One month on the road

Goodbye Gandia It's been fun. We've met a lot of people over the last year and made many good friends so we will return one day.

We left the house we had rented for the last year on April 19th and hit the road. Due to the amount of time we need to spend in Spain for our residency, we slowly made our way up the coast.

First stop was Peñíscola where we caught up with an old friend from London (Philip). That afternoon was extremely wet so we spent the time in the camper drinking wine while Philip tried to teach me to play Backgammon. The following day was much better so we went exploring and up to the castle. The large entrance, Portal Fosc, was used during the filming of the 6th season of Game of Thrones. 

Next stop, Benicassim. I had wanted to find us a place to stay last winter but now I'm so glad nothing was available. We enjoyed spending three days there but that was enough. 

Then onto Cambrils, another seaside town with some funky sculptures.

We headed back to our old stomping ground, Calafell, and caught up with a few of our friends. It was there that we heard about the Girona Flower festival so we altered our plans and made sure we were could visit for a few days midweek.

Girona is such a beautiful old, walled city and we really enjoyed our time there. We will visit again when it's less busy.

Back to the coast and the small town of L'Escala in the Bay of Roses, named by UNESCO as one of the most beautiful bays in the world. We walked to the hamlet of Sant Martí and took in the views along the way

We are now in Roses (at the other side of the bay) and getting ready to leave Spain and begin the next stage of our travels.

Unfortunately due to a technical glitch, I'm unable to upload photos at the moment. These will follow at a later date.

Away in a Ranger,

 Equipped with a bed.....

As we didn't get to take Campalot to the UK this summer - ever changing covid rules meant it was more flexible just  to take the truck and move around faster - we decided to take a few days down at the Mar Menor to test out the latest modifications and see if there was anything else we wanted to change before we set off on a major trip. It was also a chance to check out a couple of possible locations for our next move within Spain.

Mar Menor is a large saltwater lagoon in Murcia (next province down from Valencia) that often features in A Place in the Sun but having seen it for ourselves we don't think we want to stay there - the townships are all quite small and artificial with little infrastructure or character.

Cartagena on the other hand dates back to about 200 BC and the Carthaginians and has been occupied ever since, in particular there are some large roman ruins. As such it has the character that the Mar Menor lacks, and some nice back streets and squares, and I think it could be a good contender for a winter rental. No beach in the city itself as the natural port is all rocky and is Spain's main naval base for the med, but that is less of an issue out of season. A good food market with more varieties of fish than we have seen anywhere else in Spain so far.

it also had a large nativity diorama set up in one of the squares, reinterpreting the christmas story to feature their own roman amphitheatre - and of course it made me think of Life of Brian

Campalot performed well and we were quite comfortable for all it was cool and windy - we spent more time sat inside than we would normally expect to keeping warm and away from the mosquitos. I have a few more tweaks to make over winter but talking with some of  the German snowbirds on the campsite reminded us why we made it demountable in the first place - they were either having to tow another vehicle on a trailer behind their motorhomes or couldn't get into the towns because their camper vans were too large. Tigger II isn't exactly small even without the camper on the back, but at least we manage to get into on-street parking spaces.

So now we hunker down for winter and hope that the travel situation improves again before next spring.

Land of my fathers (almost)

San Sebastian in the Basque country about 100km from where I used to visit as a kid. We allegedly came through here but I have absolutely no recollection of it - I don't think we ever stayed as it was so close to the end of our journey that we always pushed on through.

On our way back to Valencia from our first official UK trip in 2 years. This is our only stop in this part of Spain as tomorrow we head home via an errand in Madrid. We will visit and a tour properly one summer, but at this time of year it's a bit cold and gray

Land of my father's mother's fathers....

 

Thanks to the politicians and health advisory" experts" deciding to bugger up the vaccine rollout by restricting rollouts and throwing the baby out with the bathwater, we have given up on touring to anywhere this summer and opted to relocate 400kms south to Gandia in Valencia.

Rental contracts here are for a minimum of 12 months, so once the so self-important regional authorities decided to limit travel until after easter, we had to bite the bullet and either stay put until next spring or do a video viewing of somewhere else. Maria had spent weeks looking for properties all along the Valencia coast, and flagged up a house near the beach north of Gandia. It looked good on the video so we said yes and gave our notice on the house in Cubelles.

We came down with Campalot on the Sunday, stayed at a local campground overnight and then did the usual waiting around for hours for Spanish incompetents to sign the contracts and get the keys. Once we got in we found out how enormous the house is over 4 floors, 500m back from the beach and in walking distance of a good range of bars and restaurants - much better than before . There are always a few drawbacks and gotchas but i think we will be happy here for a year, and hopefully we can resume our meanderings next year

And whilst my paternal grandmother was from around Blibao, apparently my great grandfather was from Valencia......

All revved up with no place to go

 

After weeks of delays getting parts shipped from the US, UK, Europe and China I've finally got Campalot to a point where it is technically useable. We have windows, working hot water and drainage, a shower tray, a working fridge/freezer and cool box and, as my bolts finally got delivered by the Spanish post office this week, a working staircase...

