Author: vicki

PORTUGAL & NORTHERN SPAIN

We head off on Tuesday morning and we really need to do some laundry so spot a camp a bit further along the Algarve region that has washing machines. We drive to Fuseta  where the camp is and we get one of the last spots in the camp.  Outside the gates in a carpark on the waterfront there are another 30 odd vans freedom camping in a ‘no camping’ carpark.  We have read that Portugese police do fine you for parking illegally camping up and the fines can be up to 1500euro so it’s not something we will be doing down south here.  We park up and it’s early in the day so we get our washing on and out onto the washing lines.  Whilst it is drying we take a walk into the little village, have a coffee and cake and then head down to the beach area.  It is a lovely day and this looks like an amazing area to have a holiday in.  There is an inlet that is at low tide when we arrive but it looks like the tide will come in really quickly and you could get caught walking across the low tide area.  We sit and have a drink here and watch the comings and goings of many people who are here.  We take a walk along the water front cafes and spy a 9euro deal of bbq’d salmon with potato and salad.  We decide we will come back later for dinner as that is a reasonable price for a large salmon dinner.  We head back to the van and bring the washing in. The camp also has a nice little bar where they serve food and drinks and you can use their wifi so great to see they have these facilities. We relax for the afternoon and go out for our dinner later on.  The meal we have is really lovely and we chat to a Dutch couple who now live here in Fuseta as it is just so cheap compared to everywhere really.  They say it is a shame we are leaving the next day as they would have loved to invite us for a meal and wine at their place and chat more about our travels.

Wednesday 17th Feb

We head along the Algarve coast road and eventually make our way onto the highway. We are heading up to a town called Peniche which is above Lisbon.  As we start our way on the highway going north we hit another toll.  This isn’t the same as the others we have seen so far in Portugal and their website says nothing about money tolls or any other sort.  We are confused and don’t know what to do.  Some people are doing something  at machines and others are driving through an automatic lane. We end up figuring that they have our number plate and our credit card details so we must be able to do the automatic lane.  We end up being wrong but it really isn’t clear.  We head up through the countryside which is similar to Spain of course as they are joined but it seems greener on this side.  The highways aren’t busy the same as a lot of countries in Europe.  It is quite a drive to get to Peniche and we have to change highways a few times. We hit another toll and again go through the automatic lane incorrectly.  We start to think at this stage that maybe we had better ring someone in the toll office when we can get wifi to check out what we should do.

As we arrive into Peniche it is very windy and raining. There are two or three camper stops we can stay at here for free and one paid ground so we take a drive around the little peninsula and check out the spots.  The main one right out on the western side is blowing a gale, wet and very isolated and I don’t fancy staying here the night.  The rocky coastline is quite amazing and reminds me of a place on the west coast of the south island of NZ called Punakaiki where the rocks are amazing shapes and look like they are stacked.  We view another area and it is also a little ordinary, so we drive back up to the marina which looks like a better sheltered place to stay.  We park up and sit and contemplate staying the night.  Next minute another van pulls in beside us (they’re French) and they ask if we are staying the night here.  We say yes and we then head off for a drink down the road and to check out with a local if they think staying here the night is ok.

We have a drink in a little pub and the bar staff tell us they think it is fine to park up at the marina for the night. We don’t stop there long as they are smoking inside at the bar which is awful for us since you can’t even leave the door open with it being windy, wet and cold.  We head back to the van and find there are two more vans pulled up along side of us which is good as safety in numbers is the name of the game.  Behind where we have parked are the walls of a fortress looking complex which is quite amazing.  We have a preference for marinas as they are not isolated and locals are used to people staying as well as a bit of traffic as people come to their boats or just love coming to the marina for the views and the nature of wind, water and tides as well as the birdlife. Quite often when travelling the paying area for campers is the marina as they have facilities for the boats which can also be used by the vans.

After a quiet night we have a look around where we are before we head off. We talk to another van owner who are English and on their way back to England as well.  We need to phone the toll company to find out if we have done anything wrong, so we find a café we can get wifi at and order a coffee.  The toll company tell us we have done the wrong thing and we need to stop at an office off the highway a little further up the country and see if we can pay the tolls before we get fined.

At least the day is a little better than yesterday and we head back to the first camper stop we looked at yesterday to take photos of the coastline. There are plenty of others at this location taking photos as well.  There are wild cats hiding amongst the rocks as we take photos so we go back to the van for a few cat biscuits which we leave for them to enjoy.  We head off back towards our out road but decide to have a look along the coastline from Peniche north where there are great looking waves and surf schools.  There are plenty of people out surfing or heading out and the waves look great.  What a lovely place for a holiday.

We head back out onto the highway. It’s always a shame we can’t spend more time at places like this. We need to get to a toll office just below Porto so we plan our route.  One thing we have noticed here in Portugal which is really cool is they tile the outside of buildings and it doesn’t seem to matter how many stories they are.  I guess the tiles stop them having to paint the building and they look really good.

Portugal is a lovely country and it seems most speak a little English at least. After a few hours travel we find the toll office and go in.  There is a significant queue and we aren’t sure we are in the right building so we go into another and ask the question.  Thank goodness for those who do speak English as our Portuguese is non-existent.  We have to go back in to the long queue so we grab a ticket and wait.  It’s about an hour’s wait before we get served and it’s about 4.30pm and there is still a long queue behind us.  These poor people obviously don’t get much of a break.  We are able to rectify the highway up to Lisbon but the highways above Lisbon are managed by someone else so we need to email them.  It has been an expensive highway trip at about 43euro but that will be nothing compared to the fine we may have received in the mail.

We head off to a place we will stop for the night which is Vila do Conde. Since we had to stop for such a long time at the toll office we arrive here late in the day and there isn’t much time to look around.  The town looks amazing and will come back to look around another time.  We drive to the camper spot which is at a boat storage place where there is a large dirt carpark and there are already a few campervans parked there for the night.  The surf looks huge and is pounding in to shore.  There isn’t really anything close to here like a bar or café so we just stay in the van for the night.  In the morning as we get ready to leave we spy the French campervan that parked behind us emptying their toilet onto the ground by a boat yard fence.  That is just the most disgusting thing.  It isn’t like there aren’t places here to empty it.  We actually find a service point for toilets less than 5kms down the road and well signposted.  There isn’t any need to do that.  It’s no wonder campervaners get a bad name when people do disgusting things like this.  Even if we were desperate to empty ours there is no way we would do that.  I know people may wonder what you do when  your toilet fills up.  Simple really, you poo into a plastic bag and throw it in a rubbish bin.  No different than a dog poo bag at the end of the day, and you would use a funnel into an empty bottle to pee into then wait until you find a public toilet to empty your loo into.  We haven’t been in this situation yet luckily but it’s not rocket science.

Anyway we take off and travel up the coast to a place called Viana do Castelo which looks really lovely. We stop for a coffee and a walk around.  It is a lovely place and there are a couple of souvenir shops where we buy a small rooster which is their symbol for luck in Portugal.  When we parked we had these fellas directing us into a park and trying to make sure we parked correctly which I didn’t need any help doing but they wanted money when we got out of the van for helping us.  We don’t stop too long as we have to travel into northern Spain today and get up to the north coast.  We choose a road that isn’t a highway to cross the border on and when we get there I realise it is more of a one way bridge and two way – particularly for larger vehicles like us – but there isn’t anyone giving way and it’s too long to try and wait until the way is clear so I have to proceed with cars coming towards us.  It is a tight squeeze and I pray we don’t have a truck coming on from the other end as I doubt we could pass.  We have our mirrors pulled in on both sides just to drive across.  Luckily no trucks pass us and we get over without incident, but it is always a fear that we meet another larger vehicle on roads/bridges that we can’t pass by.

