Carol & Anthony Kubicki's European tour

France September 2011

2011-09-23T09:39:00.006+01:00

We spent just a week in France; not really long enough, but all we could manage with our holiday entitlement.

After sailing to St Malo, we drove over the Loire and on to the Cher valley, staying at Chatillon sur Cher, then moving on to Sancerre for three nights where we enjoyed cycling by the river and through the vineyards, waving to the grape pickers. The heady, slightly vinegary smell of the grapes at this time of year enthuses our senses and encourages us to enjoy a glass or two of the local wine.

We then drove back to the coast and camped on a idyllic site near Dieppe for a couple of nights; we watched a pair of kingfishers on one of the ponds one evening and we entertained by the goats as they played Three Billy Goats Gruff on the wooden bridge. Our last day was spent driving along the French coast to Zeebrugge and catching the ferry to Hull with seconds to spare!

Driving in France continues to be a joy, with quiet and open roads and pretty towns to stop for a coffee in. The other photographs show the vineyards near Sancerre and the pretty walled town of Mennetou-sur-Cher.

Total ferry costs £601 (including two outside cabins, evening meal on Zeebrugge to Hull - Britanny Ferries was about £350, P&O £250)

Total spending during the week 430 Euro

In summary

2011-06-10T20:24:00.009+01:00

The above photographs for our French trip are from our time by the Loire.

We have come up with a number of things that could summarise the trip:

Excellent cycling
Driving on empty roads and getting the best miles per litre from the Blue Bus (8.1 miles per litre)
One tick each and so excellent use of the tick lasso and the TBE jabs
Three snakes
Acquiring of nice tans - up to the start of our cycling shorts
Lots of fun

Total costs £

Ferry: Portsmouth to Le Havre 161.48 (including inside cabin)

Ferry: Zeebrugge to Hull 209.60 (with outside premier cabin & dinner)

Campsites 183.60

Supermarkets / food 285.30

Cafes and restaurants 175.50

Diesel 260.00

Other 92.00 (wi-fi, tolls etc)

TOTAL 1,367.48 (for 18 nights)

Anyone paying attention will notice that this is loads cheaper than last year. Going out of season makes lots of sense; cheaper ferries and also cheaper camp sites, thanks to ASCI. Camp sites in France generally cost less than in Germany.

Does anyone know what this is?

2011-06-04T17:33:00.004+01:00

We have now had over 15,000 visitors to our blog, which amazes us.

Do any of you know what the construction in the photograph was used for? We spotted it cycling around the Anjou region of the Loire.

We look forward to hearing your ideas!

The Loire: Wine and Chateau

2011-06-03T20:23:00.006+01:00

Wine making and chateau are the two things that The Loire bring to mind. At the Camping Parc de Montsabert you can do both very easily. The site is within the grounds of the Montsabert Chateau, not one of the must-see ones the Rough Guide suggests, but we're not big on visiting posh houses and it is good enough for us.

We arrived at the campsite early on Friday afternoon and were in time for the wine tasting visit to the Vignoble des Forges (www.vignobledesforges.com), less than a kilometre away. Nathalie Pilery is an enthusiastic independent wine grower and seems to run this small enterprise almost single-handed, as well as look after her young family. She showed us around the buildings and described the work involved in making wine and then, of course, gave us different ones to taste; they all tasted very drinkable to us and we came away with more bottles than we really have room for in the Blue Bus.

Cycling in all the different parts of France we have visited has been wonderful and this has been no exception; empty lanes, pretty villages and wide open spaces are what we now come to expect. Many houses have a troglodyte dwellings in their grounds; these rooms carved into the local rock would have been lived in years ago and are now often used as a cool garage or garden shed.

Cycling heaven

2011-06-02T17:16:00.005+01:00

It is Ascension Day in France and they are all on holiday; the Marais Poitevin is busy with holiday makers hiring boats on the canals, walking, fishing and mostly cycling. There are the groups of shiny lycra clad men charging through the wheat fields practicing for the Tour, elderly couples on sit up and beg bicycles with baskets; these baskets often have a small dog sitting precariously in them, but most of all there are family groups of many generations on bicycles of different sizes with numerous children on tag-alongs, asleep in trailers or sat in child seats on the back. Over-taking these family groups (obviously we never over-take the lycra groups) takes nerves of steel as they use all of the road in an erratic manner that is impossible to judge and are chatting to each other so loudly they never hear your bell. Worse still was meeting a group coming down a narrow track in the opposite direction, we felt we had inadvertently gone the wrong way in the Tour de France and were trying to cycle through the Peleton.

The bridges over the navigable canals are constructed steeply to enable the low punts to sail underneath. Coming down these bridges bought out the Lance Armstrong in Anthony, as he hurtled down as if on the starting ramp for the time trial.

We took some time out from cycling to walk through the Marais; giving us time to spot flowers and butterflies and watch the cows and sheep grazing in their shaded woodland fields. If we were ever tempted to buy a French holiday home, the Marais Poitevin would be a very strong contender.

Le Marais Poitevin

2011-06-01T16:40:00.004+01:00

If we were still using song lyrics as the title to our blog posts, this one would be ' ... takes you down to her place by the river. You can hear the boats go by ...' Le Marais Poitevin is a landscape dominated by water and it has a sensuality that suggests this could be exactly where the Suzanne Leonard Cohen sang about spent her time.

Between Niort and La Rochelle, the rural landscape of meadows, woodlands and crops is criss-crossed by narrow canals, each shaded by trees and bushes; developed to enable the farmers to access the agricultural land most of the boats are now paddled by tourists.

This is a low landscape; there are no hills, cottages are single storey, pollarding of trees keeps their height down and even the churches have low towers. The tallest structures are the grandly named Chateau de l'eau or water towers, which stand out as grand as any chateau.

This makes it ideal for cycling, there are numerous quiet lanes and tracks and each is a joyful discovery of what appears to be an agricultural idyll. It is also an easy place to get lost in, despite a map (free and you do get what you pay for) and some signage (but never just where you need it) we managed to get lost more times than we can remember on our 30 km ride.

Unlike other parts of France, there are benches by the river and channels and we sat and fed the Mallards with stale crusty bread while we ate our picnic lunch.

'... and the sun pours down like honey ...'

Good holidays

2011-05-28T18:45:00.008+01:00

Waking up without the alarm is the first treat of being on holiday and in the Blue Bus it is easy to enjoy our first mug of tea while gradually waking up, as the kettle is almost within arms reach of the beds.

Here in Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne, after washing a few clothes out and emptying the waste tank of the toilet, we popped into the town to buy bread and had a leisurely breakfast back at the camp site in the sunshine.

We slipped in to our cycling shorts and after a couple of hours are ready to set off on the days cycle ride; Saturday was Argentat and back, a 50 kms ride along the Dordogne, returning on the opposite bank, Sunday was to Carennac, only around 35 kms.

We feel like we have been the stars in a French cycling advert; highlights of the last two days included:

Standing on the different bridges over the Dordogne watching scores of House Martins catching insects on the wing and having time to watch the Crag Martins swoop in and feed their young, who were using the very ornate carvings on the doorway of the church in Carennac as useful resting posts as they learned to fly.
Stopping to inhale the scent from the many fields of walnut trees.
Chatting to an amiable French man about dams and water, who made no allowance for our poor language skills and understanding about one word in three.
Eating ice creams in a cafe in Argentat with a view over the river to egg-shell blue shuttered stone houses with balconies laden with red geraniums.
Cycling through tiny villages of pretty houses, all built from local stone, with wooden shutters, attic windows in the roof and deep pink roses growing around the door.
Surrounded by fields of wheat, watching the Black Kites circle slowly overhead.
Stumbling upon a Brocante, a French car boot sale; we resisted buying any of the stuff, including old metal tractor seats and chipped Pernod jugs.

On Saturday evening we found a bar in town to watch Manchester United be beaten very convincingly by Barcelona.

On Sunday it was hot enough to use the camp site swimming pool before planning the next few days; its time to move on and it is forecast to be sunny around the Loire, so we'll point the Blue Bus in that direction.

What a shower part two

2011-05-27T16:50:00.005+01:00

The fantastic bread in France is worth the ferry costs alone, you have no sooner crossed the channel and you can buy a decent baguette worthy of spreading good butter on in any small town Boulangerie, if only this were possible back home. Move to Chorlton, we hear you cry; a big win on the premium bonds would be the only way this could happen and then a terrace within spitting distance of Barbakan would have to compete with a chalet with a view of the alps, geraniums on the balcony and a choice of excellent Backerei around the corner - all just a dream.

We are feeling good after a week of good bread, good red wine and lots of physical activity; on a campsite everything takes more human-energy than home. We enjoy doing all these things and they never seem like chores, but even walking to the sanitary block, hand washing clothes, filling up the van's water tanks and emptying the on-board loo all take more exertion and that's all before we've spent the day walking or cycling.

Those of you who have read Carol's 'What a Shower' article in MMM and in previous blogs will know that we have enjoyed and endured many different types of showers. The campsite at Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne has taken the shower experience to a new high-tech level. The shower and toilet cubicles have movement sensor lights; the lights come on when you enter a cubicle and we approve of this effort to save energy. Unfortunately, in the showers the sensor is in the section of the shower for hanging your towel and dry clothes, this combined with a push button shower keeps us very active when showering - sashaying between pushing on the shower and waving at the sensor!

Teapots, Dolmens and Waterfalls in Limousin

2011-05-26T16:27:00.006+01:00

Regular readers will know that we take the mobile, in mobile home, seriously and after three nights we left Airvault and headed off for the Plateau de Millevache. We planned to get to Meymac, but are easily distracted and a charming municipal site next to a large pond in Lacelle took our fancy. The facilities were limited, but as no one came to ask for payment we couldn't really complain. We ate in the sunshine listening to the frogs in the pond, using our very stylish and bargain Ebay buy teapot; while window shopping in a small French town, we had spotted the same teapot in a shop for 33 Euro, we had found it on Ebay for £9.

We enjoy days when we travel and stop to see sites along the way; the Blue Bus means we can have lunch or a brew whenever we please. The photos show we had a brief stop at a Dolmen and detoured into Gimel-les-Cascades on the way to the Dordogne to walk along the waterfalls.

Anthony success as a chick magnet has been somewhat limited, but he can console himself by being a very successful tick magnet; we had spent the not insubstantial sum of £11 on a tick lasso to deal with these tiny pests and were therefore moderately excited when he found a tick on his leg minutes after our arrival in Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne - that £11 was not wasted!

France: farming and cycling

2011-05-26T16:07:00.003+01:00

As we drive and cycle through lowland France, it is agriculture that dominates the landscape. The importance of farming to France and the French is shown clearly on our excellent Michelin road atlas of France, at 1:200,000 this is a good scale showing all the country lanes; annoyingly it doesn’t show campsites, but it does mark silos! It is no surprise that farmer-power predominates in France, the whole country is involved in growing things, we pass fields of cereals, vegetables and of course grapes, neat allotments and gardens, even the industry we see is often agricultural-related; food and wine production and agricultural services etc. Other industrial sites we observe are also close to the land, such as quarrying and cement works. Although the fields of cereals and vegetables are often vast and we assume every weed is sprayed to within an inch of its life, the verges are full of wild flowers; at this time of year poppies and cornflowers provide so much colour, cycling along the quiet lanes between these field is never boring and what I really want to do is throw down a metre square quadrant and spend an hour recording the different species (you can take the woman out of geography, but you can never take the geography out of the woman).

Peaceful lanes with a small village every four or five kilometres is dream cycling for us; as well as the wild flowers, we enjoy spotting the Harriers (Hen or Montagu’s?) overhead, dodging the butterflies and stopping in small cafes for coffee.

Airvault, Poitou province, France

2011-05-23T15:52:00.005+01:00

Drive 370 kms from Le Havre and you can be south of The Loire; a good enough reason for us to spend our first day in France getting to the intriguingly named town of Airvault. We used the gloriously empty French motorways for about half of the kilometres and paid around 30 Euro for the privilege (this makes our £210 road tax seem very reasonable); arriving at a campsite that is English owned, English run and English occupied, although the mixed sex sanitary block is very un-English.

The sun is shining and the good people of the Thouet valley have put together a cycle route along this beautiful tributary of the Loire, so it seemed rude not to make use of it. The route took us past a Franco-Roman Hypogee, thought to be an underground burial place, ancient fords on the river, a grand chateau, a large reservoir and pretty villages. Our picnic by the river gave us chance to watch a Kingfisher going back and forth and we spotted a large, green snake swimming at quite a pace across the river, which certainly put Anthony off any ideas of paddling.

Back in Airvault the town was sleepy, but the park was where all the activity was; around 20 men (yes, all men) were playing boules.

It feels so good to be back on the road again, moving at our own pace, learning about new places, sitting by the van listening to the bird song, relaxing and meeting new people. It may only be for 18 nights, but we will enjoy every one of them.

Camp sites in France May and June 2011

2011-05-23T13:11:00.000+01:00

Camp site details for our France trip:

List of sites

**List of sites**
I	Camp site name	Country	Arrival date	Number of nights	Cost per night	Description
180	Camping de Courte Vallee, Airvault	France	22/05/2011	3	£15.00	ACSI price. Pretty site with trees, grass, gravel paths, bar and bread. Toilts clean and loo paper, showers hot, but poor flow, English run.
181	Municipal campsite, Lacelle, SE Limoges	France	25/05/2011	1	£0.00	Cleanish facilities, grassy, pleasant village, no hot water for our stay, by municipal pond. Should have been about 10 euro.
182	Camping des Iles, Beaulieu sur Dordogne	France	26/05/2011	4	£11.00	ACSI price. Clean toilets, no loo paper or seats, very hot water everywhere. Annoying light sensors in showers and toilets. Grassy with trees by river and 5 mins from town.
183	Soubise Aire, Soubise Port, opposite Rochefort	France	30/05/2011	1	£6.50	Warm showers and couple of toilets. Pleasant quiet spot and had lovely view over fields. Busy.
184	Camping de la Venise Verte, Coulon	France	31/05/2011	3	£15.00	ACSI price. Grassy, flat side with laid out pitches and pleasant rural situation. Good cyclng from site. Toilets clean, hot water and washing up sinks indoors.
185	Parc de Monsabert, Couture	France	03/06/2011	2	£15.00	Wifi 6 euro for 24 hours and had some difficulties accessing. Facilities dated, but clean. Well run site with plenty of shade. Grassy marked pitches, pool, bar and activities.
186	L'isle aux Moulins, Jargeau	France	05/06/2011	1	£13.00	ACSI price. Grassy, slightly uneven site wth trees and natural feel. Facilities very clean and good and near the town and the river Loire.
187	Mont Olympe, Camping Municipal, Charleville-Mezieres	France	06/06/2011	1	£18.21	As nice as we remembered. Showers cleaner than before, some pitches not very level.

France and Germany August 2010

2010-08-29T11:55:00.002+01:00

In August 2010 we had both secured employment despite our age and shabby appearances and we were ready to take the Blue Bus back to Europe; unfortunately only for 18 nights as we were now restricted by annual leave requirements.

We made our way through France, stopping at

Chalons en Champagne and Vilsberg, near Phalsbourg, near the German border.

We journeyed happily into Germany, camping at an old favourite site in Stockach and on to Oberstdorf in the Oberallgau.

Oberstdorf provided excellent walking (see photograph on the right) and is a bustling holiday destination, but we had mixed weather and after a few nights, we set off back towards France.

We stayed one night near Rastatt and the Rhine, then continued to Verdun.

Verdun was a good choice and we had an excellent couple of days cycling around and learning about the history of the area.

