On the Road Again!

October 16th/17th Two full days left in Alcossebre before we have to pack the van, clean the apartment and set off homeward. So we did very little but enjoy the fact that Storm Alice had finally blown itself out, without causing too much damage in this area. Further north in Catalunya there was loads of flooding. To the south in Murcia there were reports of electricity failures and no drinking water. Thursday evening we took a walk into the town along the beach promenade and the wooden boardwalk. We popped into Ale Hop and Claire bought a few things.  😀 We thought about having dinner out but in the end the restaurants looked a little full for the three of us. Friday was again local to the apartment. We even loaded most non essentials into the van.  We were lucky we could park pretty much in the same place each time we had just been out. Right by the entrance to the complex. October 18th We were up early. Checkout time is 10am and we were ready long before they opene...

October 15th. It would seem that the rain and flooding that Storm Alice brought to the coast between Tarragona and Alicante/Murcia has finally gone away. We were up early today as we were expecting the cleaners to come in. They have been crashing around in various blocks all week! In the end they arrived around 9am. We then packed up our stuff and headed off back to Peñiscola to park up alongside the beach again, and this time rather than hide from the wind and rain, but to get out and take a walk along the promenade and maybe have a coffee or even lunch. We were also running low on cash.  We started the trip on October 1st with €120 in notes and some change.  We were down to €15 in notes and maybe another €5 in coins. So the first stop was a bank. To draw €70 incurred a €7 fee.  So we aborted and went to a branch of Santander.  The same! This wasn't to do with our bank, this was the ATM bank.  We are used to free ATM's in banks in the UK. We sucked ...

October 13th The weather hadn't improved all that much and so it was a case of being cabin fevered in the apartment with forays out to give Reggie a walk. So not much to report. Luckily the wifi works and we can watch stuff on the laptop or read our Kindles instead. October 14th What a change in the weather. It's sunny. It stayed dry all day. After breakfast we got our stuff together and set off in the van.  We had looked at maybe going to Benicassim, but lately reviews of van parking areas have suggested that break-ins have been occurring. So we decided to head for the Mercadona at Oropesa del Mar (Marina d'Or) that we have been to a few times before. It's only about 25 minutes down the N340. Usually, we park up near the seafront and take a walk and a coffee in a local bar.  Once we shopped, we got Reggie out of the van and had coffee in the sun on the terrace of the café by the Mercadona. Then we set off back to the apartment. Back at Kione, we went past along the coa...

Please excuse the linking to another blog service.  I use Travellerspoint as my family can see posts appear in their email. I have never been successful with that in Blogger. Travellerspoint also allows me to update via email and include photos in the posts. Blogger doesn't. Anything over 25mb is blocked. https://devall-travels.travellerspoint.com/996/

 ... and we will be deep into France and on our way to Spain. After the birthday celebrations (let's hope the French do zero alcohol beer and wine!) we will be setting off for the first campsite. I know that "real" vanlifers would be looking for a wild camping site or the very least a bit of scrubland to park up for the night.  We won't be doing that at all.  Why not?   Because it's our holiday that's why not! I have nothing against the occasional wild camp. We do it at Motor Caravanners Club Rallies and at some festivals. But when we are on holiday I like to be able to switch the kettle on and not rely on gas (LPG!) or the Bluetti AC70. Not all the time anyway. So we have chosen, or rather I have chosen! When I say we it's usually me that does the planning... We have chosen Camping La Gaviota near Roses not that far into Spain in the Girona province.  It's not the cheapest at around €33 a night, but it's well placed for walks and is dog friendly....

This is the destination of the Autumn trip this year. It's almost the same as last year but a week later in the year. In my head I had planned to go earlier, in September, and staying over to include our wedding anniversary.  Firstly, my brother and Phil embarking on a three week bike tour for most of September meant that we might have to ticket exchange our Arsenal season ticket seats if all three of us were away at the same time. Phil and I share my seat 50/50. Secondly, my old workmate and friend, John, who lives in France is having a 70th birthday party. I'm 70 in December.  Probably have a takeaway from the Chinese.... So instead we are here, in Alcossebre, from the 11th October.  I had a look on RCI to see where we could go "dog friendly" next year. Not wanting to tempt fate..... Reggie is 15 in September this year.  There's not a lot available that fits the bill. It's a shame to waste the timeshare before I can sell it or dump it back to the current own...

With the dates of the French "event" firmly in the diary and the timeshare booked, I am left with 6 nights before we can check in in Alcossebre. So,I started to check a few sites that I had seen on some of the vloggers we follow. " The Slaws Adventures " went to a campsite in Northern Spain called  Càmping La Gaviota Costa Brava . It looks like a good site and is close to a dog friendly beach. The reviews on Google maps look promising.  I have enquired by email about staying there three nights so that after a drive through France we can have a few days with no worries. A dog friendly beach means that Reggie can have a play too. It's quite expensive at about £33 a night. I know some van lifers will cringe at that sort of cost. It leaves one night between the "event" and La Gaviota.  Before we cross into Spain there are quite a few Camping-Car Park aires en route. So we won't be left in a lay-by somewhere. I also have the France Passion booklet an...