As we travel through northern Spain it is really obvious that it rains a lot more here as it is very green and quite mountainous. There is some snow on the mountains and looks very cool.  It really is stunning countryside.  We travel on the highways and it is nice not to have tolls at the moment.  I think we have paid enough already. It is a long day’s travel and we arrive at our free camp area after dark.  It is at Ortiguera right on the coast and there is another van already there. We can see where there is a beach down below and the view from up on the park is really cool. If it wasn’t so late we would go for a walk down. Amazing what you can get for free in these countries, more should follow their lead. We park up, take the bikes out and snuggle in for the night as the temperature is very cold and without electricity we have no heater.  Having said that, the van warms up a bit when we cook and we can at least heat up water on the stove for a hot water bottle which helps to keep warm.  In the morning I get out and check out the coast line and the place we have stopped at.  We are parked above a cliff and we get a view overlooking a beach nearby and the vast ocean.  A couple in the next van come out and chat to us and we find out they are Kiwis as well and they are just starting out on their journey.  We end up chatting for quite a while and swap details to keep in touch.  It is always nice to be able to share learned information to anyone travelling as we have had passed on to us.

We drive along the coast and it is lovely countryside. We stop in a small town for a coffee and try to order a tostada with our coffee but the fellow doesn’t speak any English and it is difficult to tell him we want cheese with tomato and a few olives so we give up and end up getting a tostada with just mashed up tomato.  It is getting late in the day and it is just a little too far to be driving to France today so we end up stopping in Zumaia which is near the French border.  I had picked a nice looking marina out to stop at for the night.  As we drive in the town looks exceptionally busy and we drive into the marina only to find out the gates to the carpark we wanted to go into are locked.  That is always one of the tribulations of finding free spots as sometimes they are closed.  There is another spot to park not far so we head there.  It is a carpark amongst some industrial buildings that really look quite dodgy but there are 30 odd vans parked there – all Spanish so we pull up.  We can’t understand why there are so many here, maybe there is something on for the weekend as it is Saturday night and a lot of them seem like they have kids.  There were a lot of people out and about as we drove in so presume there must be something on and maybe that is why a lot of them are in this park because the marina is closed off. We are not sure what they think when we are out with a bucket in the morning and I help Vicki wash her hair! It is cold but ok and the water is hot. Without showers it is easy to have a wash down but hair needs a bit of room. We are spoilt by showers in all the camps but a wash with a flannel all over is quite adequate and as it is not stinking hot we don’t get overly smelly. In fact we will go 2 weeks without a shower and no problem. It is amazing how refreshed you feel even after a flannel wash.

MOROCCO

We leave La Marina and we are determined to drive right through to Gibraltar in one day. This is a mean feat as its 590kms and we have never driven that far in one day yet. However we manage it and arrive at a camperstop at La Linea about 8pm in the pouring rain. We could just see ‘The Gibraltar Rock’ from the van but was shrouded in cloud. The campstop was at a stadium and had many campers. We wont get to walk up the rock this time but we will be back again for sure.

In the morning we drive to the camper lockup at San Roque where we have had to make sure our fridge doesnt have any perishables and we take our back packs for the trip. The owner doesnt speak any English but we determine that they are closed when we want to pick up the camper on Saturday afternoon, so a quick decision has to be made that we will stay 4 days in Tangier instead of just 2. We say goodbye to Morrie (the van) who is parked up next to Speedy, Jules and Garries van and walk along the side of the highway to the bus stop. We take the bus down to Algeciras where we pay for our ferry tickets to Tangier which includes a free bus to Tarifa where it leaves from. We know that Morocco is on the high alert list right now and a lot of people are avoiding going there but we feel it will be ok.

We wait for our free bus at the Algeciras port which takes us directly to the waiting ferry. The trip is only about 40 minutes but is quite rough as the wind has really got up. We have our passports stamped on the ferry on the way over so disembarking is quite quick. We are asked if we want a taxi to the riad I have booked which is called Dar Nour. We decide it’s a good idea and the fellow wants to show us around the Kasbar and old Medina area where we staying so we agree on 20euro for 3hours sightseeing. The taxi is 5euro plus a walk up stairs and along narrow alleyways. As we wind up through the throng of people we are confronted with noise, bedlam, crowds, street stalls and a hectic local way of life. I feel overwhelmed and instant culture shock having been in the sheltered Spanish paradise for too long. Our room has been upgraded from a double to a mini suite which is up 3 flights of narrow windy stairs. It is very cool, but we have to get back down to our guide for our tour.

We head downstairs to the tour guide and he takes us around the narrow streets of the Kasbar area of Tangier. It is in the old medina area.  He tells us a little about a few things we pass on our way and we go through the street markets that are chaotic and crammed with people.  I fear a couple of times I am going to get lost as it’s difficult to keep up with so many people around.  He eventually takes us to a carpet shop obviously in the hope we might buy something but after them showing us a dozen rugs I make it really clear that we cannot buy as we live in a campervan currently and have no room to put a rug.  They are lovely but I know they will have massively inflated prices which I am not prepared to attempt to bargain with them currently.  We then head off and he takes us to another shop which sells spices.  These people are obviously his friends and this is part of his so called tour where we get stung for larger than life costs of things we could buy down the road for probably half the price.  Scot succumbs though and he buys some saffron and a few spices.  I tell him he will be able to buy it down the road for nothing but he has paid and that is that.  The guide then takes us to a restaurant where we will eat but the owner is hedging about what the cost is and won’t tell us.  Oh well we think it will likely be nice so we sit back completely on our own in the restaurant and await the 3 course supposedly truly authentic Moroccan cuisine.  The meal is ok but the cost at the end is a little steep since we believed Morocco is supposed to be at least as cheap as Spain which doesn’t turn out to be the case at all.  Halfway through the meal the guide asks if we want some hash.  He tells us not to make a decision until we see it and takes off in a hurry to get some and comes back ten minutes later with some.  He offers it to us for 1500 dirham.  That is 150 euro or 240aud.  I have no idea but it seems extremely exorbitant and we tell him we just aren’t interested.  He has told us it is totally legal in Morocco which we google later only to find out it is illegal and the consequences can be significant if caught, but often the police turn a blind eye as it seems to bring so much money into the country.  He then says he is leaving and the waiter will take us back to our hotel.  He is only 2hours into his 3 hour tour but he says we started an hour earlier than we agreed.  I have told him I think he is a rogue and I am not happy but he is determined to go and I figure what can I do, a stranger in a foreign country so I pay him and he leaves.

The waiter then takes us back to our hotel thankfully. We meet the owner of Dar Nour who happens to be a skinny French man who seems to be a very pleasant guy.  We head up to our room but once in bed we seem to be getting cigarette smoke leaching into our room from the floors below.  It is unpleasant and we have to open the window to try and keep it away a bit.  Not good. We didn’t know they smoked inside this accommodation or we would not have booked.

