carpark, with the wind and rain lashing at our windows and had absolutely no enthusiasm to venture outside, New Year or not. We made the best of the moment with home cooking and ‘fancy drinks’ (ie vermouth rather than beer) and celebrated the strike of midnight in a unique and traditional Spanish style. Slightly bizzarely this involves grapes. At midnight, on each of the twelve strikes of the clock one must eat a grape. If you can manage to eat all twelve you will have a year of prosperity and good luck, each grape signifying each of the twelve months. This tradition started in the late 19th C, but became popular in the early 20th C. It was promoted by grape farmers in Alicnate who were trying to increase sales of their bumper crops. Genius! Fortuitously we had enough grapes in the fridge, and although not all were in their peak physical condition, they were edible. We found a live ‘count-down’ on an internet radio station and scarfed grapes as tradition dictated. There were a few lone fireworks which we looked at from the window, and that, Ladies and Gentlemen, was how we saw in 2024. Happy New Year!

The next day the sun was shining again, although it was still quite windy and we headed to a campsite just east of Foz. This was unmanned and the gates were closed, but a quick phone call and my near fluent ‘Buenas tardes, Señor. ¿Hablas inglés?’ followed by a short conversation in English, resulted in the owner opening the gate remotely. There was no mention of how to pay during our conversation, no information in the camp and at no point over the next 48 hours did a manager arrive to collect our camping fees. There were about 5 or 6 other campers but as the cold, windy weather continued, everyone was holed up and we saw no-one to ask. We fitted in a windy, waterfront walk that afternoon, watching a few hardy surfers, then holed up ourselves as the wind got stronger as the evening progressed. When we ordered Davide we had organised to have hydraulic levelling/stabilising rams fitted as an optional extra. In the end there was not time to fit them before we left on this trip so we headed off without them. We have come to realise that 99% of the time that they are unecessary as we happily manage with levelling blocks and the wind is rarely strong enough for the rocking to bother us. The 1% of time where they would be excellent would be nights like the 1st Jan on the Galician northern coast in a gale. The onshore wind made Davide rock like a crazy bouncing American lowrider. It was very unsettling and we didn’t sleep well. Still not worth the cost of the rams though! The next day was wet and windy as well but cabin fever forced us out for another walk during which we predicatably got quite wet. The ‘fun factor’ of travelling in the depths of winter was waning slightly. We left the next day having put the correct money for our stay in the suggestion box.

Ribadesella is a lovely place. This was our only stop in Asturias, the next province along the coast to the East. Asturias has some gorgeous jagged mountain peaks, and apparently the roads up through the mountains have gorgeous views and the landscape is magical. Doing it in a 2 wheel drive, 7m, 3.5t van in winter was not going to be sensible so we stuck to the main road along the coast, which was still beautiful. There were countless tunnels and viaducts and it was very scenic. We had chosen the town of Ribdasella in our traditional manner: totally at random and were very pleasantly suprised to find out how lovely it was. It is built at the mouth of the river Sella at the foot of the Picos de Europa.

It has stunning views, a white sandy beach, a lighthouse on a small headland accessed by a flat walk along the promenade and a small river waterfront with a small fishing fleet. Its claim to fame is that it hosts one of the most anticipated kayaking events of the year: The International Sella River Descent. Kayakers from all over the world gather here for the event that is held in the first week of August. The aim is to be the fastest to descend the final 20km of the river from the mountains. Over 1000 entrants take place and, as you can imagine, it is absolute bedlam, both on the river, and in the town generally.

Here we explored the town and sampled its most famous nutrients: flat cider and blue cheese. The cider is poured with great skill and from a great height into tumbers by experts in order to create a degree of foam and froth, in lieu of bubbles. Only small amounts are poured at at time as the froth quickly dissipates. In a bar, despite the fact that the cider is purchased in 1L bottles, one does not pour one’s own measures, one waits patiently for the bar staff as they circulate the bar, pouring 50-100 ml into each persons glass from their personal bottle. Can’t imagine that working in the UK! Along with that they eat the driest blue cheese in the world. It is so dry that just one bite can remove all the saliva in your mouth. The combination with the cider, though, is magical and they complement each other perfectly. I am not a fan of cider in general (too much in too short a span of time in my 1st year university Oct 1991 to June 1992) but it really was a delicious combination.

The next place we found ourselves in was Santillana del Mar, in Cantabria. This well preserved medieval village was slightly inland and was selected as a place to stay as it looked quite pretty and the camp was very close to the village. The campsite, although not full, was uncharacteristically busy but this fact initally passed us by. It was my birthday on the day that we arrived here but unfortunately I was feeling unwell and very ‘digestively upset’ (probably due to something I had eaten the evening before but I could blame the cider…!) This, along with with enduring gale force winds, was one of my most challenging days of the trip. I shan’t go into the intracies and the limitations camping toilets. I spent the day wrapped up in a blanket on my sofa, accepting medicinal cups of tea from my nursemaid whilst fielding birthday calls and messages. Much Netflix was watched and by the end of the day I was feeling 50% better.

The peace and quiet of the next morning was rudely disturbed at dawn (8am) by a series of sporadic loud explosions. What was this? Deliquent youths getting rid of their New Years Eve fireworks? But hmmm? Deliquent youths aren’t usually up and about so early. I Googled the matter. It seems that we had stubbled on something, again completely by accident. Although Christmas Day is fairly low key in Spain, it seems that the 5th Jan is a bloody big deal. This is ‘El Día de Reyes’ or Three Kings Day. The day is spent in preparation for a big festival and parade in the evening, with effigies of the Three Kings being mounted on floats or carried through the streets. Large crowds come out and celebrate, with a special round cake containing a hidden suprise being traditionally served. Sweets are thrown to the children and there is much excitement. It is this evening when gifts are exchanged and then the 6th Jan, or Epiphany, is celebrated quietly as a family holiday. It transpired, according to my Google investigations, that although the biggest parades are in the big cities around the country, there are some excellent and noteable parades in some of the smaller towns and villages. Top of that list? Yup. Santillana del Mar. No wonder the campsite was a bit busier! By the evening I was feeling much better and we went out to investigate. Here they tell the ‘Story of Christmas’ by way of a walking play, where scenes are played out by costumed actors in various scenic locations in and around the very beautiful streets of the village. The crowd follows the action, itself becoming the parade for the inital part of the celebrations.

Later there were some firework flurries, interdispersed with announcements and proclimations over the public address system, none of which we could understand, of course. We stood amongst the masses, all in good spirits, all responsibly and politely drinking small beers and wines on the streets and in the square. (It’s rare to see public drunkeness in Spain). Nick had a few beers, but I didn’t feel like it. What I did have the taste for was churros and hot chocolate, which was delicious and perfect for the moment.

In true Spanish style the parade proper wasn’t scheduled until ‘later’ and we had no idea what time that might be. It was by now 9pm and there was no sign of it. More rain was imminant and it was cold. I was flagging. We headed home having had a lovely few hours and not too sad to be missing the main event. Ten minutes later is started pouring and didn’t stop for 36 hours. Good decision by us.

After another day of looking at, and listening to, the rain (and bouts of hail) out of the window we headed off. Nick had heard about a place in the hills near the village of Galdames in Basque Country where a chap who lives in Concejuelo Castle on a hill has an impressive private Rolls Royce collection. It is reportedly the only complete collection in Europe of all the Rolls Royce models manufactured between 1910 and 1990, as well as dozens of other classic cars. It is housed in several outbuildings on his property and is open to the public every Sunday and public holiday. We had timed the journey to be here on a Sunday, and set off into the hills to find it. We knew where the castle was, but we approached it from the wrong direction and the roads weren’t passable for us, so we had to ars* about for a bit to find the right road, which was still awful. Finally, after much swearing (not by me) about the poor navigation (apparently by me), we arrived and went in. For a private collection it was pretty amazing. We ooh-ed and aah-ed, agreed it had definitely been worth the stress of getting there, and left by the correct route.

We had one more solo camping experience in a non-descript town in a steep sided valley called Balmesada which actually was quite pretty. It sat on the banks of a river, which after all the recent rain, was a raging torrent. Our camp was a dedicated municipal campervan park in the shadow of a newly built, large and imposing Old Age Care facility. Not the prettiest building, but at least the neighbours were quiet. The park was electronically controlled with a barrier and cost the outrageous sum of €2. No wonder everyone else was boycotting it. Far too expensive!

Next stop, Bilbao. We love being able to stop within striking distance of a world renown city, whether that be on foot, by bike or on a bus. Bilbao didn’t disappoint. Our options for camping close to the city were limited, but we found quite a spectacular spot. It was high on the hill to the west of the city and had the most amazing view down onto the centre.

It was an easy, gravity powered walk into the city, down a rabbit warren of steps through a residential neighbourhood, and there was a regular bus service to get us home. We, of course, had plans to visit the Guggenheim and had luckily been organised enough to pre-book our entry tickets a few weeks earlier. We spent some shoe-leather here too, exploring front streets, back streets, the riverside walk, the funnicular up the hill on the opposite side of the city, and down again.

One evening we treated ourselves to one last nice meal in a restaurant called Victor Montes, where allegedly Ernest Hemmingway had eaten once, (that chap really got around) and on the other evening we found a welcoming and cozy bar where we had enough plates pintxos to warrant it being called a dinner – which is not really what it’s designed for.

Of course the jewel in Bilbao’s crown is the Guggenheim. One could forget that it was actually built to house modern art collections, as it really is the most spectacular piece of art in its own right. Its shape and form change as you walk around it and its surface changes as the sun appears or disappears from the clouds. It is a marvel. As with most modern art galleries, Nick and I are not shy in mocking/critiquing pieces we perceive as lame, or giggling at the pretentious, self-important description cards that are mostly word salads. There was a good Picasso exhibition and an amazing installation of massive, weathered steel pieces called Matter of Time by Richard Serra which must be permenant because there is no way they’re coming out of there!

Bilbao was our final stop and a great place to finish this trip. After two nights here we retraced our steps to Santander to catch our ferry to the UK. We had a quick stop in Lidl again to stock up on vermouth, the small cans of olives with the anchovies stuffed into them and Serrano ham and then headed to the port. Here was the first test of our New Zealand passports giving us extended time in Europe over and above our 90 day Schengen allowance. We had been in Europe for 112 days. I was armed with a copy of the paperwork in both Spanish and in English, an acurrate record of our dates in each country, and proof by way of bank transaction statements. Not an eyebrow was raised nor a question asked. Our border officer just stamped our passports and waived us through. Easy as that.

Our crossing was 29 hours across the Bay of Biscay in stormy January. I don’t sail well. I love the sea, but it hates me. I was prepared for it to be awful. We had booked an outside cabin so I could see the horizon. I had purchased some sea sickness tablets (which turned out to be medicated chewing gum – perhaps Google translate didn’t work as well as I’d thought) and I avoided having an alcoholic drink at dinner. In the end it was bizarrely flat calm and I felt perfectly fine. The ferry was brand new and only one third full. It had a lovely top sundeck but an icy wind precluded any significant perambulations. We amused ourselves with a few meals, watching our individual downloaded movies and sleep. It was a very civilised way get back to the UK. Until we got back to the UK, that is. It took an hour and a half to disembark and get through immigration at Portsmouth. Every van and camper was having to open up and be checked for stowaways. Border Force obviously don’t think you can stuff a few illegal immigrants into the back of a Range Rover. We finally got underway at 10.30pm and decided to make a push for my parents’ house. Many road closures and diversions later we finally rolled onto their place at 3am, where we crashed (in a sleep way, not a collision way). We had made it.

Our first trip in Davide had been a success. It is hard not to compare Davide and Europe to Big Dave and Tin Can in the USA. What Europe lacks in its wilderness and epic roads it makes up for with its history, ancient buildings and the quality of its food. Travelling in Davide felt easier, but we had exchanged certain compromises for others. We learnt our own work arounds to these as we met them. We did far more ‘free camping’ and campsites were alot cheaper in Europe, but the facilities were far more basic. Language is always going to be an issue when travelling. I tried hard to learn some basic Portuguese and Spanish to add to my moderate French, but its never the same as being able to communicate in a mother tongue. Even if our ‘English’ can sometimes feel quite removed from ‘American’

So now, after three and a half months of catching up with family and friends in the UK and Australia we are just about to set off again. Spring nearly feels like it has struggled into being and Davide is being repacked and readied to hit the road.

My Dad and Step-Mum, Tina need an honorable mention as they continue to provide us with a base to call home. We could not continue to live our current life without their gracious, and oftentimes bemused, support. We intermittantly occupy space in their home and their lives and we are eternally grateful for putting up with us.

Tin Can Travels will continue, hopefully in a more contemporaneous fashion, during our next adventure. Coming soon!

26th Nov – 16th Dec 2023

This is possibly a record for me. A post spanning nearly three weeks that contains our travels through an entire country. I am now resigned to the fact that I will never be ‘caught up’ with my writing, but that it doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. I shall endeavour to stop worrying about it.