Our last campsite was at Charleville-Mezieres, near the Belgian border; an excellent campsite, a lovely town within walking distance and a Voie Verte cycle route along the river (photograph on the left) made this a fantastic holiday place for us and we may well return.

A separate post shows the campsites we used.

Campsites in France and Germany August 2010

2010-08-28T18:01:00.002+01:00

List of sites

**List of campsites August 2010**
ID	Camp site name	Country	Arrival date	Number of nights	Cost per night	Description
170	Municipal Camping, Chalons de Champagne	France	07/08/2010	1	£22.00	Pleasant, flat site by a lake with ducks, facilities fine for summer, showers hot and clean
171	Camping les Bouleaux, Vilsberg, nr Phalsbourg	France	08/08/2010	2	£17.80	Dutch run site with bar, facilities adequate, pleasant site, nicely laid out, water only warm
172	Papier Muhle, Stockach	Germany	10/08/2010	2	£20.00	Excellent toilets and good hot showers, all very clean, good cycling nearby and pleasant town
173	Campingplatz Oberstdorf	Germany	12/08/2010	5	£25.00	Wifi 3 euro per night, excellent facilities, hot showers with push button, warm rooms, nice views, 20 mins walk from village, bar and bread to order
174	Rastatter Freizeitparadies, Rastatt	Germany	17/08/2010	1	£19.00	Large site with a small lake and lots of activities, flat grassy pitches, facilities OK, rubbish bins only open 9.30-10 and 6.30-7pm!
175	Camping Les Breuils, Verdun	France	18/08/2010	2	£22.00	Pleasantly laid out site, in small areas, lots of trees for shade and a brook, pleasant bar, facilities clean, water not very hot, 6 amps
176	Municipal du Mont Olympe, Charleville Mezieres	France	20/08/2010	3	£18.00	Free wifi and free washing machines, hot water, facilities dated and not the cleanest, but good, toilet paper. Large pitches with hedges, 10 mins pleasant walk to town.

Holiday spending August 2010

2010-08-27T18:08:00.003+01:00

The photograph shows the pretty town of Verdun.

Spending for the 18 nights holiday in Euros:

Campsites 364
Diesel 232
Food 290
Cafes and restaurants 211
Everything else 222
TOTAL 1319 Euros

The return ferry from Hull to Zeebrugge was £582, including breakfast and evening meals.

The exchange rate was around Euro 1.2 to the £1.

From nine 'til five I have to spend my time at work

2010-07-25T20:17:00.005+01:00

We thought we would add a postscript to our blog, updating our readers (nearly 10,000 and rising) on how we have coped with returning to life in Manchester.

The good news is we have both managed to find work, even in the currently shrinking Public Sector. Carol is back in the NHS and Anthony has a job in a school, so doesn't return to the nine to five grind until September. We miss the freedom of travelling and spending our days walking and cycling in beautiful places; our window boxes are full of lavender, rosemary and thyme to remind us of southern Europe. We miss the warmth of the sun and that sense of total relaxation. Carol in particular will often think wistfully about where we were this time last year.

However, it is lovely to spend time with our friends and family; the photos show us out and about in the Peak District. The saving up for next time starts here!

There's so many places I want to see

2010-03-31T07:22:00.002+01:00

This is the last post on our blog and so we would like to take this opportunity to thank a few people.

We have enjoyed keeping the blog and we are sure we will refer to it in the future. We are very grateful to everyone who has visited the blog over the past 12 months, almost 6,000 hits in four months is impressive and helps us feel in contact with other people. As well as old friends, we have made new contacts via our blog and now have a list of other travellers blog’s to follow from Salford with envy.

We really appreciate the time taken by everyone who has emailed us over the past 12 months or got in touch via the blog. We have always enjoyed hearing your news and have tried to reply to all of you.

Although the ideas on the blog come from both of us, it is Carol who puts the words together. Anthony took on the duty of finding song lyrics for the post; not always an easy task when faced with a post about an obscure topic such as dinosaur footprints or the umpteenth post about walking or cycling; he rose to the challenge and has enjoyed being creative. We hope you have managed to guess some of the lyrics and enjoyed looking up the ones you don’t know on the list of answers.

Last, but by no means least, we want to thank Matthew and Rachel. Without their help and support the trip would have been much more problematic; they gave a home to our elderly and blind cat, posted us books and essential equipment, used up most of their holidays coming to visit us, looked after the flat and opened our small paper mountain of mail and purchased various concert tickets for us to help make our return something we can look forward to.

You may be wondering, how we are feeling as the trip comes to an end. The post title says it all really; the trip has given us a sense of what Europe is, how we fit in to it and how much more of it there is to explore. Most importantly, the trip has made us realise how much fun we get from living together in the van, hitting the road and exploring new places; we will certainly miss being as free as a bird (no apologies for using this lyric twice)

Fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way

2010-03-30T15:42:00.005+01:00

Our longest day travelling was also reduced to a 22 hours day; On Sunday we lost two hours, one due to the change to summertime and the other because we moved from Portugal back in to Spain. We prefer not to use motorways and will often meander on minor roads for 100kms or so between campsites. However, due to a lack of open campsites we decided to travel the 400kms from Chaves in north-east Portugal to Candas, near Gijon in Asturia on the north Spanish coast in one day, along excellent, quiet motorways.

Somewhat disorientated about the time of day, we drove through a wild and empty Spain; big mountains with snow, kites flying overhead, huge plains of cereal fields and few signs of habitations. It was palm Sunday and at occasional small churches by the road we saw congregations with bunches of greenery in their hands.

We arrived in Candas, near Gijon, a prosperous part of Spain, with a campsite pleasingly set on a rocky promontory. Inland from the coast are small farms and out walking we saw people tending their small-holdings in the sunshine and photographed many of the wooden granaries on stilts, characteristic of the area. Almost back at the campsite a motorhome stopped to offer us a lift; it was Theresa and Mike, our occasional travelling companions from Australia. We spent the evening drinking Portuguese wine and liqueurs and reminiscing about our favourite places in Portugal.

We sail from Spain on Easter Sunday and the chocolate goodies in the shops tell us the Easter weekend is getting closer. Our plans are to head east from Candas, along the coast, taking in the cave paintings at Cuevas del Castillo, near Puente Viesgo and some Rioja wine tasting before catching the boat in Bilbao.

Your custard pie, I declare, it's sweet and nice

2010-03-28T19:28:00.004+01:00

We feel a little gloomy to be leaving Portugal; we have enjoyed our six weeks exploring this country on the edge of Europe. We bought our last Pastel de Nata, the extremely tasty Portuguese custard tarts, got lost in the last Portuguese town devoid of signs and stayed at our last cheap Portuguese campsite.

At home it is fairly easy to be vegan-ish, but travelling in Europe we have indulged in dairy products on a number of occasions. Our blog readers may have noticed; (and comments have been made) we are food-obsessed vegetarians and so we often feel we miss out on getting a real taste for a country; in Portugal we have missed out on the delights of Salt Cod and the many smoked meats, so to also not get a chance to at least try the many different cheeses and the fantastic Portuguese cakes, including Pastel de Nata, is more than we can manage. We will revert to our old regime when we return.

Our last sight-seeing trip in Portugal was to Citania de Briteiros, south of Braga; a Celtic hill town settled between 1,000 BC and 1,000 AD. This sizeable archaeological site is an early prototype of the walled hill town and walking around its cobbled streets you get a clear sense of how the place was lived in. As well as many houses and a series of enclosing walls, Citania de Briteiros has a pre-Roman bath house and a large building which experts think is where the men of the village gathered to chat and make decisions; just as we see them gathered today putting the world to rights in the village cafes.

With a little help from (our) friends

2010-03-24T21:30:00.002Z

As we have mentioned previously, Anthony’s ex-colleagues at the University of Central Lancashire kindly gave him a wad of euros as a leaving gift which we have been spending over the past 11 months; treating ourselves to a meal out every month or so. In Porto, we had our ninth and last meal out on the staff and it was a memorable one.

Porto is a magnificent city; set on the sunny, south facing steep banks of the River Douro, it cannot help but be picturesque. On the cooler, north facing bank is a separate city, Vila Nova de Gaia; joined by some spectacular bridges, the two have a Newcastle: Gateshead relationship. Vila Nova de Gaia is the city where all the Port wine is produced by one of the many caves or cellars; Porto just got the name.

Porto is the more picturesque of the two cities, with tall, colourful houses around narrow cobbled streets; it is best seen from Vila Nova de Gaia, or from a boat cruise on the Douro. We chose Taylor’s for our Port wine tour and tasting as it has impressive views over the river to Porto. We arrived at lunch time and having walked up the steep hill, we were pleased to find that the restaurant menu had not just vegetarian options, but vegan main meals. The Taylor’s Restaurant is very posh; silver service from attentive waiting staff, heavy white fabric napkins and a panoramic view. It is, of course, accustomed to tourists and they didn’t bat an eye-lid at two scruffy travellers, although all the other guests were in very smart attire. We had an excellent meal and toasted the University staff with an aperitif glass of dry, white Port, called Chip Dry.

Back at the camp site we watched other campers returning from their own trips to taste the local nectar; laden with bags from Cockburn, Croft, Sandeman and others.

Don't make me go home

2010-03-23T09:48:00.005Z

The day we get on the ferry back to the UK is getting closer; although we are not negative about coming home, the very best thing about the past year has been the freedom to do as we please, without having to go to work and it is hard to feel positive about returning to being a wage slave once more. Although we are not sure we will ever get the opportunity to have a full year travelling again, we have started to think about how our future can include long trips with the Blue Bus.

We are looking forward to seeing everyone we know back at home and stuffing our faces with crumpets, chip butties and Theakston’s Old Peculiar at our first opportunity, while reading the Guardian. However, at the moment we are getting wistful thinking about the things we will miss about camping in mainland Europe. This list includes:

Fantastic bread – only the UK is obsessed with sliced white loaves

Quiet roads and motorways with no traffic jams

Meeting new people

Sitting outside in cafes drinking good coffee and watching the world go by

Cheap and good red wine

Small, spicy green peppers

Tins of tiny green lentils

Star-gazing on camp sites

Seeing new places and exploring

Warm sun

Sleeping in the van

Having the time to bird watch, look at flowers and generally enjoy the natural environment

Sweet, juicy oranges

The photographs are from Praia de Mira, a resort that does not have a lot of charm, with the exception of the blue and white wooden church; inside this has a mixture of religious and fishing icons. The beach at Praia de Mira stretches on and on; the fishing folk were on the beach messing with nets, boats and tractors.

Oh Man, I need TV when I got TRex

2010-03-20T17:02:00.001Z

We didn’t know much about Portugal before we came; we hadn’t found a book written by an ex-pat journalist or academic who had moved here for the good life and was keen to publish his thoughts on the ups and downs of life in this country on the edge of Europe. Consequently, Portugal keeps surprising us and often enchants us.

We have found out for ourselves that the Portuguese feel that the Spanish treat them as backward neighbours, they learn French and English at school, the country does not close down for three hours for siesta and people eat at what the British would consider reasonable hours. The Portuguese tile everything and prefer to build new houses, rather than live in a rustic cottage, all supermarkets smell like fishmongers, due to the amount of salt cod on sale, every café and restaurant has a TV switched on constantly, even if you go out for a meal in the evening.

This lack of fore-knowledge also means that we find tourist sights that were not on the must-see list. The dinosaur footprints near Tomar are an amazing treat, not even covered in our Church-obsessed Rough Guide. The Sauropod footprints are the oldest in the world and the best example; there are a number of tracks of different animals and you can clearly see the prints of their large back feet and smaller front feet. We paid two Euros each for the privilege of visiting the limestone quarry where these footprints were found in 1994; visitors are trusted to walk close to the tracks without damaging them, giving you an opportunity to have a good look. To see something so rare, made 175 million years ago and found by chance is an experience we will never forget. We don’t regret by-passing Rome, but overlooking these footprints would have been to miss an awesome experience that puts the present in to context and that we will never forget.

By the fountain down the road

2010-03-20T16:30:00.005Z

Water features are everywhere in Portugal; decorative fountains in the towns and in the middle of roundabouts and features to provide water to homes and industry. Facing the Atlantic, water is not as scarce as it is in much of Spain, but it is still clearly a managed resource; the newspaper has a list of reservoirs and what capacity they are at every day. These reservoirs, or Barragems, are dotted around the hilly areas of Portugal; many of these are vast lakes, spectacular country roads cross them and hug their shores and they are widely used for water sports and fishing.

In the villages you can still see water features from the time when there was no running water in people’s homes; most villages still have communal taps with tiled surrounds or village pumps, Carol is getting some exercise turning the mechanism for the pump in a village near Poco Redondo. In the fields mechanical water pumps for agriculture are disused and rusting; on walks we pass old wells with no fencing around them just waiting for someone to fall in and the remains of old water wheels can be spotted. Towns often have a large water tower, sometimes colourfully decorated; the water tower in Poco Redondo was painted pastel pink.

Evora and Serpa both had a fine aqueducts and the Convento de Cristo in Tomar, the HQ for the Knights Templar, has a 7 km long aqueduct built in the 17^th Century to provide water to the Convento. This impressive monument is built high above the valley and, typically for all of main-land Europe, you can walk along it without the benefit of a hand-rail.

And all the roads we have to walk along are winding

2010-03-17T16:21:00.005Z

There are positive and negative aspects to walking and hiking in much of southern Europe; on the positive side we are getting used to not worrying about trespassing, in most countries we have had the freedom to roam and with the hunting season now over, we no longer have to worry about being mistaken for a Wild Boar. However, it is often impossible to find a map in a suitable scale for walking and we are often reliant on way-marked paths and tracks.

We are now in the wealthier and more populated part of Portugal, north of the river Tejo and staying on an idyllic site near Tomar; we are the only campers and we can breakfast in the sun with the site's donkeys, horse and sheep, called Olivia, for company. The site owners are from the Netherlands and the UK and understand that we northern Europeans like to get out for a walk; they have produced directions for three local walks and have managed to get hold of the military maps for the area from the Geological Museum in Lisbon.

The walking is mainly on un-made roads and tracks, the routes wind through Eucalyptus plantations, Olive trees, small fields of vines and along streams, occasionally crossing tarmac roads and taking us into a village for a cafe stop. The Almond blossom is following us north and the Mimosa trees are in full bloom, underneath the Eucalyptus both pink and white heather are flowering. After the rain the streams are gushing and we enjoyed the chance to paddle across one stream to continue the route, drying our feet in the sun.

Stay out drinkin' 'till the morning comes

2010-03-15T16:13:00.004Z

To celebrate Anthony’s birthday Lynn and John, with the help of two Portuguese friends, Luiz and Fernando, organised a meal out at the Italian restaurant in Castelo Branco.

We had a fun and very convivial Portuguese evening; all first meeting in Silveira and opening a few bottles of red while we waited for Fernando to drive over. Consequently we reached the restaurant already very jolly at 21.30, as other diners were leaving. At the end of the meal Luiz ordered Beirao, a popular Portuguese liqueur, and we toasted the staff, a Portuguese tradition we were told, and wished Anthony a very long life. A Tiramusu birthday cake with candles was produced and everyone sang. As we left the restaurant the staff had their coats on to go home, but our new Portuguese friends considered the night young and we were taken to the nearby Rock Café; a dark cellar full of loud rock music with young and older music fans, sitting at tables on plastic chairs, enjoying the sounds. We tumbled in to bed tired and slightly giddy in the early hours after a birthday to remember

Lots of rural charm in the country

2010-03-15T16:05:00.004Z

Lynn and John live in Silveira, a hamlet on the northern banks of the River Tejo, with their beautiful cat Jagger. As well as their own house, they have two cottages they let as holiday rentals for the perfect, away-from-it-all retreat. Hopefully the photographs of the area do justice to the rural charm of this area. You can find more details and book your own trip to this beautiful part of Portugal on the Owners Direct website, property reference P6367.