In the morning we head down to breakfast which is 7euro each and consists of fresh berries, breads, sweet and plain and lots of little bits and pieces like hard boiled eggs, cheeses, raisins, nuts, home cooked crumpet type things, sweet biscuits and juice, tea and coffee. It is quite a strange mix really but we find something we can enjoy and it’s ok.  The tea here is really lovely.  They make a mint tea and the glass has heaps of fresh mint in it.  Sometimes it can be a bit sweet though but it makes a refreshing change from alcohol which is difficult to buy here.  They do sell wine and beer at the Dar but it is very expensive so we don’t worry.  After breakfast we head out ourselves to see how lost we can get around the Kasbar and the medina.  We run into a fellow who really wants to tell us where we need to go but they only want money and often they don’t take you in the right direction, so we have to forcefully decline as he is quite adamant we need help.

We figure out our way to the main Kasbar road so we now know our path. We walk all around the market areas and head down towards the port area.  We end up at the Intercontinental hotel which looks over the port and stop for a mint tea and a toilet.  Whilst sitting there we meet another couple who are English and spend an hour or so talking to them.  Scot is happy as he chats with Bob about bikes, rugby and job opportunities in England. It is a pleasant afternoon and we say goodbye to the lovely couple we met and head off back up to the medina area.  We have only booked the Dar for 2 nights and since we can’t get our van on the weekend we ask to stay another night at the same price for the suite.  We get back to the Dar and end up having dinner there as the owner has employed a young chef who turns out to make the most delicious 3 course meal. It is Morrocan lamb and is fantastic and even surprisingly Vicki eats it too.  Tonight no one seems to be smoking so maybe we will be ok.  Back to our suite and an earlyish night for tomorrows sightseeing.

Another unusual breakfast the next day and we are off again to see some of the market streets we didn’t see properly yesterday. We have found the main tourist route through the medina so check out some of the shops.  There are people approaching us often asking us to buy cigarettes, tissues (yes strange), come to their shop, offering to show us where other markets are etc. Most are really good and go away when you say no thanks but you get the odd one that hassles you more.  Some of the shops are selling lovely stuff and we see light shades with leadlight I would love to buy but we can’t. Like every market place it is difficult to sort the genuine souvenir’s to the imported junk but it is nearly impossible but we have learnt not to be tempted to buy on the first day but to look around and compare and learn (except apparently spices!!) and though we see a few authentic looking things we don’t buy. We try and get a little something that reflect and will remind us of the country we are in. In a wholesale older market we see lots of ceramic and pottery bowls, tagines etc of all sizes and see one we like but keep it in mind for later. We spot the English couple from yesterday in the market so they offer to show us to the local supermarket as we want to see if we can get some crisps and a bottle of wine to have in our room before dinner. The supermarket has lots of goods, really good actually but suspect it is for the more well off households, but no alcohol and the crisps are really expensive so we buy only one pack and orange juice. Vicki assures me a break from booze will be good for me haha but she is serious.

Unfortunatly I spy bulk spices a hell of a lot cheaper than the spice bazaar but put it down –again – to experience. Vicki spies a bright, colourful shop and shows a bit of promise for a keepsake so we go in and chat to the owner who is keen for a sale. We look around and Vicki is taken by a small brass, colourfully painted camel which is real cute and though we do not know where it is made, though we are assured it is Moroccan made, it is small enough not to add any more bulk to the van. The owner tries to get Vicki to buy the set of 3 ranging in size but really we only want one so don’t give in. We decide to meander back up the old town to the market to get the miniature tarjine we saw the day before and manage to get one that was different than the others, a beautiful tone of blue at the right price. We wander around a bit more as the sun sets and sit in the main square for a while drinking in the sights and people watch. There are what seem to be homeless or at the least quite poor people around but on the whole the place doesn’t have the decrepidness and sadness of others we have seen and definitely not as many beggars. The food market area is humming as we wander back to the Dah and really it is a vibrant atmosphere and we feel now that we would like to come back and see more of Tangier and other parts of Morocco. We sit and read and have a few chips and juice in our room before heading down for tea. There are a few people in waiting for dinner and having a few drinks and lots of ciggies so not very pleasant atmosphere so we decide there is no way we can eat here so ask if we can have our meal downstairs away from all the smokers which is no problem thank goodness. I have a bit of a cold and the smoke makes it worse. Again we have a lovely 3 course meal this time large prawns done to a local recipe. We meet the young chef and congratulate him on his skills which I am sure he appreciates. All the staff here are great and if not for the smoking culture 5 star.

We get up to our last brekky and then go for a last walk around the Kasbah and final look around to see if there is any more souvenir’s we don’t really need but when has this stopped anybody. We decide to get a taxi to the port as it is a bit wet and only 5E so not worth the walk. We get to the port and find that the ferry has been cancelled due to the high winds and doesn’t look like going for a day or two. I am not sure if the taxi driver knew this but probably wanted the fare but who knows we will give him the benefit of the doubt. The guard there who has told us says we can go to Tangier Med which is a bigger port about 30 miles away where the ferries are running as they are bigger and can handle the conditions. We hum and hah for a minute then pay the 30E to taxi there but in the back of our mind is whether we should stay in Tangier until the wind drops but really that could be days away.  The taxi ride is cool as we see some of the countryside though the driver doesn’t spare the horses and the old merc is put through its paces.

We arrive to a very blustery port which is very new and still being built but Morocco is definitely planning for the future which is great to see. We get inside and find to our dismay that all THESE ferries are cancelled as well but luckily find one that is still scheduled to leave in a few hours so we decide to wait till the last minute to pay in case that is cancelled as well. As we are waiting we notice more and more people arriving including tour groups so we bite the bullet and line up and we are grateful we did as we get our tickets just as tempers start to fray and yelling and pushing occurs especially when a tour leader, who has already started getting tickets, comes back with all the passports which causes resentment as others think he is barging in! The guy behind the glass is doing his best but no staff to help as this is not planned. More people join in the arguments so we slink away and keep a low profile. In a matter of minutes the queue has doubled and we pray that the ship sails. We finally get on the bus shuttle to the ferry which drops us off at the terminal. We are on the first shuttle so get a seat. We chat to a couple of American ladies on holiday. Then we notice a man having difficulties and not looking well so we offer help and he is a medic and says he is having a heart attack. Vicki’s training kicks in so we get him comfy, she gets a sick bag as I alert the authorities to get an ambulance. The man is groaning and spewing and angry as he just wants to get back to Spain and doesn’t want to go to a Moroccan hospital. Vicki tells him she is a trained in CPR and we won’t get on the ferry until the ambulance has arrived if needed. The ambulance arrives in a very short time which is amazing and he is taken on board. His wife comes back in to get the bags and they are still hopeful that he will stabilise and be allowed on the ferry but this doesn’t happen and they are whisked off. We are impressed by the urgency and professionalism of the Emergency Services. We finally get on the ferry but don’t depart for hours so it is a long day when we finally get going. I reckon that the crossing is fine considering the conditions but Vicki wanders around so sees the roughness and rolling which she says is bad. I figured as we couldn’t smell copious amounts of vomit from the previous crossing then all will be ok.

We pull into Algeciras and get to debark. All I can say is that if the ship was sinking we would all die as no one wants to let the one in front go first and no one knows the merge rule and as at the ticket office tempers are fraying and rudeness abounds. Not sure what the nationalities are but I think Spanish. We have been on a few ferries now but the on board organisation here is non-existent and the crew would be useless in any emergency or evacuation. Gratefully we get on to solid ground and as it is already 8pm we end up getting a taxi to the Marriot hotel as it is cheap enough in Spain to make it worthwhile and did have rooms available before we left Morocco. The room is great although the only one left is a twin room so it’s single beds for us tonight, then we eat an ‘average for Marriot’ meal and hit the sack. The next morning we have a buffet brekky included and then taxi to the bus terminal, happily get our refund from the cancelled ferry minus the agent commission and get the bus back to San Roque and after a short walk we are reunited with Morrie who has had a great time with Speedy and they are now firm friends after sharing engine and gearbox stories.