Unfortunately we now have nowhere to go. We had originally aimed to visit back to the UK around now as a test run, probably taking a scenic route back via Johnmill in the Netherlands and possible the Seatters in Switzerland, but there is no way we can practically meet the quarantine requirements in the UK unless we pay to rent somewhere for 2 weeks to sit and be miserable, and most of the family we hoped to visit are now all in tier 3 lockdown so we wouldn't have been able to visit them anyway. And the UK government seems so unpredictable in bringing in changes at such short notice there is no way we are going to risk getting caught up in a total lockdown.

So we will stay on the balcony. I'll keep plodding on with fitting out the camper cupboards and making it all pretty inside, we will explore some more of Catalonia as day trips as and when local restrictions allow, hope that Johnmill is able to join us for Christmas, and that the spring brings some relief and we can hit the road for the summer....

On the balcony - Month 1

The coronavirus pandemic is on the news around the world and everyone is handling it differently. To be honest, we've had 8 years of training so this really isn't too difficult for us. Catching up with friends and family through electronic media has increased somewhat.

We are now into our 5^th week of lockdown and so glad we're not travelling at the moment. We have a spacious house and garden here in Spain and if Mark didn't have his camper project to keep him busy I think we'd definitely go stir crazy in an apartment. We do miss being able to go for a walk either down to the beach and for me, a daily wander to the shops for fresh bread or produce. People here could only go out for essentials (food, medicine, fuel, essential workers, etc) or to walk their dog. I'd heard stories of people renting out their dogs so others could go for a walk. It has relaxed a little this week as some non-essential workers (construction, cleaners, etc) have been allowed to go back to work.

The virus spread so quickly here because the Prime Minister announced late on the Friday night (March 13th) that the lockdown would commence on the Monday, so everyone in Madrid, Barcelona and other large cities headed for their holiday homes along the coast, bringing the germs with them. I went shopping on that Saturday and it was like a plague of locusts had been through the supermarkets and local greengrocer. No fresh produce or meat left on the shelves and no rice or beans to be found anywhere. The locals were going mad as all these 'holiday makers' had descended on us and bought up everything. By the Monday, shops were back to normal with most produce back on the shelves. The only difference was the health precautions being taken. Security personnel on the doors with hand sanitiser and plastic gloves, keeping everyone at least 1m (3ft) apart (it's now 3m/6ft). Queuing and social distancing doesn't come naturally to Spaniards but they seem to be obeying it so far here. Everyone was calm and no panic buying (apart from the first Saturday prior) or riots that I've seen on the news happening elsewhere. When the virus started to emerge in Italy in February, Mark said he thought it would be a good idea if I got a few extra store cupboard items, as he could see it spreading across the rest of Europe. Canned foods are really good here and pulses come in jars so I can re-use them. I now only go shopping once a week and walk to the bakers every so often for fresh bread. I even wipe down the car door handles before I get in and between shops if I need to visit more than one supermarket. Coat, scarf and shoes stay in a room downstairs and hands washed before, during and after putting shopping away. We are in lockdown until April 26^th, and the hope is that the rules will then be relaxed with more shops being allowed to open. There is talk that the Prime Minister will ask for another extension until May 10^th. We shall see.

Mark is starting to get frustrated as he can't finish jobs on the camper as he's waiting for stuff to be delivered. We've seen the postman again a few times now so hopefully the packets will start to arrive. Plumbing, electrics, fixings and vehicle lighting are all waiting on parts. We did end up buying an awning from a place near San Diego and it cost almost as much again to ship it. Mark even looked at flights to LA as it was almost as cheap to fly across and bring it back himself, but not very green. Unfortunately, no one here sells anything that would have worked on the back of the camper, as its too narrow.

As everyone is staying at home we are missing our Spanish conversation classes too. I've started doing online learning each day, which is helping, although I have noticed they use different words for some things (it's an American based course). When everything gets back to normal I'll need to ask our locals for their opinions. Also, no choir for me either but a number of online groups have formed in the UK which I've joined. It's all good fun, and even though we can't hear each other because of the time lag, we can all hear the teacher. Singing my head off in the bedroom is very uplifting, and I don't need to worry if I hit a wrong note as no-one can hear me :-)

Oh well, back to the balcony...

Year two off the road

It's now 12 months since we first came down to Spain and got our temporary residency paperwork, so we are 20% of the way to getting to permanent status - technically I could now apply for citizenship based on my family connections, but that doesn't affect Maria's status directly and opens up a whole bunch of questions on taxation, pensions and state healthcare that are just too complex to even try to think about until the long term relationship between the UK and EU is fully agreed and documented. So we will take the slow road

We have been getting into the community a little with a local language club where we help people to practice their english and in turn they help us with our spanish, and we had just arranged introductions to a couple more local people this weekend but the virus lockdown might have put paid to those.

Ditto who knows if and when we will have more visitors - Lee was booked in for a couple of weeks time but that is now looking unlikely. But we are planning on being here all spring and summer at least - our house rental is until at least the end of July - and we're not planning on moving this year. Hopefully we will have Campalot ready for a few outings after peak summer season to give him a shakedown and work out what still needs to be carried before we plan any big trips like a lap of the Baltic....maybe next year