Spain June 2013

sue.h · Jan 30, 2013

We are sailing on 4th June 2013 Portsmouth to Santander in our Cali for 3 or 4 weeks. We are aiming for malaga then back to Bilbao . We have only had 2 weekends away and this is our first Cali, so quite an adventure. We are semi retired, long in tooth but young at heart.
Any advice will be welcome, good routes, good guides, roads to avoid, must see,s etc etc. especially wineries to visit!
Can anyone recommend camping guides. We only wnt to stop in most places for one night, poss two.
Looking forward to our adventure and any advice. If anyone is on the same sailing, give us a shout.
Sue and john

KernowLad · Jan 30, 2013

I just booked 2nd June to 3rd July Plymouth Santander! Now I need to find some stuff (in addition to surfing) for me and the family to do for a month!

BerndRos · Jan 30, 2013

Kernow.......

Head for the west coast of Portugal .....you will love it......totally unspoilt.........and lots of surfing bums about.......

Les · Jan 31, 2013

Sue
We did a month in May 2011. Are you just planning to head down to the beaches in Malaga or visit some of the cities?

sue.h · Jan 31, 2013

Hya we hope to spend a week or so , outwards, visiting sites and cities, then 2weeks beach, then another week back to port on different route seeing sites and cities again

Cheers sue

timhutch · Jan 31, 2013

Galacia coast to Santiago is superb....

KernowLad · Jan 31, 2013

BerndRos said:
Kernow.......

Head for the west coast of Portugal .....you will love it......totally unspoilt.........and lots of surfing bums about.......

Been there twice - excellent place! :mrgreen:

Les · Feb 12, 2013

sue.h said:
Hya we hope to spend a week or so , outwards, visiting sites and cities, then 2weeks beach, then another week back to port on different route seeing sites and cities again

Cheers sue

Sue
Some details of what we did below.

We use an ACSI card during low season so most campsites we used were in their book. We did Portsmouth to Bilbao on the 2 night Sunday crossing to arrive in Bilbao at 6am on the Tuesday as we wanted visit the Guggenheim. If you do visit on your return trip you can park on the other side of river and walk over to gallery just make sure you have change for the meter. We returned via Santander so the opposite way round to you. As you will be arriving in Santander late in the day you might want a site fairly close. We used Camping El Helguero as it was only one open then but there are a couple of others in the area. Remembering that site we have a 10m and 25m hookup cable to join up which you will need sometimes as some sites have large central electric points (usually 2 pin, in fact I think only 1 site we used had blue type plugs). You could then go down to Salamanca, would recommend it. Campsite Regio is adjacent to a 5 star hotel (free wifi in reception) and operated by the hotel. The bus into the city takes about an hour, you could cycle, we got a taxi back as we missed the bus and there quite a gap between them. Next south would Cáceres, each pitch at Camping Cáceres has its own shower room. The old city is interesting but a bit sterile as nobody seems to live in the old part so if you are short of time I would give it miss.
We did not do Merida or Seville, Merida has lots of Roman ruins. We met a tour who camped outside Seville at Campsite Villsom and caught a train in. We spent some time on the coast south of Granada, the coast to the east is not very pretty with lots of plastic greenhouses all along it so I would stay west towards Malaga. Granada if you haven't been is a must, we stayed at Campsite Reina Isabel. It is best to get tickets for the Alhambra in advance, if you haven't booked any the campsite should be able to get them for the next day for a small fee. We took the Cali to the Alhambra as it is easy to park, you can use the normal car park not the motorhome one which costs a lot more. To visit the city itself is a bus ride from outside the camp, ask the driver were you get the return from! Cordoba with the Grand Mosque is another must if you have time. One of the reasons we went in May was for the Patio Garden Festival. We stayed at Camping M. 'El Brillanete in the city, not ASCI but again able to bus into the centre. Make sure you get a pitch with shade. Moving north we stayed south of Madrid at Camping International Aranjuez, this is not in the ASCI book this year. You can walk through the Royal Park (look out for Red squirrels) to Aranjuez city and the Palace. Madrid can be reached by train from Aranjuez. Alternatively Toledo is near, we didn't make it but will return. Further north towards Bilbao we stayed at Campsite Camino de Santiago in a small village on the Camino de Santiago de Compostela. You can see all the “pilgrims” walking through the village. Alternatively there is Burgos with its cathedral. If you are taking bikes on the back in theory you need a rear warning board, if you intend visiting Italy in the future get an aluminium one if not plastic will do in Spain. You also need to carry spare glasses if you wear them otherwise I think it pretty much the normal thing you have to carry. Hope this is useful.