It is early enough so we decide we should head off to Portugal. We were going to spend another night at Gibraltar to see the rock but since we are two days behind our schedule we get going.  We drive along southern Spain and up around Seville which is meant to be a lovely city, but think another day we will be back.  As we head over the border there are toll booths and we are a bit confused about what we need to do.  I get on the Portugese toll website which says we need to enter our credit card and any tolls we go through will be automatically charged.  This is apparently the only way a visitor to the country can work the tolls so that’s what we do.  We need to do motorways to travel quickly up through Portugal as we now have a time limit to return to the UK.  We head to the first place we have checked out to stay just over the border and the first camperstop which is free is full, so we move on to the next place we sussed out.  It is also heavily filled and there appears to only be one or two spots left.  It is a very large dirt carpark and there appears to be approx. 100 vans here, which we can’t understand as there is nothing here but muddy carpark and few facilities and it costs 4.50euro a night.    Anyway it is only for the night so park up.

 

 

LA MARINA ACTIVITIES AND FAREWELL

For the rest of January our days mostly consisted of more of what we have already explained. We were joined by Jules and Gary who stayed down the road and we enjoyed a couple of meals together before they left to go to Morocco. We frequented the pool most days swimming our 1km in a 14m pool which equates to 72 lengths – enough to make you dizzy really but it felt good to be back in the swing. Scot has taken on spin at the gym with gusto and is really enjoying it. We have joined in numerous events with our new found Brit friends. We went to a fancy dress dinner, a few music afternoons/evenings with many people jamming together and singing, a dance night, dinners or lunches out with people, 8 ball night or just a quiet drink or two with one couple or other. Our social life has soared from being just the two of us to being invited out often. We feel very blessed to have met so many lovely people and to be accepted as friends.

The weather has been exceptional and we have enjoyed temperatures up to the early 20’s with cooler nights. We have been to a number of markets where we adore the fresh food, oranges freshly picked 5kg for 2euro, very cheap olives, broccoli 2 large heads for 1euro. I could go on about the fresh cheap veges as we so adore them. Its such a shame we cant fit much in our fridge as we want to take as much as possible when we leave.

We were joined by other friends during Feb and we enjoyed some sightseeing to Guadalest which is a very cool village inland from Benidorm with a motorbike museum close by. We had lunch there because they roasted the meat on an outside firepit, it was delicious. We came back via Benidorm.

We did a bike ride with a number of the Brits and we biked along the coastline north from Santa Polo to Los Arenales del Sol which equated to about 30+ kms. What an awesome day. We all took our lunch and ate it on the waterfront partway along and stopped for a couple of coffees at cafes. Scot completed another push bike ride with a number of other guys – about 20 in total – they biked about 50+ km out the back of La Marina suburb. A great effort on his mountain bike.

Scot and i visited Alicante by bus and took a look around the old town which was lovely as well. We went with our friends to the Torreveija carnivales which was a colourful and joyful event even though they were running 2 hours late and it was a cool night.

I had to have a tooth pulled out which i was very afraid to get done. The back tooth on the other side was a drama and cost 1500aud. So along i went, i was in the chair perhaps 10 minutes and she had it pulled out and i was gobsmacked. I walked out to the waiting room where Scot said ‘Do you have to come back another day’ Lol. The cost 60euro. I am coming back here when i need more dental work done.

I am surprised that in Spain you can go into a chemist and ask for almost any medication you want and you don’t need a doctors prescription. If one says you cant buy it, you simply go to another who will likely sell it to you.

Scot went for a ride on the back of Micks Harley which is the first time he has been on the back of a Harley – not quite a bikers mole…haha.

We did a bike ride to Rojales with friends to the markets but unfortunately missed the markets we were so late, but the scenery was worth the ride.

We thoroughly enjoyed our time at La Marina and would love to be back in the future but who knows where our travels will take us in the future. We reluctantly said our goodbyes to our new friends who we seem to have known for a long time and hopefully we will catch up with some or all of them back in UK at some stage. It seems strange leaving but we know we will enjoy being back on the adventure trail once away.

OUR CURRENT STATUS

We are very behind on our blogs because since we left La Marina we have not had wifi for the laptop to upload photos or our diary. But we will update them once we get back to England. However a brief overview of we have done and where we are now is following. We left La Marina and travelled down to Gibraltar where the next day we took a ferry across to Morocco. What an amazing place that is. Although they have a high alert for terrorism at present it feels safer than other countries we visited with the most amazing people. We would go back in a heartbeat. It was vibrant, busy and very real. We were shocked on arriving but once adjusted we loved the atmosphere there. We only were able to stay 4 days upon which time we took the ferry back to Spain, even though most were cancelled due to high seas and winds.

Once back we picked up our van we headed for Portugal. We didnt have enough time to see Portugal very well unfortunately. We spent a couple of nights in the algarve which was amazing and although it was winter there, there were so many campervans around, mainly French and Dutch. We headed up along the west coast of Portugal which again was stunning and had very big seas, which lent itself to feeling at home like it was NZ beaches. Peniche, Vila do Conte and Viana do Costello are place we want to see more of as they were incredible. Portugese were lovely and mostly spoke some English which helped. As we headed into northern Spain the countryside was dramatically different from southern Spain and it was green, snow on hills and spectacular. I think we need another year to see all these places we had to skip by as there is so much to see. We travelled from northern Spain into southern France and stopped in St Jean de Luz. We stayed there 6 years ago and loved it. We still think its amazing. We then travelled on to a place called Port Louis just near Quiberon where we also stayed 6 years ago. What an amazing place too. We are on the coast north of there and and stopped today and saw a lookout and a fort. All the places we have stopped in Portugal, northern Spain and France are free camperstops which are wonderful. Some have water, toilet dump and waste water dump and the odd one has electricity that you pay for. It certainly helps you spend less to see the countryside. We are in Saint Cast le Guildo tonight and tomorrow after stopping off at Saint Mont Michel, an amazing tourist destination, in fact the most popular in France, we then head off to Deauville or Blonville Sur Mer.  On the 29th Feb we take the ferry back to England.

Our travels are then over as we have a house sit for a couple of weeks whilst we contemplate whether i go back to work in Aus, or we stay in England or maybe travel some more, although i think we would have to sit Scot on a roundabout in Spain to earn some money to do so (roundabouts in Spain are where the prostitutes sit).

We have loved every minute of our travel and i am sure i am not the only one who wasnt sure we would make it the whole way round (or the van). We have seen 28 amazing countries, travelled almost 34,000kms and gained more friends and experiences than in our entire lifetime. But we need to get off our band wagon or we will go on about it. If there was any of our friends contemplating doing this we would be happy to help them with any questions etc.

So in a week or so’s time we will have more details up about the brief you have just read as we will be back in the very cool temps of England, actually west of London near the Chilterns hopefully in a very warm house with some lovely pets to keep us company whilst we make decisions about our future.

LA MARINA, HAPPY NEW YEAR

Monday 21 December

In the morning we say goodbye to Bill and Nina and we will meet up with them again soon as they have to go back to the hospital in Benidorm for a follow up after surgery that Bill had.  It seems from what we hear a lot of British come here to have dental stuff or surgery done as it is very cheap compared to England.