Kayt and Zohra flew over from the UK to join us for a long weekend and Lynn and John were faultless hosts, taking us all for walks and trips locally; we met other villagers as they were out working in the sunshine, we spotted a Short-toed Eagle and a tiny snake, we walked through olive trees and past rushing streams, we admired the village bread ovens and covered well, we stood on a high crag above the river watching the Griffon Vultures circle below us. In the evenings we shared the cooking, drank Portuguese red wine and brandy, caught up on all the news and gossip and enjoyed plenty of laughing.

We had a day trip to Marvao, a walled hill town with charming houses and a warren of a castle perched at one end, a magnificent spot with panoramic views over fields and villages to every side. The day also provided another fantastic Portuguese café experience; Zohra and Kayt had to be dragged out of the cake shop salivating after purchasing only a small selection of the delicious, sweet Portuguese cakes.

If you change your mind

2010-03-10T17:19:00.002Z

We know, we had said farewell to the Atlantic Ocean over a week ago; but we are travellers and as you can see, we have altered our plans and are back on the coast, chasing the warmth and sunshine. We are camped near Nazare; a tourist resort looked over by a rocky headland. With a sunny day ahead, we set off with a packed rucksack and the tourist information leaflet about a local walk. We followed the marker posts through pine woods and along the beach, enjoying stretching our legs; it all seemed very simple. However, as is the way with these things our simple walk became more exciting. The next marker post was high on the cliff, underneath which the waves were crashing. We had a go at leaping on to the rocky ledge between rolls of surf, but retreated with wet feet and looked for an alternative. This less treacherous route involved crawling through tall bamboo canes, but we made it to the top of the cliffs unscathed.

There are a number of things that indicate that Portugal is not a wealthy country; we have seen families camping in tents on the edge of towns, while on the road we passed a group of ruined huts that were lived in and resembled a shanty town, in a number of towns we have seen the communal laundry facilities still being used, the photograph is of the one in Sitio, above Navare. The notes you receive from a cash machine differs from country to country; in wealthy Austria the ATMs generally only gave out 50 Euro notes; in Portugal your money comes in a wad of 20 and 10 Euro notes.

We continue to meet so many lovely people on our trip; in Alcobaca we spent hours chatting with Gisela and Paul over coffee about places we have seen. They have managed to find a lifestyle that allows them to travel for two or three months in a year and return to work; we envy them and hope we can find employers just as flexible. We will never tire of meeting new people. That said, our next stop is Lynn and John’s lovely house in the beautiful Alto Alentejo, where friends Kayt and Zohra will also be staying and it will be so relaxing to see old friends who know who we are and where we come from.

I've been on the road so long my friend

2010-03-09T16:39:00.004Z

With under four weeks left of our trip it is difficult to hang on to that elevated feeling we had last April as we set off with looking for adventures, with a whole year and all those places ahead of us. We try and generally succeed, to live each day as it comes, but not surprisingly occasionally thoughts of how life will be back in Salford creep in to our minds and with a place and date set for our sailing our roaming is naturally limited; it is difficult to suddenly decide to shoot off to somewhere particularly warm, for example.

Portuguese cafes are one of those small things we have delighted in and will miss. They are often elegant, but slightly shabby; designed with flair and imagination, but with an air of having not been re-decorated since the 1950s. The only place that comes close in England is the fantastic Bruciannis in Preston. The Portuguese cafes are always individual and the coffee is always cheap; it is good to be in a Costa-Mega-Bucks-free-zone; apart from Sevilla, we’ve not even seen one of those chains since Manchester.

The Monastery in Alcobaca, north of Lisbon, could have been an ABC moment, but the monumental scale of the building makes it worth a visit, if just to see the kitchens; with marble floors, high tiled walls and ceiling, a small stream cascading in to a pond providing running water, a massive central fireplace and two enormous marble tables for preparation, it would have been easy to feed the five thousand from this kitchen, never mind a few monks.

Easy as 123

2010-03-06T16:52:00.003Z

Australians often have a winning, no-nonsense way of summing up a situation; travelling around this part of Portugal, Mike and Theresa have introduced us to the ABC, Another Bloody Castle. This Portuguese-Spanish border is dotted with castles and fortified towns; they are all spectacular, but after a visiting a few you can be forgiven for deciding to skip one or two, particularly when it is raining.

Monsaraz is an exception that is not to be missed; a beautiful fortified village and castle in a lofty setting above the Barragem de Alqueva, Europe’s largest reservoir. Monsaraz is a picture-box village and provides fantastic views over the surrounding countryside. The reservoir, opened in 2002, was not surprisingly controversial as it flooded 200 prehistoric sites, millions of trees, habitats for Lynx and Eagles and a village. As is often the case, the economic arguments won over any concerns about the environment.

In Evora, we met up with Mike and Theresa again and shared ABC experiences. Evora is a UNESCO World Heritage Site with a Roman Temple, Medieval Walls, cobbled alleys and 16^th Century mansions and most certainly on the tourist circuit. We did look around all these sights, but were most interested in the headgear people around here wear; for men, the flat cap is most common, while women sport versions of the pull on hat or headscarves. The hat shop in Evora was a serious shopping emporium and not for a giggling hat-trying-on-types like us, so we only gazed in through the window.

If you see a faded sign by the side of the road

2010-03-06T16:47:00.002Z

Portugal is not a huge country, but travelling through the Alentejo you might be forgiven for thinking it is vast; we drove between large wheat fields and pasture for cattle, passed rows and rows of olive trees, with sheep and lambs grazing below them and extensive forests of cork oak trees, we meandered along the shores of enormous reservoirs.

In the midst of this agricultural abundance, a sign, hand-painted in white gloss on a slab of rock, announced the Serro de Bica campsite; without this we would never have found this small Dutch-run oasis which provided us with the facilities we need for a night.

Occasionally, the vast green-ness of the Alentejo is punctuated by an isolated white town or village, often with stone ramparts and a castle. We stopped in Beja for a look around the castle and splendid squares and bumped in to Mike and Theresa, the Australians last seen in Ronda and at that time on their way to Morocco. We caught up with their thoughts on motorhoming in Morocco and continued on to Serpa, a little gem of a town.

The campsite in Serpa is a municipal site and they warned us there was a strike of municipal workers the next day; we could stay at the site, but the Blue Bus would not be able to leave, as the gates would remain locked. Fortunately, we could come and go as pedestrians and we strolled in to the fantastic walled town of Serpa. The castle, museums, swimming pool and municipal park were all closed, due to the strike, but there was still plenty to enjoy. The narrow cobbled streets of the old town are very picturesque; lined with white, single-storey buildings, ranging from total decay to gentrified cottages, all with large and decorative chimney pots, cats made their way from place to place over the red-tiled rooftops or were curled up on a sunny wall, pots of geraniums and lines of washing provided colour in the streets.

There were not many other tourists around, but at one of the town wall’s gates who should we meet up with again, but Mike and Theresa! We drank coffee and put the world to rights for a while, sending them on their way with our battered old camera, as theirs had broken and some DVDs we have watched. We expect to meet them again.

I planned each chartered course, each careful step along the byway

2010-03-02T18:38:00.005Z

We like to see a country that builds public buildings that look attractive, rather than drab, and Portuguese primary schools are a lovely example. Most of the ones we have seen follow the same style; a curved red tiled roof and Romanesque arched doorways at each end of the building. They are so picturesque and look like a school you would only find in Trumpton.

Houses in Portugal follow the white with blue highlights pattern and are often single storey. The pleasant open square in Porto Covo da Bandiera is a pretty example of this local style. This pretty coastal village does not get a mention in the Rough Guide; but then although the Alentejo area makes up about third of the whole of country of Portugal, it only merits 50 pages in the Rough Guide, clearly an area with few notable churches, hurrah! This lack of ‘sights’ to see means we make our own route and discover places for ourselves, which is no bad thing.

We are entertained by Portuguese business names; a bank called Banco Espirito Santo and a supermarket in Praia da Luz called Baptista, with billboard adverts of tomatoes under-going full immersion baptism. We wondered, is Portugal such a Catholic country it brings religion into commerce? However, our research reveals that these seemingly holy names derive from Portuguese family names, rather than national piety.

On a fantastic craggy beach near Porto Covo da Bandiera we had our last paddle in the Atlantic before we left the coast for inland Portugal. Ours were the first footsteps on the beach since the tide had scrubbed it clean, as we left the waves were rushing in and would soon wipe away any evidence of our excursion. If things go according to plan, the next coastal area we see will be on the Bay of Biscay.

She's been living in her white bread world

2010-03-02T18:26:00.003Z

We are in no position to laugh at people’s difficulties with a foreign language; we have travelled three months in Spain with little language and in times of stress any one of the six languages we have used over the past ten months may emerge. That said, we do like to have a bit of a giggle over some of the translations into English we have seen.

Campsite toilet facilities are often a good place to find these mis-translations; ‘Please not to place the roles in the WC’, is not correct, but we all know what they mean. ‘The breach will be a lack of serious motive’, is less self-explanatory.

The rules and regulations for campsites are another opportunity for making less sense than you intended; ‘The campsite reserves the right of rectifying the material registered always when detect in-corrections in your registration,’ still has us baffled, we may or may not have breached that one, with or without a serious motive.

In Portugal we bought bread called Pao da Sogra. This seemed to be translated into English on the wrapping with the words ‘bread of the mother in paw’ and went on, ‘stew in oven of firewood’. Was this a cooking instruction, or a description of how it was made? All that is clear to us is that the bread in Portugal is fantastic and we’ve no idea how we will cope with Warburtons White Sliced when we return.

And we're changing our ways, taking different roads

2010-03-01T17:31:00.005Z

Reluctantly we left the comforts of the fantastic campsite at Praia de Luz and set off to explore Portugal beyond the popular Algarve coast. North of the Algarve is the Alentejo, a largely rural agricultural area of Portugal, between the coastal strip and the Tejo river; this is one of the poorest areas of Europe. We were keen to learn more about this area and see what it has to offer the visitor over the next week or so.

We have found that most of the roads in southern Europe are fairly quiet, even the motorways; we haven't seen anything resembling Spaghetti Junction for ten months and Cordoba was our last experience of a traffic jam; even there, if Spanish road signs had taken us around the city, rather than leaving us to drive by compass to find the campsite, we would have had a jam-free day. We don't really know how we will adjust to the hustle of UK roads when we return. The roads to Vila Nova De Milfontes were typically quiet, with no pressure to drive at anyone's pace but our own.

Walking on the cliffs of the Atlantic coast we were among a wealth of flowers; pink thrift and rock roses are flowering and delicate sand crocuses are scattered. The landscape is green and verdant after all the rain and seeing these flowers in England, you would think it was May. Immediately inland from the coastal dunes and cliffs the fields are cultivated; the photograph shows a field of chamomile, with the ubiquitous Bermuda Buttercups in front of two highly desirable, to romantics like us, cottages. The smell of chamomile with a hint of salty sea spray; you felt relaxed and full of energy all at the same time.

The showery weather makes it feel like a warm April in England and can make it difficult to get clothes dried some days and so our standards have been slipping even further. We are currently in competition to see who can wear a pair of socks the longest number of days between washes, before the socks get up and walk away by themselves.

You don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows

2010-02-28T10:14:00.002Z

The Romans saw the sunset at Cabo de Sao Vicente and thought the sun was sliding hissing into the sea every evening; it is also within the Parque Natural do Sudoeste Atlentejano so we thought it was worth a visit, despite the forecast for strong winds.

We caught the bus to Sagres and set off along the dramatic coastline. The wind was so strong we held hands for safety, rather than affection, as we were buffeted along the cliffs to the inevitable lighthouse at the end. In the fresh air your nose wanted to run, but the wind blew everything back in to your throat, apologies if this is too graphic for some of you. It was certainly weather you could feel and there was no question, this is real, as Sam Tyler would say (yes we’ve been re-watching ‘Life on Mars’).

We came upon a group of four empty cars parked haphazardly by the cliffs and no sign of the occupants; Anthony speculated it was the scene of a drugs-war shoot out as we’d watched ‘No Country for Old Men’ the evening before. Carol pointed out that drug dealers rarely travel around in an old Renault Four. When we reached the cars we spotted their occupants half-way down the cliffs; they had climbed down with ropes and were participating in extreme fishing.

We missed the bus back to the campsite and the prospect of two and a half hours to wait until the next in such an exposed spot saw us enquiring about taxis. A cheerful taxi driver in a camel coloured driving coat gave us a ride and gave a commentary about the weather, other drivers and the traffic lights in Portu-English while we nodded and watched the road for him.

And the sweet silver song of the Lark

2010-02-24T17:14:00.004Z

The campsite near to Luz is quite a gem; all you blog readers at home may not be able to appreciate how uncomfortable it can be showering in an un-heated shower block every day. In southern Europe heating is generally considered un-necessary; this means that even if the shower is piping hot (and it often isn’t) as soon as you switch it off you are in a race to get dried and dressed, as you quickly cool down. Many shower blocks don’t even have external doors, providing very fresh air while you hurriedly dry. Although it is warmer than the UK, some heating is appreciated and in Luz there is one shower block that is warm, clean and so comfortable we really don’t want to leave, but we are now aware that time is running out and we want to explore more of Portugal.

This part of the Algarve is beautiful; Luz is a charming small town; with a few shops, including a large health food shop, cobbled streets, small apartments to rent, a sweep of sand, a promenade lined with palm trees and restaurants and cafes. It feels relaxed and we could easily spend a long time here. We walked the well-used path to Burgau and back, along the craggy coast, accompanied by sunshine, bird song and the sounds of the sea; Larks, Blackbirds, Kestrels, Turnstones, Sardinian Warblers and Curlew were all spotted. The bright yellow Bermuda Buttercups are everywhere and provide some colour. They are neither from Bermuda, nor a buttercup, but are a well adapted invader from Africa.

The shower block next to our pitch is open to the elements; this suits the swallows who consider it an ideal nesting site. You can use the facilities and watch the birds building their nest at the same time.

Well eight or nine, well, that's just fine

2010-02-22T17:23:00.004Z

The coast-o-meter we use to judge coast line scenery is the Orkney scale; that is, with Orkney scoring a top ten. Using this scale Blackpool comes in at about two and the rocky Algarve coastline reaches seven.

The narrative on the campsites is that this year is the worst winter weather campers have ever experienced. Certainly, those who have been coming to the Spanish and Portuguese southern coasts for the past seven years or so will have enjoyed the drought of recent years. However, average weather conditions suggest that around eight rainy days can be expected in February and so it may be that this year we are having an average February.

The day we planned to walk along the coast from Benagil towards Albufeira started fairly un-promisingly with a heavy thunderstorm. However, we are English walkers and that gives us an optimistic mind-set; we set off in full waterproofs to walk the coastal path and see the spectacular sea stacks and arches. It was a breezy day, but warm and we enjoyed the exhilaration of fresh sea air; by the end of our walk we were in T-shirts, proving once again that it can be worth just going for it.

As one of us has a cold and the other has persistent age-related hot flushes, we decided to bring our core temperatures down with medicinal large ice-creams in a sea front cafe; these hit the spot and really should be available on the NHS.

No time for losers

2010-02-18T13:59:00.002Z

Our first night in Portugal was spent in the campsite bar watching Manchester United beat AC Milano in the European Champions League match. Everywhere we go, when we tell people we live in Manchester, they respond with recognition and say, ‘Yes, Manchester United!’ Until we met Karin; she was on our wave length in so many ways, but, despite being Italian, had little interest in football and when we asked if she knew of Manchester United, she replied that she had heard of it, but what was it.

