Life In New Lanes

Jun

2023

May/June ’23 Trip Roundup

Something about driving north through France towards a ferry booking in early July, and the facts that I’d done quite alot of moving on in 5 weeks, and had paid £10 extra for a changeable ‘flexi’ ticket, brought me to the conclusion that I was happy to finish the trip slightly earlier than planned, and the other places I had envisaged would keep.

So I set out to cover the ground from Bordeaux to Le Havre, with a stopover near Le Mans over two days, having successfully managed to change the booking. Although the region between Tours and this city was at the end of many hours of driving, still I was able to look at the passing landscapes and towns with somewhat fresh eyes, and realise that this region around the river Sarthe was also beautiful. So where isn’t in France?

I did have one moment of absolute horror in an otherwise fantastic uneventful road trip, when all of a sudden my van lost all power. I was able to coast onto the hard-shoulder – still available in France! – on a quiet motorway, and to huge relief re-start the motor immediately. The journey continued in the same uneventful way, and the next day all the way home to north England?? Whether my knee had somehow managed to turn the key in the the ignition to off, I don’t know. But that van has been stupendous and I continue to love it. It needs and deserves two new front tyres immediately upon return.

The campsite I had selected from the Park4Night app, Le Vieux Moulin, was like staying in a lovely garden, only a few kilometres from Le Mans, and in a future tour, I won’t hesitate to stay here again, and recommend.

The next day I opted to drive across country again on non-toll roads up to Honfleur, which is only a few kilometres from Le Havre. I stayed in Honfleur at the end of my 4 months travel back in 2019, and I’d forgotten how lovely a place it is. Likewise for the hinterland of this part of Normandy.

It was great weather, a flat sea and as we sailed past the city, Le Havre looked again to be an attractive place for a future visit. On the list now with the Marais Poitevin, Chatellailon sur Plage, and L’Ile Noirmoutier.

Off the ferry and straight up the A34 from Portsmouth and then onto the motorways became more and more like driving through France and Spain, a result only of rising to the challenge of travelling through the early hours. Thanks to a rest in the 6-hour sailing, and tuning into Heart 70s for the totality, I was actually able to enjoy the journey. When do I have 5 hours of uninterrupted singing-along bliss. What a decade of classics for this 70s girl.

In summary, I continue to be so thankful for my good health, for the material blessings of this vehicle and my bike and other kit, and for this time and money freedom to experience other cultures and landscapes, and meet so many interesting people along the way. And to have all this, knowing that I have a wonderful family, set of friends and home to return to each time.

Looking forward only a few weeks now, who knows how I (and my campervan) will incorporate the momentous change of the arrival of a new next generation family member.

Jun

2023

Bordeaux, Bordeaux

So good ~~they named it~~ I visited it twice.

The campsite was great, offered live music for two nights, the first being great musicians playing Django Reinhart-style French jazz, in a setting on Bordeaux Lac, only about 8-9 kilometres or so via well-designed cycle routes into the centre.

The Tchikiswing from Toulouse

More often than not, live music is a surprise and a gift for me; I even got up and danced due to the insistence of a Belgian couple

But Bordeaux – I’ll just bullet-point what I observed, as it rises to the top of my city list alongside the likes of San Sebastian, Porto, Copenhagen

Well-designed cycling city which the residents of all ages and types, with all manner of cargo/child-carrying bikes use
Shared public spaces, with walkers, bike and scooter riders, tramways, all co-mingling without hostility; the car is definitely not king and in fact I experienced courtesy from car drivers both here and generally in Spain
Absolutely beautiful, yet somehow understated public spaces and buildings being lived in, rather than museum pieces, and enjoyed by all; my favourite was the Jardin Public
Smaller, more personal scale than the likes of Madrid, with 1 million inhabitants according to Google, twice as many as Montpellier, similar to Toulouse, less than Porto or Copehagen
Sigificantly fewer canine family members in evidence – down to more apartment living for the suburbs I cycled through and the centre?
Cycled past camps under underpasses of what looked like groups of immigrants from Africa, and did see other people who I would describe as having fallen through gaps in society
Murky brown/sandy river water results from the meeting of the sediment-laden fresh water of the Garonne with the salty sea water of the Gironde estuary, according to Google

My phone camera is not as good as I would like to record what I love to see and be part of.

Jun

2023

Back to France, Long Journeys, Solo Travelling

Crossing the border from Spain into France became my 2nd visit this travelling (academic) year.