We head back to where we stayed outside Rob and Sue’s apartment as there is a bookshop that sells English novels and Scot needs more books so we stop there and buy a dozen or so books.  We then head off to the marina area near the esplanade where there are a few shops.  We park up and walk around the streets.  It is a nice town and we have a look in a few shops.  We need to get a couple more things from the supermarket so we leave the esplanade area and drive out to the huge Carrefour supermarket which is one we love to shop at.  This supermarket is massive and the variety of things make us feel like kids in a lolly shop.  It is difficult though as since we have such a small fridge we need to be careful we don’t buy too much as the food will just spoil and we will waste money.  We get our essential things and we will come back on the bus to get a couple of supplies just before Christmas day.  There is also a shopping mall here with some clothing and shoes shops etc that we will come back and we may be able to find something small for each other for Christmas.

We need to get to the camp or they may give away our site so we head off to La Marina which is 20kms up the road.  We arrive and check in and set up our little campsite.  We are on a corner which isn’t ideal but there are no others available.  We see people having street parties which look fun and we know that a lot of people here have probably been coming for a long time and know most others.  In the camp we see a mix of nationalities from Austrian, Belgian, Swiss, Danish, French, Spanish, Dutch, German, Italian, Swedish, British and of course now Kiwi Aussies!  A huge mix though and we hope we will meet a few of them during our stay.  It is nice to actually be stopping for a few weeks as you get set up and then you just have to take it all down again.  We find our rugby world cup flags which we bought with us and use them as decoration as we have few Christmas ones.  We couldn’t find any solar xmas lights so we have none of those yet either.  We go for a walk along the beach to check it out and today there are a few waves but normally it is quite flat.  There are a couple of restaurants within a short walk along the sand so we will also check them out at some stage.

Tuesday and we decide we need to check out the spa and all it entails plus the gym, so we do a workout first and then change for the spa.  The pool is only 14m but if you swim for half an hour then you can get a km done.  The steam room, sauna etc are all great and we just know that we are going to really enjoy some down time here.

Wednesday 23rd December

We decide it is bus day today so we take the bus back down to Torreveija.  It stops right in the middle of town so we have a bit of a walk to get down to the esplanade where we need to check out a couple of shops and once we have done that we  head over to the main shop area which is about 3kms away.  We check out the clothes shops and I manage to find new speedos for Scot for Christmas, a bit boring I know but what can you do when you don’t have the time or knowledge of an area to find things.  Anyway after a while we head back into the Carrefour for our Christmas supplies.  After a bit I realise the buses back to the camp aren’t that often and if we don’t leave soon we will be waiting another 1.5hours before we can leave so once Scot has completed his purchases we need to catch a taxi back to the bus depot so we are just in time to catch the bus back.  There are a bunch of drunks sitting around the depot having a go at each other and a homeless man comes and sits right next to me.  I am not bothered by his presence, but I cannot stomach the stench of urine and whatever else so I have to move away.  We get back to the camp and relax with a drink and a book (which becomes a common activity).

Christmas eve and the day is just spent in the spa, the gym and sitting reading relaxing.

Christmas Day

We have heard from our newly made friends Nina and Bill and they are going to join us today for a chicken roast with roast veges which is nice as we are feeling a bit friendless here to date as we haven’t yet had a chance really to go out walking to meet fellow nearby campers.  Those around us are keeping to themselves very much so we need to find some like minded English speakers.

We have a lovely day though when Nina and Bill arrive and we polish off a few bottles of bubbly and beer and our dinner was lovely that Scot cooked.  I did desert – fresh berries and ice cream, not hard really, but we haven’t had ice cream in our ‘house’ at any time so is a treat.  I have managed to continue to have fresh raspberries, blueberries and occasional strawberries, every day, for our entire trip so far.  I am happy about that and now in Spain of course they are still available here.

The day finishes about 9.30 as it is getting chilly and since we have no table and seats inside where we can sit Nina and Bill head back to their van which is parked up outside the complex and we head off to bed.  People her in Spain actually do not celebrate Christmas day, they have a celebration with presents on Christmas eve and their big celebration happens on Jan 6th which they call kings day.

Saturday 26th December to Wednesday 30 December

Unfortunately I have caught the ‘camp cough’ which is quite shitty and sounds like it is rife amongst the other campers around the camp.  Apparently a flu went around everyone a few weeks ago so I am glad we weren’t here then.  Scot bikes into the town area and gets me cough medicine which I didn’t know contained pseudo ephedrine so after taking a huge dose of it before bedtime I was buzzing the whole night and there was no sleep for me…buggar! And very little for Scot.

We basically spent these days going to the gym, spa, beach and relaxing.  On the Wednesday we met a few English people that we end up having a chat with and organise to spend NYE with them.

New Year’s Eve is spent as we plan to spend the next month, swimming & relaxing in the spa and reading in the sun when it is out. Our van is not perfectly sited for the sun all day but we move around as the sun crosses and we get enough. We end up with our new English friends Alan & Ida and their daughter Wendy and her man Dave. We have a great nite chatting and getting to know each other with lovely nibbles and drinks. Vicki has made a batch of mulled wine which goes down well with the girls and I enjoy typical cold English pork pies. Around 11.30 us youngies – Alan & Ida decided to stay in – trotted off to the upstairs bar where there was a disco and partying going on. It wasn’t too crowded so we easy got a table and the girls had a bottle of bubbly and the boys beer. We all celebrated the New Year which in a way is strange as we normally do it with lots of our family & friends in familiar surroundings and here we are on the other side of the world so in some ways for me it was a little sad. The music by 1am had changed from disco to boom boom house which isn’t our thing so we left the locals to it and headed home. The funny thing was the party started at 11.30 and went to 6 am which we couldn’t quite understand but hey the Spanish start late as we have found out. We have so far found the locals very friendly and it seems to be a pretty laid back country and we are beginning to really like it and can see why it is so popular with the Brits, Germans, Dutch and French. It is not only the cheap prices and the weather that makes it attractive also that they are made welcome by the locals.

Friday New Years Day 2016

We sleep in late as it doesn’t get light till 8.30 and we are a bit weary. It is a beautiful sunny day and after brekky we head down to the beach for the local Polar Plunge. We are running late so don’t take anything with us as we don’t know what to expect. Well we arrive to a large gathering with BBQ,s and picnics and everyone nearly ready to dip their toes. There is a countdown and all those brave enough scream their way into the waves. The water is chill but not like any of the winter NZ Polar Plunges  and everybody has a good swim. There are people of all shapes and sizes and as close by is the nudist beach the amount of flesh showing isn’t to unsettling. No one here is too worried about wearing togs when the flesh is overflowing as we see it at the spa, good on them to. Mind you it is a bit weird seeing 70 year old Germans getting undressed on the beach! A lot of the oldies at La Marina are not exactly growing old gracefully in the fitness stakes and I think they have all led a life of excess. Everyone is very friendly and we quickly meet a lot of new people and as pretty much the only token colonials on the beach we are made very welcome and they generously share a glass of bubbly or three in the warm winter sun till around 3pm. We then went and had a couple of drinks with a pommy couple we had stopped and chatted on the way back from beach. These two ladies had stopped near the camp waiting for their hubbies and were sitting on chairs and said hello as they had remembered us from the beach (though we had met so many we weren’t sure) and as a joke they were pretending to be ‘Truck Routes’ which we may have explained are girls who sit on roundabouts and crossroads waiting for truckies to send some custom their way. I said I only had a 2 euro 60 cents which got a laugh especially when I said I had enough for both of them!  Really beaut pommy humour and we have found all of them real fun so we are really looking forward to meeting more.