Our first impressions of Portugal are that although not surprisingly the architecture has similarities to Spain, it is clearly a different country. The Portuguese win hands down on the imaginative use of tiling competition and they do a nice line in decorative chimney pots, more buildings are still awaiting renovation and show signs of deterioration, the language is different; similar enough so we can read it, but we have no idea how to pronounce it, the coffee costs less than one euro a cup in the cafes and we are in the same time zone as the UK.

We are camped in Olhao, with the Parque Natural da Ria Formosa across the road from the campsite. This part of the Algarve coast is small, active fishing towns, with salt marshes, lagoons and off-shore sandy islands.

We took the train for a day out to Tavira; a small town on a river with a ruined castle above the town. Our first meal in Portugal was a curry, very appropriate as apparently the Portuguese colonialists introduced chillis from Mexico to India along with the word vindaloo.

Flowers in Portugal in February

2010-02-17T17:32:00.003Z

Walking along the Algarve coast we spotted our first orchid in a damp area of grass land. There are many of these that look similar and Carol’s best guess is a Sawfly Ophrys. Someone out there probably knows better. We have also spotted the small sand crocuses and large, cheery White Rockrose flowering.

I'll be gone when the morning comes

2010-02-15T16:36:00.004Z

The area around Aracena is hilly and forested, rather than mountainous and is a landscape of woodland and small-holdings, called huerta, connected by a useful network of old paths lined with stone walls and sometimes cobbled. We walked through olive, cork oaks and chestnut groves, the occasional blossoming almond tree adding some colour; we spotted the local black pigs, sheep and goats grazing among the trees and plenty of horses and donkeys, overhead Black Kites and vultures hunted. A less rustic sight is the occasional large chicken farm, but there was always something interesting around the next corner.

If you look closely at the photograph of the donkeys, you may notice that two of them have the pattern of a flower in a pot seemingly shaved into their coats. We’ve no idea if this decoration was a childish game or an example of an old local custom. Do you know?

We didn’t have to leave the house to find wildlife in Aracena; a gecko clung onto one of the walls, a hedgehog snuffled around the garden at night and on our last evening a bat appeared in the living room, flew around and then settled on one of the high beams and could not be encouraged to leave; it was still there in the morning.

We have about seven weeks left of our trip and we’re not in Portugal yet; it feels that we are running out of time. We have enjoyed this Atlantic coast of Spain so much, we’re wondering why we spent so long on the Mediterranean; the last month have been a revelation, there is a green, pleasant and less developed Spanish coast and we want to linger here and yet we are also itching to get to Portugal. Clearly after so long away we have lost all perspective on what is a holiday; normally we would spend a fortnight travelling around an area we have now spent over four weeks touring around.

Remember how we laughed away the hours

2010-02-15T16:01:00.004Z

When it rains and in the dark evenings you might think we would get bored in our small blue bus. This never seems to be the case, as there is always something to do; we write the blog, mend things, read guide books, use the internet, watch DVDs friends sent for Carol’s birthday, read books, do puzzles, write the journal, play games, cook, eat, learn a language, sort out our photographs, listen to music and still after ten months together, talk.

If the campsite has a bar, it can be nice to have a drink there and be in a bigger space than the van; and if there is someone we are on friendly terms with also there, even better. A lot of campers never make it to the bar, but in Tarifa it was always a cosy and convivial place to go and in El Rocio we sat in the bar with a bottle of red and sorted the world out for hours with our lovely Italian neighbour, Karin. The connections we made with other campers will be very strong memories from our trip.

We wanted to spend a few days walking in the Natural Park of the Sierra de Aracena y Los Picos de Aroche, near the Portuguese border. However, at 700 m above sea level it is still cool and the campsites are shut until later in the year. We decided to treat ourselves to a house for three nights and found the perfect rural retreat near Aracena ( From the Owners Direct website, property number Spain 8263).

From the coast we drove through fields of orange trees and strawberries under plastic, passed copper mines, including the massive and infamous Rio Tinto mine and over rivers that flow orange from the local soil.

With central heating and a log burning stove in the house we were soon snug and cosy. We both had our first colds for ten months; that is what comes of being friendly with people, so the luxury of a warm bathroom (with a bath!) and a large double bed, were even more appreciated. The house is in a tranquil setting on the hillside with a view across the olive trees, see the photograph.

Riding out on a horse in a star-spangled rodeo

2010-02-10T16:19:00.005Z

From the camp site south of Sevilla, we drove to El Rocio on the northern edge of the Donana National Park. To avoid the motorways we navigated along minor roads; the map showed a bridge crossing over the River Guadalquiver. After 20 kms or so we reached the river, there was no bridge, but fortunately a small ferry going back and forth taking cars across so we didn't have to re-trace our steps.

We drove through pine forests with parking areas and stopped in one for lunch, continuing on into the Donana Natural Park area. We passed signs telling us the road ahead was closed, but decided to carry on; Eight kilometres and 16 speed bumps later the road disappeared into a large hole, we had to re-trace our steps this time.

We stopped for diesel in a village garage; the signs said it was self-service, but we couldn't get the pump to work. Another customer told us we had to go in to the shop first, Carol did this and explained we wanted to fill up; returning to the Blue Bus there was still no joy with the pump and an announcement on the loud-speaker in Spanish was no help so we practised our shrugging. However, another customer came over and translated the announcement into English. For being so helpful she got a round of applause from all the other customers and in delight she danced across the forecourt back to her car. So much entertainment from just 80 kms!

El Rocio has to be seen to be even partly understood, the photographs might help and if you cast your mind back to 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly' you're half-way there. The town is designed for horses, with streets of sand, no tarmac in sight, hitching posts outside every house and opportunities to buy your Clint Eastwood outfit in the stores. El Rocio is a small town, with over 100 large buildings, each for the use of the Hermandad, or Brotherhood, of an Andalucian town or city, as well as private houses. At pentecost it is a place of pilgrimage for Andalucians; on horseback, in covered wagons and carriages and packed to the rafters, but at the moment it is a sleepy spot.

El Rocio is also the departure point for four-wheel drive trips into the Donana National Park; we decided this was quite an invasive way to visit this protected area and satisfied ourselves with the short walks that are permitted from the visitors centres. We were rewarded with the sight of a flock of Azure Winged Magpies in the pine woods, these pretty birds with their pale blue wings entertained us while we had our picnic.

When we called out for another drink, the waiter brought a tray

2010-02-08T15:59:00.009Z

You don’t have to be in Spain very long to see that they take every opportunity to use tiles; there are tiled floors, tiles on the sides of buildings, on balconies and on benches. The tiles are often colourful, beautiful and decorative and they are certainly very practical in this climate.

In Sevilla the tiling has been taken to new extremes; the Plaza de Espana, built in 1929, is an artistic celebration of the different cities and regions of Spain in brightly coloured tiles along a crescent (see photograph). In Sevilla we also found signs for shops and bars and advertising in tiling; the photograph of the charming black cat was in the doorway of a lottery shop.

The Alcazar combines Moorish and Spanish styles and plenty of colourful tiles are in evidence in this pleasing palace and its adjoining gardens. Our English neighbours on the campsite said they were disappointed with Sevilla, but then their expectations had been very high. We enjoyed its relaxed environment on a fine Sunday; noted the new trams and cycle routes, treated ourselves to a glass of sherry or two before lunch and dawdled in a vast cafe with smart, bustling waiters serving hordes of groups of middle-aged Spaniards, eating cake and drinking coffee with brandy chasers; we ate cakes with a high calorific content and had another glass of sherry.

When all the birds are singing in the sky, now that the spring is in the air

2010-02-06T15:46:00.002Z

Donana National Park is the largest area in Europe without roads and other infrastructure; used as a royal hunting ground since the 13^th century, this protected landscape includes wetland, salt marsh, beaches and dunes and pine forest. It is designated a National Park, in Spain this is the highest level of environmental protection and little development is allowed beyond some sustainable honey production, collection of pine nuts, horse grazing and charcoal burning and public access is limited to guided tours. Around the National Park is the Donana Natural Park, acting as a buffer zone for the National Park, here some activities are allowed with licences, such as fishing, salt extraction and hunting.

Donana has always been on our list of must visit places and the boat trip from Sanlucar de Barrameda seemed an excellent way to visit the southerly parts of the area. The boat, the Real Fernando, was under-going its annual maintenance during January and we had to stay in El Puerto de Santa Maria a few days more than planned to take the first trip of the year on 6 February. The day dawned foggy, weather that certainly hampers bird watching! However, because of the weather, the boat delayed departure by half an hour and the sun managed to shine on our trip.

The three hour trip includes time on land as well as sailing up the River Guadalquiver. We managed to spot both red deer and fallow deer, wild boar rooting in the mud, a black stork, avocets and other waders and a Marsh Harrier. We have seen a few swallows making their way north, so can confirm that spring is on its way!

Flags, rags, ferryboats, scimitars and scarves

2010-02-03T14:49:00.011Z

Cadiz has water on three sides; to the west and north the Atlantic waves roll against the walls and to the east is the huge sheltered bay, in this city you are never very far from the sea. This means it is a city that will disappear as soon as sea levels start to rise, so it seemed worth spending a couple of days visiting it while it is still possible.

We arrived by ferry, surely the only way to travel to Cadiz. Port cities always have a certain bustle and a sense of people coming and going that has always appealed to us; they are cities where lots of people are travellers and so we feel comfortable there. Cadiz is full of light and fresh air; with charming plazas to sit in, streets that open out to the sea and the wide horizon and no high-rise buildings, as these are too expensive to build safely in a city sitting on sand.

The peculiar geography of Cadiz means it can only expand to the south and this constraint makes it a very compact city and ideal for walking around. We followed the coast along the blustery Atlantic side, watching the feral cats scavenging and fishermen mending their boats and through the shady formal parks at the northern tip. The trees in these parks are all native to North America; this is after all the city that Christopher Columbus sailed from for his second voyage and which monopolised European overseas trade in the eighteenth century.

We now have daylight until after 19.00 and the blue skies, warm sun and fresh breezes makes it feel like an English spring, although it is only just February.

All that rugby puts hairs on your chest

2010-01-31T19:38:00.009Z

Since living in Leicester we have enjoyed watching Rugby Union and we were surprised to see this being played at the sports fields next to the campsite on Saturday afternoon, we didn't associate it with Spain. Further investigation courtesy of Wikipedia revealed that what we saw was the local team, Club de Rugby Atletico Portuense, who play in the Honour Division B, equivalent to the Spanish third division. On the team's website they shorten their name to El Crap!

In Andalucia we have come across Padel courts; Padel is like tennis, always played as doubles and on a smaller court that uses the walls, in a similar way to squash. Padel racquets, or paddle's, are solid wood, not stringed.

On a sunny morning in Cadiz, we were interested to see a group of school children arrive on the beach with a couple of teachers; the children carried footballs and goal posts and were soon being organised into teams and warming up for a match.

There are no excuses for not taking part in some kind of sport in Spain; the weather is good, there is the national obsession with football, there are cycle lanes, long beaches with joggers and if none of these appeal there are always the outdoor gyms. At first glance these look like children's playgrounds, every town has at least one installation of bright yellow and red metal gym equipment. We are unable to pass these gyms by without stopping and playing for a while, but it is never just us and the other campers who use these facilities, the Spanish are always there too; typically the users vary from the serious keep-fit person with an MP3 player and an earphone, to children, who find them more fun than the nearby play area.

The one, so called, sport we have avoided is bull-fighting. We are surprised how prevalent this is, particularly in Andalucia, most towns of any size have a bull-ring. Thankfully, it is in no way as popular as football and some regions are looking to end it.

Life is so full of sweet, sweet things, I’d like to do some tasting

2010-01-31T19:24:00.009Z

Jerez is sherry city and we had looked forward to visiting a sherry bodega and tasting some different sherries. We chose the Sandeman's bodega and as the only people on the English tour, learnt about how sherry is made from our guide and breathed in the syrupy aroma of the sherry ageing in the casks, before being sat down with three different glasses of sherry each to taste, along with a bowl of crisps. After so much alcohol it is not surprising that we emerged from the shop, that is handily placed before you exit the bodega, with a carrier bag full of sherry, we are only grateful that even in our alcoholic haze we managed to resist the souvenirs that were not sherry.

Jerez had other delights, aside from the bodegas; the railway station alone is a work of art, the tiling in the photograph is from platform one. The city has made money from exporting sherry to the UK and beyond and the wealth is obvious in the city's ornate buildings.

We are camped at El Puerto de Santa Maria, a small town, across the bay from Cadiz and extremely convenient for visiting Jerez by train and also Cadiz by train or boat. The site has good facilities and friendly campers and we are inclined to stay a few days; maybe even fitting in a second bodega visit.

Spain does not have Sunday shopping and Sundays here have their own atmosphere; cycling around El Puerto de Santa Maria between 3 and 4 pm on a Sunday afternoon you notice the restaurants are all thriving, the Spanish lunch time is usually from 2 pm. It may be January and only 15C, but the Spanish are tough and prepared to sit at tables outside. Those families not eating out are at the multi-screen cinema or on the beach; Sundays feel like a lively day here.

It's a mixed up muddled up shook up world except for Lola

2010-01-26T14:48:00.006Z

We were comfortable at the campsite in Tarifa and stayed there seven nights; an accolade only bestowed on four other campsites up to now on this trip; generally we like to be travelling, even if it is not very far and from Tarifa we only travelled 60 kms north to Cabo Trafalgar, to see where all the action happened in 1805.

The campsite here is the 100th site we've stayed on during the past nine months. We like campsites and the opportunities they give to meet people and observe human behaviour and various posts have described some of our experiences. Recent delightful characters have included a man from the UK who was painting his van with vivid pink emulsion; an amateur naturalist with such a breadth of knowledge we would have had to stay months to hear even a part of it and a story teller from the Netherlands who had learned his craft in Findhorn.

One thing you will always see on any camp site; Crocs, this is the footwear of the camper; everyone wears them, from small children to the retired, Italians to Germans. We have seen pink crocs, decorated Crocs, Crocs with socks, Crocs with dressing gowns, camouflage Crocs and fake Crocs. We own subdued blue and green Crocs; they are very practical for camping, being lightweight, washable, waterproof, comfy and versatile; you can wear your Crocs to the beach, in the shower, even in the rain.

One of the huge advantages of Crocs is that when it is raining you can leave them outside the van, thus avoiding bringing wet and muddy shoes inside. However, this was not possible at the campsite in Tarifa, as Lola, the owners West Highland Terrier would spot an unguarded Croc at 50m and mischievously carry it off to another part of the site. It was not uncommon for campers to ask if you had seen one of their shoes and we were seen hopping out of the van to collect a displaced shoe on a number of occasions.

Let them truckers roll, 10-4

2010-01-25T15:44:00.006Z

Sitting in a café in Tarifa on Saturday morning we noticed lots of motorhomes driving up the main street; at first we thought a ferry had just come in and these vans were all returning from Morocco. After around 100 vans we started to wonder, could all these fit on one ferry? The convoy of motorhomes was a demonstration by the Andalucia motorhomers association (ASANDAC) about parking restrictions on the beaches of Andalucia. In an effort to stop wild camping by motorhomes and following pressure from campsite owners, motorhomes are now restricted from even parking by the beaches for the day.