Looking at the map and appropriate route to get to around Toulouse for an overnight stop, I decided to use the toll motorway, and got to a 3-star campsite on a lake near the little town of Nailloux. France is absolutely the best country in my humble opinion for its wealth of campsites and places to stay, albeit many campsites are closed out of season. The site was in a beautiful, rural setting, peaceful, and good facilities all for a reasonable price. What I hadn’t realised, until I was pouring over the map to select my overnight stop, was that I had visited this area 2 or 3 times when I was a teenager, as it was where my French boyfriend of the time came from. It brought back alot of memories.

Bordeaux was my next intended destination for my first visit. I could have done a proper city visit to Toulouse, but preferred to drive on and go across country on non-toll roads. The roads are great and usually pretty empty but this approach takes twice as long for the advantage of seeing new towns and landscapes. The new and enjoyable for me was passing through small market towns like Auterive, which looked lovely, and then the rolling green and eventually vineyard-covered Gascony into Les Landes and the wine route.

Using two satnavs did not prevent me from stopping at least twice to check the destination, given their distance calculation of some 800 kilometres rather than around 300. The culprit was the suburb of Bordeaux in which the targeted campsite was situated – Bruges! – which was found in the satnav databases attached to the road I put in. The algorithms chose to use this and lose the city! It took me more pondering, re-input, checking etc than it should have done before the problem was diagnosed, and then confirmed. The distance is one of the pieces of information I use when travelling for a sense-check, and reassurance that I’m nearly there when I’m getting to the end of driving brain power. Learning is always applied based on the experience of a few years ago, when I and 3 others drove to a concert at a well-known Manchester venue, and arrived instead outside a pub of the same name in a dubious part of Oldham. There were many indicators in the last couple of miles that this area couldn’t be right 😂, but in the absence of knowledge about our destination, and having put our faith in technology, we continued until the bitter end – in this case the darkened, empty streets in an industrial park, and if I remember correctly, a closed-down pub.

In this trip, I’ve been reflecting more on doing significant journeys into the unknown as a solo traveller, 4 years now after my initial few months of extended travel when I started this blog. Also I do keep being prompted to do this by young and older (women usually) regularly asking if I’m travelling alone, and then observing that I’m ‘very brave’. I need to have appropriate responses in French and German ready-prepared next time. Spanish would be a step too far, and open the door to an expectation of fluency which my reasonable understanding but smattering only of spoken competency gets nowhere near.

To the young female british border control officer who said I was very good driving such a large vehicle, I unfortunately had abit of a tired un-moderated step onto my feminist soapbox as I replied somewhat tersely without a smile that anyone can do this whether male or female, that she was a young woman, I was older and we can all do it! I think I was triggered by a whole load of neural networks firing and coalescing around the fact that these words were uttered by a young woman in Western Europe in 2023. I don’t think the same would come out of a young man’s mouth. As I review this, I was, am no doubt being harsh. Still …………

Spain and certainly France are more in my comfort zone than Slovenia and Croatia back in Autumn last year, but navigating complex city interchanges anywhere regularly seems to happen at the end of many hours of driving, and in very hot temperatures despite air control. I do need to take more account of this on subsequent trips. Nevertheless, I managed on this occasion to arrive at the campsite safe and sound, just knackered yet again.

This exhaustion can very quickly turn into happy relief if I feel ok with the place, and it meets my expectations which have usually been checked via online reviews. I am not an adventurer in terms of just wandering off-piste and seeing where I end up – usually heading unexpectedly upto ski resorts on ever narrowing roads. This has happened twice – in the Pyrenees and then the Sierra Nevada. Tbh I would rather avoid, rather than temporarily master the arising fears, to get myself out of there. I do love the mountains, once I’m up in them, so that’s a bit of a challenge I also need to address.

In my case, the shortcut telling comes from the satnavs, and I don’t have any real-time sources reassuring me there’s nothing to worry about. Of course the reassurance wouldn’t work anyway.

Jun

2023

Costa Brava week of shared enjoyment

Well that’s my take on it at least.

As I drove here from the Valencia region, the landscape became greener, with wooded hills on both sides of the autoroute, mountains further inland, and vineyards and other crops in the fields. It is interesting that Spain has got rid of its toll motorways, and those areas which used to have the booths and barriers are still there, with all the installations removed and not in use at all.

Having got to the site 2 days early to suss out the lay of the land, I only had to feel minor anxiety at being able to easily park the van to pick up my friend Rachel at Girona airport. None of my fears – eg finding myself stuck in a multi-storey car park entrance lane -came to pass. It’s a very accessible airport and good roads, convenient for the beautiful and varied coastline of this part of Spain.