So Portugal. Another place which neither of us had ever been to before and another language of which we knew nothing. One could assume that as Portugal shares its entire mainland border with Spain that the languages would be very similar, but it transpires that Portuguese is based on Russian. Or at least that is what it sounds like. Duolingo helped us with a few basics, although even after three weeks of learning and being here, deciphering spoken Portuguese is still a complete enigma. My favourite word learned thusfar is “Oi”, which means “Hi”. How jolly, whilst sounding rude if you shout it loudly in an East End of London accent, and “Tchau” is “Bye”. Pronounced exactly like the Italian “Ciao”, but meaning entirely the opposite. I will never be a polyglot. It’s too confusing.

We left Seville, and Spain, and headed west into southern Portugal’s Algarve region. The border was a complete non-event, as is the norm in the Schengen Area and the Spanish motorway joined seemlessly with the Portuguese system delivering us to our first problem. An electronic toll system. This is camera controlled, number plate recognition cameras identify the vehicles and the tolls are debited from credit cards which are linked to the vehicles. If you had any idea prior to hitting the toll that this needed doing. Which we did not. There was helpfully a pull off for ‘foreign registered vehicles’, but none of our cards worked in the machines (because we hadn’t pre-registered online) and there were no humans to ask. The little ‘help’ button was entirely unsuccessful in summoning assistance on the intercom and there was a queue building up behind us. What to do? Well there was also a lack of a barrier so we just drove onto the motorway and onto our first stop, Tavira. I figured that we could sort this out later*.

* Later: It has taken over three weeks, several emails, and a couple of online registrations but I have finally paid our €11.57 toll debt. The Portuguese motorway toll system is bonkers. There are about four different companies that manage roads in the different areas. Some are electronic tolls, some are pull-a-ticket as you join the road and pay at the end of your journey, some are a set price at the entry to the road. I finally found out which company managed our road and it took three weeks for the debt to appear online, but was then easily paid off without penalty. There are another couple of e-tolls pending, but now I have a handle on the system and have stopped stressing about being fined.

Anyway, back to Tavira. This is, at this time of year, a sleepy fishing town located in the eastern Algarve. In the summer I imagine a mecca for sunseekers not seeking high rises. It sits behind a long barrier island,’Ilha de Tavira’, giving it an inland waterway and there is an expanse of wetlands between it and a huge length of Atlantic beach on the island which is a only short ferry hop from town. We pulled up at our park in Tavira and quickly found Dave and Sarah, who appeared in the Jerez and Seville post, sitting outside their van in the sun. There was a space next to them, but we didn’t want to (literally) cast any shade on their day so we parked up nearby, within shouting distance if we had been vulgar enough. The whole park was situated right next to a train track and trains passed by about once an hour at great speed. Our spot was so close to the tracks that Davide even did a little shimmy in the turbulant pressure wave of air. The trains didn’t run between 11pm and 6am, but it did mean a slightly earlier wake up time that we are used to. “If the vans’s a’rockin’, then it must be the 06:03 from Seville to Faro….”

We did six things of note in Tavira.

1). We took the ferry out to the island. There were numerous bars and restaurants, bungalows and beach clubs but all but one bar and one restaurant were closed on this winter Monday. We could imagine just how manic this place must be in high season. Today it was very chilled out. We wandered up the beach, picnic packed and almost had the place to ourselves. It was lovely and sunny and reports of tolerated nudism were confirmed as we spied a couple up ahead, playing ‘catch’ in the buff. Why do nudists alway have to be doing something contrived whilst nude? It’s never enough just to be sitting or sunbathing. And when was the last time you saw a clothed late middle aged couple throwing a ball back and forth? That is the sole domain of the young or sports teams in training. They were obviously not fully committed to their nakedness as our approach prompted them to retreat and cover up. We walked, we ate our picnic lunch (always a ham and cheese sandwich with mayo and mustard, some crisps and an apple) and then headed back to civilisation where we killed time until the return ferry with a very welcome beer at the beach bar. Bliss.

2). We got haircuts. A randomly selected hairdresser called Nella did a very fine job of making us look presentable again. She was an ebullient, sixty year old, biker chick whose english was excellent after living in the USA for many years. We saw many photos of her motorbike and swapped stories about America. She was appreciative of our efforts to say our ‘please and thank yous’ in Portuguese, taught us a few new words and gave us advice on other places to visit. What a gem.

3). We cycled up to the neighbouring village called Santa Luiza, the (possibly self-proclaimed) world capital of octopus fishing. It was pretty quiet but we did find a restaurant open to serve us a couple of incarnations of octupus based meals. I had a very respectable octopus risotto and Nick had Octopus ‘peasant style’, which was that sightly offputting offering of whole grilled tentacles. Delicious nonetheless.

4). 5). and 6). We finally sat down with Dave and Sarah with some pre-dinner drinks and snacks each of the three evenings that we were here. We spent hours sitting at a picnic table close to their van, chatting, creating a reasonable amount of bottle recycling and doing damage to many types of salty snack and processed carbohydrate. The conversation was diverse and constant and we sat out until the time for ‘dinner’ had, in truth, passed, but borderline hypothermia, and a realisation that everyone else on the park was inside and probably starting to get annoyed with our noise levels, put a halt to the party each evening. They were/are very good company.

Our onward journey from here took us west through the Algarve. We bypassed the conurbations of Faro, Albuferia and Lagos and headed to the small town of Sagres which sits at the most southwestern tip of Portugal, and indeed mainland Europe. Our campsite, another massive, wooded and sandy, but out of season, sleepy place was on the outskirts of town, an easy bike ride away. We were now in surfing territory and most of the other campers were in small vans adorned with surfboards and drying wetsuits. A huge section of the campsite was obviously given over to housing a surf camp in season and the toilet/shower blocks were enormous. There are downsides to travelling in the winter, but peace and quiet, not battling for camping space and the absence of crowds are not amongst them.

Sagres itself was quite charming, in a Portuguese sort of fashion. In a similar way to Spain, the Portugal that we saw was light on beautifully preserved, picturesque, and historic, architecture and settlements. (Unlike France.) There are definitely handsome features and some beautiful aspects of places, but the overall effect is one of utility and functionality. (Unlike France). Sagres had a large marina/fishing port, a beautiful beach, and a few older buildings, and even its own beer, but its strength is its location.

It sits near to the end of a cliff-top penninsula that hosts a lighthouse, a fort and some spectacular sea views. The fort is unusual in that it only required the building of one wall across the narrow end of the pennisula to be defendable. Job done. Not far from Sagres is another penninsula hosting another lighthouse, Cabo de São Vincente, and this provided us with a perfect destination for a cliff-top coastal path walk. The forecast was good, the picnic was packed and we sauntered off on the 15km round trip. It was a beautiful walk only moderately dampened by a sudden but brief downpour. We could see it coming and had donned our waterproof coats just in time, but we had absolutely no hope of seeking shelter. For a few of the heaviest minutes of rain we stood with our backs to the weather like a couple of wild moorland ponies. Nick’s sartorial choice of a pair of cotton shorts suddenly seemed like sheer folly as they instantly absorbed their own weight in cold rainwater and stuck to his legs, never destined to dry out for the remainder of the walk. Luckily the rain didn’t last long and spirits quickly improved back to pre-rain levels. We arrived at the lighthouse complex to find it shut, despite there being a fair few people around. There is an inescapable draw to places like this, which for us included the potential for a hot drink and a place to have a pee. But t’was not to be. We found a sheltered spot in the sun to warm up and had our lunch (the usual), before walking home again with a tiny detour behind a discrete rock.

By the time we got back to camp we had been joined by a couple of familiar faces. It was bloody Dave and Sarah again! They had had one night in Lagos on the way, but otherwise this was our fourth consecutive camp-in-common with them. It had been decided that we should all go out for dinner and they had booked a table in a local restaurant earlier in the day. Washed and dressed we walked the 1km into town and found the place, which was otherwise empty all evening apart from us. Booking perhaps not necessary in retrospect. Our host spoke good English and we all decided to get the local delicacy, fish stew, a hearty pot of vegetables, potatoes and hunks of random fish like eel and ray. It was delicious, the wine was ridiculously cheap and we were still sat there nattering three hours later, the staff patiently waiting for us to go home. So we went home. The next morning we said our final goodbyes to our new friends as our paths were to diverge from here. They were heading inland back towards Spain and we were continuing our coast route. We shall meet again somewhere!

From here our trajectory was northwards, up along the Portugal coast. Late November was still delivering us sunshine and warmth, with temperatures in the late teens, but on the whole it was getting gradually cooler and darker. Most travellers head south and stay south at this time of year. We felt like we were going a bit against the flow. Our next journey took us along some smaller, undulating roads that wound through small coastal and slightly inland towns and villages and we pulled in at a randomly selected town called Vila Nova De Mifontes. This was another lovely small town that was blessed withan amazing location. It is situated at the end of an estuary and had a couple of lovely yellow sandy beaches along the sheltered tidal inlet, a low headland overlooking the bar, a sandy beach on the ocean side with lots of interesting rocky areas and a coastal path. It was delightful. We had planned two nights here, but a good campsite, a nice town, places to walk and some intermittant rainy weather led us to extend our stay to four nights. Easy come, easy go.

Finally we extracted ourselves from the peace and quiet of Vila Nova and continued north to Lisbon. This involved more toll roads, but the simpler, non e-toll version. The final toll was for the bridge to get to the city. This looked like a mini Golden Gate Bridge, and coupled with Lisbon’s hills and waterfront made it feel like a small version of San Fransisco. There were no obvious formal campsites close to Lisbon with good transport links to the city, so we decided to go for a free park-up option. We use an app called Park4Night which lists pretty much all formal campsites, loads of free-camp sites and lots of services like water/waste sites and laundry. Staying outside a formal campsite gives us a lot more to consider when picking a spot. Is it safe for the van when we are away from it? Is it safe for us overnight? Is it going to be noisy? Are we going to get a door knock in the night to move us on? Can we easily access the places we want to go? The app has tons of information, up to date reviews and good maps, so is really useful in helping us make a decision. So we earmarked a recommended car park to the west of Lisbon old town area and headed there for a planned two nights. The water was topped up, the waste tanks empty and the batteries full. The massive car park was free, level, well lit, a five minute walk from a train station, right on the waterfront and already had a few motorhomes in residence. It all looked very promising. We were staying. We had a spot of lunch and headed to the station to catch a train to the city. Procuring a ticket for the 11 minute train ride took a bit of detective work. There were no discernible ticket machines on the platform or in the underpass to the station, only a machine to reload credit onto pre-bought tickets, so having asked at a tabacco kiosk we discovered that the tickets were sold outside the station on the other side to the direction that we had entered. We had to buy the re-useable tickets and guess how many trips we were going to take to get the right amount of credit loaded on. This was a bit faffy. We made it back to the platform just in time for the next train and were soon in the city. It was another lovely sunny day and perfect for another city mooch-athon. Lisbon is suprisingly hilly. All things worth seeing or visiting involve some serious altitude gain, not least the castle atop the highest of the hills. For this purpose Lisbon has a series of elevators, funiculars and rickety hill-climbing trams that take some of the pain out of the ascents. Many of these are tourist destinations in their own rights and we began our tour by setting out to see the prettiest of them all, the Ascensor Da Bica. It was shut for 2 weeks for renovations. Hmmmff. Winter travel woe.

Next we put our heads into the Time Out Market, in the Mercado de Ribeira, a huge food hall. This was buzzing with dozens of restaurants and a few thousand eaters and drinkers. We did a lap and decided to come back for lunch the next day. Our wanderings, up hill and down dale, were pointed in the direction of the Castle from here and at one point we considered catching one of the historic yellow trams up some of the steeper streets. But no. Each one was packed with tourists. We continued on, cardiovascular workout ongoing. Back at low altitude we discovered a pedestrianised shopping street which had Lisbon’s answer to the Arc De Triomphe at one end and a Christmas market at the other. Half way up this road was another of the noteable elevators, Elevador De Santa Justa, a 45 m tall, free standing, neo-gothic tower.

It was packed with folk going back up the hill we had just come down, and we were now headed up a different hill so we admired it from afar. Our ascent up to the castle was assisted by a couple of more mundane and conventional lifts. You know, the kind that you find in an office building or a multi storey car park. Utilitarian and not worthy of a photograph. The castle itself was a sprawling and mostly ruined affair that was suprisingly busy despite the moderately high price tag for a visit. It did, however, have splendid views and as the sun was starting to set it became more and more apparent why so many folk had schlepped up here. It was hard to tear ourselves away.