We like campsites, they have showers, even if they are of varying quality, and other useful facilities that make our trip slightly more luxurious. For other motorhomers wild camping is a way of life; many of these motorhomers wild camp for one or two nights at the most, take their rubbish and waste products away, are truly 'kings of the road' and give no cause for concern. Other motorhomers will park like sardines in a can at a beach-side beauty spot, wild camp at this same spot for months and some of these will regularly empty their chemical toilets in a nearby ditch. As is often the case, the law does not have the subtlety required to allow travellers the freedom to roam, while preventing environmental degradation of long-term wild camping.

As we cycled back to the campsite the demonstration passed us, tooting horns and waving. The Cheshire Caravanner from our site said he'd counted over 200 motorhomes in the convoy.

Oh, Father of the four winds fill my sails

2010-01-25T15:34:00.003Z

Tarifa’s geographical position has shaped the development and the atmosphere of the town and its surroundings; it is on the south west corner of Spain, the Straits of Gibraltar to the left, the Atlantic to the right. The winds off the Atlantic are welcome relief in the summer, when all four of Tarifa’s campsites will be full, but keep most of the long-term winter campers away; this breezy weather is ideal for kite and wind surfing, even in January people in wetsuits are messing about on the beaches. The contrast between Tarifa and the Mediterranean resorts and campsites is huge; the shops in Tarifa sell Rip Curl clothing and ethnic jewellery; our campsite is green, tranquil and un-crowded, there are a few retirees over-wintering from different countries, there are also young people with battered vans and surf boards on the roof; this mixed community suits us well.

The beach is just outside the campsite and is a vast expanse of sand, stretching the kilometre of so south to Tarifa and as far as the eye can see to the north. It is bordered by green fields of brown cows, sand dunes and woods of Umbrella Pines. This coastline is now protected as the Parque Natural del Estrecho (the Straits) and further development is unlikely with this designation.

There is no shortage of activities to keep us occupied in the area. We have cycled north to Bolonia, to see the Roman town that has been excavated there; we have wandered around the pretty streets of Tarifa and we have paddled in the Atlantic Ocean and watched amazed as a group of White Storks follow a chaotic flight pattern.

She might be in Tangier, she left here last early Spring is living there I hear

2010-01-21T16:44:00.007Z

Since Dylan sang about Tangier in the '70s, its been on the list of places to visit. However, our only other connection with Morocco is through the Western Sahara Campaign; every month for a number of years they sent us a list of four addresses and we diligently wrote to each one asking for the same three men to be freed from prison. The crime of these men was to seek self-determination for Western Sahara. We considered not going in solidarity with this campaign, but felt this small boycott would have little impact.

We opted for the guided tour with our ferry tickets; largely because this option was strangely cheaper than just the return ferry and included a guide, a bus tour of newer Tangier and lunch. We are not generally tour group sort of people, but at this time of year our group was our excellent guide, who answered all our questions about this very foreign country, us and an American father and son, who proved to be very good company.

We have been travelling through Moorish occupied Spain for some weeks and so the architecture of the narrow streets of the old town of Tangier were in many ways familiar. That said, this evidently was not Europe, the Straits of Gibraltar may seem narrow, but they separate two different worlds and all our senses were overwhelmed by new sights, sounds and smells; the call to prayer from the mosques, women washing clothes in the streets, the wood-fired bakery, the constant requests to buy souvenirs, ornate remnants of Colonial Morocco, young men hanging on to the back of lorries hoping to get a lift to Spain, children chanting as they played in the school yard and the beautifully tiled doorways leading in to the huge prayer spaces in the mosques.

The disadvantage of being on a guided tour is that you are taken from spending opportunity to spending opportunity; the out-of-place camels who had been bought north for the tourists, the three storey carpet shop, where the pressure was off us once the Americans had agreed to buy and the sweet smelling spices shop with a multi-lingual shop-keeper who went through the origins and uses of different spices and oils.

People say we monkey around

2010-01-19T16:44:00.006Z

We don't quite know what to make of Gibraltar, but it diverted us for a few hours. We have caught glimpses of the bulk of the rock over the past week and were intrigued to see what lay around it. Walking down Gibraltar's Main Street felt like being in a UK high street; with M&S, BHS and Next, familiar fake victorian street furniture, red Royal Mail postboxes and pounds and pence. We treated ourselves to chips and curry sauce and bought M&S teabags.

We took the cable car up to the top of the rock to see the Barbary Macaques that live here; no one is sure if they were introduced or are a remnant of the African population. However, unlike the Macaques in Morocco and Algeria, where habitat loss has reduced populations, the Macaques in Gibraltar are thriving, with 230 living in six groups. As a tourist it is illegal to feed the Macaques, they eat leaves, olives and roots and are given supplementary food and veterinary care by The Gibraltar Ornithology and Natural History Society, who also monitor and control the population with contraceptives, as they have no natural predators on the rock. There is controversy surrounding the Macaques; some disruptive individuals have been culled in recent years, much more severe than a ASBO.

We have moved on to Tarifa; leaving the calm Mediterranean behind, we are now facing the Atlantic breezes and surfer dudes. The campsite here claims to be the most southerly site in Europe and it is certainly our most southerly point on this trip.

On the way here we drove past the wind farms of Tarifa. The chip shop owner in Gibraltar said that all Tarifa's power comes from wind. We've not managed to confirm this on the world-wide-web, but there are claims that Europe's largest windfarm is above Tarifa and that it produces enough power for a small town, like Tarifa, so in theory it is perhaps true.

'Cause it grows stronger, like a river flows

2010-01-17T14:23:00.006Z

The campsite in Jimena de la Frontera is mostly permanent caravans for the Spanish and Gibraltese. There are only three of us here as touring campers; our neighbour is German, he greets us with the peace sign, has a small tent that leaks, a pink scooter and long hair. He thinks Germany is ‘scheisse’ nowadays and has no time for Angela and her policies.

There is no shortage of way-marked walks in this area and our third day of walking in the Alcornocales should have been an enjoyable stroll, but became another epic day out. The 11 kilometre walk started out well; after walking through the white-washed houses and the steep, narrow streets of Jimena and crossing the river on the bridge we walked up a steep hill with a view of the straits of Gibraltar and the snow capped Moroccan mountains beyond and followed a switch-back track down the other side, joined by a large herd of goats, shepherded by a young man on a motorbike. Down at the river things got more complicated once again; in places the path had disappeared under silt and flotsam bought down by the river in flood. The guide book suggested you cross the river three times, but as this was impossible we were only occasionally actually on the footpath. We scrambled, crawled and slithered our way, getting muddy and scratched by vicious thorns, eventually emerging tired and battered back on the road into town.

We left the green and pleasant land of Jimena for the washing machines and wi-fi of the coast, but not before counting the twelve Griffon Vultures sat menacingly in the field next to the campsite. We passed storks nest after storks nest along the road to Algecircas, we haven't seen these fascinating birds since Austria and it cheered us to see them standing in pairs on their lofty nests watching the blue bus travel below.

I don't pop my cork for every man I see

2010-01-17T13:57:00.009Z

From Ronda we drove through stunning craggy mountain scenery to the Parque Natural de los Alcornocales, Spain's most southerly park. This is an area of higher rainfall than you might expect by its latitude and this results in a much less arid landscape with green fields of chestnut brown cows and long-legged sheep, wooded hills of wild olives and maritime pine and gushing rivers.

We walked through woods of cork oak, you can see in the photograph the cork has been recently harvested; cork is a sustainable crop that is harvested by cork cutters every nine to twelve years for up to twelve times on one tree. The cork cutting is carried out in the winter time when the sap is down and the cork is taken off in large sheets which are baled locally for sending to manufacturers. Cork stoppers in wine are not the only product this fantastic material is useful for; dartboards are useless without cork and according to the cork industry federation website it is used in gaskets for cars, expansion joints in bridges, in cricket balls and many other items.

From the camp site in Jimena we walked in the sunshine, enjoying seeing Asphodels coming into flower and wild daffodils and watching the Griffon Vultures languidly flying overhead in gangs of four or five. The ground was damp with thick clay soil that stuck to your walking shoes; we haven’t had to do more than dust the sand off them for so long it felt like a novelty. We had planned to follow a walk that involved crossing the river, but when we arrived at the bank it was clear that after the rain we have had over the past few weeks this could only be done by swimming and we re-traced our steps back to the van.

Flowers in Spain

2010-01-15T17:27:00.002Z

It is surprising how many flowers we have seen in Spain, considering we are visiting in winter months. These photographs are all of flowers we have seen in southern Spain in January.

Bright yellow cotton lavender flowers are fairly common. The pretty pink Cranesbills flower on the edges of woods and farmland and the daffodils are a cheering spring sight.

Well, Ronda you caught my eye, caught my eye and I can give you lotsa reasons why

2010-01-13T16:14:00.009Z

After getting the van window fixed in Marbella, we drove into the mountains to Ronda despite the poor weather forecast and were rewarded in two ways.

It was raining heavily when we arrived at the almost deserted campsite in Ronda and we were set for curling up in the van for the afternoon and evening when there was a knock on the window. Teresa and Mike from Australia invited us round to their (larger) van and many hours of wine, good company and shared food was our first reward for leaving the bright lights and mild weather of the coast; the conversation meandered through places we'd visited, immigration, music (from Jake Thackray to Green Day) and climate change.

The next morning we said farewell to Mike and Teresa; they are heading for Morocco for six weeks and then Portugal, where we're sure we'll meet up with them again and we headed into Ronda. Having seen the weather forecast we took all our waterproofs and were very pleased to enjoy occasional sunny spells and only light showers as we mooched around the pleasant town.

Three bridges cross the rocky El Tajo gorge; the newest of these is the highlight of the town and built at around 120m above the river, the view as you cross takes your breath away when you first look down. The gorge splits the town in two, but it has remained a manageable size to explore on foot; the old part of Ronda has pleasant streets, impressive city walls from the Moors occupation and well preserved Arab baths, the new town has some beautiful ornate buildings, shops, cafes and a hardy busker. In cool January weather there are few tourists about and at lunchtime we had to dodge the restaurant staff who hang around in the doorway and try to entice you into their establishment.

... how to bend not break the rules

2010-01-10T09:54:00.009Z

The long-term campers we meet are generally courteous and friendly and will share their experiences of different camp sites in Spain. If they have chosen a site for 6 months, they are, not surprisingly, most enthusiastic about that site; the atmosphere of these sites is like that of a small village, with lots of activities and social occasions to take part in. Arriving for just a couple of nights we can feel like incomers who don’t know the rules. Fortunately, there is usually someone that wants to help you feel at home, explaining how things work on a particular site; where you take your rubbish, which shower is the best, where to swop books, how to get hot water for washing up and all the other necessary parts of camp site life.

At the site near Marbella a friendly couple from Nuneaton took on this role; they have been staying on the site every winter for seven years and certainly know the ropes; we first met them when Anthony was plugging in our electric cable and they wandered over to tell us that no one locks the box where all the cables are plugged in to the mains, as this makes re-setting the power easier when it trips, and it always does.

We drove out to the Parque Natural Sierra de las Nieves, just inland from Marbella. This is a beautiful mountainous and tranquil area, where it is difficult to believe only a few kilometres away cars are jammed in a long queue for the Centro Comercial parking, now the January sales have started. We walked around the picturesque village of Ojen whose central square was lively with a small market, pretty fountains and bustling cafes and along paths through various pines, juniper and gorse up to a spectacular viewpoint for a colourful view of the green hills, the white village and the blue sea.

Look at those cave men go

2010-01-08T17:45:00.006Z

The Megalithic Portal is one of Carol's favourite websites. It is not the smartest website, it has a cluttered and home-made look to it; with adverts for moon stones and books about energy healers, photographs of sites and menu and search subjects all crowding for space. This said, it is one of those sites that make the world wide web so fantastic and useful, set up by a volunteer it relies on contributions from other enthusiasts and so is always individual and often quirky and provides a growing database of information on pre-historic sites in the UK and Europe.

We found out about the dolmens near Antequera through the Megalithic Portal and visited on our way from Cordoba to Marbella. There are three dolmens around the town, including the Menga Dolmen which is thought to be the largest in Europe. The structure of this 5,000 year old dolmen is monumental in scale; the walls and roof are built of huge stones that would have taken some shifting without a JCB. It was a wet day and we were lucky to be able to explore this interesting and enigmatic site on our own.

From the Costa del Sol we got our first glimpse of the continent of Africa, but don't let the photograph fool you, the elephant is on the beach in Marbella, looking longlingly across the Mediterranean.

Once upon a time you dressed so fine, didn’t you

2010-01-07T18:33:00.003Z

The 6 January is the day the Spanish celebrate the arrival of the Three Kings in Bethlehem and give presents. On 5 January people were queuing in the shops to buy a Roscon de Reyes, a ring-shaped cake decorated with glace fruits, these large cakes are boxed and carried home carefully.

Among the narrow winding streets of the old town of Cordoba we found the Arab Baths and we treated ourselves to an afternoon of pampering, an experience that took us back to Roman times. We spent time in the warm bath, the hot bath and the steam room and lay on the warm marble table before dipping a toe in the cold bath. Anthony remarked that all we needed was a bath bomb! Fortunately, no one overheard. We drank sweet peppermint tea served in a silver teapot and relaxed in the dim lights, surrounded by stone columns and arches with gentle music and the smell of incense in the air. All the better for being the first bath we’d had in nine months!

We have not ironed any clothes since we came on this trip, partly because of lack of the required equipment and partly because we had bought clothes that don’t need any ironing. Sometimes we might look a bit scruffy, but fortunately on a camp site no one judges you on how pressed your clothes are. One of Carol’s birthday presents was a beautiful new top, which was worn, washed and dried; it isn’t Rohan or Alpine Lowe and emerged from this experience rather creased. The house in Orgiva did have an ironing board and iron and Carol mused over ironing the top and breaking the self-inflicted abstinence from this activity. She was stopped by a horrified Rachel who was determined that we managed 12 months without using an iron; so we hope the creases disappear while its folded up in the cupboard.

For I must be travelling on now, ‘cause there’s too many places I’ve got to see

2010-01-07T18:21:00.002Z

It was time to hit the road again. From Orgiva we drove to Cordoba through fields of olive trees spreading up and over the hillsides in every direction. December is olive harvesting time in this part of Spain and we would usually have seen plenty of activity, but the wet weather over the past two weeks had delayed the work.

We came to Cordoba to see the Mesquita and found a lovely city that had more to offer than that one stunning attraction. The Mesquita was built as a large mosque between the 8^th and 10^th Centuries; inside it has rows and rows of double arches sitting on 856 marble columns. With the return of the Christians to Cordoba, the Mesquita was re-used, rather than destroyed and chapels were built around the inside walls and eventually a cathedral was build among and in the centre of these arches. The two very different styles, the simplicity of the Moorish architecture and the cluttered fussiness of the 16^th Century church both merge and clash.

We sheltered from a shower in Cordoba in a café by the Roman Bridge. The café was busy as people were gathering for a procession and 10 Policia Local were also keeping out of the rain and drinking coffee, chatting on their mobile phones and socialising with other café clientele. In Spain this is not an unusual sight; the campsite café in Cabo de Gata was frequented by the Guardia Civil for their morning coffee and the police are generally much more visible than we are used to at home.

Let's move before they raise the parking rate

2010-01-03T18:10:00.006Z

Driving in Spain seems fine and generally an uneventful experience. However, the Spanish do have entertaining parking techniques. The first rule is never park more than five metres from any shop you wish to patronise; if this involves double parking or leaving your car at an interesting angle to the road/pavement, so much the better and blocking a main road is an essential aspect of this parking technique. The most exciting parking formations may require hazard lights, but this is only necessary in more extreme examples. In Frigiliana we parked the Blue Bus in the bays along the road and walked down the steep path into the fantastic gorge below the village, shown in the photograph, and around the pretty town. We returned to the van to find that someone had parked within millimetres of our front bumper; getting out required some effort!

