Club Motorhome Bloggers

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.....

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.

We managed to set off yesterday after hastily packing the van - we do seem to leave this to the last minute lately!

Anyway, our normal routine is to travel about 35 kilometers to our favourite beach side wildcamp area, where we finish packing stuff into proper areas in the van and make up the bed etc. We also had the chance to say hello to some people that we saw last year at the same spot.

The location is not very scenic in the parking area but is literally just next to a lovely beach, VERY quiet at this time of year and great for walking Digger - it was from here that we rescued him a whole year ago!

We dined on pizzas an enjoyed a DVD before turning in, knowing we had a fairly long drive the next day.....

So today we were up and about earlyish for us and prepared for our long leg north to Huesca. Before we left I wandered around our parking area and lost count of the motorhomes - at least 60 and a dozen of them Brits. Most vans being Dutch with a proportion of German, its certainly becoming a popular spot .