Back down at more normal street level we accidentally happened upon one of Lisbon’s most treasured food secrets, As Bifanas Del Alfonso. This is a unprepossessing food kiosk situated on a small square that, despite displaying a menu with a range of several different items serves mostly only two things: bifanas and beer. The beloved bifana is simple and delicious. A modest sized bun stuffed with juicy grilled or pulled pork. That’s it. Can be accompanied with a squirt of mustard or chilli oil to taste. The beer is cold and nameless and served in plastic. All is eaten out of paper whilst standing on the street corner, or seated at one of the coveted benches in the square, or using a nearby post box as a leaner table. There is always a queue and its sales transcend conventional meal times. It was about 5pm when we collided with this sight for sore eyes and decided that we needed a bifana appetiser and beer apperitif. We were not wrong! Whilst standing and (lightly) filling our faces (with half a bifana each- this was only a snack after all) we got chatting to a couple of young American lads who were both living and working in Lisbon. They gave us a ‘local’ recommendation for a restaurant for dinner and despite it being a half an hour walk away, we booked it there and then for later on that evening. We filled the interim few hours with a wander through the streets lit with some amazing festive lights, a walk through the aforementioned Christmas market accompanied by the obligatory cup of ‘hot wine’, and half an hour in a very bizzare ‘speakeasy’ style cocktail bar. The restaurant was an excellent recommendation and we sampled a selection of dishes, the most noteable of which was hunks of slow cooked piglet. Just divine. Our trip home via feet and train was unremarkable and we had a quiet night’s sleep.

The next day rain was forecast so we headed out mid-morning to try and get ahead of it. We donned coats and our most water resistant shoes and set off on foot, heading along the waterfront to see some sights before jumping on the train at the next station down the line. There was the Tower of Belem, an ornate limestone tower completed in 1520 as part of the fortification of Lisbon harbour. It survived the great earthquake of 1755, has been restored many times, and is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

There was a monument called Padrão dos Descobrimentos, dedicated to the 15th and 16th C Age of Discovery when the Portuguese were having their hay day as a nation and pretty busy setting sail and exploring the New World.

There was the Jerónimos Monastery, an impressive late-Gothic behemouth which was completed in 1601 and has been the burial place of many royals and famed as the place Vasco da Gama spent the night before setting off on his expedition to the Orient, thus making it a fancy sort of airport Travel Lodge. By the time we got here the rain had caught up with us and it was tipping down. This really has been the first time that we have been truely rained upon on this whole trip. Not bad for ten weeks of Autumn.

There was an enormously long, wet and miserable looking queue of people waiting to get into the Monastery, so we kept a’walkin’ to our next destination, the Pastéis de Belém. At this bakery they apparently make the finest iteration of Portugal’s most beloved pastry, the pastel de nata, a small filo pastry filled egg and custard tart. Legend has it that these were first baked by the monks at the nearby monastery, but when it was closed in 1834 a baker monk set up business on the outside and a cultural icon was launched. We found the shop, which had another four zillion soggy tourists waiting to purchase tarts and so walked on past that long, rain soaked queue too. There would be other pastel de nata. Soon we reached our train station and were quickly whisked back into the city on the next train, by which time thankfully, the rain was abating.

By now it was midday and we were down a snack. Through the gloom of the grey skies and wet pavements shone a beacon of hospitality, Casa Portuguesa do Pastel de Bacalhau. Maybe it was the warm orange lighting. Maybe it was the blown up photos of their only foodstuff for sale- a lozenge shaped, melted cheese filled, cod fishcake. Maybe it was the display cabinets full of glasses of beer. Whatever it was, we were in there faster than scalded cats and spent a very satisfactory hour with a beer and fishcake each whilst drying out. First lunch.

From here we explored back streets and dodged showers whilst taking in more recommended sights. There was Livraria Betrand, ‘the world’s oldest bookshop still in operation’, opened in 1732. (Unremarkable). There was Conserveira de Lisboa, apparently the best place in the world to buy tinned fish. This started as a small grocery store in the 1930s and is now a multigenerational family business run from the same shop. Portugal and especially Lisbon has a love affair with tinned fish, and this place is a great example of the many shops that sell it. The cans from here had some great retro styling and the four tins that we bought were loving wrapped up in paper and string. The owner gave us a suggestion for the can of pickled sardines we bought: in a brown bread sandwich with gorgonzola and endive. (Remarkable) We nipped into a shopping centre just as the heavens opened again and killed some time waiting for the rain to pass. Considering it was only two weeks until Christmas in the heart of a capital city it was remarkably relaxed and completely missing the urgency and frenetic spending of this time of year in the UK.

We continued our amblings through the old streets and up and down hills until we decided that it was time for second lunch, and we returned to the big Time Out food court. Our quest to find a restaurant that served food that we wanted was easy. The quest to find a couple of free chairs at a table at which to eat it, impossible. The place was heaving!! The people of Lisbon are not wasting their free time Christmas shopping. They are out eating and drinking. Even at 3pm on a Thursday. We finally found a spot to eat at the bar of a seafood restaurant and had a lunch that could be generously described as satisfactory. It is disappointing to not experience great food when it is all around. Some you win, some you lose. We consoled ourselves with the purchase of a six-pack of pastel de nata from a bakery here. Can confirm: delicious.

That night in the carpark was not so quiet and restful. Early evening was punctuated with multiple cars pulling in, being met by the same black Mercedes saloon car which parked right next to them and exchanges through open windows. Hmmm. In the middle of the night we were woken by loud voices coming from two cars parked up not far from us. There were doors opening and closing, girls and boys getting in and out of the back seats and clouds of smoke coming out of the windows. Hmmmm. At least they weren’t playing loud music and they kept to themselves. Still leaves us on edge though even though we are locked and alarmed and this is why we prefer to stay in designated campsites. In the morning, quite amusingly, we were roused by the close parking of a different sort of visitor altogether. Some military police vehicles. Not sure where they were going or what they were off to do, but quite literally, Lisbon had sent the cavalry…..

We bade farewell to Lisbon and travelled an entire 30 minutes to the nearby town on Sintra. This is another UNESCO World Heritage Site town situated in the hills to the northwest of the capital. In the past its cooler summer weather attracted the wealthy who built a series of impressive and scenic palaces on and around the jagged hillsides here and it also boasts the remains of a Moorish castle. These landmarks, and its close proximity to Lisbon makes it a perfect destination for day trippers, thus rendering it unbearably busy for most of the year. Were hoping that not to be the case in early December. There was a complete lack of formal campsites here and so we set off to the park-up spot with the best reviews and the fewest reports of van break-ins, the carpark of the the town’s justice centre and court complex. This was constructed atop a hill about 2km from the town centre and was a monolithic, brutalist concrete structure surrounded by a wall. It was a public holiday Friday, so the place was deserted save for three other campervans and a single car that presumably belonged to the building’s lone, out-of-hours security guard. It felt like a modern type of fortress and had some great views of the town and surrounding countryside. We felt that we would be quite happy and safe here for twenty four hours.

Once settled we had a late breakfast and then headed into town. The closer we got, the busier it became and we were glad to have found our quiet parking spot. The town is arranged on a series of hills and we spent the whole day either walking up or down fairly significant gradients.

There were some palaces and houses to potentially see inside around the town, but we opted instead to loose the crowds and take the walking route up to the summits of two nearby hills to see both the Moorish castle and the whimsical Palácio de Pena (of which we got no good photos) We finally reached the top and popped out of the wooded path, moderately hot and sweaty, looking forward to visiting the Palace. But horror. A queue of about 200 people waiting to get in. The very efficient system of buses and a fleet of tuk-tuks meant that access to the top of the hill is easy, and thus popular. We, as usual when confronted with a large crowd like this, walked away. Our trip down the hill seemed to bypass the route to the Moorish castle, so we missed visiting this too. Oh well. Back in the old town we explored the narrow streets a bit more before heading back to Davide. By now we had the place to ourselves. Our own private Idaho. On the way home I had come across a perfect little van-sized festive, tree-substitute decoration. A cactus in a hat with googly eyes and a beard. Christmas personified. He was promptly named ‘Sintra Claus’ and continues to accompany us on our Iberian travels.

Where next? Nazaré. Home of big wave surfing. Here, on Playa del Norte, is one of the biggest surf breaks in the world and the location for 7 of the 10 biggest waves ever surfed. These big waves only occur during the winter storm season and although neither of us are surfers, we felt this place warranted a stop on our coastal tour. Nazaré itself is a small fishing town that has mostly been spared the horrors of mass tourism and the ugly overdevelopment that this brings. It has three areas: the beachside settlement, Praia, the upper clifftop pennisula settlement, Sitio and Pedermeria, which sits on a hillside inland of Praia. Our camp was on the inland side of Pedermeria. The big wave forms due to a deep underwater canyon that runs up to Playa del Norte, on the north side of the Sitio headland. The canyon increases and converges the incoming ocean swell which, in conjunction with the local water current, dramatically enlarges wave heights. The wide sandy beach to the south of the headland is not exposed to this, so is safe and sheltered from the monster surf. We walked from camp, up the hill and through Pedermeria, then down again to Praia. We knew that there was a funnicular railway that then linked the beach with the elevation of Sitio up on the headland. But. It. Was. Shut. For. Winter. Repairs……Story of our lives! So back uphill we went again, trudging up the nearby staircase, with my disgruntled companion grumbling that we could have maintained altitude and avoided all this miserable climbing. Apparently the funnicular being shut was my fault.

As there was not a winter storm currently, or recently in progress, the surf was a mere 5m in height. Compare this to the 25-30m that this break can potentially produce. The world record for the biggest wave ever surfed is held by a German surfer called Sebastian Steudtner who, in October 2020 rode a wave which was measured at 26.2 m. The headland provides an excellent view point to watch the surfers and its photogenic lighthouse has provided the foreground for many an iconic ‘big wave’ photograph. We weren’t alone in our pilgrimage to the point. There were about ten – fifteen surfers out whilst we were watching. Most of them were using jet skis to be towed in, but every now and then a surfer would catch a wave under their own steam, causing a huge cheer from the headland. There can’t be many surf breaks in the world where surfers can get this sort of audible crowd support of their skills. Today Nazaré was benign but still impressive. A brief look at some You Tube clips can show its other side and demonstrate the bravery/craziness of big wave surfers.

Here is a photo from the internet for some idea of how big the waves can be:

We continued our meanderings, heading back down the steps to the beach and hunting out a restaurant for lunch, which was an excellent offering of fish, then yomped back up over the hill to get home. The next day, to break up the hours spent not walking up hills, we walked up another hill. This was a rocky lump close to the campsite which had a fire lookout tower and a chapel at the top. After our short, sharp ascent we arrived at the top, then came down again, thus justifying the ongoing idleness for the rest of the day.

Our next stop was planned to be Porto, but the up coming weather forecast was for 24 hours of rain on and off which had the potential to be heavy. Our soggy day around Lisbon had taught us that exploring a city is much more fun in the sunshine so we decided to delay our arrival there by a day. We headed northwards and stopped at at town called Averio, the ‘Venice of Portugal’, camping in a free designated motorhome area in a carpark near the station and a supermarket. It certainly did rain cats and dogs for several hours, with a respite long enough for a walk into town. There is a small network of canals here, and even on a bleak, damp, winters day one can take a gondala ride. This appeared to be a trifle different from the romantic experience of being gently punted along the canals of actual Venice as we observed several boatloads of tourists clad in disposable ponchos being whisked about in noisy diesel powered gondala-style vessels that were moving so fast that they were nearly up on the plane.

After a suprisingly quiet and undisturbed night’s sleep we continued north to Porto. Here we were staying in a beach-front campsite just south of the city in a residential suburb populated with new looking appartment blocks and plenty of beach cafes. There was a waterfront cycle lane from here all the way to the city, which was about 7km away, a very easy and scenic way to go sightseeing. The old town area of Porto is perhaps the prettiest city on our travels so far. It too is perched on a hillside, tumbling down to the Douro river. It faces south, bathing it in winter sunshine. Across the river gorge is Gaia, another hillside settlement which faces its more well known sibling from the afternoon shade of its north facing cliffs, the two places being linked by a series of impressive bridges. They say that the two best things about Gaia are the view of Porto and its Port Wine, for that is what this place is famous for after all.

Port wine, the fortified sweet wine crafted from Douro wine and brandy, so beloved (and probably invented) by the British all comes from Gaia, not Porto. The big Port houses all located themselves on this side of the river to avoid paying high city taxes and their product is ‘Port Wine’. ‘Oporto’ is the similar product from the city itself. Here one can do Port tastings at any number of Port houses and this is, of course, what we were here for! We chose a house called Kopke, the oldest of them all, and sampled a variety of white, ruby and tawny Ports. They were all delicious, but the most delicious was a tawny that we would have bought a bottle of it it wasn’t €150 per bottle. We bought a €50 bottle of a really interesting white Port instead.

In the golden light of the fading day Porto really did look beautiful from the vantage point of the rooftop terrace bar where we had a cocktail after our tasting, but once shade fell upon us it got pretty cold pretty fast and we remounted the bikes and beetled home, shivering.

The next day we retraced our steps/tyre tracks and having locked the bikes up on the Gaia side of the bridge, headed over to Porto itself. It was a delightful melange of riverside promenade and market, narrow old streets, interesting shops and businesses, old churches, and historical municipal buildings. Less delightful were the steep streets, but we are now in improved physical condition after a few weeks of Portuguese urban mountaineering. There were a few things that we actively sought out on our day in the city. First of these was the Lello bookshop, a small but magnificent establishment was built in 1906 and is considered one of the most beautiful bookshops in the world. It has many beautiful elements, most notably the huge central, ornately carved staircase that dominates the space.