Over the Festive period the van was vandalised while parked in a busy town centre street. It looks as if they tried to prise open one of the van side windows, which are double-glazed, with something sharp and when they found they couldn’t do this they scratched the drivers side window in a series of swirling patterns. This damage is annoying, rather than a catastrophe and will test the claim we have from our insurers that glass damage can be fixed in Europe.

We waved Matthew and Rachel off at Malaga airport; it has been fantastic to see them and they made our festive season and birthday celebrations. Having decided to turn native, Anthony triple parked in the queue by the arrivals area while they unloaded their cases and no one batted an Iberian eyelid! We are back on the road again tomorrow, after two weeks stationary and in a house. We feel blessed that we were here while the rain came down and also pleased that the weather improved for Matthew and Rachel; they left a sunny and warm Malaga and arrived in a cold and snowy Manchester a few hours later.

On New Years Day

2010-01-01T20:24:00.000Z

When the Moors were expelled from Granada, many fled to the Alpujarras, around Orgiva. They left their mark on this area in the agriculture and irrigation systems; to us their influence is most noticeable in the white mountain villages, with flat roofs of schist blocks covered with slate shards, round capped chimneys and narrow winding streets with covered walk-ways.

We celebrated the start of 2010 by driving up to 1,300 metres to the attractive village of Pampaniera and walking along the footpath to Bubion, through Chestnut and Eucalyptus trees, the smell of woodsmoke drifting in the air, views of snowy peaks. We met lots of other groups of walkers out enjoying the breezy sunshine. A stream had washed some of the path away at one point to make the walk a little more exciting and we returned on a different route and had a Spanish-time lunch in Pampaniera's pizza restaurant.

Staying in the house in Orgiva has been a fantastic break from camping in the van for two weeks and just what we needed in the damp weather we have had. We can recommend the house if you fancy a holiday in this beautiful area; Sheila and Jack are extremely welcoming, the house has been cosy and warm and there is no shortage of things to do. You can find rental details on www.holiday-rentals.co.uk and search for property ID 7463.

I see my memories and feel their warmth and know that they are good

2009-12-29T15:48:00.005Z

Carol's 50th birthday! It was fantastic to find you have not forgotten us and to have so many cards and presents from friends and family was wonderful; thank you all very, very much and individual cards will be on their way. As you can see we had a lovely day in the sunshine.

We have spent some of the last eight months trying to listen to all of our music, reviewing it, enjoying the memories some of it holds and deciding what to ditch. This exercise has made us realise at least three things; just how many Waterboys tracks we have, how many songs we have that only Anthony knows and that there is no band that can hold a candle to Black Sabbath.

You may (or may not) have noticed that the last three blogs and this one have had a Black Sabbath lyric as the title. This has been deliberate, as we felt we weren't referring to the masters of rock often enough. Many people have a view on Black Sabbath based on their knowledge of Ozzy Osbourne and 'Paranoid'; from our experience at Sabbath concerts in the 70s, Ozzy was more likely to share rose petals and declarations of love with the crowd than the remains of a dead bat. Their concerts were exciting and inspiring events that we feel privileged to have experienced; the bass riffs of Geezer Butler still echo in rock music today, Bill Ward was inspired on the drums, Tony Iommi produced a glorious guitar sound and Ozzy was a star front-man; together they created magic; Green Day, Muse and many others would be nothing without the influence of this band.

Please indulge the rants of a 50 year old after a bottle of fizzy wine, normal service may be resumed on the next post!

Let the winter sun shine on

2009-12-24T16:50:00.008Z

We have worn our waterproofs more times this week than we have during the last eight months; it has rained and thundered and rained some more. Fortunately, we are warm and snug in Sheila and Jack's house and have only ventured out for damp walks along the quiet lanes, among the orange and olive trees, for an hour or so every day.

On Christmas Eve we needed to buy some supplies and set off in the van. We got less than 1 km along the road into Orgiva and had to turn back, the normal trickle of a river was flowing fiercely over the road, bringing branches and rocks with it. We returned to the house to review our food options for the next couple of days; we have lentils and onions so won't starve but it will be a more frugal Christmas than some; although at least one thing we won't be short of around here are oranges.

Later in the afternoon, the sun came out and we walked back up the road, joining the locals taking photographs of the swollen river, as it seems this is an unusual sight. The photograph shows it was not as deep as the morning and cars were getting through; unfortunately by then it was too late to find a shop open in Spain. Sheila and Jack tell us they usually eat out of doors in the sunshine on Christmas Day. The sun certainly warms things up; we took a mug of tea outside and played with the self-timer on the camera. Merry Christmas!

... casting his shadow, weaving his spell, funny clothes, tinkling bell

2009-12-22T10:01:00.012Z

We didn’t realise Orgiva was Hebden Bridge and Findhorn rolled in to one small town; the first clue we got was the yurts, then we spotted an abnormal number of beat up VW vans and people with beards wearing baggy colourful trousers. The town has a health food shop and two health food stalls in the market and enough hippy shops to keep us happy; this is the place to buy amusing knitted hats, a new throw for the Blue Bus and have a massage to ease the neck. We had picked Orgiva because of its geographic position, but it suits us well.

Our first day here coincided with the eve of the winter solstice. We have long felt this event is well worth celebrating, as it marks the point in the year when the days start to get longer, whereas the summer solstice marks the start of the shortening of the days. In previous years we have lit lots and lots of candles, sent letters to prisoners of conscience for Amnesty International or got up to see the sunrise. This year was a more subdued festival; we limited ourselves to one candle and had our first glasses of gin and tonic for eight months. In Spain there is a tradition of leaping over bonfires for the winter solstice; unfortunately Orgiva was a bit too wet for such frolics.

Since we arrived in Orgiva it has rained, so we are very glad to be in a house rather than a campsite. Sheila and Jack have made us very welcome and even provided a carton of soya milk in the fridge for our arrival, the house is warm and we have spent an hour or so in a hectic Spanish hypermarket joining the throngs in the traditional buy-more-than-you-can-ever-eat Christmas shop, so we've no need to go far at all.

A pile of parcels and cards were at the house when we arrived. We opened the Christmas cards and put the birthday presents under the decorated tree that Sheila and Jack had provided and set to enjoy Carol's last week of being in her 40s!

If you want a better place to live in spread the words today

2009-12-19T17:34:00.018Z

Torre del Mar is a pleasant enough resort, with 3 kms of promenade as well as the usual cafes and inevitable Oriental Bazaar; it is also lively enough to have an Indian restaurant for our monthly meal out. Buses run from here into Malaga and we caught a packed one full of Christmas shopper. We had a good day looking around this energetic Spanish city, had a marvellous lunch in a cosy veggie cafe, explored the Alcazabar laid out over the hillside and admired the extravagant Christmas decorations. We love walking in the countryside and hills, but we do also get a buzz from vibrant city life.

The campsite at Torre del Mar is typical; the other campers are mainly retired, mainly northern European and are staying here for six months. It is a novelty to meet some younger people and we feel especially lucky when we meet someone who is on the same wave length as us. This week we met a young couple who are ten months in to their own gap year and we enjoyed sharing experiences and stories with them.

You might think that being on a long holiday and so far from home would encourage people to be more accepting of others; they do say that travel broadens the mind. However, it has to be said that we have met the people with small-minded views you meet anywhere; their prejudices seem even more difficult to grasp when we are all visitors in another country. The man who expressed genuine distaste when we said we came from Manchester and considered Reading a big step up from that fine north west city was one example. Another was the couple from Preston, whose first question when we told them we had moved from Preston to Salford was, 'aren't there just as many of those Asians in Salford?', then went on to add, 'it's really rough in Salford, isn't it?' We made an effort to politely demonstrate that there is another way of seeing things, but you quickly realise these are neighbours you will only talk to about the weather.

By way of balance, Mike and Doreen, the retired couple we met in the French Alps will remain an inspiration to us, they were open-minded, keen to explore new places and friendly. We hope we will be like them when we reach our 70s.

May your days be merry and bright

2009-12-16T08:37:00.006Z

We chose a breezy day on the Granada region coastline in Andalucia to produce our seasonal message to you all. We hope the sound of the wind and the waves will give you a sense of the weather and you can enjoy the scenery, if not our performance! The out takes will be available on the special DVD.

And his money he was counting

2009-12-15T17:08:00.003Z

We'd like to say a very big thank you to all of you for taking the time to read our blog and keep up to date with our travels. Anthony added a counter for the number of visitors to the blog two days ago and we are astounded to see that we have had 215 visitors in the past 48 hours. We hadn't realised we were reaching so many people.

Unlike the Government we have not had to bail out anyone and so we have managed to keep within budget while we have been away; despite all manner of unexpected expenditure as things have needed replacing and repairing we don't expect to have to make any cuts in our spending forecast. Slovenia and Austria proved to be the most expensive countries we have visited and France was the cheapest; our spending there was an average of 310 Euro a week. In Spain, we have had so much extra expenditure (new camera, tyres, bike wheels etc) it is hard to analyse the spending, but it seems to be around 350 Euro each week.

We have closely monitored the cost of soya milk across Europe and it seems to have become cheaper as we move from country to country; here in Spain it is only around 1 Euro a litre. Other items become unavailable as we cross borders; tubes of tomato puree disappear from the shelves of Carrefour as you move from France to Spain, hummus can occasionally be found in France, but they add cream cheese, so it is no longer vegan; we have also found hummus in one supermarket chain in Spain.

In the photographs we have tried to demonstrate the scale of the salad vegetable production in southern Spain by showing typical views in this area. The campsite in Carchuna, near Motril, is a narrow oasis of green among these huge greenhouses which cover almost every square metre of ground where it is flat and are also perched on terraces on the hillside.

A day in December, picture this, freezing cold weather

2009-12-14T19:33:00.009Z

As the weather in Spain gets cooler, we start to wonder if we have made the right decision to travel all year with a campervan, rather than a motorhome. Having a small van with no bathroom means that we rely on campsite facilities. As we have mentioned in previous posts, the variety of these is endless and in no way relates to price or category of the site.

We are currently on a Category 1 site; despite this it only offers 5 amps, insufficient for either the electric hotplate or the water heater and the site showers are only protected from the elements by one half door. Tonight these elements are making a good attempt at trying to blow over a 3 ton van and so, as you wander in to your centrally heated bathroom, you can only imagine the joy of showering with a gale blowing around your ankles and will not be surprised to read that we decided to be grubby.

Unusually, there is plenty of hot water for washing up at this site, although the sinks are still open to the elements; in tonight's gale Anthony was the only person using this facility, with no one to share the joy of watching soap suds whipped by the wind and flying over his shoulder as he washes the evening's pots.

Fortunately, our lovely van is snug and warm once the heating is on, we've got wi fi and chocolate and we don't intend to go outside again until the wind calms down.

Daytime temperatures are still around 16 - 19 C, but at night it can dip to anything from 6C to 10C. This is really only like camping in the UK in Spring or Autumn, but, although the sites are open all year, often the facilities have been designed with only summer in mind, with no exterior doors and no heating.

It's not about you joggers who go round and round and round

2009-12-11T17:46:00.005Z

We like Decathlon shops and wonder why this type of large sports store is not more popular in the UK: under one roof you can buy all the gear you need for all manner of different sports; you go in for a new inner tube and come out with a kayak. We went in search of our nearest Decathlon for bike parts, having realised that the repair carried out by the bike shop would not do. We had used a bike shop to avoid having to buy the tools and then find room for them in the van; we left Decathlon another 100 Euro poorer, but with all the parts and tools we needed and Anthony returned Carol's bike to mint condition. We had an afternoon spin on the bikes to try out the new wheel and cassette; the hills of Cabo de Gata ensuring Carol used all 24 of the gears she once again had at her disposal. We stopped at a small village to enjoy the sunshine, as the photograph shows.

We have wondered if the Spanish have an equivalent of Munro bagging or Wainwright collecting. To us it is strange that footpaths often do not go up to the top of hills, they may contour around the top or pass over the ridge. The hill across the bay in the photo is the highest point in the Cabo de Gata Natural Park and there are no footpaths up it at all.

On the way to Roquetas de Mar, our next stop, we visited Los Millares; a site of a large and thriving village 5,000 years ago. Archaeologists have uncovered a walled village, houses and at least 80 burial cairns, which are dotted over the landscape. The photograph shows part of the village and the view from there over the now dry river; 5,000 years ago the river would have been flowing all year and the landscape would have been woods, rather than scrub.

If this landscape looks at all familiar, it is because many Spaghetti Westerns were filmed in this area. We intend to sit down and watch 'The Good, the bad and the ugly' this weekend; all together now, de de de de dum, ooh aah ...

Things that the everyday folks leave behind

2009-12-07T19:09:00.011Z

We were not sure if Andy Goldsworthy had got here before us and is branching out into metal work as well as stone, or if this is an elaborate Spanish way to stop litter blowing away; the car filled with stones was an interesting find by the footpath into the caldera of an extinct volcano in the Cabo de Gata Natural Park near Almeria.

The walk to the caldera was beautiful, through cultivated Agave, Prickly Pear and occasional olive trees, with thyme smelling sweetly under our feet. The Agave with their tall flower stalks might look like cactus, but they are closer relatives to lilies and are grown for making ropes, for the sweet syrup and the flower stalks also make a didgeridoo when dried out.

We considered walking up to the ridge around the caldera, although there was no footpath marked on the map (yes, we had a map). However, it was the weekend and first we heard gunshots and then Anthony spotted two figures with shotguns on the ridge, so we decided to stay lower down and tried to be as conspicuous as we possibly could.

Spanish road sides are littered with plastic bottles, cans and other packaging that has been slung from passing cars. An attractive stretch of coastline can on closer inspection be covered in shards of broken glass; we presume the remnants of summer evenings watching the sunset and drinking beer. Whilst not in the same league as southern Italy, there certainly is a disregard for tidiness, even in attractive and protected landscapes. The other ubiquitous roadside sight are the sex workers; dressed for the disco, these women have anything but glamorous lives, spending eight hours each day sat on a plastic chair by a main road in an effort to earn a living. Brothels are tolerated in Spain and it surprises us that roadside sex workers continue to exist.

Think of what you're saying. You can get it wrong and still you think that it's all right

2009-12-05T16:45:00.006Z

Our lack of a wide Spanish vocabulary is not a problem at camp sites and cafes. However, when Carol’s bike needed a new back wheel our inability to communicate what we required was frustrating. After many return trips to the bike shop in Mazarron we left with a new back wheel which is not a quick release, is the maximum width for the bike, causing problems with the brakes and has only six sprockets on the cassette, rather than eight. When Anthony put the wheel back on the bike, he was able to adjust the mechanism to accommodate the difference, but was further frustrated to find that one of the sprockets on the cassette slips; leaving the bike with only 15 usable gears, rather than 24. It seemed we had paid 48 Euro for a less than perfect replacement and a visit to a different bike shop is expected in the near future.

On the positive side, we did get the opportunity to chat to the shop owner’s mother about non-technical matters, children, the weather and the expense of Christmas. She constantly corrected our poor pronunciation, but chivalrously complimented our poor Spanish.

We left Mazarron for the Cabo de Gata Natural Park, driving through very contrasting landscapes; beautiful mountains covered in low scrub, with ruined farmhouses and small villages where groups of three or four were harvesting olives, neglected towns surrounded by hundreds of poly tunnels, each the size of a football pitch, all fulfilling our need for year round tomatoes and providing minimum wages for immigrant workers, urbanizacions of rows of identical new villas, each with a white balustrade and a swimming pool.

