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We don’t report too often on places that leave a negative impression on us, but Calpe was one ;-(  

On the surface Calpe seems wonderful.  We call it ‘mini Gibraltar’ – there is a large rock outcrop which is a national park and then a lovely seaside town around it.  It’s Costa Blanca, so there are a few high rise apartments and hotels, but that’s fine. Calpe is obviously very popular – there are a few campsites and motorhome stopovers and all were full.  A couple did have one (literally one) space each but they were a little too small for us although we did try and fit 😉 No, it was the people that were horrible.

Perhaps because Calpe is so nice maybe it has had a problem with Campervans lining the streets or littering or something.  Anyway, whatever – as soon as we parked up to go and check the first campsite, some twat on the fifth story of an ugly tower block nearby shouted down at us that there was no parking.  We checked for signs and there was nothing so we waved thankyou at him and ignored him whence 🙂 Thirty seconds later a dog walker (german we think) screamed ‘no parking’ at us from across the street.  Nice. We checked the first campsite and on finding it full bar one space we could not fit into, moved to the next. We parked in a pretty empty street with four or five other campervans (No houses, flats or buildings).  Again no room at the inn although T did make an effort to persuade the penny to fit the slot to no avail!

We did meet a lovely couple in the street outside the van, a pair of brits, full time motorhomers for the last 15 years!  This was their second time at Calpe and they told us that in Spain, sleeping in your van on the street is not a crime so there must be a local law regarding overnight stops in campervans at Calpe. Their motorhome was a full two meters longer than us, so they had given up with the campsites and were heading to the hills to find a stopover.  

The various apps and websites that we use all had reports of the police moving on motorhomes after 8pm, so alas, we could not stay and never got to see the national park.

So, because the people and bylaws of Calpe were so unwelcoming, we’re not posting any pictures and can’t recommend calpe to any motorhomers. Instead we drove a few km along the coast to the wonderful town of Moraira – the polar opposite of Calpe.

It’s not all rosé by the sea here. It’s time to flush out the grey water tank as it effing stinks. The grey water tank holds the water from the bathroom sink, the kitchen sink and the shower. After a while the washing up water makes the tank smell so it needs a proper flush out! One of the advantages of out motorhome is that we can get to the top of the tank and easily clean it. Welcome to 2019!

Although it’s only 14km from Ronda to out next stop it was a generally horrible Journey! For the first time we run through a village with length limits and not height or width limits.  It turns out it is bloody narrow but and the passing spaces are short – we guess they wanted to mix it up a bit with length limits! A couple of bits are bloody steep too and the various electronic doodads in the mothership beep and complain as it disables traction control and hill hold, and hill descent (yoo-oou left me just when I needed you most).  Any campervans out there, watch out for the village of Arriate if you go north from Ronda on the MA-7403! But we make it through ok. The on-board footage is here (https://youtu.be/6SeThqSXE-s), but you probably won’t find it very exciting: the camera has a wide lens so the road looks wider, and all you’ll really get is Toby panicking and swearing.

Setanil De Las Bodegas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setenil_de_las_Bodegas) looks great.  Initially it seems to be another lovely hill-top town.  But wait, there’s more! The Río Guadalporcún that cuts through the town and has created the gorge that the town sits in/on has worked it’s magic and some huge undercuts have formed and the ingenious locals have built caves homes under the protection of the rocks themselves.  This has happened many times as some of the cuts are fifty feet above the current river bed. Over the years, tourism has also played a large part in the evolution of the town and many of the quaint cave homes are now very nice restaurants.

We wander the town for a couple of hours and then back to the parking area for mothership as the olive presses are running at the co-operative over the road from our parking space and we go and check out how olive pressing works!  Don’t know how many ‘extra’ are required in front of extra virgin olive oil when it’s still warm from the presses!  We pick up a litre for about €4.50

We move the mothership to the top of a hill with a great view out away from the town and Selina comments that it could be an English summer evening.  Omelette, beer and ‘Independence Day’.

We can still hear the co-operative running and the the presses run late into the night, they are still going as we turn in at one AM. 

Ronda (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronda)  is one of the places that has been on the list for ages. It ticks the ‘hilltop town’ box that Toby loves so much.  Hilltop town does not do it justice. It sits on a sandstone outcrop with an almost sheer drop of 100 meters one side.  The old town is joined to the new by the photogenic Puente Nuevo bridge. The town can be traced back to the early Celts, so that’s 600 years BCE.  

The camperstop is on the edge of the ‘new’ town about 2km from the Puente Nueveo.  So we get the bikes down and cycle to see the sights. We are at nearly 3000 feet and the temperature in the afternoon of the first day is 7 degrees, so for the first time we are cycling with jumpers, coats, hats and gloves.  Winter even comes to Spain! We only visit the bridge and grab a tourist map and have a short walk.

The next day, we hit all the tourist sights. It’s a lot warmer than the previous day so gloves and hats are optional. For a change we actually pay to see the inside of a church, the Parroquia Santa María la Mayor.  It is worth it as the church has installed large balconies on the roof and the views over Ronda are amazing. We probably spend half an hour just looking out over the city (not lookin’ out a dirty old window, nor are the cars rushing by).