I haven't made all that much progress with "Summer 2025" yet other than a channel crossing booked and one campsite for the first night booked. My attention has turned to Autumn,  October to be a little more precise. We have been invited to a special event early in the month in France and I have begun to look at the feasibility of going and including it into the holiday we normally have for our wedding anniversary.   I can't say much about the event itself until later in the year but the wedding anniversary will be our 25th - Silver Wedding! So, I have been looking at combining the two events and incorporating them into a trip to France and Spain. I have been looking on RCI ( rci.com ) to use the "banked" apartment and seeing if there are other options to Alcossebre. We have done Kione Playa Romana twice before, lastly in October 2024.  It was  a good week and meant we didn't have to travel all that far once there and could have a bit of R&R. The...

With the trip in mind I dipped into Microsoft's AI generator to get a picture of Molly in Brighton. No matter how much info I typed in, getting a true representation of Molly didn't happen. We are there two nights. Last year we went for a weekend trip staying in the Caravan Club site just up from the Marina area. This year we return to the same site but not at the entire weekend as we have advanced a day in the calendar.  The chances of us getting to park outside the pier is very remote. So AI to the rescue. The van isn't quite a Malibu but is a Ducato! The second image is more fanciful but might almost turn into a partial reality in the Autumn. 😉  Once I have worked out where we are going to go on the Summer trip I'll start to look at the Autumn trip to Spain again.  Maybe we'll give Alcossebre and the timeshare another try. Earlier in the year, October 2024,  there were so many places still open that weren't when we stayed in November ...

I have had a few days off as there were other things to look into. The rear bumper fix for Molly being one of them - more on that elsewhere. So whilst I was playing with Max (the TomTom Go Camper Max satnav/GPS) I decided to let her/him/they calculate a return journey from Alcoceber/Alcossebre with the dimensions slightly altered to make the van wider.   If you have read the earlier blog about the journey to Invicta Caravan Services you will get an idea how even the best laid plans can be ruined by Google having the wrong information in their Maps application! Plus the roads chosen were too narrow for Molly to pass trucks and buses safely without one (usually me as truck drivers know the size and weight always wins!) of us diving to the left to avoid contact. On the summer trip in May we started coming north from Valencia.  This time Alcoceber is around 110kms to the north of Valencia.  The route though looks pretty much like the one we did on the way ...

Today I have been looking again at the overnight stops between Calais and Alcossebre. Once again using the page map inside the front cover of the 2020 Big Easy Read Atlas of France and the 12" ruler. Towns are unlikely to have moved much in four years... Accuracy can be checked using Google Maps. Currently I have identified four stops with the last one being the municipal aire at St Cyprien Plage "Flot Bleu". Google Maps put this as 435kms to the apartment. That's the longest day but as we can't check-in until 4pm it shouldn't be a problem. So at the moment I am looking at a first stop at our old friend Camping-Car Park at Formerie. Google shows this to be around 172kms from Calais Port. To vary the route,  and also a TomTom Max suggestion, this time we are away from the N154 and N10.  The next stop looks to be around Beaulieu sur Loire. It's around 302 Kms. I looked at a few around to the south of Clermont Ferrand but there were few sites that appealed. ...

Today I have been looking at the France 2020 Atlas to work out where we can stop overnight on the way down. Does anyone else use a ruler to give a rough idea of distances? Just me? The inside cover has the overview of the whole country showing the pages. I use that to roughly work out the stops with the ruler. I have been using this atlas as well. It shows lots of Aires and campsites on the pages. It's okay and easier to handle than the bigger AA atlas. Allowing for the time when we  arrive in France plus some shopping for us and Reggie at Picard, I think that the first overnight stop might be Formerie where we have stayed before. It's about 170kms from the port. It's a small Camping-Car Park Aire with only six pitches. Each with electric hook-up. I'll probably have to reserve a pitch in advance. From there the Google Maps non-toll route goes in a familiar direction to Dreux and then diverts around Orléans and to the non-toll A77 towards Vichy and Millau on the non-toll...

I was looking on the Resort Condominiums International ( RCI.Com ) site to see if there was anything we could drive to and that was pet friendly.   I have owned a timeshare in Tenerife since 1994.  It was very cheap at the time. Of course annual maintenance goes up every year so not using it hurts!  Across Europe there were a few places but as we plan to travel in October that really ruled out Finland and Sweden, although maybe one day we can take Molly the Moho over that way. Purely as I don't know much about the weather there. There were a number of others in Austria and Hungary. One of the Hungarian places I have been before with my ex-partner. We went on our motorcycles and stayed near Heviz and Lake Balaton.  I ruled out Austria as the size of the dog was restricted to 10kg!  Reggie is around 17.5kg. It's another place I have visited quite often especially when I lived in Brno and was only 75 miles or so from Vienna. So that left three p...