The arrival of Señor Silencio...
Saturday, September 15
Camping Illa Mateua, L’Escala What you have to remember about this part of the tour, almost 18 months in, is that we are very much retracing our steps from a year or so ago. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Last year, we were moving south from France and into Spain, looking closely at a lot of campsites, weighing up all the Spanish ones we stumbled upon for their ‘winterability’ – would they be the sort of places we could come back to after our Christmas in Marbella and spend two or three months? We roadtested some nice places and while we didn’t end up staying anywhere for more than a month we certainly pencilled a few in for this year. And Illa Mateua is one of them. If you haven’t been here, it can seem to be pretty much the perfect campsite. It has good, large, level pitches, some with sun and some with shade. On the upper side of the site there is a superb pool that hardly anyone uses in the low, ACSI season. The toilet and shower block is super-clean, the WiFi is good and reasonably priced, there are two distinctly different beaches – one for snorkellers and one for bathers – and close by there are great restaurants, shops and sights. The only problem, really, is that the top site shuts at the end of September and the whole site itself closes down at the end of October. This year, we are about a month ahead of where we were last year, so we are experiencing all these northern Spain sites much earlier in the low season. So much more seems to be open, everywhere is busier and I’m guessing that the weather is better too. The sea is warmer, the sky bluer and people seem cheerier, friendlier. We think we’ve arrived at just the right time. At Mateua, we have much to keep us occupied and amused ahead of the visit of our great friends from Derby, Ian and Della on Tuesday, September 18. On Saturday night, we head to the beachside bar Driftwood to see Strawberry Friends, a guitar duo who perform Beatles songs. They played on the same Saturday last year to a packed house, despite the rain, but this year the weather is fine and their outdoor set is just as polished as last year. Their polite, Spanish-inflected singing gets a lot of the well-oiled British, German and Dutch clientele on their feet dancing, to the point where I think they should keep an osteopath on call and have a defibrillator charging up behind the bar. “There’s going to be some serious geriatric sex going on tonight,” says Mrs Wells as one 70-something in a perm dips dangerously close to the floor as the band play Twist and Shout for the second time in three numbers, thanks to clamour from the floor. “Oh good,” I think, mentally girding my loins for the exertions ahead... Tuesday, September 18 Illa Mateua We spent the day preparing for the arrival of Mr and Mrs Louch. This meant a couple of trips to the shops on our bikes and stuffing the panniers with all sorts of good things, all of which are probably bad for you. We stocked up on beer, wine, nibbles, cheese, Parma ham and bread then, after we’d got the key to their bungalow located just behind us at the site, we stocked their fridge with essentials, made the bed, checked the fab shower, turned on the lovely air conditioning and wondered why we hadn’t booked one for ourselves. By 8pm they’d arrived in their hire car and we were all sat outside our van, knocking back a selection of fine Spanish beers and eating one of Jane’s best spaghetti bologneses. As we caught up on one another’s adventures and travels, to a suitably upbeat Spotify soundtrack, the hours seemed to fly by and it was a shock when the arrival of the midnight curfew coincided with a visit from a campsite security guard urging “Silencio” in – to be fair – as polite a way as is possible. Point taken, señor. Thursday, September 20 It’s great to have friends come to stay with us. For a start, we can talk about something other than motorhomes, how we got together, what we did for a living etc. They know all that, which means we can sit around and talk about everything else. The bonus for us, of course, is that they brought a car with them giving us all the sort of freedom we can only dream about and which we haven’t enjoyed since we left the U.K. On our second full day, after a first day spent around the site, playing tennis, snorkelling, eating at our favourite menu del dia restaurant, we headed first for Figuyeres for a bit of a shop at Decathlon and a look at Empuriabrava and Roses, the other side of the bay from L’Escala. Then, it was back for a look at the old town of L’Escala topped off by a lovely meal at Driftwood. By Friday morning, our friends had departed for Gerona airport and their flight back to Birmingham, leaving us a little flat, of course. Saturday, September 22 Illa Mateua By the Saturday, while Jane was happy to stay around for another week at least, I was ready to move on. The weather was fine but things were starting to shut down, like the tourist train into L’Escala. Driftwood, the bar by the beach with live music, was still open, though, and on Saturday we popped in for tapas and to listen to the intriguingly named Madame Mustashe. Not, as we thought, a flamboyant drag act, she was instead a young female singer who serenaded the punters with a selection of originals and cover versions. We arrived a little later than we’d hoped and found there were no spare booths so we were seated opposite a German couple, Jens and Sabine. They were very chatty but didn’t have a lot of English. Even so, with my little German we were able to make introductions and find out a lot about each other. They were from Hamburg and, it turned out, big fans of Status Quo and other 70s British rockers, like Sweet and Showaddywaddy. Jens even had two tattoos declaring his love for Quo. When Madame Mustashe came on, with her mournful dirges, we all shared that look of “WTF?” and suddenly we had bonded over our mild dislike of MM. At the end of the night, we walked back up the hill, we to the camp, they to their bungalow further on into