Saturday & Sunday  2 & 3 January

As it is the weekend we have to pay 3 Euro to use the pool, spa etc for 1 ½ hours which is ok but what isn’t is having to share with all the locals and their noisy kids. The Spanish celebrate xmas more on the 6th Jan as the Three Kings Day so the camp has a lot of families arriving for the holidays. All of a sudden there are kids everywhere but we just have to accept it. Sunday is worse so relaxing not enjoyable at all.

Monday 4 to Friday8th Jan

As you will see each day now is pretty much like the one before ground hog day. The little town of La Marina is only a couple of ks away and quaint with all we need if not to specialised. We have spotted a bike shop so we get Vickis gears on her bike fixed (15 euro) and I buy a crash helmet as I am going to go biking with some guys tomorrow and though no one wears a helmet here it is legal to but I feel safer with one especially out on the busy roads. We also spy a booze distributor warehouse so check out the prices. We can get a 24 can pack of Strongbow cider for around $20aus and beer for cheaper. In fact at the camp store I can buy cans of full strength beer for as cheap as 25cents each. Yeah Hah. On the way back to camp we decide to stop at a small restaurant we have been told about by other campers. It isn’t big but cosy and they serve Tapas and titbit foods that you can buy what you want. They have about 20 large barrels of wine and sherry type drinks. You get a glass and you can sample all the wines (small sips in the glass) and then choose what you like. A glass of around 250mls costs about 1Euro and if you bring your empty plastic bottles you can fill them up for between 1.45 Euro to 2.95E per LITRE!! So we are going to take our 6.5L water bottles to fill. And the wine is really nice not crap. So we had 4 stuffed mushrooms, 3 Stuffed tomatoes, 1 stuffed eggplant  a potato & onion bread,  all the olives you can eat,2 wines each plus a dozen tastings for 11Euro all up about  $18aus. Can’t wait to go back may have to leave the bikes behind!

We were going to take the van to the mechanic to get the headlight looked at but after looking at the manual we did it ourselves as well as the rear light which had blown a bulb. The campers here are great as they came and told us our light didn’t work and then another told us our rear light wasn’t working when we drove in. They look out for each other especially when a newby arrives and they are trying to fit their million euro Winnebago McMansion on wheels into a camp spot. We have heard stories where the male driver isn’t listening to the wife and backs the brand new life investment into the tree or they have wedged themselves in and can’t get out or as we saw yesterday a humongous German (they all seem to be German) bus camper came all the way in and then couldn’t get past the hanging xmas decoration lights so had to back all the way out. We try not to laugh but it can be a bit of entertainment on an otherwise slow day.

This morning I went for my countryside bike ride with Pom Mike (and his wife Lisa) who we were told to go say hello here by our friends Rob and Sue who know them. Again we are surprised how well we get on with couples around our age or older and it is like we know each other. We went for around an hour and I got to see some of the surrounding area including the obligatory truck root –I mean route – who we waved to as we sailed by.  Mike & Lisa have been coming here for 6 years now as Spain is somewhere you can retire early as it is so cheap. After we went and had a few beers with them and ended up going to the camp restaurant for a small meal and a drink as neither of us wanted to cook and by then a few to many bevvies had gone down.  It was with a slightly tired head the next morning as I headed to my first ever bike spin class with Mike and Vicki was off to do her 1km in the pool. We hope to be a lot fitter by the end of the month and there are no excuses with the great facilities here.

Well until we finish our relaxing month, there won’t be too much on the blog as I am sure you don’t want to hear of our relaxing spas, drinky poos in the sun and a gym workout. We will continue in more detail when we leave and head hopefully for a week in Morocco then head through Portugal and France and on to the UK

GREECE TO SPAIN

Monday 14th December

We leave this camp and head to Igoumenitsa to get the ferry and the weather was sunny. We have a long way to go but make good pace. As if the rubbish is not bad enough we also pass a number of dead animals on the side of the road but mainly dogs and reflects both the number of feral dogs and the inability of the people to clear them whether through ignorance or will. Can’t understand it and very sad as life here is not revered for them. We decide on the coast road as we have a bit of time up our sleeve as we found out the ferry would be delayed for 3 hours which is a bit of a pain but out of our hands. We realise this may make things a bit tight for getting to Spain to see our friends Rob & Sue before they head off to England but can only do our best. We also decide to get our tickets from Italy to Spain when we are at the port in Cvitavecchia and not online which turns out to be the right decision.

The trip is quite good and scenery wise interesting.  We drive through an interesting area where the road is hardly wide enough for two vehicles with the vegetation having grown in on the side and no one seems to care whether it is cut back to enable cars to pass or not.  The road conditions in this part also leave a lot to be desired and we avoid pot holes whilst trying to avoid oncoming cars.  We arrive in Igoumenista in the early afternoon and find the ticket office. We sort of know the lie of the land as we saw this port on the way down and it looked quite nice so decided to embark from here instead of Patras. The office didn’t open till later on so we drove back up town, parked and walked down a bit to the town area and had a look around and a coffee. We then went back to the office and booked in then decided to drive the van into town to get a few supplies as we didn’t want to walk for miles with bags of groceries.

It was hard to find the store as it was very built up area narrow streets and for a Wednesday very hectic. We stocked up then found a better park on the main drag where we could take up a few parks without jutting out. Anything goes here obviously and everyone parks everywhere pretty much wherever they want. They even park right behind other parked cars to get coffee or have a feed and bad luck if you want to leave. The road here is 2 car wide so no problem with traffic flow. I can’t help but think the police would have a field day if this happened in Oz and the $$$ they would make but the police don’t do anything as it seems to work. There a heaps of eateries, cafes, creperies,  etc along the main drag and they are all open so must be a popular holiday destination and if this is how it is at this time of the year then god help what the summer is like. WEe eat a local salad and kebaby thing at a café which is cheap and really fills us up (we get far more than expected). We head back to the van luckily the parked car is not quite behind us so we can get out. We get to the port and find the entrance and try to work out where to go even though we know we have to end up at gate 12. A security guy lets us know which line to get into behind the trucks but then makes us go around the gate and stops us for a customs- police check. We are quite surprised as it is late but they make us open the van up and the storage area. While I am unloading all our crap out of the storage area we have to haul things out of the van as well. Vicki talks to the security guy who seems nice and chats with us. Apparently they are looking for drugs as Greece is a popular conduit for heroin, hash and dope from the Middle East, Ukraine , Russia and whereabouts. The other guy is not as friendly and acts like we are guilty as hell and starts pulling everything out of drawers, Cupboards, under the bed etc. He starts to try to pull our roof apart as, because of previous damp problems, looks a bit loose and Vicki says “Hey mate don’t destroy our roof it is only damp damage” but he just tells her to get out but thankfully moves on. I have to move all our stuff out of the storage area and I am trying to help but doesn’t want it preferring to just throw stuff everywhere. Prick and so OTT!!.

