Over the last week or so I have tried several websites to create this blog, hopefully this attempt will be more successful.
We left home on 24th October 2012. We travelled by Brittany Ferries from Portsmouth to Santander, Spain. The crossing only took twenty four hours, we had an excellent, if expensive, meal and a comfortable cabin overnight and arrived in Santander, refreshed, the following mid morning. We drove for a couple of hours to the city of Burgos and found a campsite quite close to the town. We had planned to stay two nights but as it rained all night and the campsite was dreary with no hot water, we decided to get ourselves as far south as possible.
We set off early the following morning and easily covered the 530 miles to the south coast of Spain where we found a lovely campsite next to a sandy beach at El Peurto de Santa Maria, which is just across the water from Cadiz on the Atlantic coast. We spent a few days exploring the lovely old town on our bikes. We found some good food and lots of sunshine. We were going to do a tour of the local sherry factory but when Tony learnt that visitors could drink as much sherry as they liked, he felt it wiser if Marion did not go! On Monday, 29th October we set off for the Mediterranean coast, closer to our rendezvous for our Moroccan tour. It was only a two hour drive which took us past Algeciras with a fine view of Gibraltar and on to a campsite called Bella Vista which was only opened in March this year and was right on the beach and offered a lovely view overlooking the sea (Bella Vista – get it?). The site had the best facilities ever with large shower cubicles, laundry, restaurant and bar, all brand new and, best of all, free wifi access. This area was on the Costa del Sol about twenty miles from Estepona and adjacent to the small marina of Duquesa. Although the marina had lots of restaurants and bars, there did seem to be a lack of visitors and the whole area appeared to be quite run down. There was block after block of apartments which appeared to be built for the tourists, many were unoccupied and up for sale. The whole area seemed to be geared to Brits living abroad, English was spoken everywhere, menus written in English – with their quaint translations – and English food offered. The weather has been beautifully warm although, as I write this, it is raining hard and the forecast for the weekend is not good. We can’t seem to get our television to pick up a signal here, although Tony has been up on the roof of the van to give it a wiggle. We shall have to start playing Perudo!!
