Club Motorhome Bloggers

We don’t normally plan much for upcoming travels, only the destination and an idea of the route along the way.

This trip is a little different because we will be touring in a big loop with the start being the same as the finish. That is, we’re not just going from A to B, we’re going from A to A! - With loads of places in between…

There is no real time pressure on this trip either other than a couple of commitments in December, although still in the motorhome and at the tail end of this trip. So that’s a good 3 months to wander about.

So we set off mid September(ish) from south of Valencia for the rest of the year…

We've just spend a superb month in company with some friends travelling around the Valencia/Alicante areas of Spain using a mixture of Aires and Wild Parking for stopovers.

We met up with our friends, Steve and Lorna, at one of our favourite spots just by the beach at a small Spanish resort, it was their first trip to this area and they were very pleasantly surprised by what a great spot it is! Very busy though with maybe a 100 vans and sad to say that some motorhomers were becoming very territorial about their spaces - even using water bottles to mark out their 'pitches'

That aside we had a great few days R&R before we went for an inland tour to show Steve and Lorna around a bit. Just a few miles inland there is a great, and little used, Aire. Free to stay with a proper service area we enjoyed a couple of nights and made use of one of the town's great little bar/restaurants - menu-del-dia at just 7.50€ and a wonderful part restored Monastery which was free to wander around plus free wifi at the Tourist Office.

On the second morning a Belgian couple joined us at the parking and proudly told us that they had been to the Aire before and were a bit dismayed to see others using it as they had been determined to keep the location a secret! They didn't approve of websites and books that publish locations, I kid you not.....

From there we drove over the nearby mountains to the next valley and on to an Aire that we had recently discovered. On arrival it was deserted and the electric gates were firmly shut. I phoned the number on the gate to see if they would open it up for us and in my best Spanish understood that someone would be along shortly.....

Another long hop and we arrived at our planned destination, an Aire that we first used at the beginning of our trip to the UK almost 6 months ago north of the Pyrenees at Aire sur l'Adour. A car park style Aire right on the river's edge and we were fortunate to get a riverside spot, again I uncoupled and parked to Suzuki tight beside us.

After such long daily stints we decided a day off was in order before getting into Spain and our campsite destination at Huesca. At this time of year they only open at weekends and its 10€ a night all in which hopefully will give me decent wifi access to upload this blog. So we had a restful day and it was nice to meet a couple of Brits to chat to as well.

Caroline ventured into town and, for someone who knows very little French, managed to get her haircut exactly as wanted - well done!

Checking the Eurotunnel website we found a reasonable crossing on a Saturday afternoon at £150 (motorhome + trailer) and by the time we went back to book it the price had risen to £159 - hey ho.

En route to Folkestone we made a couple of visits to friends and family which gave us the chance, at long last, to meet our newest grandson - now nearly 3 months old and bringing the number of grandchildren up to 6!

Our latest rip is to the combined Club Motorhome, Motorroamers and Facts meet at Denia and Calpe on the Mediterranean coast of Spain.

We arrived a couple of days before the start of the meeting and were nicely settled in by the time everyone else had arrived.

The meet has got off to a good start thanks to the excellent organisation skills of C7KEN!
Yesterday was the first official day and Ken held a welcome meeting to elaborate on his plans ( at the local bar ). He's got plans for a cycle ride to show new visitors the local facilities and a ride into Denia.

We got off to a flying start with a raffle that we are holding to contribute to our chosen charity Asthma UK with over 90€ raised so far - A BIG thank you to all that have bought tickets. The draw will be on the Paella Day which if I remember rightly is Saturday. The prizes being: 2 Club Motorhome Tee shirts, A Club Motorhome baseball cap, A £5, 2 x £10 and a £30 memership vouchers . (If you are not at the rally but would like to help by donating we have a donation button on the front page of the Club Motorhome website)

But its not all busy, busy, busy - The beach is only a short walk away...

St Feliu de Guixols is a lovely Spanish resort, the fact that there is a free Aire makes it even better!

Since our first visit here new services have been installed - also free. Its an Aire that's not listed in all the guides but we have the details on Club Motorhome of course!

After St Feliu we set off for Peniscola using non-toll roads which meant a 6 hour journey (half it if using tolls) but the roads were mostly good. I (semi) jokingly reminded Caroline to have her camera at the ready to snap any of the infamous Barcelona Bandits if they tried to stop us as we passed the city, but as usual no sign.....

At the end of the long day's drive we pulled in at the Peniscola Aire, no need for hookup so just €8. The Aire was pretty busy but not with Brits. Aires rules normally say no chairs, awnings, etc and this one has a whopping great sign up but still you see lots of awnings, chairs etc in use. Must just be to keep the authorities happy tohave a sign up?

Our last day of this trip was to some beachside wild camping near Gandia where we met up, by chance, with friends Dick and Jackie in their Autotrail. We had a very pleasant evening catching up on our respective travels during the past year.

From Vers we travelled a couple of hundered more miles south to an Aire that was new to us at Fanjeaux, a charming and very old village high up with great surrounding views including the snow capped Pyrenees.

Several more vans squeezed onto the Aire for the night and the  next morning we had a wander around the ancient village.

Next stop on our list was one of our favourite beachside Aires, Leucate Plage. We've stayed several times in the past, for as much as a week at a time. Situated right on the beach its a perfect spot!

We met Andy and Caroline from the UK who were returning from their over-wintering trip to Spain and Portugal, they'd had a great 3 months but were looking forward to getting back home. Their 2 Jack Russells became good buddies with Digger and enjoyed running amok on the beach 

Leucate is a payment Aire but when we arrived the recently installed new payment system was not working which was a nice bonus, although we discovered that the water was turned off too. The next morning however, engineers arrived to commission the system for the season and turned it back on - although the barriers stayed open. We had been very lucky on this trip with overnight charges so far being ZERO!