Blog 2.5 - Into Spain

Sunday, 24th April 2023

It's bright-ish today, but our distant companions, the Pyrennean mountain range are coyly slinking beyond a bank of murk.

However, we'll spend a further day here relaxing before a slight change of tack tomorrow when we have tentative plans to visit our first France Passion of the trip, slightly further inland. Olives? Wine? Fruit and veg? We'll see.

This aire, attached to a windsurfing centre, has a really nice laid-back feel which would greatly appeal to the surfing types I imagine. There's no surfing as such of course, being on a relatively calm inlet/lake, but there are plenty of folk belting about on boards under sails and kites.

Nutters!

I'm just being a jealous old git of course. Twenty years ago I'd have loved to have a go. Not so much now though.

The day petered out into a fiery sunset.

Just perfect.

Monday

The morning proved to be delightfully clear, providing a glorious view of the snow-capped Pyrenees across the water. About time!

Just (another) short hop down the coast today, and then inland a bit, bypassing Perpignan, and finishing at a France Passion in Trouillas. It's our first of this trip, and a good one.

We had mixed success with them last year, with one two being superb, one or two being pretty decent, and one being, well, crap. So it was nice to fetch up here and find it an oasis of calm, with an outlook over open countryside.

We even had it all to ourselves - and one of the farm collies who kept visiting in search of titbits - for a couple of hours until another couple turned up with their Rhodesian Ridgeback. That's a big dog, not a motorhome btw.

The farm is basically an olive producer, but the on-site shop carries a very odd mix of their produce, souvenirs, knives, and general tat.

We bought mostly general tat! (And some grape juice and some revolting-sounding olive scrapings that Admin probably believes to be edible).

It was a lazy kind of day, sitting around the van in the sun. Nowt wrong with that though.

Tuesday - Coming up Roses

Dull this morning, and set to remain that way, so we decided (on the strength of Aunty Beeb's forecast), to hop the Pyrennees and find the sun again.

The road south certainly takes a tortuous route over the last knockings of this mountain range before it drops begrudgingly into the Med - totally unlike at the Atlantic end where were barely noticed them as we headed north last autumn, so flat is the frontier crossing and its environs.

We tarried in a couple of spots just north of the border to take in the sea views.

Cracking views they are too, but the first spot, at Cap Rédéris, proved to be rather a trial to extract the van from when suddenly everyone and their dog decided to cram themselves in just after we'd parked.

Fortunately the kind gentleman to my right realised I was going to have problems swinging the nose out, took pity, and moved. Thank you sir.

The next spot, just two km north of the border at the phare du cap Cerbère couldn't have been more different, being a broad gravelled expanse with just one vehicle on it, and excellent views again. Pity it started raining!

We made the most of it though, with a coffee and a KitKat, and just before we trotted on were passed by another Weinsberg Pepper - the eleventh we've seen so far. Accidentally fumbling the phone into video mode, I virtually missed it as I tried to get a shot of ours and it together. Ah well.

Pepper just about to disappear Stage Right...

We continued to climb until, rounding a bend at the very highest point we came across a ramshackle collection of buildings. Broken into, graffiti-scrawled, a proper mess. You'd be hard-pressed to recognise them for what they were but for the painted line and 'Stop' written across the road. Of course, it's the long-abandoned border post. Useless and unused now. As it should be.

Descending now into north-eastern Spain, an area we're not particularly familiar with, it's really not apparent that we're in a different country - and we're really not of course. This is Catalunya, spilling over into both modern France and Spain, and extremely proud of its place in the world.

We pressed on; not too far, to Roses. Which, of course, grow on you.

Sorry.

This is obviously (well, it quickly becomes obvious) a fairly touristy kind of place, and the price of campsites certainly reflect that. Shocking, to be honest.

Thankfully, though, we're not looking for campsites, so Autocaravaning Park Roses sufficed admirably for our needs. Yes, it's slightly pricier than most places we stay at, and the pitches are very slightly cramped (not unbearably so, mind) but it has everything we need for a couple of nights, and is only a ten minutes amble to the beachfront, which is clean and attractive.

We stopped for a coffee as we mooched along towards the main part of the resort, admiring the various sand sculptures, and avoiding the various hooky handbag- and Nike shoe-salespeople.

Prices here for most things other than campsites seem eminently reasonable.

Our two cafés con leche for instance came in at €3, and a couple of really good - and good-size - strawberry cheesecake ice cream cones were something under €6. Restaurant tapas etc. menus seem to bear that out too.

The back streets of Roses are also worth a tour as well.

I like the place.

Wednesday

Bright and breezy. Admin did a bit of 'smalls' washing, and I did a bit of van fettling and the washing-up from yesterday.

And next door-but-one also filled up, emptied, and shipped out.

Nowt remarkable about that of course, except, next-door-but-one were Fritz and Brunhilde, who are still tracking us across the continent in their Bismarck-sized bus!

Doesn't do it justice. This thing is HUGE

I really thought that it would be impossible to calculate the odds of us both descending on three sites at the same time. Four is completely unimaginable. Bleddy hell...

Taking bets on where we next meet. Surely it can't happen - but I said that before. Girona, maybe?

Today turned out to be a really lazy one. We'd intended to head back down to the front, maybe on the bikes, but with my back deciding to be a right b'stard, possibly as a consequence of a lot of walking yesterday, I gave it best and just loitered around the van, drinking tea and coffee while popping co-codamol like candy.

Tomorrow's another day, though, and time to make another move, maybe Girona way, as alluded to.

Mileage so far: 1878