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.