The photograph shows the spectacular coast at Los Escullos where we are camped for the Spanish holiday weekend.

He rocks in the tree tops all day long

2009-12-03T15:26:00.008Z

Anthony is rarely seen these days without his binoculars, that and a few things recently have made Carol realise that he is morphing into a proper twitcher: he has been ticking off birds we have seen in his Birds in Europe book; he has been looking at bird watching forums on the internet and we were walking along the beautiful, rocky coast near Bolnuevo, Anthony picked up his binoculars to get a better look at a nearby bird and commented that it was another Sardinian Warbler.

Our Blue Bus is also a useful mobile hide. When we stop for lunch in a quiet layby, we can watch the birds as we eat, they don’t seem to notice the large blue VW in the same way they do a human being. The photograph shows a typical stop.

As well as many new species of birds, we also see the usual suspects, such as Robins, Buzzards and Sparrows in Spain. We have been wondering if all the Sparrows we see have migrated to Spain from the UK for the warmer weather and improved life style; including the easy availability of crumbs from the very crusty bread.

The coast at Bolnuevo has rocks eroded into splendid shapes, the photograph shows some of these. However, as the camp site lacked the atmosphere we are looking and we had to stay in the area while we waited for a bike wheel to be repaired, we took the opportunity to spend a night inland in the Sierra Espuna National Park. It was cold in the mountains at night, but as you can see from Anthony’s attire, it was still T-shirt weather during the daytime. This detour also meant we met Neil and Catherine, a lovely and friendly couple who are travelling overland from the UK to Cape Town

Are you hanging up a stocking on your wall?

2009-12-03T15:02:00.003Z

The camp site at Bolnuevo is a large and highly organised camp site and makes us wonder why we left the comfort and ambience of Fortuna. The site is mostly long-term campers who come to the same pitch every year and has regular social activities; Sardine and Sangria evenings, bingo, a Christmas fair etc. We can see that the sense of community would be appealing, but the site is a bit of a car park and our Blue Bus sticks out as much as our youthfulness does (honest!)

It is pleasant to walk around the site at night and admire the Christmas decorations on many of the vans; climbing santa clauses, coloured lights, glowing Christmas trees are all here. It’s just like being in Salford.

We are approaching two Spanish public holidays; the 6 December is Constitution Day and the 8 December is Feast of the Immaculate Conception, when Catholics celebrate the conception of the Virgin Mary, as a woman free from all sin. In Spain this is generally a time of fiestas.

The library at the site in Bolnuevo is one of those examples of too much bureaucracy: many camp sites have a few shelves of books to swop; you leave what you have read and take away a new Catherine Cookson, Ken Follett or whatever is available. This library is run by a Swiss camper and has shelves full of books in every European language. Each book has a number and the Librarian has a lap top to record borrowing. We won’t be on the site long enough to finish the book we borrowed, but we left two new ones in exchange, along with a false name.

Keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel

2009-11-27T16:28:00.008Z

Driving in Spain is proving to be a learning experience and there are a number of differences to driving in the UK.

Road repairs in Spain do not bother taking along generators and traffic lights: the first indication we usually get of roadworks is a yellow flag being waved by someone in overalls, making us wonder whether we have driven in to a Grand Prix by mistake. The yellow flag is invariably followed by a man (it always is), with a mobile phone and a stop / go lollipop to direct the traffic and after a spot of off-road driving along a dusty track we are back on the road again.

Away from the coast the absence of road signage to places makes you wonder if an invasion is expected in the near future and the Spanish wish to confuse the enemy. We drove to Cieza north of Murcia, hoping to find a cave with ancient paintings which are designated as a World Heritage Site. We accepted that this particular site did not have its own brown signposts directing the visitor and instead planned to find the two roads the cave could be on and hope to track it down. We eventually found both these roads, by navigating using the sun and a compass, as none of the road numbers or towns along them were on a sign post in Cieza. However, we never found the cave.

Cieza was unusual and most Spanish towns have road signs, but perhaps this is why everyone else we meet has a satnav; we're not persauded that they are the gadget to own and we will continue to muddle our way through our trip, 'its not the destination, its the glory of the ride.'

We did find fantastic scenery of sculpted bare mountains, in glorious colours and we drove many kilometres through arid fields of peach and orange trees. We stopped for photographs and watched a pair of Golden Eagles flying around the crags.

Can we climb this mountain? I don't know

2009-11-25T17:22:00.006Z

Behind the camp site at Los Banos is a hill that is 585 m high. Of course, it was there so we had to climb it. We have not managed to find maps useful for walking in Spain and so we set off with a black and white photocopy of a map and instructions in Spanish. This made route finding somewhat problematic, although occasionally we were assisted by yellow and white splashes of paint on a rock.

The route was described in Spanish as being of medium difficulty, so we expected something on a par with Helm Crag. While Anthony saunters up anything with his hands in his pockets, as soon as the angle gets vertiginous Carol resorts to scrambling with three points of contact. The rocks were particularly rugged and while the son of a goatherd emerged at the top relatively unscathed, Carol had blood dripping dramatically down one leg as she emerged from the top of the crag.

The view from the top was fantastic; this was more like the Spain of Don Quixote and Laurie Lee and we enjoyed the solitude and tranquility; no one else on the camp site is up to such a scramble (see earlier post). The semi-dessert landscape here is very different from anything we are familiar with in the Lake District fells. Descending once again tested the photocopied map and our navigational skills to their full extent; at least as we tramped through the vegetation we were enveloped in the aromatic smells of rosemary, thyme and lavender.

A bathroom I can play baseball in

2009-11-24T19:34:00.011Z

The camp site at Los Banos, near Fortuna, boasts exceptional facilities: we have our own bathroom on our pitch. The shine is only taken off this luxury slightly when we realised this means we have to clean it ourselves! The photo below shows our bathroom at the back of our pitch.

As the name would suggest, the camp site is at a spa and it has a mineral rich swimming pool, naturally heated to 35C. This lovely facility makes the site very popular with Germans and Scandinavians and particularly those with some mobility difficulties, who benefit from spending time in the water. The usual attire for campers is a bath robe, as they are either on their way to or from the pool.

We continue to be amazed by the flowers we keep finding this late in the year. The photographs on this post are just a couple of flowering plants we have seen in the last few days.

All you did was wreck my bed

2009-11-21T19:01:00.005Z

Yes, another video! Make sure you have your volume on when you watch.

We thought we'd demonstrate how easy it is to make up the beds when we arrive at a camp site. For the purposes of the video we have done this with the passenger door and side door open to help you see what is going. We always knew it was quick to make the beds, but even we were surprised to find that at normal speed the process took only 2.5 minutes.

In the video, Anthony is demonstrating the lounging position for day time use, at night we sleep the other way round, with our feet towards the cab.

You said you read me like a book, but the pages all are torn and frayed

2009-11-21T09:33:00.012Z

We don't have the space to carry enough novels for 12 months, so book swopping with other campers has been essential in ensuring we have enough reading matter. Many camp sites have a shelf of books available for swopping; we can leave a novel we have read and take away a new book. The books on offer vary; at Moncofa we could have stocked up on the entire Catherine Cookson collection, other sites lean towards Ken Follett style thrillers. However, the book swopping at the site in Guardamar is more to our tastes and we were excited to be able to swop 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist' for a Graham Greene we hadn't read.

The Guardian is available in some towns and we have occasionally picked up local English language newspapers, aimed at the ex-pat community. These papers are similar to UK local papers; providing information on clubs and societies, photos of local events and have the inevitable readers' letters page. Typically these letters refer to a mythological Britain we hardly recognise, one where immigration is the biggest problem, immigrant communities fail to integrate and the British way of life is disappearing; the incomers prefer to live near to others from their home country, use their own language, open their own shops, religious organisations and societies. At no point do the writers recognise the parallels with their own lives.

We took advantage of the ex-pats preference for English owned businesses and had two back tyres fitted to the van by Alfie, born in Essex obviously, at Tyres Direct, rather than tackle the transaction in Spanish. We made up for taking the soft option by attending the bingo night at the camp site, which did give us an opportunity to improve our Spanish numbers.

We gotta move these refrigerators, we gotta move these colour TVs

2009-11-16T09:04:00.007Z

A couple of incidents have made us think about our current lifestyle and whether we have any gear we should have left behind.

A camper from the Netherlands came over to have a look around our van and enthuse about VWs generally and invited us over to his. His VW is from 1994 and is in beautiful condition and we admired all his facilities. In Gandia he is staying in a caravan with an awning and uses the VW for days out and he also invited us into this home he uses for seven months of the year; the amount of stuff he had was jaw dropping. He is a blues fan and had two electric guitars on stands, as well as posters hung inside the awning of blues greats. He has occasional tables, a TV, comfy chairs, shelves, plants in pots; there seemed to be more furniture than we have in the flat in Salford.

The camp site at Gandia is a fairly busy one, but while the eastern end of the camp site is cramped with caravans and motorhomes from Germany and the Netherlands, we have been camped quietly around the corner, with only a Spanish family for company over the weekend. This tranquility ended when a German couple decided to move next door. The first thing to appear at 8.30 was their shelf unit, then a plant in a pot, the satellite dish, a fibre optic lamp, chairs, tables, the stuff kept on appearing. We can only guess why they want to move, but it provided good entertainment.

We wondered, is there anything we haven't used over the last seven months? The answer is that apart from the emergency equipment we carry, we have a fan heater and two blankets we have still to make use of. The van has an excellent diesel heater and we only carry the fan heater and blankets because we had a very cold experience camping in February and -10C in the old van when the heater drained the battery. The big question really is, should we be carrying a pot plant?

The photograph with this blog is Anthony conversing with an amiable man we met while walking through the orange groves near Gandia. He seemed to be responsible for checking the well being of the irrigation ditches and he did this by driving around the lanes between the orchards on his motorbike. He told us lots about his work and the area, but as it was all in Spanish much of it went over our heads. We explained that we spoke little Spanish and kept apologising for not understanding, but he continued to talk in the hope that something was getting through.

I see friends shaking hands

2009-11-14T17:39:00.013Z

We treated ourselves to another day out in a city; we had read our Lonely Planet guide, but were unprepared for how fantastic Valencia would be. From the moment we stepped out of the Estacion del Norte and marvelled at the mosaics of oranges around the Modernista station building we were hooked.

We walked across the marble pavements of impressive plazas, joined the crowds at an open air exhibition of Rodin sculptures, drank tiger nut milk (Horchata) and giggled when asked if we wanted this with Fartons (yes honestly), wandered around the huge bustling Modernista market hall decorated with yet more oranges and had a fantastic vegan lunch in a meat-free restaurant.

In the afternoon we sought to walk off lunch in the Jardines del Turia; the former river bed of the Turia river. After particularly devastating floods in 1957, Valencia diverted the course of the river and now use the route of the abandoned river as a 9 kms green space. In the centre of the city you find an oasis for cycling and walking, with football fields, a rugby pitch and a skate boarding park, there are benches, and gardens for relaxation, all crossed by bridges and the bustle of the city traffic above you. The warmth of this calm and welcoming space sums up the attractiveness of Valencia.

The Spanish seem to understand public spaces and how to design them so they can be enjoyed: there are always places to find shade from the sun, benches to relax on, cafes, children's play areas and public art. We sat and watched people moving around the splendid Plaza de la Virgen; smart young Spanish couples doting on their well dressed children while they fed the pigeons, friends meeting up, business men talking earnestly on their mobile phones, older women walking their poodles and lustful teenagers wrapped up in each other.

Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash

2009-11-12T20:56:00.006Z

Tuesday is what Anthony calls our ‘Day of Reckoning:’ we set off on this trip on a Tuesday, so this is the day we go through our cash book to see what we have spent our hard-saved euros on during the past seven days. Anyone who has ever worked with Carol will not be surprised to know that we have an Excel spreadsheet to record the weekly spending; this allows for analysis of our expenditure, including projections for future spending, or to put it simply, do we have enough money to last until next April? At the moment the answer to this question is yes!

We are impressed with how the Spanish manage their natural habitats. Generally, any area marked as a nature park, whether local, regional or national, will have a car parking area, information boards and way marked paths. The town planning is less impressive and we have seen numerous examples of inappropriate developments, half finished projects and soulless resorts built for seasonal use, that are ghost towns by November. Local planning is a minefield in Spain; for every slack local mayor, there are others who have struggled to place restrictions on developers.

We stopped at Moncofa for a couple of nights because the camp site receives good reviews. However, this purpose built resort is not really our cup of PG Tips, yet even here there are contrasts. We cycled to the edge of the resort where some new blocks are being constructed, while shells of others languish unfinished. Between here and the next resort is an area of orange trees, meadows and wetlands; we had to stop while hundreds of sheep crossed the road from one meadow to the next, accompanied by bare-back riding Cattle Egrets, herded by one shepherd and his dog. We refuse to be jaded travellers, there is always something new and interesting to see, no matter where you are. Picking oranges from a tree and enjoying the sweet, fresh taste as we stroll back to the camp site in the evening sunshine – you can’t do that in Salford!

A man comes on and tells me, how white my shirts could be

2009-11-09T15:35:00.003Z

Living on camp sites can take you back to a much simpler life; hand washing clothes is a good example. Most camp sites have specially designed laundry sinks with a sloped wash board, similar to those at restored communal wash houses we have seen in many villages. In France and Italy these sinks were voluminous affairs, large enough to bath an active eight year old in: in Spain they are still deep enough to allow your clothes to freely circulate, but don’t take mega litres of water to fill. Washing clothes in the sunshine, elbow to elbow with bronzed, healthy German pensioners is like being in a black and white musical and if someone burst into song it would not seem out of place. Hand washing is environmentally friendly in terms of energy use, but can use more water than a machine and we are very aware that water is a precious resource in this part of Europe.

The Spanish are clearly concerned about their environment. Banners and placards on buildings and fences are a regular sight in Spain. Around Girona the protest was regarding a proposed huge electricity cable between France and Spain. North of Peniscola, we cycled past numerous banners against a development on the one stretch of coast free of hotels, apartments and a promenade, where orange trees still grow and fields of artichokes and cabbages flourish.

We continue to make an effort to see as much of Spanish life as we can. Cyclists always need cafes and we stopped at a pleasant one in Vinaros, over looking the harbour. The Lonely Planet Guide writes Vinaros off as being ‘fairly grim’. However, we found it pleasant and entertaining:at a nearby table of two couples, drinks were thrown in faces, voices raised and faces slapped; a real-life soap opera moment.

Young men in padded clothing and helmets gathered in Peniscola on Sunday morning to take part in 'Urban Down', a race down the steep narrow cobbled streets and steps of the old town, a sport only marginally less dangerous than bull running.

When I get older, losing my hair, many years from now

2009-11-05T19:33:00.005Z

It is interesting to be in Spain out of season: few camp sites are open, so the ones that remain available are fairly busy and it can seem to campers that there are lots of holiday makers around. However, in the towns it is clear that the hotels are closed, the apartments shut up for the season, shops and bars are boarded up and few people are around to enjoy the autumn sunshine.

Most of the campers in Spain are retired people, a little older than we are, although a few lucky ones with good pensions are not much older! They are generally from Germany, the Netherlands or the UK. Most are here for a month or two of sunshine, intending to return to the UK by Christmas; we’ve not met many who have as long as we have.

We stayed on a lovely, small camp site near to L’Ametlla de Mar, set in a nature reserve, so we had to give it a try. On a warm and sunny day we walked along the coastline, only passing the occasional Spanish jogger and had delightful bay after delightful bay to ourselves. There are still flowers on the Rosemary and the Bell Heather and butterflies, dragonflies and crickets still flit around as if it were August.