The campsite is in a lovely setting which is worth the very steep descent and even steeper 🙂 ascent from its very steep wooded, terraced hillside, to its own beautiful private coves and beaches. The toilet block was also a good 50m significantly downhill, part of the same outweighed disadvantages. Did I mention that it was steep?

The e-bike managed to transport the SUP board rucksack with all the other necessary beach apparel down there, and it was worth the experiment as Rachel and I did manage to kayak across the bay, and briefly paddle along from a kneeling position. Only briefly because the sea was choppy, and in the wind it was hard work for the unpractised two of us to avoid the rocks, if not sitting and using the kayak oar. The bike later got me and the board back up. What a steed.

A beach below our Cala Llevado campsite

One day we walked across the headland the 6 or so kms to Tossa de Mar, recommended by Rachel, which was well worth the up and down in strong afternoon sun. We caught the first live music in the 4 weeks of travel, with very enjoyable flamenco, and a guitarist/singer at a lunchtime restaurant.

I had booked another site for 4 days, the ‘Yelloh’ chain Sant Pol Village at the next town up the coast, Sant Feliu de Guixols, and we could only hope that it would be as enjoyable as the one we were unfortunately leaving. It was very different but great nevertheless, and felt like we had landed in some select 4-star club, with only 20 touring pitches in almost a tropical garden setting with a lovely heated pool with cafe and restaurant, and the rest of the site having wood cabins of various sizes. But guess what? We were at the bottom of the site on a hill, with the toilet block up the equivalent of 4 or 5 flights of stairs, and 350m down the hill to the beach.

Sant Pol seems to be the posh end of Sant Feliu, with several impressive-looking hotels and a gated whole area and headland at one end of the beach.

On one of the days we walked up and down several kilometers across the headland, part of the Costa Brava Cami Ronda I think, to Sant Feliu, and on the way back to realise thankfully that it was only 1km down the actual road from the campsite. The next day we were amazed to see the mediterranean turn into Cornwall, so walked the headland path almost to the town of S’Agaro, finding a red flag on one of the beaches with strict guarding going on, so we couldn’t even cool off. All of this is really beautiful and worth visiting/doing. We had hoped to be able to hire a kayak on our last day there, to go and explore the coves, but the sea was still too rough.

All the extra kit I carry in the van for guests came into its own, particularly as by her own words, Rachel declared and I think still maintains that she likes camping.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

The only additional piece of equipment I could add, but there’s no room in my ‘garage’ under the bed, or anywhere else, given the e-bike, SUP board, power unit, solar panels, tent, etc as well as the other usual camping stuff, would be a second porta-potty. This would offer the annexe an en-suite, and prevent guests from having to walk upto the toilet block in the middle of the night/or very early mornings and then calm the heartbeat to get back to sleep again. This guest was willing (or had to accept that the campervan doors were firmly bolted at night against intruders 😂) to accept the condition of stay, so that I wouldn’t be disturbed by the sliding door being opened to gain access to my toilet. In my defense I am an extremely light sleeper, and you can imagine campsite interruptions. Her stay gets 4 stars from me, with one star dropped as she really could have opened and closed the tent zip more considerately.

We’ve had a great week, and I’ve really enjoyed having company again to share it all with.

Jun

2023

Peñíscola & Parque de La Serra D’Irta

The usual recommendations from ourtour.co.uk came good yet again. I was ultimately aiming for the Costa Brava, and Tossa de Mar in the first instance, as I will be spending a week with a friend who’s flying from Leeds/Bradford to Girona in a couple of days. I didn’t want to do another long drive from the Denia region to there and so researched places north of Valencia to break the journey. The decision was finally made to visit the above town, and as with Nerja, the same campsite used by ‘ourtour’- Camping Ferrer.

In the end I stayed for 3 nights, and got quite used to the place. It’s only a small campsite, and not the most ‘beautiful’ in terms of the 4/5 star ones I’ve booked for when my guest arrives :), but everyone was friendly, the price was very reasonable and It’s location was great. It’s walkable to the beautiful beaches, the old town and castle, many restaurants and cafes and then yesterday my discovery of the Parque Serra de Irta. I realised that this protected area of mediterranean coast is between Peniscola and the town of Alcossebre, which I stayed at in 2019 and it’s possible to cycle on the dirt tracks in the Irta from one to the other.

I just went looking for the Alcossebre post, and remembered (thankfully) that I hadn’t got going with the blog in 2019 until I got to Olvera, thereby missing out recording travels to Carcassonne, Calella de Palafrugell , Cuenca, Granada, and the first part of my journey through France and Spain in that year with my sister. I do remember, and Google maps confirms, that there is another campsite in the Parque at the Alcossebre side called La Ribera, which I will have to stay at in the future, I loved this unspoilt area, of beautiful hills and coves, clear blue water and not too many humans. It would be interesting to know how busy it would get in July/August, as there are mostly only bumpy dirt roads and tracks through the landscape.