JK Rowling, who once lived in Porto, is said to have based the bookshop in Harry Potter, Flourish and Blotts, on this place. These factors make it very popular and you have to buy tickets to get in. The cost of these can be used as a credit against any book bought,which we used. Quite a genius way of managing the situation, I think.

We made sure to swing by the main railway station building, the foyer of which is decorated with impressive tiles and frescos and we also popped into the city centre Mcdonalds. This is housed in an Art Deco builing and boasts chandeliers, ornate ceilings and stained glass, not to mention the old Imperial Eagle adorning the front door. Fancy.

For lunch we had to sample the iconic dish of Porto, the Francesinha.

“What is that?” I hear you ask. Well, and I quote directly from Wikipedia here:

A Francesinha meaning little French woman^[1][2]) is a Portuguese sandwich, originally from Porto, made with layers of toasted bread and assorted hot meats such as roast, steak, wet-cured ham, linguiça, or chipolata over which sliced cheese is melted by the ladling of a near-boiling tomato-and-beer sauce called molho de francesinha [pt].^[1] It is typically served with french fries.

Now that you are all fully educated on the nature of a Francesinha and that as most of you know my husband either very well, or fairly well, you will realise that there was no way that we were leaving this town without sampling one. This is literally his spirit sandwich. And he is a sandwich man. He did his research (ie asking the lady that hosted our Port tasting) where was the best place in town to get one and there we went. This place, Brasâo Aliados, even added a fried egg to the top of theirs. He could barely contain himself. When we arrived the place was packed (always a good sign) and there was no plate being served that wasn’t containing a Francesinha. They helpfully served half portions for the less ravenous and we can confirm that they are delicious. It’s not gluttony, it’s a cultural experience. We wandered back to our bikes, only briefly distracted by a sunset drink at a riverside bar on the Porto side, joining the masses that had congregated along the river frontage to see the sun disappear behind the Gaia hill, and then had another chilly trip home. Old Porto was gorgeous and we would definitely return.

So that concludes out Portuguese travels. How do we feel about this country after spending nearly three weeks here?

The language is odd. I have learnt a few words and phrases and probably at this point know as much Portuguese as Spanish, but I think I will concentrate on the Spanish from here, it will be more useful in the long run. Otherwise I will confuse myself! Luckily for us basic English is quite widely spoken here.

The people are low key and seem, in general, to be quite private and introverted, saving their energy for friends and family, rather than striking up conversations with random, blithering, Portuguese language-murdering tourists. As a nation they seem content to have moved on from their world domination and colonisation years and delightfully seem to lack any sort of collective hyper ego of delusions of importance.

What a coastline! We haven’t explored inland Portugal to any degree, but this country was at the front of the line when the beautiful beaches were being distibuted. I don’t envy southern Europe its blisteringly hot summers, but the cool sea breezes apparently make this a rather pleasant place to be when the rest of the region is baking, and Autumn here has been amazing.

These people go out to eat, drink and socialise as much, if not more, than the Spanish. True story.

Shopping does not appear to be a recreational activity here. Even on the run up to Christmas. They also do not have a greeting card culture. We hunted high and low for a card to send a friend but they don’t exist.

With the occasional exception the architecture is also very utilitarian here and nothing to write home about. Even if you could find a blessed notelet on which to do that.

Back to Spain we go.

16th Nov – 26th Nov 2023

We bade farewell to Almerimar and the desert conditions of the southern Spanish Mediterranean coast and headed inland to the city of Granada. This route took us up into the foothills of the western Sierra Nevada mountains onto a far more scenic inland plateau. Here there were thousands of acres of olive groves – welcome greenery after the coastal barren hillsides and the unsightliness of its endless growing houses. Davide easily pulled up the hills, his youthful 170 horses barely noticing that we have been slowly adding to his burden. Aside from the things that we are carrying around that are unlikely to be used again on this trip (tent, double air mattress, spare camp chair, BBQ, boules, ukulele, beach towels, etc), there are the plenty of aquisitions (ten European Lonely Planet books -thanks Dave & Anita, a watering can to top up the tank, a ground sheet, a drinking water container, a doormat), and there are the things that we are likely to need as winter kicks in and we move north (coats, boots, plug in heater). We also usually have a fridge full of food, cans and packets in the pantry, and of course, the ‘drinks cabinet’. Luckily we have uprated Davide’s total legal onroad weight from 3500kg to 4000kg to allow for our increasing payload but there will be a ‘review of onboard possessions’ on our return to base’ in January.

Granada’s setting is beautiful as it sits in a broad depression surrounded by mountains and fertile agricultural land. Camp here was about 8km out of the city centre and was a small family run place situated down a narrow lane. It had the whiff of medium security prison compound about it being essentially an acre of gravelled parking with a solid 8ft ft tall perimeter fence. We bowled up and rolled in without a booking to find it unexpectedly busy and the owner a little flustered. Happily she found a space for us and we squeezed ourselves into our compact pitch and plugged in. Close proximity parking like this is usually absolutely fine as most van dwellers are fairly quiet folk. Unfortunately our initial neighbours were a British family with two toddlers who sounded like they were amusing themselves by ricocheting of all the internal walls of their motorhome. This sound carries. I felt sorry for them and intense annoyance of them in equal measures.

The main benefit of this camp (apart from the security, electricity, hot showers, water and sewage facilities) was its location of the tram route into the city. With the aid of a travel card provided by the camp host, the half hour journey into the centre was the princely sum of 33c each. Nuts. These cards get passed around the guests, with the ability to reload money onto it at the machine at the station. Otherwise the journey without the card was $1.65. Still very reasonable for a clean, efficient and well executed service that took us right where we wanted to go. Bingo! People take the tram and the city centre isn’t full of cars. It’s not rocket science.

We headed into Granada late afternoon with a vague plan to soak up a bit of early evening atmosphere and have dinner. This inland city of about 225,000 people has a different vibe to Barcelona and Valencia. It felt more Spanish, and although it still has alot of tourist visits, the crowds felt more domestic than international. The ‘big ticket’ tourist drawcard for Granada is The Alhambra. A vast Moorish palace and fort complex build atop the rocky hill overlooking the city. This Unesco World Heritage Site is one of the most famous monuments of Islamic architecture in the world. Building commenced in 1238 by Muhammad I Ibn al-Almar,the first Nasrid emir and founder of the Emirate of Granada, the last Muslim state of Al-Andalus. It was added to and modified over the centuries with Charles V commissioning up a Rennaissance-style Palace addition in 1526, which was never finished. The whole place fell into disrepair for a couple of hundred years until it was rediscovered in the early 19th C by British and American intellectuals and ‘romantic travellers’, including the American Washington Irving who set his 1832 novel Tales of the Alhambra here. Anyway, this is one of Spain’s most visited tourist sites and (as we had underestimated the public’s enthusiasm for visiting it) there were no (reasonably priced) tickets left for sale for the days that we were here. We weren’t too disappointed as by now we had done a lot of viewing ‘old sh*t’ and knew we would be content to see it from the outside.

On our first foray into the city I convinced my brave and loyal companion that (as suggested by a few tourist guides) it might be good to walk across town and ascend the hill opposite the Alhambra, thus gaining a good view of it as sunset approached. Then we could have an aperitif at one of the bars nearby before finding somewhere to have dinner down at lower altitudes. This was a good idea in theory, but one that about a million other people had had too. The climb up to the Mirador San Nicholas, a small church, was along steep cobbled streets, up steps and through noarrow alleyways. It was sunny and hot and a pointless endeavour as when we got to the top, sweaty and thirsty, with all the other sunset pilgrims, all the best lookout spots had been taken and were five people deep, the bars and restaurants with any view had long queues to get in and actually, sunset was still about 30 minutes away. Another great idea ruined by Instagram. There was a good view of the Alhabmbra. We took mediocre photos and walked down again. My brave and loyal companion might have done some swearing about how pointless the whole exercise had been. I am inclined to agree with him.

Down in town we found a place for a Vermut Rojo or several, (they are so good!) waiting until Nick’s restaurant of choice opened at 7pm. When the hour came we relocated to the back street Tapas intitution expecting to find it empty, still laying tables and the wait staff expectantly greeting us as their first customers of the evening. This is, after all, Spain. They don’t come out until 8pm at the earliest……………well no. The place was packed, loud, full of already well-oiled people of all ages but mainly students, and the wait staff were in a state of controlled frazzle. It was bonkers and very obvious that the online advertised opening time of 7pm was a lie. After several attempts to flag down one of the waiters we managed to procure a rare and valuable available table-for-two in a corner. This was located between another small table situated so close that we were basically sharing a table for four with a delightful pair of young German sisters and on the other side there was a row of backsides belonging to half of a group of loud, boistrous students stood around a neighbouring high-top table. Having said that, they were not being antisocial, just some of the bums came a bit close for comfort! We were concerned for the safety of our wine. As we were ordering our dishes for dinner our German neighbours had a delivery of one that caught Nick’s eye: a plate of salted crisps draped in anchovies. A salty delight that was rapidly added to our order. We were in the process of ordering an additional dish when our waiter said ‘no’, ‘that’s enough’. A wise man that either despised food waste or knew that our tiny table had limited space for plates. Either way, he was right. By the time we were finishing off our meal the German sisters had been replaced by an older Spanish couple from Valencia who spoke no English. Despite our corresponding lack of Español we had a nice chat and a laugh with them about….well, no idea really. But they were also delightful.

We revisisted the city the next day for further exploration. It was Sunday and the streets were busy with folk dressed in their Sunday best, cruising around and starting to settle into places for lunch. This seems to be a theme in the Spanish cities that we have visited thus far. It all feels very civilized. Our strollings took us past, and into a few churches and the cathedral. It being Sunday most had mass in progress, so our stays were brief. We hit a tidal flow of humanity heading in the direction of the Alhambra (we presumed), so followed it for a while. The route took us past a sunny plaza upon which there was an open session of couples tango dancing. They were all shapes, sizes and ages, although mainly a bit older, and all were doing quite a good job. We wandered on and the road got narrower and more crowded. Pavements were non-existant and the two-way human traffic was battling with this also being a bus route. We peeled off for a time-out (and beer, obviously) in a small bar and then rejoined the masses. The route took us up and around the Alhambra, approaching it from the rear via a wide cobbled path. At the top, after the wheezing had diminished, we confirmed that there were no tickets available to go inside and which bits we could see for free. We did the free bits on our way back down the hill and headed back into town in search of a late tapas lunch. Our initial choice, another Anthony Bourdain haunt, was perhaps predictably, rammed, as were all the other recommended establishments. We finally found a place that brought us back from the brink of near starvation with the aide of a plate of fried anchovies, some croquettes and our first flamenquins (Serrano ham wrapped around pork loin and battered and deep fried. MMMMmmm). With full tummies we shuffled back to the Gulag with the aid of the tram and decided that Granada was a thoroughly fine place.

The following day took us to Jerez De La Fonterra. Home of Sherry. This involved a reasonable drive of about 3 hours through more olive groves with mountain views. All very scenic. Jerez camp was interestingly located, being on the site of a large out-of-town shopping centre. What amenities do we look for close to a campsite? Well how about KFC, Burger King, Five Guys, C&A, an outlet village, a hypermarket, a full shopping mall, a go-cart track and an Ikea? We settled in then couldn’t resist a wander. We ended up in Ikea, a store we hadn’t visited in over 20 years. It was interesting doing a recreational tour of the Swedish retail giant whilst being in both the position of really not needing anything and also being very limited on space. We came away having spent the princely sum of €1.49 on two cork drinks coasters. I think this might be a record world-wide.

Despite being ‘out-of-town’ we were only about 3km from the centre of Jerez. and the next day we walked into town for the first of our two engagements. This was the midday show of the Andalucian dancing horses. Jerez is home to The Royal Andalusian School of Equestrian Art Foundation, one of the ‘big four’. The others being the Spanish Riding School of Vienna, The (French military) Cadre Noir and the Portuguese School of Equestrian Arts. The horses and riders are trained in conventional dressage and some perform other feats such as jumping in the air for photo ops. The 90 minute show was set to music and was an impressive display of both horsemanship and the time commitment it takes to persuade a horse to skip on the spot and look like it is enjoying it having riden it in circles for twenty minutes.

We were impressed, but equally keen for it to to come to its conclusion so that we could head to our second appointment: a sherry tasting tour. This involved a leisurely 45 minute walk across town which delivered the classic offerings of old town, narrow streets, churches, an Alcazar and hundreds of urban orange trees laden with ripening fruit. Research (ie asking Google) has informed me that these oranges belong to the local municiple bodies and are not free-for-all-fodder. They look and smell lovely, but ripe fruit can be both a ‘hit you on the head’ and a ‘slimy, slippery mush on the pavement skidding’ hazard. When ripe the bitter, non-eating fruit is picked by a legion of temporary workers, no doubt cauing traffic chaos, and then used to make marmelade or sometimes just composted. Seems quite a thankless endeavour all round and possibly not worth the aesthetics.