The Elbre Delta is a flat expanse of reeds, rice fields, irrigation channels and lagoons, dotted with small farm houses. The area is managed as a natural park and we visited some of the hides to watch the birds; including Red Crested Pochards and Purple Gallinule in the lagoons, with Marsh Harriers flying overhead and Common Sandpipers pottering in the mud. From the tall hides you get a fantastic feeling of space, and we sat in one lofty viewpoint drinking mugs of coffee we’d made in the van. We were joined by a Spanish family; and with only a few shared words between us were able to share our binoculars and our enjoyment of such a beautiful area.

Things ain't cooking in my kitchen

2009-11-04T19:38:00.004Z

Our latest video shows Carol cooking our evening meal in the van. We mostly use a single electric hotplate to cook our meals, although the van does have a two burner gas ring and oven if the camp site doesn't have enough amps for the hotplate, or if we want to cook something in the oven. This makes good use of electric hook ups and means we don't have to source Gaz bottles on a regular basis.

We normally shop for food on days we are moving between camp sites; stopping at a supermarket on our route to stock up. We have been pleased to be able to find soya milk, one of our staple foods, everywhere, although the price has ranged from around 1 Euro for a litre carton in Spain to around 2 Euro 60 in Italy.

Darkness falls across the land, the midnight hour is close at hand

2009-11-01T20:37:00.014Z

We camped at Vilanova I La Giltru, near to Sitges, so that we could take the train in to Barcelona. The camp site is large enough to be a village in it's own right and has all facilities you would expect from a Category One camp site; Spanish camp sites are categorised one to three, with one being the best.

The Spanish celebrated Halloween during our stay and spent some time decorating their caravans and bungalows with fake cobwebs, pumpkins and skeletons. In the dark the children dressed up and wandered around the site; we were grateful no one knocked on our van, as we don't know the Spanish for trick or treat. We did wake up the next morning to find three beautiful black cats sitting outside the van; no doubt left behind by a coven of forgetful witches. Fortunately the camp site has an industrial scale feeding station for the numerous wild cats here, a different experience to Italian sites.

Barcelona was thrilling; full of visitors, fantastic buildings and interesting streets. We enjoyed comparing the Medieval buildings in the Barri Gothic with the Modernisme buildings of Gaudi and others in the grid-pattern streets of the Eixample. We also enjoyed a good lunch of various veggie tapas and a glass of red wine!

Flowers in France

2009-10-30T17:19:00.004Z

The photographs are some of the flowers we saw in France in September and October.

The white lilies were growing by the sea and lagoons on the south coast of France. We saw Meadow Saffron growing in Austria and the French alps.

Holding hands and skimming stones part 2

2009-10-29T16:32:00.001Z

We have received a request for more videos, so have obliged with this demonstration of how we never get chance to get bored as we are so busy with our self improvement programmes. Hopefully the skills we learn while we are away will help us find suitable employment when we return!

Once bitte[r]n twice shy

2009-10-28T16:19:00.007Z

Apologies for the terrible pun in the title of the blog, but we couldn't resist!

We spent a sunny afternoon on a walk along the beach at L’Estartit, to the local nature reserve and settled down in the hide over looking the lagoon and reed beds, content to let the Mallards, Egrets and Black-Backed Gulls entertain us. However, it seemed we were in for a more exciting afternoon; firstly we spotted two groups of terrapins enjoying the warmth of the sun; then we marvelled at the proximity of the Marsh Harrier who provided a couple of displays over the lagoon; finally out of the reeds popped a Bittern, it stood in the sunshine and thoroughly preened its thick neck for long enough to stop us fighting over who would look through the binoculars, before disappearing into the thick reeds again.

Lunchtime in Girona and we found the city centre street where the Lonely Planet guide recommended a veggie restaurant; as we often find with such specialist places, it was no more. Anthony wandered around the corner and returned grinning from ear to ear, he'd found an Indian restaurant; we were able to have onion bhajis for the first time in six months.

We think we may have found the answer to improving the populations health; take a gap year. We now have the time and the weather to be out cycling or walking almost every day; there are always new places to see and we easily exceed the minimum recommended amount of exercise each week. We are also eating plenty of local fruit and vegetables, we are certainly relaxed and feeling well; we haven't had a cold between us since we left the UK. We've both lost some weight, which means that Anthony is verging on fading away, although no danger of that happening to Carol.

Holding hands and skimming stones

2009-10-24T19:12:00.010+01:00

Near to Sant Pere Pescador is the Parc Natural dels Aiguamolis de L'Emporda; a wetland area that is a haven for wildlife. We spent a relaxed afternoon there and particularly enjoyed seeing the Cattle Egrets feeding around the horses grazing in the natural park: one Cattle Egret perched cheekily on the back of a horse, others got in the way of the horses as they tried to eat.

We were very impressed with the natural park; it is Ramsar site, which means it is internationally important as a wetland; the interpretation boards were well placed and provided information in five languages, if you count the latin; the footpaths were dry and well marked and there were plenty of hides from which to watch the birds.

We have found exploring this part of the Costa Brava very pleasant; spending a few hours at the Greek and Roman ruins at Empuries and a day pottering around the narrow streets and rocky bays of Cadaques. The beach at Cadaques is a stone skimmers paradise and Anthony rose to the challenge, achieving eight bounces. When Carol picked up a stone, everyone on the beach wisely took cover - they must have seen Stephen's video from Aysgarth Falls!

We're half way there, livin' on a prayer, take my hand and we'll make it I swear

2009-10-22T18:49:00.009+01:00

Having driven the long way round to reach Spain, it has taken us six months to get here. We celebrated our six month milestone in France with a bottle of Blanquette de Limoux, the local sparkling wine that tastes like Champagne to those of us who know no better. The six months have gone by so fast and yet when we look back, we have packed so much in to those months, the day we drove on to the ferry in Dover also seems a life time away.

Despite the attempts by the banks to sabotage our trip by plunging the value of sterling lower and lower, we seem to be on budget: during the seven weeks we spent in southern France we averaged 310 Euro a week, considerably cheaper than Italy and Slovenia.

We have now crossed the border in to Spain, feeling ill-prepared language-wise, but excited to be spending time here, we can't believe it is 15 years since we visited this country. This excitement soared after we inspected the sanitary facilities at the camp site in Sant Pere Pescador; not only did the site provide toilet paper, there were toilet seats too! These are the priorities of two people in a small camper van.

We cycled in to Figueres to visit the Salvador Dali's Theatre Museum and spent a fun couple of hours in this strange monument full of paintings and montages without really understanding any of it.

I took her to a supermarket, I don't know why

2009-10-20T10:38:00.003+01:00

Alet les Bains is a small village about 30 kms south of Carcassonne with some impressive medieval buildings and a thermal spring with Roman connections. It has a camp site owned by a British family with sanitary facilities the Caravan Club would be proud of. The river Aude runs through the site and from our pitch we have seen an Otter and a Kingfisher. The walking is also good here; from a hamlet above the village we had fantastic views over to the Pyrenees, another afternoon walk took us through prickly undergrowth only rivalled by the last Scottish walk we were on with Stephen and Jenny before we came away.

Our walk up to the hamlet was on a Sunday and the groups of hunters were out in force; we passed three groups of parked white vans and jeeps, spotted men in fluorescent jackets on the woodland edge and heard occasional gunshot, we felt lucky to return to the van unscathed.

We cycled along a track from Alet les Bains in to Limoux, a charming small town which seems to have retained more than just cafes, boutiques and estate agents in its town centre. Out of town shopping is everywhere in France; even the book shops and music shops are large warehouse buildings on the ring road and generally if you want to buy anything more substantial than an ice cream you need to find the nearest hypermarket.

Come on with me cruising down the street, who knows what you’ll see who you might meet

2009-10-17T20:13:00.003+01:00

Gruissan, south of Narbonne is a pleasant coastal town and in the windy weather we’ve had, strangely reminiscent of Scotland, with its ruined castle, lagoons and craggy hills. The walking on these limestone hills is more spectacular than their size might suggest and the views over vine yards and the Mediterranean are marvellous. The photo is in a shelter for hunters, but welcomed by two non-hunters on a breezy day.

We took the bus into Narbonne for the afternoon and strolled around the narrow streets and along the tree-lined canal that runs through the centre of the town. We saw more people in obvious poverty here than anywhere else in France; an elderly woman in black asking every passer-by, ‘Avez vous une cigarette?’, a group of men in one of the squares drinking beer, other men on their own, sitting on the ground with their dog huddled next to them and a busker; not a music school student busker, earning some extra cash for his gap year, this was a busker playing a couple of tunes on a cheap recorder. This active street life reminded us of people you see in Preston and we felt at home in Narbonne.

The weather has changed dramatically in the last week and for our day out in Carcassonne we had to put away the shorts and dig out our long trousers, as the strong wind took the warmth out of the sun. It is impossible not to have high expectations of Carcassonne and the scale and splendour of the place is impressive, which even in October is full of tourists.

When she walks by she brightens up the neighbourhood

2009-10-11T19:37:00.013+01:00

The Camargue is a protected area in France and Europe; the Rhone delta is a vast area, important for wildlife and plants, with strict limits on development and traffic and the area is managed by a conservation charity.

We cycled along the tracks, in to the reserve; a stunningly beautiful area of lagoons, salt marsh and sturdy plants that can withstand the salty and windy conditions. We watched numerous flamingoes, little egrets and curlews and enjoyed the cheerful colour of the Golden Samphire. The deep pink of the underside of the wings of the flamingoes when they are in flight is stunning. On the edges of the reserve the characteristic white horses are common and black bulls stand up to their knees in the lagoons.

In Saintes Maries de la Mer, you don't have to get out and about to experience the wildlife. Anthony risked public humiliation, taking the camera into the toilets to photograph the tiny bright green European Tree Frog that finds camp site sanitary facilities the perfect location for insect catching. This fantastic frog, about 3 - 4 cms long, would be very difficult to see in the wild, but is easy against white PVC windows.

Standing at the fork in the road

2009-10-09T14:21:00.006+01:00

The French are very polite and helpful. Twice while out for a walk in the Cevennes we have been studying our map at a cross-roads and a Renault has screeched to a halt and the occupant helped us find the correct route. The first apologised for not being able to speak English, the second seemed to realise we were English despite our excellent French and gave us directions in our own language. We don't understand why people say the French are arrogant, unless they are confusing arrogance with pride in their country.

The French word for tyre, pneu, is one of those we struggle to say with a straight face and so we had to practice hard before we went in search of two new front tyres for the van to ensure we did not giggle inappropriately.

The Campsite near Anduze, Camping Cevennes-Provence, deserves a mention after an enjoyable six nights here. The site is prettily set on a hill, with lots of tree-lined terraces that are a warren to explore, with different views and a stone tower at the top. A river runs along the site and one evening we think we spotted an otter out for a swim, as well as being a good place to watch Dippers and Herons. It is also in an area with some fantastic walks, what more could we want.

And keeps all your dead hair for making up underwear

2009-10-07T14:40:00.005+01:00

It is three months since our last hair cut, so we made a rendezvous on the camp site with La Coiffeuse. She arrived with a bag of equipment, including a folding mirror, so that we were able to have the full salon experience al fresco (to mix up our languages).

Now we are both more presentable again (although still un-ironed) and Anthony no longer resembles a scarecrow after a breezy day cycling, we could consider treating ourselves to a meal out. However, this is France and we are vegetarian and we can only reminisce fondly about the choice of restaurants and dishes we enjoyed in Italy as we study menus for something, anything, that doesn't involve a dead animal. No doubt this will only get worse as we move on to Spain. In the meantime we will just have to make do with the fantastic French cakes.

We are waiting for La Poste to bring us another parcel from Matthew: This one will hopefully bring a replacement tap for the sink in the van, as Anthony has had to cobble together a repair involving a bicycle chain link to fix the one we have, as well as other unknown goodies from Manchester.

Mama take these guns off me, I don't need them anymore

2009-10-06T18:37:00.006+01:00

We are camping near Anduze, on the edge of the Cevennes; an area of scrub or Maquis thick with aromatic plants, Strawberry trees and Holm Oak, with no shortage of walking trails.

It is the hunting season in France and the guide books warn you to stay away from the the woods at the weekends. On Sunday we saw gatherings of two or three men dressed in khaki with guns slung over their shoulders intent on terrifying the red squirrels.

After a long days hike on Monday, we chose a shorter route the next day, following a walk in a leaflet from the Tourist Office to a view point above Anduze. In England this walk would have been featured in the local scrambles guide and provided us with some excitement, particularly on the descent. This reminded us of the Austrian Tourist Office cycling leaflet that suggested 60 kms cycle rides as suitable for families. It was reassuring to know that if we had injured ourselves on the scramble the camp site staff all had up-to-date First Aid training; we had watched them absorbing a power point presentation and practising on each other while we had breakfast that morning.

Well there's technicolour and cinemascope

2009-10-05T15:58:00.007+01:00

We have put another video on the blog, to show you a little bit of life in the campervan when we are on a site and how we live in our small space. Apologies for the amateur quality of this; we make no claims to be professional film makers. All you need to know is this is take four! Click the arrow to see the short film.

Where do we go now?

2009-10-02T19:47:00.003+01:00

The pattern of our trip is controlled by ourselves to a large extent, although we never know what we will find and who we will meet. We are content to find a lovely spot and stay there for a few days, and find pleasure in getting to know a small town and its surrounding area more intimately on foot and bicycle. However, we also find that we enjoy the nomadic nature of the trip; there is always the optimism that we could arrive at the most fantastic campsite in Europe and the excitement of not knowing what the day will bring as we cruise along unknown roads listening to good music and luxuriating in the warmth of the sun.

Many camp sites in France have closed now for the winter, although it is still over 25 degrees C and this will also influence where we stay.

The photograph was taken in the lovely Jardin de la Fontaine in Nimes; the first public park in France and dotted with Roman ruins incorporated in to the 18^th Century formal terraces and ponds, shown in the photograph.

Summer has gone and passed ...

2009-10-02T19:45:00.002+01:00

It is October and we are still wearing shorts!

Travelling through southern Europe, it seems to us that whatever some people might think in England, we are Europeans; our history, our social and political systems, our geography and our economy are all closely inter-woven with that of European countries and as we have visited different places and seen and learnt more, these ties becomes clearer – the Romans, the Renaissance, the I and II World Wars and so much more are all shared experiences. Why then, don’t we have a special relationship with France or Germany?

In Orange and Nimes we have visited many Roman buildings and are constantly impressed by the scale of their buildings and the skilfulness of their stone masons. The Theatre in Orange was a particular highlight, where we learnt something about life in Roman colonial towns.

Red, red wine, go to my head

2009-09-25T19:05:00.002+01:00

Agriculture has provided a changing back-drop for our journey; olive trees in Southern Italy, rice fields in the north, tall rows of hops in Slovenia and fields of dark green ripening corn in Austria. Everywhere there have been vines, but the scale of the viniculture is most significant here in the Rhone Valley.

This is pleasant cycling country and as we meander around the lanes we pass a field of vines with no more than half a dozen workers in hats harvesting the grapes; farmers in check shirts and green overalls pass us on their tractors, pulling a trailer brimming with bunches of the dark red fruit; the sweet smell of grape juice from the wineries makes stopping to try a glass of red irresistible and we watch the farmers chatting in the sun as their harvest is unloaded.

Each small village we pass is on a hill and has narrow streets circling up to the church at the top. As well as the wine, the villages have patisseries to tempt us with apple tarts and sugary buns, just the thing for flagging cyclists. At a picnic spot we sit watching kestrels fly over the vineyards and crack open the fallen ripe walnuts from the tree we were leaning on.