Spain - adventures in a campervan

Half way through September 2021, as the travel regulations around Covid eased up and a gap in my work schedule emerged, we decided to go ahead with plans to take the campervan to Spain. The earliest we could get through the preparations - testing, QR codes, getting the van ready, etc. was the 27th so we booked the ferry Portsmouth to Bilbao and crossed our fingers that all would work out.

The ferry takes 24 hours - and is fabulous! MV Cap Finistere may not be cheap but it is clean, comfortable and fast. I was pleasantly surprised.

Because we were due to dock at 6 in the evening we decided to head for a campsite nearby for the first few days while we got our bearings. So first stop was along the coast near Laredo. The site is on the side of an estuary with long sandy beaches, great walks, beautiful horses and lovely views. Amazing sunset. We stayed for 3 nights. Nice little campsite under the plane trees and a short walk along the shore to a local village for food. Unfortunately the campsite is not open all year - it closed for the season a few days after we left.

Next stop was Salamanca, so we set off for our first taste of the main motorway south. All very straightforward. The main campsite in Salamanca is in the grounds of a big hotel. Perfectly fine for a one-night stop. Then on to Caceres.

We had imagined we would like Caceres more than we did. First we were slightly fazed by the long downward hill from Salamanca to Caceres. It felt like we were going down for 200 km - and we worried about getting back up at 10 mph! The campsite was also a bit cramped. Yes, each pitch has its own bathroom, which is an unusual luxury, but our neighbours were very close by.

And where was our 40-minute stroll into town? The receptionist insisted it wasn’t possible and that we would have to take the bus. It was only on the last evening that we discovered a peaceful pathway over the hill at the back of the site that led down to the town. We didn’t by then have time to do the full walk.

Amazing Iberian magpies all around. And the swimming pool was fabulous.

Then, feeling somewhat daunted by the prospect of the van on mountain roads, we decided to bail on our next planned stop near Cordoba and to head back up north to the Plasencia area where there was a nice-looking campsite in Monfrague National Park.

Good move! We stayed there for 2 weeks, settled in and enjoyed being in the dehesa countryside with eagles, kites and black vultures overhead, a fabulous visitors’ centre next door, and friendly, spacious campsite.

It was there we met Viviene and Robert from Somerset. They kindly drove us to Trujillo, an hour away, to visit the town of the Conquistadors, stopping off to see the black vultures en route.

Another day we climbed up to Monfrague Castle, where you can look down on the vultures soaring below.

The station is bizarre. It’s surrounded by an abandoned village with rows of ruined cottages. And yet ultramodern trains.

By then, two weeks on, we felt bolder about getting the van south and back so we set off again to a remote campsite near a reservoir in the hills north of Cordoba. Camping Puente Nuevo turned out to be a curious site, set down in the valley next to a reservoir and populated largely by Spanish families with caravans permanently housed there. Because it was the end of the season it was very quiet. In fact, one night we were the only visitors apart from a Belgian couple who were cycling through Europe on a tandem.

After a few days of peace and quiet it was time to start heading north again towards the ferry. Our anxiety about coaxing the van back up the hairpin bends to the main road from the campsite proved unfounded. It was fine. In fact our Belgian tandem friends did it too!

We took things slowly on the road home. Three more nights at our favourite Monfrague, one more at Salamanca and then finally, the much derided municipal campsite at Burgos. Everyone had told us what a shithole it was but we had to go there for the reliable wifi so we could do our Covid form-filling 48 hours before returning to the UK. The dreaded Passenger Locator Form!

We actually liked the site. It’s right by the river with lovely park walks. Perfectly adequate.

The next day we were back to Bilbao and the ferry port and home.

The worst part of the whole trip was arriving back in Portsmouth at 11 o’clock to find the M27 closed and to be faced with wholly inadequate confusing diversions. We did two circuits of Portsmouth before finding a route home.

In summary:

27 Sept Brittany Ferries, Portsmouth-Bilbao 17:30 sailing (£456.98 via Direct Ferries)

28 Sept Camping Regaton, Laredo (£19.43 p.n. via PU)

1 Oct Hotel Regio, Salamanca (£18.60 p.n. via PU)

2 Oct Camping Caceres (£19.82 p.n. via PU)

4 Oct Camping Monfrague, Plasencia (£23.28 via PU, £15.24 cash)

16 Oct Puente Nuevo, nr Cordoba (£17.40 p.n.)

21 Oct Camping Monfrague, Plasencia

24 Oct Hotel Regio, Salamanca (£18.28)

25 Oct Camping Burgos (£19.17)

26 Oct Brittany Ferries, Bilbao-Portsmouth 20:30 sailing (£438.99 via Direct Ferries)

Lessons learned:

Spain has mountains (who knew!?) - but the main roads are relatively empty and easy to drive on
We knew more Spanish than we knew (grazias, por favor, Ola!)
The Spanish love walking and cycling. Every area we arrived in had well-maintained, signed, long-distance pathways
Spain in October is generally dry, hot in the afternoons, cool at night

(Note: Blogger puts the pix in a completely random order.)

On the ferry

Sunset over Laredo estuary

Fabulous horses on the beach

Not sure why we've suddenly jumped to Trujillo

The medieval town of Trujillo and its Plaza Mayor

Iberian magpie

Caceres

Hotel Regio, Salamanca

Caceres - the walk over the hills to town

Montfrague - one of many well-maintained paths through the dehesa

The birds of Monfrague are amazing

These are everywhere on every path

Fabulous walking country

Truillo

Monfrague village next to the station. Said to have been deserted during the civil war

Monfrague landscape - a spacious, classic dehesa agrosilvopastoral ecosystem. It's a park-like landscape derived from Mediterrean forest but shaped by thousands of years of human intervention through the effects of grazing animals

Peaceful evening at our favourite campsite - Monfrague

Right next door to our campsite there is this magnificent visitor information centre

The GPS gave us a slightly nervewracking route along this lane towards the Puente Nuevo campsite. Totally unnecessary when there was a short paved driveway off the main road