There are many Sherry Bodegas in this area but Nick had done some research and selected one called Lustau for our tour. This is a more boutique and quality brand than the bigger ones like González Byass (who make Tio Pepe), but the place was still vast. Our English-language tour had only two other people on it, a Scottish couple called Stuart and Kate who have lived in Conneticut for twenty years. The tour wound its way through the cavernous barrel storage warehouses with the tastings of the various sherries along the way. We learned many interesting sherry facts. Did you know that sherry barrels are not sealed but that the stoppers are loose so as to allow the atmospheric yeasts and bacteria to contribute to the maturation process? Or that it is so important to maintain a humidity of 80% in the warehouses that they water the sandy floors at least weekly? Well now you do. We got on like a house on fire with our co-tourers and spent so long chatting that our guide had to politely chivvy us along the tour and out of the tasting room/shop at the end. We continued our nattering at a bar across the road and then they kindly gave us a lift home in their rental car before heading off to Seville. It was a very good day.

A brisk wind and showers the next day prompted us to have a lazy day ‘à van’ and to extended our planned stay here by a night – Oh the joy of having no set itinerary! This meant that we could take our next excursion, a day trip by train to the nearby town of Cádiz, on the sunny day that followed. Now the simple way of visiting Cádiz would have been to up sticks, drive the 25 minutes there and find a parking space. Both easily done, but we chose the much more complicated and time consuming option of public transport. The bus to take us to the train station took 20 minutes but was late so we missed our planned train. We bought tickets for the train and killed the hour until the next train drinking a coffee in the sunshine at a nearby cafe. (Very pleasant). On our return to the station we discovered that our train had been delayed, but that there was another train – run by different arm of same company- that was going to leave sooner. The tickets were not automatically interchangeable but a nice lady in the ticket office made a phone call and having annotated our tickets by hand said that we were good to go. This other train operated from a platform that was barrier controlled, and of course our tickets did not have the magnetic strips to let us through. The help button did not work and there was no-one official looking to ask. The train was imminantly departing so we tailgated other people through the barriers and finally we were on our way. This other train was the ‘stop-at-every-station’ variety and took nearly an hour so when we eventually arrived in Cádiz it had been nearly three hours since we left home. What a (minor) adventure!

Cádiz is one of those impossibly lovely places. Originally an island it is now joined to the mainland and sticks out into the eponymous Bay of Cádiz as a huge fortified pennisula. It is a major port and cruise ship terminal but away from the bustle of big boats and the cruising crowd it is a picturesque collection of churches, fine houses, narrow cobbled streets, promenades and yellow sandy beaches. It was gloriously sunny and there were even a few people sunbathing on the beach and one or two brave souls splashing around in the sea. As usual we wandered about but we are finding that as time progresses we are less inclined to pay money to go into historical buildings/castles/fortresses/cathedrals and more content to just appretiate them from the outsides. We have dubbed this ‘Old Sh*t Fatigue’. In two and a half years on the road in the USA we never suffered from OSF, but here we are after two months of being tourists in Europe and such is the enormous magnitude of Old Sh*t on offer, it had kicked in already. We will endure. The focus of the day was finding a lunch spot that catered for locals rather than the cruise ship passengers and we accidentally discovered a perfect spot down a back street. Tapas was consumed in a moderate quantity and afterwards we continued our mooching until it was time to get the train home again, the reverse trip being far quicker and far less eventful.

In Jerez our camp neighbours had been a British couple with whom we had exchange pleasantries, but not names. We had ascertained that we were all heading up to Seville from here and, perhaps not too unexpectedly as our camping options were limited in the city, we found ourselves pulling up right next to them again in our Seville site. This was a glorified, dockside car park only 2km from the centre of the city that (sort of) catered for campervans but was also a staging post for the (moderately loud) loading and unloading of cars onto and off car transporters. It had a noisy end and a less noisy end and we made a beeline for the quieter, furthest reaches of the site. It was here that we discovered our British co-travellers and finally exchanged introductions as well as a few more pleasantries. Dave and Sarah are a far more dedicated and energergetic type of tourist than us and we barely saw them during our two day stint here. They were out for hours and hours. We were only out for hours.

We cycled to the historic centre of Seville which was suprisingly easy with the great network of cycle paths, providing one avoided the jeapordy of trams, tram tracks, tourist horse carriages and the multitude of pedestrians. Here we tied up the machines and headed off on foot. The big ticket item in Seville is its enormous, sprawling gothic cathedral. This, we decided, was worth paying the entrance fee to see inside. But nope, not going to happen. We continue to underestimate the appetite of the vast number of post-covid travellers to explore ‘Old Sh*t’ and all the (only-available-online) tickets had been sold for the next two days. Back to Plan A of ‘just looking at it from the outside’. It was still very impressive. There is an Alcazar here but we didn’t feel like tackling the ticket battle for that either so we mooched around the narrow lanes of the old town, had a drink in a roof-top bar and then went to find the ‘largest wooden structure in the world’ The Metropol Parasol.

This is a trippy, mushroom-like, latticed structure that towers over a raised plaza cost €76 million to build and was completed in 2011. It’s an impressive piece of modern art that seemingly serves little purpose other than to provide some shade and an unusual selfie backdrop. Our wanderings brought us back to the bikes and we headed home through Maria Luisa park and past the massive Plaza España. This was built to represent Spain in the 1929 Iberian-American World Expo. It was the biggest construction of the expo. Home advantage rules.

The next day we cycled up along the river cycle path to a more northern area of the central city area to visit a market that was hotly recommended in various publications, Mercado de Feria. By the time we arrived the market was winding up and lunch hadn’t yet begun. Another classic failure of timings. The hour was saved by a couple of glasses of beer sat in the sun at a small neighbourhood bar nearby and then we headed back to the central area through the narrow cobbled streets. This was a blast as on the the bikes we were as fast as any car can travel along these winding roads. With Google maps leading the way we were swept along in the slow tide of traffic through small squares and along ancient alleys and streets. Everywhere there were busy pavement cafes, and bars and restaurants with people spilling out of them as the Spanish took their aperitifs in big groups prior to Saturday lunch. Once back in familiar territory we tied up the bikes again and found ourselves a spot for our own lunch. This was no mean feat given the fact that the city was teeming with thousands of far more organised folk with restaurant bookings all doing the same thing. We finally found two seats at the bar of a slightly more upscale tapas place and managed to eat before we got too hangry with each other. It was delicious. Tuna tartare on mini toasts, cubed iberico pork on brioche, deep fried fish bites, hand cut chips smothered in a brace of delicious sauces and some crocquette things that I’m sure we didn’t order. All washed down with a couple of vermut rojo. Our cycle home was slower, with a food infused dreamlike quality.

The next day as we were all preparing to leave we struck up conversation with Dave and Sarah again. This conversation ended with not so much a ‘Bon Voyage and nice briefly chatting with you’ as a ‘Okay, see you later!’ as it transpired that we were, once again, planning to move on to the same campsite in the same town. Our free-form travel itineraries had synchronised and a friendship was born. Next stop Portugal.

31st Oct – 16th Nov 2023

Well, after a bit of subconscious delaying, we finally extracted ourselves from La Belle France and gingerly entered Spain. As I discussed previously, despite it being a well known land to many, this is a country of many unknowns to us, and our severe derth of Spanish language skills was the biggest of these. We have now been here for more than three weeks and the list of ‘peculiar things about Spain’ is growing.

The language: Luckily most people speak a bit of English, and this includes all the Dutch, German and Scandinavian travellers that we meet along the way. If not, then Google Translate comes to the rescue. The technology astounds me. I am trying to learn some Spanish with Babbel, but getting understood is difficult with a language where many pronunciations are so different. A ‘z’ is a ‘th’, a ‘c’ can be a ‘th’, but not always. A ‘g’ is a peculiar noise generated in the back of the throat that English speakers would only use prior to ‘hocking a loogy’ and the ‘v’ noise doesn’t exist here, even though they insist on using it as a letter. It is also a language of little ennunciation where words run into each other like babbling brooks. So all in all -confusing and impossible! But we have bumbled our way this far, making an effort where possible, making apologies, accidentally using a lot of French and relying on many gestures. We have fed and watered ourselves, got from A to B, and found places to stay. These are all markers of success!

The Architecture: The ancient buildings and contructions of the people ruling and governing Spain throughout the ages are impressive, but they seem to have lost their way with architectural design and construction planning somewhere in the 20th C. The discovery of the rectangle and the invention of salmon coloured concrete coupled with the distractions of a Civil War and a long dictorship were followed closely by the birth of of cheap air travel and the common man discovering the closely guarded secret that the sun shines most of the time in Spain, whereas in Northern Europe it is mostly pissing with rain and cold. These factors, along with the fact that Spanish people need somewhere to live too, led to the mass building of less-than-beautiful apartment blocks. Spain, generally, has not struck us as a beacon of inspired urban design. (Don’t want to call it ugly, but…)

The daily routine: Confusing. I think the Spanish are a distinct sub-species of human with a completely different circadian rhythmn to most others. Now maybe this makes a lot more sense in the heat of a sultry south-European summer, but we are struggling to adapt to it with the cooler, dark evenings of November. I am not sure what they do in their mornings, what time thay are getting up and having breakfast, but the shops and businesses seem to be open from about 11am to 2pm, then shut for ‘lunch’ for at least 3 hours. Lunch happens mid-afternoon. Then what? A nap? Then presumably one gets up to watch sunset, then goes back to work until 7pm. Then what’s happening for the 2-3 hours before you go out to dinner at 10pm? (My guess is either drinking or shopping). What time do you go to bed and then get up? It’s madness. If we eat out for lunch at 1pm or dinner at 7.30pm we find ourselves eating in deserted restaurants and then leaving just as the early-bird Spaniards are just starting to drift in. I can’t get a handle on it.

Shopping: Pretty much all Spanish supermarkets will have a display of Iberico ham as per the photo. There are a lot of the back legs of pigs being bought and sold. It seems disproportionate to the amount of the other bits of pig available. The Spanish don’t really do hypermarkets. You know, that one mega store where you can buy everything you need. The USA has Walmart and Target, The UK and France has its ‘supermarkets on steroids’. The Spanish seem to have a bazillion small shops all selling a narrow variety of things – sometimes just ham. Great for a local economy, not so handy for a pair of blithering tourists manouvering a sizeable vehicle and just needing to stock up on basics or that one useful thing. Our search continues.

Seasonal sartorial choices and thermoregulation: Now we are on the southern meditereanean coast of Spain in mid- late November and the weather is still fairly glorious. In the past few weeks we have seen daytime temperatures between 23 and 27 deg C and the sun has been shining almost continually. We have been back wearing our summer gear and wearing hats and suncream. The Spanish are in coats, jumpers, boots and in some cases, wearing woolly hats and scarves without looking hot and sweaty. The window displays of all the clothes stores are full of winter gear. Now I do appreciate that these current temperatures are a significant reduction from the 35-45 deg C of the summer days, but is their blood that thin?? And what will they wear when it gets even colder in Jan & Feb? I worry about them.

The Food: This is obviously where I talk about Tapas. What a bloody marvellous invention. Can’t decide what to order off a menu? Doesn’t matter! Order six or seven different things! Not really hungry but fancy a snack? Get a paper cone of deep fried anchovies/cheese cubes/shaved Iberian Jamón. Hungry? Get two or three plates of fried anchovies and then realise that you have eaten A LOT of critters in one sitting. Fancy a salad? Forget it. You can make do with a plate of sliced tomatoes covered with oil and more anchovies and then get on with the real business of eating deep fried things/stuffed things/cheesy things/meaty things. Why are these people not all massive? That would certainly keep them warmer in winter.

Vermouth Rojo: our new favourite aperitif drink – and nothing like the Martini Rosso that we all remember from our teens. Syrupy, simultaneously sweet and bitter like a good marmalade, best served neat over ice with a slice of orange and several anchovy stuffed olives. Delicious and cheap as chips!! Possibly one should only have one before dinner but 2-3 is better.

Driving: I’m not saying that the Spanish are bad drivers, but some of them drive quite differently from us. Nuff said.

Precipitation: Nope

So obviously a reasonable amount of time has passed since we got here, so to try and catch up a bit I’m going to summarize our destinations so far:

Roses:

A tortuous, wiggly and hilly coast road took us across the border (marked by a derelict, grafitti-covered immigration booth) to this coastal town. For some unidentifiable reason it was very busy with motorhomes and all the designated campsites were full so we had one boon-dock night on a back street with about 15 other vans. Safety in numbers. It had a good beach, but was lacking a wow-factor. We walked a long way along the front and back . There were loads of street sellers, with identical stock of trainers, handbags and puffer coats, their wares all laid out beautifully on white bed sheets. Would we come here again? No.

Figueres:

A nice little town half an hour inland from Roses where we came for one reason only – to visit the Salvador Dalí Museum. This was built in a repurposed theatre in the town that Dalí grew up in, and curating it was his final great work before he died. He is also buried here.