We lunch in a restaurant overlooking the Puente Nueveo and to work it off we walk all the way down the valley to grab a picture of the same bridge from from below.  Selina manages to acquire a new friend. Leading up to Xmas, and it’s Saturday, the town is bustling, so we sit and do some people watching and even picked up and ornament for the mothership – this is rare!

Back to the van late afternoon and planning for the next days trip further north and installing a couple of xmas decorations. Next we are off  to a town that is pretty much the opposite of Ronda – it’s built under a cliff not on top of one!

 

Our stop for Gibraltar is actually in Spain.  The general consensus is that you would have to be more than slightly mad to take a campervan into Gibraltar. Parking is a complete arse, clamping and towing is the norm, overnight stopping is not permitted, the streets are narrow, there are low tunnels everywhere.  TLDR: don’t even try it. So we pitch up at the Linea de la Conception Marina.

This is a great location although it is expensive and the facilities are rudimentary. But just for a moment – with the mothership parked overlooking the yachts and mega-yachts, you feel like one of the jetset. Of course we come down with a bump.  All the doors around the place are locked – we are not allowed into the services buildings. Apparently being in a motorhome does not count as being a client of the Marina – even though we are paying €12.50 a night. So no showers, posh loos or wifi for us plebs.

The weather is wonderful for five days, but then takes a turn for the windy and rainy.

In the four of five good weather days, we do most of the tourist things on the rock but sadly, there is not very much to do and see on the Spanish side of the border.

On Gib, after more than three months, we actually enjoy traffic lights, bobbies, M&S, Waitrose,  Debenhams & bacon nearly as much as the tourist spots!

We stock up on duty frees – it’s only alcohol and cigs that are actually good value.  Although the territory is VAT free, the prices of highstreet goods seem to be inflated to cover the VAT saving and most things except booze and fags actually seem dearer than back at home.

There are a few cons going on too – the tour bus/taxi business seems to be a bit cut-throat.  They chug from a few locations around town but in the middle of the aptly named High Street they will say anything to try and make sure you don’t make it to the cable car: Day 1 they told us it was in a different direction.  Day 2 they told us it was much more expensive that it actually was. We met a few people with the same story but added they they had also been told it was closed for the winter and closed because it was too windy.

After a week we really wished that we had arrived here a week later and we would have loved to have stayed for Xmas, but it was not to be.  If we stop for a week everywhere that we love it, we will never get around Europe in a decade, never mind a year.

High points for us were the views from the upper rock, the Barbary Macaques and the tunnels.

From Gib we are heading inland for a few days.

Merida is a ‘medium’ sized town on the Toby Town Scale System™.  This means that we have all the facilities that we might need local to us, and we can still get mothership into town and close to the ‘Things to Do’ and still (legally) park the beast somewhere.  Legally in this case means a proper vehicle parking pound with a dedicated area for camper-vans.

So far, the electrical system has taken everything we have thrown at it and we have not yet had a flat (or even low) hab battery the whole time we have been away.  So we will experiment with more days without mains juice and see how we get on. So we opt not to have the electric hookup for the 4 days we spend here and save ourselves €20.

Merida (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A9rida,_Spain) was founded by the Romans in 25 BCE as Emerita Augusta.  The modern name Merida has evolved from that Roman name. It was important to the Romans as it lay at an important pass on a strategic route to the Spanish gold mines.  

By about the year 500 CE the Roman buildings were all abandoned and stayed that way for about 1200 years with only a few features visible sticking out of the dirt.  Around 1910, serious archeological excavations were started and they quickly uncovered the theatre, amphitheatre, circus and forum with many others to follow. To get an idea there are around 20 different UNESCO World Heritage sites in and around Merida.

So, Merida is wonderful: we spent four days exploring the ruins.  Many have been excavated and the theatre for example has been sympathetically reconstructed.  Other sites that are not yet open are protected from the elements and it seems that further excavations will be undertaken. The vacant derelict space next to the camping stop seems to be a site that will be fully investigated when time and funds allow.

One amazing building is the Crypt of Santa Eulalia.  It’s especially interesting because it’s still a church, but the basement has been excavated to show the whole evolution of the building over more than a thousand years.  The church floor is a steel platform so it’s possible to see both the modern church and the ancient buildings that made it up. It’s odd clanging around crypts and foundations on steel walkways trying hard to be quiet because above your head a baptism is going on!

We spend half a day at the National Museum of Roman Art, which is pretty new and massive – and – typically – the building has it’s own roman history.

There are a couple of things we need to buy so the only bummer was on the day we left, noticing an Amazon Locker right at the parking location.  We’ve now checked and there don’t seem to be any more on our imminent route. Typical!

After four wonderful days in Merida, it’s motorway down to Seville.  It’s been possible to measure the distance to Seville by looking at the mount of citrus trees in the various towns and villages! We are accelerating the pace a bit.

 

Our first stopover back in Spain and a lovely little free camperstop with water and sewage on the riverside.  There are about 15 other campervans here so it’s a busy location. A brief walk around the town and a quick shimmy up the walls of the Alcázar (moorish castle) for a sunset photo.

Next morning and it’s a proper tour of the Alcázar and then back to the van for a spot of lunch and we start off for Merida – were going Roman again!