Pastures new

Campillos - Friday 14th March

We had a short journey to do today.

We turned towards the mountains at Malaga and entered a new world!  As we climbed everything became green with some mountainous peaks. There were green fields and lots and lots of olive trees. It was a Spain that I really didn’t recognise - but one that I really like.  Someone said to us once, that down until Malaga the scenery is boring with lots of plastic greenhouses.  I now realise that they were right!

To get to our stop over we had to go through the middle of Campillos which turned out to be a really lovely town, almost a bit French.  

Our stop over was another car park but this time with services plus 3 electric points. There were 6 marked bays but they were full so we just parked across two bays as others were doing. We walked into the town after lunch and had a really good look round, I just kept saying how pretty it was. 

Back at Kiwi it poured down. I’m getting so fed up of this rain.

58 miles

Campillos - Park4night

Area El Alamo de Beas - Saturday 15th March

We left our overnight stop - we are getting quite used to sleeping in car parks!  They are all official stop overs as long as you don’t try and do anything campinglike, such as sitting on deck chairs or even opening the windows!  However they are free!  The drawback is that you might get to one and find it full which worries me a bit.  Richard says to just book a site but there are many more stop overs than sites.

I drove the first part of the journey which was a shame as there were some lovely photographic opportunities.  I really will have to train Richard in the art of taking a photo on a phone!  The potholes in the roads were really bad, if you think they are bad in the UK, then think again!

We swapped over just before Seville as I really needed to be the navigator round the city.  Richard had been looking at the map and was convinced that we would be going into the middle of Seville.  I really will have to stop him from looking at the map.  On our second trip out last year, he was map reading and we went miles out of our way!

We crossed over the River Guadalquivir, which I had never heard of before.  Apparently it has played a significant role in the city’s history.

The bridge we crossed was the Puente Quinto Centenario (Centenario Bridge) which is undergoing a major renovation project, including the replacement of 88 stay cables, widening the highway crossing the bridge, and improving road safety, all expected to be completed in 2025.  The renovation is for its 30th anniversary, which began in Spring 2023 and is expected to be completed in 2025.  The bridge was designed by Santiago Calatrava and was built for the 1992 Seville Expo.

I decided to cut a corner off the roads and we ended up in a lovely old town called Niebla.  There was a big castle which is medieval.  It is on our list of places to visit next time!

We found our site and drove in.  I jumped out and went to see the “man”.  He spoke no English and my Spanish is more or less non existent so thank goodness for Google translate!  The whole transaction was done that way!  It is a fairly new site with excellent facilities.  We were the only Brits, all the others were German!

140 miles

Area El Alamo de Beas - Park4night

Quinta Pedagogica Santo Anjo, Burgau, Luz - Sunday 16th March

Portugal today 😃

Why is it that we have nice mornings while we are driving and rain in the afternoons, when we are moored up!  

It wasn’t far to the Portuguese border but just before it there is a lovely bridge over the Guadiana River.  The Guadiana International Bridge connects southern Spain and Portugal. It is the southernmost land crossing on the Portugal–Spain border. It is not split evenly between the two countries, with a greater share of it situated in Portugal.  It was designed by José Luis Câncio Martins and opened in 1991.  The bridge is 666 meters long and the largest span is 324 meters. It is the third largest bridge in Portugal and the fifth largest in Spain.

The border is all so low key you would hardly know you had crossed a line - blink and you might miss it!

One of things that we had to do when we crossed the border was put our watches back.  We are now on UK time.

Neither Richard nor I had been to Portugal before but places such as Abufeira, Faro and Portimaio were names I knew well, but I thought they were further up the west coast and not the south.

We found our site in the pouring rain - it certainly didn’t look like the photos, but then does anything look good in the rain.

I took these photos of the site the next day.

I spent the afternoon passage planning and I think we can just about squeeze in everything we wanted to do.  With the extra days we spent in Mojacar and the one in Castell de Ferro it’s just as well we didn’t go to Gibraltar!

135 miles

Quinta Pedagogica Santo Anjo - Searchforsites