“I want my museum to be a single block, a labyrinth, a great surrealist object. It will be [a] totally theatrical museum. The people who come to see it will leave with the sensation of having had a theatrical dream” Salvador Dalí

It was very busy with many human log-jams and many of the spaces were quite cramped and dark. It was expectedly bonkers with many irreverent pieces of art but interestingly the most impressive and memorable work in the whole place was his 1951 painting: Christ of St John of the Cross, a quite conventional (albeit unusually composed) and reverent oil painting of the crucifiction. I felt less like I had had a ‘theatrical dream’ than I had been to busy souk with a sale on. Good but done once is enough.

Barcelona:

Spain’s second biggest city. Well known to many. We spent six nights in a beach side campsite about 12km south of the centre. Our stay was so long as we wanted to visit the Sagrada Familia and the next available tickets were further into the future than expected. Poor planning by us but not a bad place to hang out. Easy bus ride into town and we went three times. Highlights? Beautiful buildings to gawk at whilst strolling, whether Gaudi or not, captivating Gothic Quarter with countless narrow, dark streets to explore, handsome waterfront with impressive super yachts, hidden squares full of restaurants, fantastic, vibrant, covered market stuffed full of meat, cheese, tapas, vegetables, fruit and wide-eyed tourists like us. Campsite right on the beach. Lowlights? Beachfront campsite also at the end of the runway of Barcelona airport, so a trifle noisy. La Rambla. Nothing really to see here except all the tourists who have come to see what is here. It’s just a busy pedestrian street. Sagrada Familia. Don’t get me wrong. This completely bonkers, legacy(/vanity) project by Gaudi is impressive and worth a see, but it costs an arm and a leg to get inside, which didn’t really seem worth the money. The light was beautiful, as were the columns and internal structure, but it was heaving. All my photos are orientated upwards so as to cut out the hoards. Oh, and despite the recent international news to the contrary, it is still far from finished. I think they were hoping it to be done by 2026, the centenary of Gaudi’s death, but apparently due to the ‘delays caused by Covid’ (you can’t use that as an excuse- you’ve been building it for 144 years, people!) it may not be 100% finished until 2040. Food and drink highlight? La Plata, a tiny, 75 year old tapas joint that featured on Antony Bourdain’s show. Here we ate the aforementioned mountain of deep fried anchovies and were introduced to red vermouth whilst standing at the bar because it was so busy. It is an institution. Would we visit Barcelona again? Hell yes!

Peñiscola:

A town with a slightly risqué name if you don’t pronounce it correctly, which of course we alway do…! Another small coastal beach town, but this time with some charming bits in the form of an old town built on a rocky knob (careful…), an impressive castle built atop that, a small fishing port and a long beach with a holiday resort. Two nights here gave us plenty of time to explore the old town and the photogenic castle which was built as a fort by the Knights Templar- a very wealthy and educated organisation of warrior monks. In the 14th C it became the residence/refuge/prison for Pope Benedict XIII making Peñiscola the third papal seat of the world behind The Vatican and Avignon. True story. At 4pm a siren heralded the return of the small fishing fleet and the promise of being able to buy fresh fish off the dock, but it transpired that the siren just summoned a gaggle of people to gather to take photos of crated fish that were then whisked away to the commercial market. A deserted bar on the walls of the old town made a great vantage point to watch sunset over the hills with a beer. A bike ride around to the other side of the bay showed us that the resort bit of town was nondescript, although the beach was nice. Would we visit again? Probably.

València:

Spain’s third biggest municipal area and Europe’s 5th busiest container port doesn’t have a classic waterfront, what with the ships and cranes and everything. The city created a 9km long, thin urban park when the river Turia was redirected in the middle of the 20th C to combat the constant flooding. The river was converted to green space and it was a genius idea that they have executed brilliantly. València is the birthplace of paella and we managed to squeeze one in along the way. I have learnt that true paella should contain no sausage or seafood but can contain plenty of chicken, duck, rabbit and even snails. It should be baked no more than 2cm deep in its traditioanal flat pan in a hot oven until there are plenty of crispy bits around the edges and on the bottom. Also, paella is only served at lunch time. In the evenings one can eat Fideuà, a dish a bit like paella, but that contains seafood and vermicelli in place of rice. So not like paella really except for the fact it is cooked in the same pan and the crispy bits are just as important. We managed to squeeze one of those in too. Our camp here was about 8km out of the city and situated on both a bus route and a great cycle path that went along the beach and then into the city too. On our cycle into the city it became obvious to us that one section of the beach dunes was attracting the presence of a disproportionate number of single men. Some with no clothes on. Even in November one can get an all over tan here and then find plenty of like minded people to show it off to. At least that is one explanation for what was going on. Valencia had its fair share of old buildings to appretiate with the addition a trio of quite left field modernist constructions at the end of the Turia Park: an arts centre, a science centre and an an aquarium. These are co-located on a magnificent plaza and are a feast for the eyes. Vàlencia or Barcelona? Barcelona takes it for us.

Dénia:

This was a place plucked from the ether as a stop on our way south. We knew nothing about it but it turned out to one of our favourite places so far. Smaller than the big cities, but so much more than being the most northerly holiday resort of the Coasta Blanca, it had an amazing marina, a great beach and promenade, a ferry port servicing the Balerics, an unassuming but well preserved old town and an imposing ruined castle looking down on it all from its rocky outcrop. We only had one night here, our stop being a municipally sanctioned ‘park up’ area in an empty lot near the beach that was home to about 50 campers. We wandered all about, up the rock and down the prom and sneaked in a sunset drink at the marina. Not too shabby. Would definitely return.

Cartagena:

We skirted past the delights of Benidorm and Alicante and headed onward to Cartagena. This strategic port town with a huge historical back story having attracted settlement and seafarers from the times well before the Roman Empire decided that it was a good spot, through to the present and it now being the site of a major naval station and small cruise ship port. A bus trip from another out-of-town pit stop took us into the city for our usual mooch around. The city is not quite a picturesque as we had expected and although the waterfront was easy on the eye we had to dig deep in amongst the shopping and back streets to find the interesting bits of history. After a slightly disappointing visit we decided to head for home by getting on the right bus but in the wrong direction. A rookie error which was not a disaster but might have contributed to our Cartegena disillusionment. We will not rush back.

Almería:

Our roost here was a public, barrier-controlled carpark on a wide sea wall in the heart of the ferry port in the downtown of this city of 200,000 people. Almería sits between the sea and mountains and is overlooked by its imposing Alcazabar, the second largest Muslim fortress in Andalucia. (The Alhambra in Grenada has top spot.) Our car park was tolerant of overnight campervans and was a very handy location from which to explore the city and the end of the sea wall gave us a great vantage point for views of the sunset, the harbour master’s tower, the resident band of ferral cats and the comings and goings of the ferries. It was understandably, and expectedly, noisy and bright thus ensuring a one-night-only stay for us and most others. We spent our day here with a visit to the Alcazabar which was a delight. The slightly arduous climb up the hill was rewarded with amazing views down over the city, port and sea, and the place itself was well along the road of being lovingly restored. Weirdly we got in for free having given our nationality as ‘New Zealanders’ at the ticket office. It was the same for the Americans behind us. We didn’t stop to ask who did have to pay, but I have a sneaking suspicion that being ‘British’ might have cost us something. After exploring the Alcazabar we wandered into town, which had a charming old district. The impressive Cathedral was unfortunately shut for siesta, conjouring up a image of a priest locking the door then having a little lie down on a pew. Would we come here again? We would stop if we were passing through.

Amerimar:

This small, purpose-built resort town, complete with identikit apartments, huge marina and the obligatory golf course, is a mere 40km from Almería and was founded by a businessman called Agustín González Mozo sometime in the 1970s. (Apparently the Spanish for ‘founder’ is ‘fundador’, which is an excellent word and should be the descriptor for something far more jolly. Like a rodeo clown.) Anyway, we fancied a few days of quiet and calm, and a break from sightseeing, so the marina-based park here was perfect. Our view was a very fine sailing yacht, a lighthouse and a beach, and our German neighbour had a very sweet d0g called Barney who we had plans to kidnap. The relentless run of consistantly sunny days was briefly interuppted with a bizarre day of thick fog which mattered not a jot to us as we were going nowhere. This area of coastline apparently boasts the most hours of sunshine (3000 per year) in the whole of Europe and has an average annual daytime temperature of 20 deg C. These stats contibute to reasons why this area is also a massive growing area for fruit and vegetables. These are all cultivated under shade cloths in irrigated plastic growing houses that cover thousands and thousands of acres of the land. It is not pretty, one questions where the water is coming from and where all the plastic goes to, but I guess the people gotta eat. When you buy out of season produce in Tescos and it says it comes from Spain. This is that reality. No plans to return, although could think of far worse places to hang out over a winter.

So that is the story so far. The Spanish Med has delivered us nearly constant sunshine and autumnal warmth in a variety of mainly coastal historical towns and cities. We hadn’t foreseen that this trip would mainly be about urban exploring, but it has transpired that this is what Europe delivers best. This is a great time of year to do it.

17th Oct – 30th Oct 2023

Recovered from the exertions and extravagance in Marseille we rolled out of Sausset-Les-Pins the next morning. We had been staying in an aire run by a company called Camping Car Park who offer a type of overnight parking that you just don’t find in the USA. The parks are usually on the edge of a town or village and mostly fairly basic, often with no greenery at all. Spaces can be ‘compact’ and one shouldn’t expect a nice private area to sit out and call one’s own but they do have power to each site, fresh water and a place to drain grey and black water. Entry and exit is all controlled with a barrier and a swipe card pre-loaded with credit, so it is reasonably secure, and sites can be pre-booked or you can just turn up. The number of sites available at any one time can be viewed live on their app. It’s genius! And the average cost for a night’s stay at this time of year? €12. Perfect for us, who prefer to be plugged in rather than boondocking on a back street somewhere.

Anyway, we headed out from this Camping Car Park and had picked another one in the Camargue, a civilised 120 km drive away. The town was called Le Grau-du-Roi, a small coastal fishing port on the edge of the marshlands and salt pans of the Camargue National Park. We planned 3 nights here to do some walking and cycling and see some of the local wildlife – namely ponies and flamingos – and there was also a very cool, walled town nearby called Aigues-Mortes, meaning dead, or stagnant, waters that could be easily reached by bike. We found a space and walked to the nearby supermarket to get some provisions. We had tried to stop on the way in, but every entrance to its enormous car park was height restricted to prevent the entry of camper vans. How rude! And how very unlike the USA. After shopping and lunch we headed out for a stroll along the beach and around the town. It was windy and overcast and although not cold, the whole town, that I am sure was lively and bustling with T-shirted tourists only a few weeks ago had the slightly depressed air of an out-of-season holiday destination – which I suppose is was it was.

We did a lap, watched the swivelling bridge let a few big fishing boats into the marina and headed back. The next morning we surfaced and checked the weather before planning what to do for the day. It didn’t look good. Lots of rain and wind were on the way. Then we had a phone call from the admin team at Camping Car Park warning us that this particular campsite was at risk from flooding from rain and from inundation from large seas. This is a low lying marsh, after all. They recommended that we leave. Hmmmm. None of our fellow residents, all French, seemed to be breaking camp. We discussed our options and the pros and cons of staying put. In the end we decided to move on. Even if it didn’t flood here, 48 hours of wild weather was not going to condusive to wafting around the Camargue on bicycles, and we didn’t want to get stuck here, so we decamped.

The whole area was under a severe weather watch, starting that evening, so we headed to a place slightly inland and less liable to fill with water. We settled on a place called Mèze, another small fishing town, but this time on the inland side of the Etang-du-Thau, a large lake famed for its oyster and mussel farms. As we pulled up to the barrier there was a sign saying that the parking area flooded in heavy rain. Jeepers, can we catch a break??! We reversed away from the barrier and pulled in on the side of the road. The heavy rain was still forecast and the sky looked angry, but it was still dry. The area wasn’t exactly on high ground but not in a dip either, and there were no nearby hills or streams. This, coupled with a severe apathy to hunt out another site for the night made us brave, so we pulled in, parked up and plugged in. Let the skies throw what they may at us!

Despite the dark skies the rain remained elusive, the radar showing it pass to our north, so we decided to walk to the centre of the town of Mèze, and the waterfront area. This was about 2 km away through a fairly dull residential area and which would, in retrospect, have been much better to do on the bikes and my esteemed companion might have had less grumbling to do. The town was another of those myriad of small French conurbations that at first glance appears a bit utilitarian and unremarkable, but as you walk through its small winding streets it reveals its beautiful ancient homes, original cobbles and the odd medieval church or 500 year old fortress. Mèze also has a small fishing port and many oyster processing outfits and the Thau is full of the racks of the oyster farms.

Across the Thau, on the Mediterranean, lies Sète, a bigger fishing port town sitting at the base of the only hill in the area. Sète holds a special place in our hearts as we had spent 3 months living here in the summer of 2018. We had spent many an hour wandering its streets, visiting the beach, watching the many bouts of jousting from traditional oar-powered fishing boats-which is nuts! (https://en.tourisme-sete.com/fetes-de-la-saint-louis-2023.html). We had also had a french tutor during our time here. A very lovely lady called Marie-Claude. She had dragged our French from medicocre up to reasonable and we had many, many hours of fun and laughter disguised as classes. Now our language skills had degenerated back to very shabby from disuse, which is a shame.

