Spain & Motorhome Camping

Arriving in Spain means falling into her warmth and enjoying her fabulous food! She folds you into her bosom to feast on Tit Cheese, Paella, and for meat-eaters – her famous jamon. Spain favors flavor over beauty – vegetables in stunning deep colors with flaws and bumps and bruises to show they have been well loved  – and will do the same for you.

It was great fun to travel across the millions of acres of olive groves towards the sea and reminisce about how much Spain looks like the American Southwest. Of course, we wondered why there are no olives in our land like this, and it turns out it is too hot there.

Spain a huge country, nearly as big as Texas, so once we began to follow the coast, we also began to worry that the draw of the beach might cause us to run out of time to get back to Paris for a rendez vous with a friend. Alas, Spain is not as far south as Texas, so despite the bright sun, it is brisk and sometimes downright cold in November. We actually found frost on the windows in Salamanca and a reading of 30 degrees! In a motorhome that makes for cold mornings! As a traveler just a wee tired of tourists, Spain is the place to be in November  – you can have the whole place to yourself! But, looking for a little more heat, we think to Southeast Asia in December and brace ourselves for Northern France the end of November.

 

Below is one of our campsites right on the beach. In these places we find many Germans, Austrians, French, Dutch and others from the north escaping the cold in their motorhomes, but we are also surprised to learn that these sites have semi-permanent trailers as well. In fact, we have seen this all over Europe. Sometimes the camping parks even have tiny cabins for rent. People have small campers with porches, astroturf “lawns” and potted plants – getaways much the same as the “Cabin up North” in Minnesota. However, folks in Europe seem to be more comfortable with lot sizes MUCH smaller than we would like for our cabins and cottages. The smallest most of us would tolerate would be two acres with at least one unobstructed sight line to the water, but these campers sit on sites that are perhaps 20 x 20 feet if that! The nice thing, the campground provides the bathrooms and take care of cleaning them – one task I can do without!

We have tended to stay two or three days in places we like, but searching out the next campsite takes time. In the beginning of our trip we used an app through a website called, “Camper Contact” that served us well until we entered the “off season.” Camper Contact provides maps with campsites, information about the site and even reviews from previous guests. When we have internet, it’s a pretty handy tool. For some reason, the further south we have gone in Europe, and the later in the season, the less campsites available through Camper Contact. Fortunately, we had also purchased the “Camping Card ASCI” that came with actual paper books with maps and campsite listings of certified campsites that offer discounts during the offseason. Either way, we spend between Euro 17-Euro 30 for a night in one of these places.

When in Granada we knew we couldn’t miss the Alhambra with it’s ornately carved plaster, spectacular gardens and views of the Granada Valley around. We have been so lucky on this trip managing to command sun each day we tour…even if it is a little brisk in the mornings.

Look above Max’s head for the crown! Our little prince stands below it.

The Alhambra provided a bit of family bonding time after a few homesick days.

“Jeff, smile. Make it look like you’re really happy!” Aren’t the walls spectacular? Maybe when I have a little time, I’ll do this to the walls in our house, perhaps a bathrooms somewhere, and make mosaic rock paths like those I admired at the Alhambra! 

The day we visited the Alhambra was election day in the United States and heavy thoughts rumbled through our minds as we toured the once Islamic palace. We wondered if our fellow countrymen would vote for a man who allowed the fearful and racist a voice. As we left the Alhambra, this graffiti caught my attention – seemed somehow an omen or symbolic of the man who we would vote into power.

Month #2

The Second Month

Our travels over the past two months have taken us through:

Iceland> Sweden> Germany>the Netherlands> Germany> Poland> Slovakia>Hungary> Austria> Czech Republic> Austria> Slovenia> Croatia> Bosnia-Herzegovina> Montenegro> Albania> Greece> Italy> France> Spain

Croatia, Slovakia, Iceland, and Greece stand out as places that have really made a positive impact on me.  I could especially see future trips taking me back to Croatia and Slovakia.

We’ve also now been traveling in this camper for over 45 days.  It’s been our “home” since leaving Sweden and we’ve slept in it every night except for the overnight ferry crossing from Greece to Italy.  We’ve now logged over 7,000 kilometers driving. Parts and pieces of the camper continue to disintegrate from it’s body as we bump down the road.  We’re going to owe a bloody fortune in repairs when we finally return this rental in less than a month.

Rituals with the camper have changed as we’ve mostly graduated from amateur camper status. Our set-up and take-down happens quickly and we each have tasks that get accomplished without reminders.  When we first started out, we almost exclusively would do the dishes and shower in the camper, but we’ve all now transitioned to using the local camp facilities for those tasks.  Doing so reduces the number of water fill-ups and discharges at camp sites. With this shift I’ve also become much more attentive to the design of shower stalls.

The best stalls have more than just one hook for clothing and have a raised or partitioned area for clothing/shoes away from the spray of the shower. Unfortunately, about 50% of the time it’s a single 3’ by 3’ space with a drain in the middle and one hook on the inside of the door. I’m learning to adapt to these limitations by hanging my clothes and towel in the order that I’ll be needing them post-shower, and creatively balancing other shower items on top of walls or in pockets of clothes hung on the hook. Alternately, I could take a more natural….and probably more practical….approach like another guy did in Pompeii.

We stayed at a fairly dense and well-occupied camping site near the Pompeii ruins.  The men’s shower facilities at this location were essentially outdoors.  Imagine a detached two-car garage with the door open.  Then imagine a combination of 9-10 shower stalls and toilet stalls lining the three sides of the interior of the space.  Each of the stall doors opened to the inner area where a few sinks were located. Across from this open-garage-like bathroom setting were 6-7 small rental houses with doors all facing the open bathroom area.  Between the rental units and the bathroom was a well-used road/walk path.  This logistical set up is important…bear with me.

I had showered and was shaving at one of the sinks in the middle of the room facing out to the rentals/path/road.  This, on it’s own, was a bit weird as passer-byers and people staying at the rentals would take notice of the guy shaving in the open garage.  A guy a bit younger than me came into the “garage” and was going to shower.  He looked into a couple of the open shower stalls to evaluate his options.  He saw what I had already noticed…there was only one hook on the inside of the stall, but several on the outside.  From a very practical perspective he clearly didn’t want his crap to get wet while he was showering, so decided to fully disrobe on the outside of the shower stall.  Not a huge issue for me, but did chuckle a bit as passer-byers looked a bit longer at him than they had previously glanced at me shaving.  The guy goes into the shower stall and closes the door only to reappear five seconds later in the buff scamper to the next stall.  I can only assume the water wasn’t working in that stall.  All the while people are passing the open garage where all this is taking place and glancing at one primate shaving and the other without his Planet of the Apes clothing.  He now comes out of this stall as he forgot his shampoo in the first stall, grabs the bottle, and goes back to the second habitat of a stall.  A new set of people have now passed the zoo exhibit and have taken notice. Second to that experience, the ruins of Pompeii were also interesting.