Seville



The GiraldaTower

Seville (Sevilla) (day 151)

On the way to Seville, we wild camped on a beach in Costa Ballena & watched the windsurfers in the breakers it looks very skilful. While we were sat there we were paid a visit from our friends the Guardia Civil, they must know us by now.

Gelves Marina on Rio Guadaira

Next morning we left early for Seville, the journey didn’t seem to take long on arrival I had a little confusion with the co-driver and the grid co-ordinates, although this time Jo decided to look at the map so we had half a chance of finding Gelves our destination. You have to be sharp the Seville, drivers take no prisoners, we only nearly crashed once so all good stuff.  Puerto Gelves is a small marina just outside Seville on the Rio Guadaira, it’s not the prettiest marina but it has everything you need and it’s close to the city, costing only €14.00/noche for a sea view, well almost.  The next day we took the bus into the city €1.40 each then went for mooch around. 

The weather was very warm and there was an overpowering smell of orange blossom from all the trees, which are everywhere, it looks like snow falling and has the smell of Jasmine and not the usual smell of a Spanish city.  Seville fells very clean and fresh, there are lots of students walking about looking cool & chilled along with the tourists.

Fabrica de Tabacos

The Cathedral and Reales Alcazarea Palace

We left the bus at the Rio Guadalquivir and headed into the old town, taking in the sights. Seville is an impressive city, full of palaces, churches, museums towers, city walls and plaza’s. Some of our favourites were:- The Antigua Fabrica de Tabacos, this was where the first tobacco came into Europe and is now the university and the Cathedral and its Giralda tower, which was the ancient minaret of the Almohad mosque and dates back to 1184.  Close by the Reales Alcazares palaces, dating back to the year 700, and the Plaza de Espana.  Around every corner there is another wonderful building.  We came upon another square with a couple of bodegas and decided to stop for a refreshing drink. After wondering around the small and atmospheric streets, we decided to head back to the van and relax by the river.  We headed back the following evening to sample the sherry and tapas, along with a little more sightseeing.

A typical Bodega off a square

At the Plaza de Espana " Little Venice"

After staying in Seville for four nights, we decided to make our way to Portugal, making a couple of stops on the way, firstly to the town of El Rocio, otherwise known as “cowboy town”. The town has no tarmac, only wide, sandy streets with a frontier like feel l to it, and apparently in the evening at the weekends the locals arrive on horseback wearing cowboy hats. It is situated at the edge of a natural park, alongside a large lake with Flamingos.  We decided to park there for the night (Friday), however as soon we pulled up and the heavens opened and it rained and rained, so much so that ‘roads’ turned into rivers, because there are no storm drains and we had to find somewhere save to stay. (we didn’t even have time to take any pictures). We drove 18 km down the road to Matalascanas, a ghost town this time of year and parked on a car park near the beach.

The next day we checked out a few wild camping spots in Mazagon, and spotted a particularly nice one by the Parador.  We passed the city of Huelva and arriving at El Rompido, parked up on the estuary; alongside other motorhomes, mainly Spanish owners enjoying the start of the Easter holidays ‘Semana Santa’ and walked into the village, a busy place with lots of fish restaurant’s and decided it would be a nice place to stay for a the weekend, spending Sunday sampling the local fare and later taking a walking along the estuary.

Outside our favourite restuarant in El Rompido

Our new friends Christine and Bernd

Wild Camping in El Rompido

Cadiz and El Puerta de Santa Maria



Cadiz – El Puerta de Santa Maria

 We parked up in the main car park area next to the ferry port, and went on recce to see if we could find the place we had been told about by other travellers, it had guarded parking and cost of €1.00 for 24 hrs. On our walk we saw all the sherry wharf’s where the huge barrels of sherry are stored, the air is mixture of the strong smells of the stored sherry and bad drains mixed in with a bit of dog do, then you get an overwhelming smell of the Orange blossom from all the trees lining all the pasada’s (squares) & pavements which smells like jasmine flowers in the summer ( the smell of the Med), but don’t let that put you off.

Igesia Mayor Prioral in the square at Santa Maria

 

Ferry to Cadiz,(day 2 in Santa Maria)

It is easier to visit Cadiz via the local ferry service leaving every hour or so from Santa Maria ferry port, where we had found the low cost parking place. It is very windy today and we were told there would be no return service by boat, as the weather forcast wasn't looking to good. On arrival in Cadiz  we strolled around the city watching all the road & building works, it looks like the city is being eaten away by the wind and weather.  We found a small bar to have lunch of beer and Montaditos (small bocadillos) (sandwiches) of Serrano ham and cheese.  We continued our walk around the old city, taking in the sights and found another pretty plaza surrounded by orange trees in bloom and had a cool refreshing Caña (175ml of draft beer a small half with lots of froth, all beers mentioned in the blog are Caña’s, not pints, just in case it sounds like we drink a lot).  Eventually we walked back to the port for our ride back to Santa Maria by bus. In the evening we decided to go out for a few drinks in a local bar, well it was Friday night.  We arrived in the bar at the end of “early doors” this is where the office workers go for an early beer after work (the Spanish do always seem to be drinking maybe it is to keep hydrated?) about 7.30 ish, we sat at the bar on stools with our drinks I tried the  Vino Fino Sherry (well all the men were drinking it there) and Jo ordered a white wine then a busker walked in and proceeded to play a popular flamenco number.  Well everybody seemed to know the song and started to start singing and the ladies started dancing with their arms in the air and there was lots of hand clapping.  I don’t think it was for our benefit, I think it was just a Friday night in Cadiz.  We stayed in the bar and started chatting with the local Spaniards in our pigeon Spanish and their limited English, unusually our conversations improved the more beer and wine we all drank, we met some very nice people and thoroughly enjoyed the evening.