Our sudden change in plans gave us an opportunity to have a last minute day trip to Sète and the next day we took the 45 minute bus journey from Mèze for a trip down memory lane. We didn’t get in contact with Marie-Claude, thinking that it was too short notice to meet up or that she might not remember us as fondly as we remembered her. We were also a bit embarrassed about the current quality of our French. I sent her an email after our visit, knowing that I would write about it here and knowing that she is still on my Tin Can Travels email list so may still read the blog and discover that we had been in town. Her reply was so warm and she does remember us very fondly, so now I am sad that we didn’t make contact with her. So sorry Marie-Claude, and let that be a lesson to me.

In the end we were in Sète for only about four hours but that was plenty of time to wander around all our old haunts, visit our old appartment (A small fourth floor place with no lift, no aircon and the strangest bathroom layout we have ever seen), and have a tielle. “What is a tielle?” I hear you cry. A tielle is a delicacy specific to Sète and is a pastry topped tart filled with a spicy octopus ragu sauce. The red sauce leeches through the pastry, making the tarts orange and they are delicious. We made a beeline for the tielle seller in the indoor market and bought a small one to share as a pre-lunch snack and then sat at a nearby pavement bar with a glass of rosé each to eat it – this being entirely acceptable behaviour. It did not dissappoint.

We wandered around the port to the lighthouse and then back along the main canal where we had a late lunch before catching the bus home, tired but happy.

The next day we headed to Narbonne, another place that we had visited before but were keen to revisit. It has a very grand, but truncated cathedral, the building of which was started in 1272 but was never completed. Pope Clement IV decided that the city needed a magnificent gothic cathedral to impress people and make him look marvellous and the altar and choir bits were built on a grand scale. Unfortunately lack of money and politics got in the way of its completion, and also it was realised that due to its close proximity to the city walls, there was no way of finishing the building without demolishing part of the city’s defenses. So now there is only space for a choir to sing its heart out with no space for a congregation to listen to them. What a c**K up! Sounds like HS2.

We chose to come to Narbonne for a few reasons:

1. Pretty
2. Old
3. Campsite 2km from city centre with cycle route along canal tow path.
4. Rugby town, so confident could find a bar showing the semi-finals with a bit of atmosphere and small crowd.
5. Nice safe cycle route to beach only 15 km away.

All these proved to be true except 4. Although, yes, this is a rugby town, no, we did not find bar showing the rugby that was a-buzz with a slightly rowdy, rugby-mad crowd. Instead we found O’Brians, an Irish bar, and Molly, one rugby-mad Irish girl who was a lot of fun, but did not constitute a rowdy crowd. The bar had a couple of TVs tuned to the action, but no-one else was interested. Since the French were knocked out in last round the locals seemed to have lost all interest in the rest of the competion. We bowled up in our All Blacks jerseys for the spectacle of NZ vs Argentina and quickly realised that Molly was the only other person watching. We invited ourselves to sit with her, at a small table right in front of the screens and spent a very lovely evening of rugby and non-rugby chit chat, and she forgave us for the fact the the All Blacks had knocked Ireland out of the competion in the last round. She is a nurse, solo travelling around France in her van, driving crazy miles, camping mainly in supermarket car parks and seeing as many of the games as possible having taken all her annual leave in one big lump. Respect to her! History will tell you that NZ won, we celebrated in a conservative manner and the evening was over. Our research had led us to discover that Narbonne (a French Division 2 team) was playing at home the next afternoon and the stadium was right here in town. We all decided to go, met Molly at the next day at the ground and watched a very entertaining game of local rugby.

The sun was shining, the brass band playing, the team mascot goofing and many tries were scored. We hoped that some of the 5000 spectators might stay in town to watch the other semi-final, South Africa vs England, thus creating a bit of atmosphere, but no. Off home they all popped. Never mind. We ate pizza together and then headed back to O’Brians, watching the game sat at the same table. A crowd of three again. Molly was supporting South Africa and we weren’t supporting England, so the Springbok’s victory was acceptable all round. We bade our goodbyes and promised to look her up as-and-when we hit Ireland in Davide.

We had the day out on our bikes and headed out to the beach at Guissan, only about 15km away. The compact electric machines continue to impress us and aside from not having any suspension so being bone rattlers on rough terrain, thay have made cruising around town and countryside a dream. Guissan has a small ‘old town’ which is seperate from ‘Guissan Chalets’, a large collection of stilted, beach-front holiday homes along a sand spit, best known as a set location for the 1986 French erotic psychological drama film, Betty Blue. Nowadays all the chalets have filled in their lower levels changing the look of the place a bit. It was quiet when we were here, eating our picnic baguettes on the sea wall, but I can imagine this place is very lively in the summer.

The rain that had been threatening for about a week finally caught up with us on our penultimate night in Narbonne and it chucked down from dusk until dawn. Heavy rain is very noisy on the roof and precludes all TV viewing or the enjoyment of any audio entertainment. Sleep was possible with ear plugs and in the morning the campsite was covered with large puddles. But not a flood. We had planned a quiet day but in the end it was incredibly social with long camp site conversations with passing Brits and several video chats with friends and family. We were exhausted!

The next day we rolled on again. This time along to Carcassone. This was another revisit but it is so beautiful that I wanted to go back again. The Cité, the older part, is built up on a small hill with the original settlement initially fortified by the Romans in about 100 BCE. Numerous chaps fought wars in the area, including the splendidly named Visigoths, and the city was an important stronghold, being incrementally enlarged and fortified. It was renovated in the 19th C back to it’s medieval glory and now looks like somewhere Harry Potter would live after he decided to live his life as a princess. It is also a complete and deserved tourist trap. The fortified Bastide, built on the lower ground in the 13th C is still referred to as the ‘new city’ and for a long time was a rival to it’s elevated, older neighbour. Our camp was a local authority run aire only about 1.5km from La Cité, also digitally controlled with a gate. This we couldn’t book ahead and all reports had said that to assure yourself of a spot you had to arrive early. This was good advice and we arrived at about midday, having only driven about 70km from Narbonne. Already spaces were running out. Happily we secured a spot and parked up. There was no power here, meaning we were relying on our two house batteries and solar panel, but that’s what Davide is designed for. We can live without the coffee machine and hair dryer for a couple of nights but we haven’t yet worked out how to charge the laptops when on 12v power. I suspect an inverter will be on the shopping list soon.

We strolled down the river and climbed up to La Cité to do our usual touristing technique of ‘walking around everywhere’. This included a basic lunch of panini and chips (excellent) sat in a courtyard suntrap with some shelter from the chilly wind and doing several laps of the streets whilst looking for the restaurant that we had eaten at on last visit. (Never found it). This area is renowned for its local dish, Cassoulet. Classically this is a slow cooked stew of beans, confit goose, mutton and sausage. We didn’t partake during this visit, but have bought a can as an ’emergency dinner’ for when hearty food is needed at short notice. For this it is perfect. On our second day here we wandered around the Bastide and found lunch in an interesting locals place down a back street. Here the ongoing cool wind outside and our lack of warm clothes were forgotten as we walked in and were met with a wall of heat created by the enormous open fire in the heart of the restaurant, at which Monsieur Le Chef was cooking sausages and steaks.

It was toasty warm, we were starving, they served wine, the menu de jour involved a double starter of soup and chicken mayonaise salad and then the main course consisted of succulent sausages being cooked in front of our very eyes. It is these things that make us very happy. We dragged ourselves and our full tummies home after I bought a pair of shoes. My current inventory of footwear includes flipflops and boots with not much inbetween. These last few days has reminded me that even if we are heading south, it is still winter and colder days are coming.

After Carcassone we were then looking for a place where we could watch the Rugby World Cup final between the All Blacks and South Africa. Perpignan is another rugby mad town along our route towards Spain, so we found ourselves in a village called Elne, which was near the city and had a train link into the centre. We could surely find a lively bar there to watch the game. On our way into camp we had one of those necessary stops of being on the road: the visit to the laundrette. The reality of doing laundry whilst travelling is that a) you do it much less often and so there is a lot more to do and b) it has a reasonable cost associated with it, but c) it is incredibly satisfying! Also we found a particulaly good (and deserted), clean and modern facility with parking right outside so we could hang out in Davide and have lunch whilst waiting. This sort of thing also makes us quite happy.

There was some confusion as we arrived at our next aire as the power was out and nothing (barrier, payment, water, hook ups) was working. Many people were leaving. We were going to find somewhere else too but spent enough time faffing around looking at the internet for an alternative option that it gave the electrician enough time to arrive and fix it. So we stayed. The next day we checked out the village of Elne to find it had unexpectedly pretty and historic centre with a church on a little hill in the middle. We had also caught market day which is always a feast for the eyes, even if we manage to resist the feast for the stomach.

After a blither about on foot we cycled up to the train station to ascertain its location (quite a way from camp so not really walkable) and to check the timetable. We could get to the city for the game, but the late finish would mean that we would have to get an Uber back. Not ideal, but do-able. Next we decided to have a trundle out to the coast, about 7km away. Here we found the coastal town of Saint Cyprien Plage, a quite delightful stretch of beach with a marina, a forgiveable array of unattractive, 70s built, boxy appartment blocks and a generous offering of restaurants and bars that were still open for business. Some mild investigative work revealed another motorhome aire here with views of the marina and a bar/restaurant that was showing the rugby final the next night. An alternative plan was hatched – one that didn’t involve a bike ride, a train, an Uber back to the station and then a bike ride back in the dark. We booked a table at the restaurant for the match and shifted camp the next day. The pitches in this next place were a bit snug, but its location was perfect. It was also only €10 for 24 hours. We spent our afternoon cyling up the beach a bit and stopped for a lounge and a (short) swim. Not bad for the 28th October!

The game. Let’s just get it over with and acknowledge that New Zealand were beaten.

It wasn’t due to some questionable refereeing decisions. It wasn’t for lack of us being correctly dressed and adorned with flags. It wasn’t because the restaurant’s big screen wasn’t big enough or that we weren’t sat close enough to it.

It wasn’t because we ate too much entrecôte and frites and it wasn’t because there were only five other supporters sitting with us. I think that South Africa were a bit better on the night an deserved to win, the outcome that Nick had predicted before the competion had even started. Our evening ended with a short cycle home rather than the alternative epic journey, which, in defeat, was easier to bear. Now it was all over, we could get on with some ‘normal’ travelling.

Perpignan was still so close and it would have been a shame not to see it, so we decided to go in the next day. This involved us moving back to the Elne aire, cycling to the station, leaving the bikes in a secure locker and taking a short 8 minute train journey.. This small city of about 120,000 is tucked into the corner of Catalan France and is the last major conurbation before Spain. It was the continental capital of the Kingdom of Majorca in the 13th and 14th centuries and has a nicely preserved old centre with narrow streets surfaced with polished stone. Unusually these narrow streets contitue the main retail area of the city although it was a Sunday when we visitied so everything was shut. The highlight of the day was a visit to the beautifully preserved Palace of the Kings of Majorca, an amazingly fortified chateau sitting up on a hill overlooking the city, giving some great views.

Now that the rugby was finished it was time to leave France and move into Spain and although it was only 40 km to the border we were finding the concept of this a bit hard. France is a comfortable place for us as we can speak enough French to communicate and it is very familiar. Spain, not so much. I had started learning a bit of Spanish with Babbel, but “¡Mucho Gusto!” wasn’t going to get us very far. Our decision? Mañana! It was another beautiful day, far too lovely to be driving. So what did we do? The next morning we moved back to Saint Cyprien Plage to be by the beach again. Yes, 100% delaying tactics. We spent the day cycling up the long coastal bike path to the next town, Canet-en-Rousssillon, a bigger version of Saint Cyprien. Here we found a mini golf course which was quite challenging, which is why my superior talent led to me being the (deserved but most gracious) victor.

Now we were ready to go to Spain.

7th Oct – 1th Oct 2023

We had nearly a week to kill before our next date with family and rugby games in Marseille, so we donated some more money to the French pèage (motorway toll) system and headed to a pretty, old and pretty old place, Avignon. Past home to popes who built a big palace, an intact city wall and a bridge that no longer fullfills its primary role of completely crossing a river, this was a place that we had visited in the summer of last year in our tent and we returned to the same campsite. This was a leafy, shady place just across the Rhône, an easy 1km cycle to the city walls. Unfortunately, despite the ongoing beautiful weather and warm temperatures in the late 20s, the pool had shut for the season, as had the campsite’s poolside bar/restaurant. A lot of France decides that September 30th is the end of summer, whatever the weather, and the rest of us can just lump it. Paff.