He finds some of our prescription drugs and starts quizzing us as if a packet of my Viagra makes me a drug addict and Vicki’s Panadeine with codeine in it a junkie. He gets over someone maybe a doctor who says nah just paracetamol so no problem. Good thing they didn’t find our other pill stash but shows how stupid the whole exercise is cos if I was bringing in stuff it wouldn’t be anywhere they looked (Maybe with the shit & piss in the toilet cartridge?? Or inside the spare wheel.) However they did say they caught a couple with a baby that had kgs of dope so it does happen. If I was carrying quantities I think would be travelling by road not risking a customs search. After half our stuff was everywhere the nicer guy did say they had a dog so I mentioned we would have preferred the dog sniffing out the van instead of the mess but no go. Then he says they do so many of these that they can usually spot the guilty ones after a few minutes talking to them and we didn’t fit the bill so go figure. I realise they are only doing their job but would be happier if they were searching for bombs or terrorists which does affect us or maybe they have a quota they have to search regardless. Anyway after an hour of searching we start putting things back and it takes us a while to restore the van as things can only go where they go as we have good system of storage. It is only later we see the foot prints on toilet and the face off the heater. The funny part was when they had a moment of panic when they saw all our runners under the bed and thought it was refugees hiding there! Anyway all good in the end we thanked them for their vigilance and parked up to wait for the ferry which we knew would be a while.

It started to get cold and we didn’t want to sleep so sat and read. At least we had gas for a cuppa. A ferry came in which we thought was ours but not to be and ours didn’t come in till 4am. Prior to this I went for a walk to get the stiffness out and noticed the cars had Trieste destination cards on their dashes and freaked that we were in the wrong lane and went running back to Vicki saying we must be on the other ferry as they were loading but then saw other cars with Ancona so stopped panicking. Anyway we board the ferry at last and luckily get to hook up the power to the van to our batteries and take our bags, pillows and blankets to our cabin which turns out to be the same as our previous one with noisy aircon but comfy and we are worn out so crash till lunch which was leftover greek salad from the café last nite so saved some $$.

We sat around and read , had a couple of drinks (wine snuck up from our room) and disembarked into Ancona around 6pm. We were going to find somewhere close but we had contingency plans and had sussed out camperstops at various distances from the city. I was driving and felt fresh so we decided to hit the highway and see how far we could get. We went left following a truck instead of right where the cop was directing  – whoops- never mind too late now and we are following our bibles direction so keep following the trucks as surely he is going where want to go. We get on the highway across the country and end up at a camper stop after a couple of hours in a cool place which is a popular caving tourist destination (pretty & colourful at nite with all the xmas decorations up) so we find the stop but it is a little bit out of town and deserted so head back to town and find a hotel car park that looks secure and park up for the nite. All is quiet that nite so we sleep quite well, have brekky then head off at 9.30am and it shows -1c so must have been -3c overnite. It is well worth making the effort to get away from the port last nite as the extra kms under the belt are gold and always makes the following days travels easier and less stressful.

The countryside across to Civitevechia is nice and varied and the villages even from the parts of the highway we are on are interesting, but then after Greece any countryside would be. There are villages nestled into the hills with castles and churches and our previous negative image of northern Italy is soon forgotten but we are reminded when we pass a bigger city and the smog and pollution is more obvious. We get to the port of Civitevechia and get a glimpse of the port which in the past was an important Roman bastion and you can still see some of the original walls as well as the relatively newer fort. We check out the ticket office that doesn’t open till 4.30 so have our again late lunch then head into town which is short walk. It is a very pretty town/city and we are glad we have an hour or 2 to look around. The walls are awesome and some great history with the large seaside promenade very popular with great outlooks over the marina, beaches and walkways. We walk up the promenade and back and then into the closer part of town and window shop while being serenaded by piped xmas music which reminds us that chrissy is just around the corner. We go to book with Grimaldi Line on the phone but for some reason it is 100euro more expensive than online even though the salesman says no way can that be the case. So we hang up saying we will get back if we have no joy. Online we get a junior suite with a window to see the sea and TV as well as king size bed at the much cheaper price so pays to shop around. We head back to the van and again have the wait to board the ferry. Even though we were delayed we are only a day behind our original time frame to get to Torrevechia so are happy to board around 8.30pm and departed around 10.30. Overall our estimation of Italy has risen from when we first saw earlier on the toll road past Milan and Turin and maybe a visit may happen one day.

As we sort ourselves out on the ship unfortunately I (Vicki) start to get severe pain in my side which reminds me of Switzerland.  I wont go into the whole gory details but this lasts the entire time on the ship and beyond which really spoils it for both of us.  I have some very strong pain killers which I have to take just to be able to manage a walk up to the café for the meals we ordered and paid for online.  I have no idea what is going on and at one stage I had the ships doctor give me an injection to help ease the pain.  Anyway the cabin was cool having a double bed, tv and a porthole to look out of.  It doesn’t really matter having a window but at least during the day if you are lying in your room you can let the daylight in and get an idea of what the time is. The time really passes slowly with what is happening, but Scot enjoys being able to watch some sport and news on tv whilst we wait to arrive in Spain.

We are early getting into port which is a bonus.  Rob and Sue leave in a days time so if we get ourselves halfway down to Torreveija (prounounced Torrebe ecka) we may see them before they leave. So off the ship we drive and then try to find our way out.  I tell Scot just to follow the truck in front which is what we normally do as that always seems to at least get you out of the port and onto a highway.  So off following this truck and on the map it is really difficult to figure out how to get out as the port is so huge.  It takes about 20 minutes of driving roads, roundabouts etc before we finally manage to reach the highway going south, so we are on our way.  Scot is ok to drive for a while so we get a couple of hundred kms down the road before we figure it is a good idea to find somewhere to stop.  We had flagged a couple of areas and we look for a campground or car park to park for the night.  This area is a bit different from others we have stayed and the narrow roads have no space to pull over on the side and even camps that are closed the gates are on the edge of the road so that is a no go.  We find a camp that has one gate still open but it looks like everyone is inside having a big party.  Scot parks in the middle of the road with hazards on and I go in to see if we can come in.  Finding no one really to talk to I find I can open the other gate so Scot drives in and eventually someone comes and we agree to just park out in the front car park for the night as this place is chokka block.  The party is a Christmas party with oldies having a ball dancing etc but we are both tired from a sleepless night that we don’t even notice the festivities and sleep.

We are up and gone the next morning – what a cheap campsite 7euro for the night, god we love Spain already!  We head out earlyish as we want to get down to Torrevieja as soon as possible.  We finally get to see some of the countryside we travelled past last night in the dark.  It is interesting with rather cool buildings in the towns we pass.  The countryside must be ok to grow a lot of stuff as Spain has a huge market share shipping veges and fruit all over Europe.  We make great time on the highway and get to Torrevieja about mid afternoon.  We easily find Rob ad Sues apartment they are staying in and knock on the door.  They are surprised we arrived at all as it was over 500kms down from Barcelona.  We had a great chat and Rob showed us some great freedom camping sites along the water front at Torrevieja before we headed back to their apartment and went out for an early dinner.  A lovely meal and very cheap.  They gave us free starters and a free baileys for the ladies and a liquor for the gents.  We had the van parked up in the side street so slept there for the night and met them for an early coffee before they departed for the airport.  We then made breakfast and drove off into the town to have a look around.

It is Sunday today, the 20th and we found an open supermarket.  We have fallen in love is all I can say.  The veges are so cheap and a great variety and fresh.  The other food is cheap and the amazing variety of brands etc is awesome.  We haven’t had it this good since Netherlands I think.  The alcohol is also great and cheap much to Scots delight.  We stock up on a few things and then head off to the campsite we need to check out.  It is at La Marina and about 20kms up the road.  It is a 5 star campsite and has a huge outside pool complex, a gym, indoor pool, huge spa with great water jets and bubble beds, steam room, sauna, Turkish bath, citris pool and cold plunge pool.  There are heaps of campers here and there are few sites left.  We think we had better choose a place today as the ones left will not last long at all.  So we walk around and pick a spot that we think will have a bit of sun and be relatively quiet.  We book that in and leave to go back to Torreveija for the night to freedom camp.  We park up on a spot that Rob had shown us yesterday where there are about 8 other campervans along with locals fishing off the rocks.  It is a lovely spot in the sun close to the town.