L’Escala. “It’s our wedding anniversary tomorrow,” said Sabine, “and we’re going to the pizza restaurant by the beach. We’d love you to join us!” Well, we couldn’t refuse and we parted fully intending to catch up again with them the following night. The next day, though, we both looked at each other and said we weren’t looking forward to it. They were a lovely couple but we felt they were just being polite in asking us to join them on their special night. We also felt another night of broken English and shattered German would be too draining for everyone. In the end, we bought them a card, wrote them a note inside wishing them a good night and apologising for what was, in the end, our cowardice. We left it with the Maitre D’ of the pizzeria and hope they managed to get it. Perhaps they pulled out and didn’t turn up either... Monday, September 24 Camping Nautic, L’Ametlla De Mar, Catalonia As we’re a month ahead of where we were last year, we do have a bit of time to take a breath here and there on our way down to, first of all, Torre La Sal 2 in Oropesa and, eventually, to Mazarron near Cartagena. All this extra time under our belt gave us the chance to have a look at a well-recommended site not much further down the coast from L’Escala. Camping Nautic has all the gifts – pool, tennis and padel courts, nice location by a beautiful cove, on the edge of a busy town and, of course, top bogs. On our arrival, the place certainly seemed to live up to its billing – the bar/restaurant looked nice and the pitch, once we’d squeezed ourselves in, was nice, albeit at the top of a hill. When we walked down to the bar later on, though, we found it shut and so walked into the town for a little drink and some tapas at a bustling bar in the town centre. Then the weather turned and took the shine off the whole place so, a little disappointed, we stuck it out for three days, made a mental note to return if we were ever in the area again, and moved on. Thursday, September 27 Camping Alegria del Mar, Benicarlo We could have headed straight for Oropesa after L’Ametlla but a long drive (about 180km) didn’t appeal so we took the toll road south and ended up somewhere we had inspected but not stayed at last year. While staying at Peniscola, about four or five miles south, we’d heard that there was a popular ACSI site at the busier but less historic town of Benicarlo, close to the factory where the Benimar motorhomes are made. We cycled there, had a good look around at this beachside site and had a menu del dia for €11 each at the busy campsite bar. Staying there last year would have meant going back on ourselves (a no-no) so we passed on it but couldn’t resist this time around. It’s a smallish site run jointly by an English and a Spanish family. There are lots of static season pitches but we found a nice shaded niche close to the beach access gate. The loos are dated but clean and the vibe is what I’d call ‘salt of the earth’. There are a lot of British people here who stay for months and love the combination of good, honest food, English language, the good chance their friends from last year will be here and, of course, the lovely climate. The regular pool and darts competitions, the bingo, fish and chip nights and Sky Sports on the big screens are a big draw too. Away from the site, Benicarlo is a bustling, working town about a mile or so to the south. Four miles to the north, though, there is Vinaros, much more tourist-centric, while another three or four miles past Benicarlo, of course, is Peniscola, with its ancient beauty and oodles of history. We threw ourselves into the site – we had two bar meals in the first two or three days but on Sunday, after a cycle into Vinaros, we paused for a coffee at Bar Mely on the road back from the beach and had a fabulous Spanish sausage kebab with a slice of panini and alioli for about €3.50. Equally fab, though, was the beach just outside the campsite. More shingle than sand, it still offers a peaceful spot by a beautiful blue sea that stays warm all the way through to November and maybe beyond. It was a lovely Sunday only spoiled slightly by the fact our GasIt system packed up suddenly as we were trying to warm up some milk for a coffee after the bike ride. We could only make cursory checks but our insistence that there is plenty of gas in the bottles made us realise the problem lies with the system. A shout-out to the good people on Facebook motorhome groups seemed to confirm this and on Monday morning we called a local motorhome engineer to come and sort it out. With things like gas, we decided it was far better for the expert to deal with it than for me to risk blowing the van up, and me with it. Monday, October 1 Camping Alegria del Mar, Benicarlo You’ll be glad to know that Xavi, the laidback and thoroughly likeable motorhome mechanic and general factotum, did a very professional job of fixing the gas regulator. He arrived in his van mid-afternoon and within less than an hour had identified the problem, whipped a replacement out of his van, swapped it for the grunged-up version and, hey presto!, we had a real-live blue naked flame again. Once we’d checked all the gas appliances (boiler, hob, fridge) to Xavi’s satisfaction, he confessed he was done but, heart-warmingly, given he was still some minutes short of his minimum one-hour call-out, asked us if we needed anything else doing. I was tempted to ask if he’d mind whipping up a quick paella but, instead, asked for the bill. In his broken English, he said, effectively, “That’ll be €279 please.” Should have asked for the paella after all. |
Pictured, from top: Ian and Della with us at a nice beachside bar in Roses; a cool sculpture on the seafront near the old town of L’Escala; the Louches with their car at the bungalow; the lengths some people go to get level; the cove at L’Ametlla; the beach near to Camping Alegria; our troublesome gas bottles; the title page of our feature on the first year of travelling, published in the November edition of Practical Motorhome
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