The Pyrenees to Andalucia - a week of travelling

So skiing is over and now we've got to get to Andalucia. We are very definitely travelling and what a week of adventure we've had.

Moving to a completely different landscape this week

First of all we had to drive down from the Pyrenees through the Bielsa-Aragnouet tunnel into Spain and then down through an area that basically looked like the wild west of America.

Lots of mountains and tunnels this week starting with the Bielsa-Aragounet Tunnel in the Pyrenees

It was a beautifully sunny day and the views were amazing from the blue / green Cinqueta river to the mountainous rock faces and stony boulder fields of the parched valley. We drove all day and stayed overnight in the welcoming town of Tarres which is surrounded by olive groves and kindly provides a free stop for motorhomes with all the services including electric hook up. To repay a little we wandered into town the following morning and had a coffee con leche in the welcoming community resteraunt and bought baguettes and a croissant from the bread van man. Little towns like this often don't have a shop of their on but rather have a bread van visit two or three mornings a week. And we got lucky that he visited the day of our stay. The town also has a beautiful old church, some great community sports facilities, incl a pool and promotes an active lifetsyle through a whole variety of options (see below).

Lots of local walks - well signposted

But we had no time to linger too much more and we set off for the coast and a meet up for Melle with some of her girlfriends from Shrewsbury. The city of Denia was the destination of her meet up and so we drove most of the next day - through pretty nasty rain storms - and made it south of Valencia by close of play. We had targeted a small "Camperpark" especially for motorhomes like Homer. They have lots of these in Spain (as opposed to the aires of France) and usually for between 10 and 20 euros you can stay in a small fenced and gated compound with services (eg water and toilet dump and sometimes a shower and electric hook up). But unfortunately tonight there was no room at the inn and as we were so tired we just pulled up the shutters and parked on the street for the night, which was fine. After a quick refill and empty the following morning we were on our way and made it to Denia by early afternoon. Denia doesn't have a camperpark or a campsite but initially we found a car park right on the beach with lots of motorhomes having claimed it as a short stay for a night or two. After Melle went to meet and greet her friends we had a visit from the local police who informed me that I could stay one night but then needed to leave town. However by moving back off the front it was more acceptible to stay and little longer so I did that - firstly staying on a roadside (too noisy with traffic) and then on a car park with the comfort and safety of other motorhomes too. Denia is a nice little Spanish resort on the Med and has an array of friendly bar resteraunts offering good value food / tapas and drinks. We spent two days there and I even had a very short swim in the sea - brrrr very cold. And we also spent a day in neighbouring Xabia or Javea - it has two names but both pronounced the same, very confusing if you're trying to drive there and looking for directions.

The girls...

Helen - the only one brave enough to swim (and that included me)

Alex (Lucy's nephew who lives in Xabia) and Helen

By now it was Good Friday and as we waved Lucy, Helen and Trudy off to catch their plane home we planned to go to Murcia to catch the easter parades and celebrations that we'd heard so much about in guidebooks. Some days, and we've been lucky to experience more of these, everything goes well and some days things just don't work out. Unfortunately the rest of Good Friday was not particularly good. Firstly as we were speeding along the motorway we heard a big crash coming from somewhere in the van behind us. Melle couldn't spot what it was but then realised that our roof light had blown off in the wind. I definitely closed it when we left Denia but I obviously hadn't wound it tightly enough and now we had a hole in our roof the size of a dinner tray. Not immediately concerning as it was a lovely sunny day but as soon as the weather turned we could get very wet and cold!! Also it would mean that at least until we could get it fixed we would need to stay on a secure camping site. With this in mind it made matters worse that we couldn't find anywhere that wasn't full in the vacinity of Murcia. Eventually someone took pity on us and let us stay without services overnight only on their site but we had to move on early next morning. As so often happens the next day lady luck smiled on us again as we managed to find a DIY store open (this was super lucky bearing in we were in a Catholic country in the midst of celebrating biggest weekend of year) and even better they had a perspex sheet almost exactly the size of the hole in our roof. I always take a box of tools and other diy equipment and I had a roll of duck tape with which I secured the perspex to the roof. It felt like a good job and a couple of days later when motorhome services were open again and we visited to ask about the possibility of a permanent replacement roof light the owner was so impressed with my handywork he offered me a job!! Unfortunately he couldn't fix the roof light though. But not to worry, we now had a pretty good temporary fix to the roof light issue, and a really great campervan stop had a place for the next two nights which would allow us to visit Murcia too.

Too much air conditioning I think!!

Living in a lemon grove

The award winning fix - almost undetectable from the inside 😀

Camperpark Huerta Mercia is a little paradise for motorhomes being based in the middle of a lemon and orange grove (you get free fruit every morning together with your shower and other services). It's almost directly on a super little local off road cycle path that takes you 11km into the centre of Murcia concluding at the cathedral, which was exactly where we needed to be to view the easter celebrations. We did this for two days and had a fabulous time experiencing the parades of penitence, local tapas and sangria and the start of the spring fayre. We were welcomed by local people who say that Murcia doesn't get a lot of tourists, even from the rest of Spain. We don't know why, it's a lovely city with it's baroque architecture, it's fabulous cathedral and other religious buildings and lovely gardens and plazas. We also took a visit to the casino, which isn't a place of gambling and ill repute but rather a club for local people and it has some amazing rooms and decoration - if you ever pass this way I recommend you look it up.