"Nice hair" Its windy in Puerto De Santa Maria (Cadiz)





Been watching too much Miami Vice in the 80s

Cathedral in Plaza de la Cathedral



Our night out in Santa Maria



Back on the road again



A view of Benidorm in the distance with Calpe in the foreground

 Leaving Moraira, we decided to make a leisurely 'dash' down the coast, dropping family off at the airport in Alicante, our first stop for the night was previously visited La Marina, as its only 30 minutes from the airport and has a couple of beach bars close by. From there we went to Elche to a large motor home accessory shop, as we had a problem with the fridge, hoping that they could fix it, problem with fridge not resolved but journey continues, driving inland passing Murcia, Lorca and stopping for lunch is a small town called Librilla, thinking there was a lake to stopby, but the river feeding it had been damned up mainly years ago.  After a long drive we stopped at a lovely stop on the beach just outside Aquiilas for the night.  In the morning we drove onto Villaricos to stay with Jan and Ian for one night and the following day arrived at Almerimar, so now we are back on track.

Moving on, we passed through Adra, Motril and dropped down into Salobrena, initially, we thought to be a typically Spanish tourist town, with a long sweeping promenade, however once we found the wild camping spot and had time to explore, we found an Moorish castle in the old town up on top of the out crop of rock and next door, the tiny village of La Caleta which houses the last sugar factory in Europe.

Salobrena town, nicer place than it looks - sugar factory in foreground

Dashed through the Costa del Sol, passing around Malaga, through Benalmadeba, Fuengirola and Marbella, stopping in a coastal town called San Pedro, for a couple of nights over the weekend.  San Pedro is only a couple of km's from Puerto Banus, so we decided to walk down and see how the other half live.

"Time to dump the motor home - I've got my sights on something better"!!

 

Gibraltar - well nearly!!

We decided to move onto Gibraltar for a couple of days, mainly to do abit of duty free shopping.  However when we arrived at what is commonly known as the "sandpit" a very popular and apparently reliable wild camping stop, the police were moving all the vans off, so we made a hasty retreat and change of plan (several days later we discovered that there had been a bomb scare and all the vans could return at 9pm).  We decided to carry on through Algeciras and onto our next stop Tarifa.



The only shot of Gibraltar we got due to the fast exit required



Tarifa

We arrived in Tarifa, early evening and parked in the town for coffee and cake, before finding somewhere to stop for the night.  Tarifa is the most southerly point of Spain and only 14 km from the coast of Africa, it is apparently one of the windiest place in Europe and therefore very popular for windsurfing and kite surfing.  We headed northwest to Tarifa Beach and settle there for the night amongst the surfer dudes.  The following day we had planned to go into town and look round the surfer shops for some t-shirts for Simon, then head back to the beach and watch the display of surfers, however the police where knocking on van doors at 7 in the morning moving people on, so off we went again.  We decided it was time to check into a campsite and freshen up, moving up the coast, we passed fields and fields of wind turbines and called into Zahara de Los Tunes for breakfast, a pretty fishing village with some small hotels and pensions and drove through the busy town of Barbate.

Some of Spain's wind farms- they are everywhere, along this coast

Me taking the dog for a shit - "we don't have a dog silly"

Zahora (Caños de Meca)

We stopped at campsite in Zahora, after parking up we walked to the lighthouse at Cape Trafalgar, off the south west coast, where the famous battle of Trafalgar was fought on the 21st Oct 1805. British Royal Navy’s fleet of 22 warships went up against the French & Spanish combined fleet of 33 warships, the Spanish losing 22 ships with no British loses.                         We chilled on the windy beach and pondered what had happened all those years ago. We made our way back to the town via the long sandy beach (like one of those you see in  adverts)  All the beaches along this coastline are stunning, beautiful soft white sand that stretches for miles and miles.  Jo forgot her sun hat and had to improvise!







Just like a chocolate flake advert



nice pose

 



Lighthouse at Cape Trafalgar

 

Jo looking like a member of the Spanish Inquisition

La Palmar

The following day we walked to La Palmer and had lunch in the “cervezeria” which looked like the one all the surfers frequented.

Si contemplating his next meal - "I think I'll now have the left hand side off the menu"



Surf dude central



 

Continuing up the coast to Cadiz, we passed through La Barrosa, a tourist resort with 5 golf courses. Stayed for lunch in the harbour area of Sancti Petri, a small spit of land a beautiful place to camp, but it was a little early to set up camp so we moved on, Jo photographed a statue of a man before heading for El Puerta De Santa Maria




It's nearly down to his knee, nice of the sculptur to add an extra inch

 

Moraira with our Mum's



View of Moraira from the Cap D'or Fort

 

The Fort at Cap D'or El Portet Moraira


We arrived at our villa in Moraira, the villa was lovely; so much better than we expected, beautiful views over the valley, Sky, Wifi , all the mod cons and even a bath - ooh what a luxury after 4 months in a motorhome.  We explored Moraira; a pretty seaside town with 3 beaches, small tourist shops and excellent seafood restaurants.  Much of our time was spent relaxing and chilling out in and around the town, visiting the local market and beaches, we did a couple of day trips, one to the Xalon Valley and visited the Bodego to fill up on supplies!! and Javea.

Our last night in Moraira with Mum



Si and Mum - Marion in Moraira



Mum chilling on the beach

  


I think we're going to need a bigger glass

 

Sally and Si on El Portet Beach

We really enjoyed catcing up with our family and now we are heading of on our adventures again.