My bike is great for getting me to these places, and rides well with its thick 20-inch tyres over these sorts of tracks. It’s motor of course means that hills are not a blocker to exploring. The third picture conveys everything I enjoy about travels by campervan and bike (electric preferably now!) – access to beautiful places, in beautiful weather and hearing snapshots of different peoples’ stories along the way. Two bikes in the picture, meaning the presence of an adventures companion, would be the icing on the cake.

Peniscola is, I would imagine, a significant holiday town, with more large hotels, beach-front accommodation etc than Denia or Nerja. The beach goes on for miles, so one of the days I cycled along its length north to Benicarlo. It seems that this whole area is not geared up to British tourists or ex-pats. I mostly heard Spanish with quite alot of French and some German, and these were the majority on the campsite also.

It was great to spend an evening chatting with Valentina, a Ukrainian refugee living in Poland but on a ‘working’ holiday with her French partner, Jean-Francois, who’s from near the town of Foix. They met a year ago online, and then in-person when Jean-Francois brought his son to Warsaw because he was going to spend some time studying there. Valentina is from Kyiv, and left with her two daughters 3 days after the Russians invaded. She was able to stay with a sister in Poland, and get herself established – she is a languages teacher, so is now teaching remotely, with her elder daughter deciding to study Psychology in English in Vilnius, and her 11-year old daughter attending school in Poland. I think they are currently living in Gdansk. I’m writing all this down because i’m always interested in the ‘international’ lives that people lead, whether by choice or not. Valentina seems a very positive person and as with the family I hosted, determined to make the most of the changes forced upon them.

Am now near Tossa de Mar, preparing to pick up tomorrow morning my adventures companion for this week. Looking forward to it.

Jun

2023

Denia/Javea Casita via Mojacar

Decided to do another long stretch from Nerja to the house of long-standing university friends in the above area.

The landscape through Almeria, and into the Murcia regions is very arid and the word ‘brutalist’ sums it up for me. Lots of agriculture under plastic poly-tunnels. I do like a tree, or many, and there aren’t any unless veering off into the towns and cities.

As Mojacar was only 10km off the motorway at one point, I went there for a lunch stop and to have a think about Mum. This was one of her happy places which her partner had introduced into her life, and I had also joined them on two occasions in March with the last one in 2019. I wanted to see whether any half-built apartment blocks had been completed, and whether it was still as beautiful and welcoming in June. It was, and some of the buildings had been completed.

The motorway journey was great and only really got busy around Alicante. The landscape suddenly changed at Ca;lpe and became green with trees, and it felt as though I had driven all the way to the Cote d’Azur.

When I finally found my friends’ house in the La Sella area, I spent a geat 4 days with them, staying in their annex, enjoying the beautiful location and having them as tour guides around Denia, Javea and into the mountains for a paella. Hopefully I’ll have other times in the future to visit. They haven’t aged a day 🙂

Ultimately heading for the Costa Brava, I decided to stay at a small site at the medieval town of Bocairent, passing Ontinyent inland from Valencia. Very beautiful wide valleys here with vineyards, and surrounded by hills/low mountains. The Beach Boys accompanied some of the rising temperature to more than 30 degrees. Most unfortunately the little campsite of 6 pitches was fully booked, and so I drove on, stopping at a site at another medieval town, Xativa.

On final arrival I was shattered from some of the drive taking me through very narrow residential streets in towns along the way, and having to do more than one u-turn due to the lack of signs for the campsites. And how could I almost forget another of my most hated episodes: trying to navigate to a gas station which had LPG, and then trying to get some out of the pump and into the vehicle, in this case from what seemed to be a completely un-‘personned’ station.

After about 10 mins in the heat of the midday of repeatedly reading the destructions on the pump (another sign of madness) and trying to get the pump to clamp onto one of my 4 or so adaptors, there suddenly appeared a hero-type with his polo-shirt indicating he was a gas station attendant. Between his Spanish and my English, and my obvious welcome at his appearance, he conveyed that I needed to activate my card payment on another machine away from the LPG pump first (not in the instwuctions), He then proceeded to achieve the process with ease, and deal unflinchingly with the explosion on de-clamping the pump. My jubilance lasted all the way until the narrow residential street driving.

After the arrival cup of tea and period of collapse, I forced myself off to walk round the town for a couple of hours, and it was well worth the visit, even though I will not be going upto the castle at the top.