We had five nights here. After we had set up we realised that our site was under a tree that was dropping small seeds constantly, so the soundtrack of our stay was that akin to a squirrel playing a gentle, irregular, mono-noted glockenspeil as they hit the roof. Not annoying enough to move, but just a bit irritating. We had a day or two doing hardly anything, except that quietly productive pottering around that classifies things like laundry, cutting fingernails, and re-organising cupboards as achievements. Our biggest activity day had us breaking out the bikes and cycling out to Châteauneuf-Du-Pape. Here we visited the town cave of a winery called Famille Perin, a place we had been with friends Dean & Lori about 7 yeas ago. Our shopping spree was curtailed by pannier space, which put us on a four bottle limit, but somehow it feels right to be cruising around the French countryside on bikes, loaded up with as many wine bottles as one can carry. (Yes, it was all delicious, thank you for asking.)

We had several forays into the city itself. One was to find a bar in which to watch some rugby games on the Saturday evening. We found one that entirely fulfilled the remit and spent the evening chatting to an English chap in his 30s and a Welsh couple in their 70s. The food was mediocre, but the beer was ok, the company was good and the results expected. We also spent more than several hours aimlessly wandering the streets of this beautifully preserved, ancient but vibrant city. We had visited the Papal Palace last time so didn’t re-visit that, but saw lots of parts that were familiar from last year. We perused the cheese and meat in Les Halles, the indoor market hall, and ate a lunch of steak and salmon tartares served in little jars in a pavement café – very chic! We climbed the hill in the city to get the view from the small, elevated park and walked along the river to get a view of the city at sunset, and we watched the river cruise boats sail by. Avignon is a charming place and was a very fine place to spend a few days to gather our strength prior to our Marseille extravaganza.

And so to Marseille! France’s oldest city, it’s third most populous metroplitan area (after Paris and Lyon), one of Europe’s oldest continously inhabited settlements and host of half of the quarter final matches of the rugby. We had four tickets to each of the two games, and had a posse of six of us between which to distribute them. Our gang was us, Jon & Fran again, other brother Martin, and his bestie, Jamie, who is practically family as we’ve known him since he was 14. Fran had sorted out an Air Bnb in a suburb called L’Estaque where we had three nights. Marseille is not camper van friendly. There are neither any campsites anywhere near town, nor anywhere safe to park without risking a break in. So we had sorted out a site on an aire campsite about 30km away in a place called Sausset-Les-Pins that had a train station which took us both to L’Estaque, and also into Marseille centre. Sausset-Les-Pins is along the coast to the west of Marseille and once we had arrived and installed ourselves we walked the 1km down to the sea. This was our first encounter with the Mediterrean this trip and we were prepared, with swimsuits and towels packed and ready to go! The weather continues to be gorgeous and warm and the Med, although a bit rocky underfoot here, was also a fine place for a dip. Not very autumnal, not yet anyway. After our dip we looked for a beach shower for a rinse off so we could avoid needing a shower ‘in rig’. What we found was a waist height ‘beach tap’ which made for an amusing spectacle of contorsions as we endeavoured to de-saltify ourselves. Well we were amused, anyway.

Friday came and we packed up and packed out, walking the 1km to the station. L’Estaque was a short 23 minutes away on a very scenic train journey along the rocky coastline with a 10 minute stroll at the other end to our apartment. The suburb, as Fran succintly put it, was like ‘Aberdare-Sur-Mer’: the french coastal version of the (not so affluent) Welsh town of her origin. If L’Estaque wasn’t winning any prizes for being chic or fancy, our accommodation was doing better. Again, this seemed to be a home that was being let out short-term and was again full of personal effects. It was a converted loft space with one enormous room that encompassed a kitchen area, a dining area, a lounge area and a small ballroom/art exhibition area. The three bedrooms were all open mezzanines, giving this the familiar air of a boarding school dormitory to most of us, and each sleeping area had its own, uniquely designed version of a perilous staircase. With both toilets downstairs, most of us needing a nocturnal visit to the loo, and plans for a reasonable alcohol intake, if we all survived the weekend with limbs and spinal columns intact it would be a miracle.

Jon and Fran arrived soon after us in the latter part of the afternoon having taken the very civilised TGV down from Paris, but Martin and Jamie would be travelling in the less civilised manner of flying, and arriving much later than planned, courtesy of the French air traffic controllers going on strike. Of course! The four of us filled the evening with a (fairly long) walk out to find a restaurant for what turned out to be a very satifactory seafood dinner and then, having worked out how to work the projector and large screen, we waited up for Martin and Jamie whilst watching multiple episodes of Hawai’i Five O – the only show we could could find in ‘version originale’. The hour got late, Fran and I bailed, and Nick and Jon slept on the sofa waiting to let the latecomers in. One would think that on their arrival at 1am that all would go to bed, but No! Martin had brought a bottle of whisky that saw considerable damage done to it before the four of them tackled the various stairs of doom at about 2.30am. Late, boozy night number one.

The next morning was predictably slow and much coffee and carbohydrate calories of baguettes, croissants and pains-au-chocolate were needed to kickstart the day. The day’s match was kicking off at 5pm, and we had booked a restaurant for lunch in the Old Port area of Marseille at 12.30pm to give us plenty of time. I was in charge of public transport and mustered everyone to walk up to the train station to catch the train that would get us there on time, but No! That train had been cancelled and the next one was not for ages. We fell back on the Uber option, but we needed two. One came quickly, but Jon and Nick had to wait ages for theirs. This was a busy town today. The Old Port area was heaving and we were glad for our lunch booking at a restaurant just off the main area of craziness. This was Marseille and the assembled had wanted to sample Bouillabaisse, or similar, so this is what they had. Washed down with several bottles of rosé. I had garlic snails. A fabulous vehicle for garlic butter! Whilst lunching we were joined by an old friend of ours from NZ, Rob, who was also in town for the games and whom we hadn’t seen for four years. He was on great form and it was as if it had only been last week when we last saw him. We made plans to catch up again later.

The time came for four of us to head off to the game, Wales vs Argentina. This was Fran and I and Martin and Jamie. The stadium in Marseille is much closer to the city centre and much easier to get to than in Lyon. We walked to a nearby metro station and had a sardine-esque experience in a jammed packed carriage to get up to the ground. The Welsh were in good spirits and good voice again, hoping to progress to the semi-finals. We had seats quite high up, in the nosebleed rows, and had some interesting Franglais chats with a bunch of French guys sat behind us who were supporting Argentina. The native Argentinian fans could not be mistaken as they all did a very particular type of supporting and cheering that involved synchronised jumping/fist pumping/chanting in Spanish and latterly, when they got very excited, twirling of their shirts over their heads, bare chested by default. Wales had a chance but Argentina were the victors, leaving a lot of disappointed Welsh, including our Fran. After the game we decided to join the throng walking the 4km back to the city centre rather than cramming onto public transport again. 55 minutes later we caught up with Nick and Jon who had secured a spot for all of us in a bar called Propoganda that was on the front by the Old Port.

They had been here all afternoon, holding court and making friends and by the time we arrived it was only an hour to wait until the second big game of the night, the quarter final between NZ and Ireland that was being played up in Paris. These were our boys! Our group swelled to 10 as Rob and his brothers and a friend joined us and we were set.

It was a titanic battle worthy of a final and the All Blacks were victorious. We had our flag and we were waving it! The long day and the fairly considerable alcohol intake meant that most were on the ‘leathered’ side of merry and that made my next job more interesting. Being the (self appointed) Public Transport Officer for the weekend, and being reasonably sober, I had discovered that there was a night bus that would get us home, if only I could get everyone to the bus stop on time. I managed to eventually extract everyone from the bar, with bills paid and bladders emptied, and then marched my little band of drunken ducks 750m through the busiest part of town to the bus stop without losing anyone or anyone getting run over. We made it with a minute to spare and the night bus took us to within 50m of the front door of our apartment. How fabulous! I was forgiven for my earlier train failure.

Once home, wine was opened and cheese and bread was eaten. Stairs’O’Death were not mounted until 2am. Late, boozy, night number two. No casualties.

Another day, another late morning, more baked goods and lots of coffee. We took a bus to town today. This involved a brisk walk over a hill which prompted some whining from those feeling a bit fuzzy, and then the bus was late, but eventually we arrived and strolled back towards the Old Port, via the handsome Cathédrale de la Major. Again we were looking for a lunch spot before the 5pm game, England vs Fiji, but this time we hadn’t booked anywhere. Our meanderings brought us to a small square that was full of tables belonging to the various restaurants surrounding it. It was buzzing and we found space in a restaurant selected as it had entrecôte et frites on the menu, the meal that most had decided they wanted/needed. We sat next to a large table of England fans, all decked out in white shirts and berets and we waited. Monsieur le garçon was a one-man-band and service was slow but we were just pleased to have found somewhere to eat.

By the time he arrived to take our order, Monsieur advised us that the entrecôte was all gone. Rats. We all revised our orders to the burger et frites and the boys braved a beer. Then we waited some more. A samba band set up and the square was suddenly full of loud music and acrobats flick-flacking up and down. It was very entertaining. Something hit me on the back, I turned…

Then, an explosion.

A bright, football sized flash went off under the English table next to us. A massive bang followed, filling the whole area with smoke and then followed by an earie silence-our eardrums assaulted. The moments immediately afterwards were a blur, a confusion and a high pitched hiss filled the space where sound should be. Some people left straight away, needing to feel safer, or perhaps realising that lunch was going to be delayed. The samba band moved on swiftly too.

After several minutes of chaos it became obvious what had happened. Someone had lobbed a lit thunderflash-type firework into the busy dining area in the square. It had bounced off my back and landed on the floor under the table next to us where it had exploded right next to the foot of a woman in their group. Miraculously, she was the only person who was injured, suffering bruising and a laceration to her foot. Her state of shock was complicated by being about 16 week pregnant and Fran, a registered doctor (unlike me-a very much unregistered doctor) sat with her and reassured her whilst waiting for the paramedics. She had a check up in the back of an ambulance and apart from a sore foot, seemed fine afterwards. We debriefed by discussing how much worse it could have been. It could have exploded in the air, on my back, in someone’s face. About half an hour later a couple of gendarmes came and looked around, but otherwise nothing else happened. It was hard to believe that no-one had seen anything. Had it been kids? Someone hoping to create some chaos in a jumpy city full of revellers? Or retrospectively, someone creating a diversion and hoping to steal some valuables? Jon’s sunglasses mysteriously disappeared from our table…The dust settled, our food was served, we ate, another beer was needed and we left. A very surreal interlude and a very small insight into what it’s like getting caught up in the unforsean traumatic events that many people all around the world have to deal with on a much, much larger scale every day. It is humbling.

This time the boys all headed off to the stadium and Fran and I had some hours to kill. We shopped a bit, although bought very little. Fran was disappointed that the belted cape that she tried on didn’t fit. It was a shame as it was very classy! I resisted bying a framed skeleton of a small bat. I didn’t think that it would survive the day and I knew that Davide really didn’t have any wall space for its display. Such are the downsides of life on the road. Fran then humoured me and agreed to walk up to the other impressive church in Marseille, Basilique Notre-Dame de la Garde, the one at the top of the hill. Interestly our walk up was practically deserted and then when we got up there it was packed. How did everyone else get there?? There was a magnificent view from the top including of the stadium, and the wind wreaked havoc with our hair.

Once back in town we headed back to the familiar territory of Propaganda bar and settled in at the same table to watch the game. An aperol spritz and a couple of jugs of Sangria went down quite nicely and history tells us that England beat Fiji. The second game of the night was a big one. France vs South Africa. We had reserved a table upstairs and the bar went to town with its red, white and blue decorations, novelty French headgear and face paints.

The boys made it back from the stadium and we installed ourselves in our prime spot infront of the big screen. Rob and Co. joined us again and spirits were high. We were all supporting France, Allez Les Bleus! The tournament needed them to stay in the competion to keep the excitement levels high amongst the home fans. It was another epic showdown and very sadly, France lost by a whisker. We were all gutted. Soon it was time to round everyone up and we made a successful move to catch the magic night bus again. How was it that getting home at 11.30pm was easier than getting into town during the day?? The evening was rounded off yet again with red wine and whisky meaning a third consecutive boozy, late night.

The late-40 year old/early-50 year old bodies are no longer able to take this abuse. Martin and Jamie crawled out of the apartment and headed to the airport at 8am. Lord knows how they managed that. The rest of us surfaced at 9am and headed up to the station at 10.30 am where we said our goodbyes and got on trains headed in opposite directions. We were back in Davide by 12pm and the rest of the day was a write off. We had a sofa each and did nothing. Our co-campers had had a big night too, having had a big party in the campsite until 3am. Half the residents had been involved, the other half had hated them. I wonder which camp we would have been in if we had been here?!

So our long planned Rugby World Cup experience: getting tickets to some of the games, staying in Lyon and Marseille and sharing that with our rugby-obsessed families had come to an end. It had been epic, we had loved every minute of it and it had been worth every penny. Now we had to hope that France could keep up the enthusiasm for the tournament now that they were out of it and that we could find fun places to watch the rest of the games…

The next day we continued along the coast and headed to the Camargue, planning for a few days of biking and walking. The best laid plans…..