We meet a lovely couple in the GB van we are parked alongside and Nina and Bill come from Isle of Wight, although Nina is originally from Slovakia and co-incidentally from a little town of Piestany that we stayed in and had the folk night in the pub with a brewery.  Such a small world considering we didn’t stay at very many places in Slovakia.  We get on well and end up having drinks in their van until it is dinner time.  We don’t leave our van to go for a walk here as one couple said they were broken into a couple of nights before but luckily they have an alarm that sends a signal to their phone so nothing was taken.

GREECE

Monday 7th December

Up relatively early as we are only going about 50km to Corinth which has ancient ruins and a village nearby which means we don’t have to go to actual Corinth which is a city and we don’t need that. We shop before we go at the supermarket down the road as they have the best Feta, Greek yoghurt and olives and we want to stock up. Half a kg of feta costs about $3aud so can’t let it go by. We are starting to get addicted to Greek salads with the local ingredients real easy & delicious even on the run. We drive up the windy roads and find the camperstop which is well signposted and well set out.

We find a sunny spot in the corner and meet the owner who we converse with more in French than English but that is ok as we are learning that anything goes with communication as long as everybody is understood and smiling. We settle in then walk into the quaint little village to look around. What we find unusual is that a lot of the homes have high walls, gates, dogs (and dangerous dog warning signs) and even razor wire around their properties. In such a quiet far away village where we would expect safety and no crime it is weird to see such security measures. Maybe there are people around that will exploit these places but we can’t see how.  We take the long way (which isn’t really that long!)to the ruins and end up at the main entrance but it closes at 3pm and we are too late to bother at 6euro but there is a museum so maybe tomorrow. But really we saw a lot of ruins over the last few days and we can easily see the Temple of Apollo nearby. The local dogs hook up with us and accompany our walk around and remind us of the local dogs in Rarotonga that adopt you on the beach until they get a better offer.

We look into the souvenir shop and the young girl comes over to chat and see if we want to buy anything. Not pushy which is nice but interested in where are from and I spot a Greece t shirt I like so say we will be back tomorrow. We stop at a corner café and sit in the sun having a wine and beer and playing with the cats and dogs as they scrounge a peanut off us. Back to the van for dinner and I buy a 1.5l bottle of the owners red wine (3Euro) and some of his veges for tea.  Very nice too. We are up to a lovely sunny day and walk to the village collecting a grapefruit on the ground and a few overhanging mandarins. The citrus fruit are everywhere but I am not sure if they are open season so have to be discreet. Mind you the ones in the city taste like crap real bitter but the ones in the country are really nice. We say goodbye to our friendly host who wish’s us bon voyage and head towards to Mani Beach about 200km away. We can’t believe the amount of rubbish that line both the highway and the other roads, it is never ending and we can’t figure out why the 200km of road we travel is like this. The toll roads are pretty empty but we are only on these for a short while before we head over the mountains to the central part of the island. It is very ordinary country and very rugged and boring. The main towns/cities are uninspiring and not the sort of place I would want to stop at let alone stay as a tourist. Cities like Tripoli and Sparta were very ordinary.

We go right through and over the ranges to the coast and through a town called Githio which wound around a bay and was quite picturesque. As we came upon the café area fronting the waterfront we noticed a crowd gathering in panic out the front of a café. There was a car in the middle of the road and it seems that we had arrived just as a car had hit a pedestrian. They were obviously trying to help the person and waved us around the site and it didn’t look good going by the look on their faces but we did the right thing and didn’t become gawkers. We did stop for lunch around the corner and it was literally ages before we heard the ambulance siren even though we actually passed their station 200m away from where the person was hit.   We think this would be a nice place to explore but travel on and find the Mani Beach Campground which even though it is closed for the winter is very untidy and derelict looking. The camp is sort of an olive grove with sites among the trees and the pitches which are unsuitable for campers as the trees are too low. There are no reviews for this camp and I can see why even in the summer I can’t see a lot of positives except for the beach. We find the manager (can’t see him being the owner) and find a sunny place near the beach. There are only a handful of campers here a French family, an older couple and the usual single retired men who stay because of the cheap price and the cheap wine!  We go to have a shower (which are filthy and incredibly ordinary) and chat to a nice chap from Holland and he says that they meet for a drink after 7pm so we will wander over after dinner. Meanwhile we go down to look at the beach and though it is windy it is still warm enough for me to have as swim in the Med Sea. The water is still quite pleasant and great to stretch out after a day in the van. We can’t figure out why these people would spend 3 months in a dreadful place such as this but when Peter says he pays 7euro a night that explains it all.

They started a bit late but there was the Greek manager (GM) and   the Dutchman Peter and a pom Dave. GM was slitting olives for the owner (Then they are soaked in water for 20 days then in salty brine for a week before put in oil. They were nice large juicy kalamata ones. In fact it is only after travelling through all the different areas we see how much the olive is king along with the citrus fruit. Literally the whole countryside is covered in olive trees and they are intensively harvested. In all the villages we pass through there are factory’s that the locals take there 50kg bags to. We are not sure if there is a main man or they are coop owned amongst the growers but they are evidently the cash crop and have been for hundreds of years.) We find that we get a free red wine each for staying as a thank you from the owner which is a nice gesture which is followed by a local Mythos beer and an Ouzo which is a generous measure and Vicki has another local red. We all chat amicably and learn a little about each other. GM calls it a nite by 10pm as Pom Dave will drink red wine all nite, Peter will beguile me with his tales of travel which are very interesting and I will drink too much ouzo and Vicki will feel like shit tomorrow with the wine.

We have the typical camp cats hanging around in the morning and Vicki feeds them with some yoghurt she isn’t going to eat along with some bread to fill them up a bit. Some of them are friendly and some are terrified but Vicki has most of them coming for a pat by the time we leave.

We leave early enough and travel towards the coast as this is where the sights are and we know by now that all we will see on the highway is dullsville and the payoff for the scenery is the uncertainty of the roads. All of a sudden the total dynamic changes completely and it is beautiful and accepting with lots of towns and villages hugging the coast and inlets. There is no or very little rubbish in this part and the coastline is inviting and though we are not sure where we are going other than towards Kalamata we hit the crossroads and though we were going to head back to Tripoli and across the country to Kalamata but at the last second we say f**k it lets take the uncertain coast road and bugger the consequences and we are so glad we did. It is beautiful though rugged land, the hills are not too bad and easy enough for our van, Vicki is driving so I can take plenty of photos and take in the sights. We pass some lovely little towns and want a coffee but there is not always anywhere to park a car let alone a van, though that doesn’t seem to stop some people as rules don’t seem to apply in Greece! Finally we go through one that is exceptionally cute and inviting and we get a park near the bakery and café. This is called Kardamyli and is to be our home for the next 5 days and best of all we end up right on the beach 1km out of town free of charge.  This village is where Helen of Troy left to fight with her armies so has a significant history.

We have a couple of cups of coffee and after asking a local if it is ok to park along the beach front for the night. We find 3 other vans along a bit further so stop close to them as it seems to be the spot.  It is warm enough for us to have a swim so we plunge in the crystal clear water that is cool but very refreshing.  You can see everything it is so clear.  There are some little fish swimming around – a little like those we have seen on Lady Elliott island that are quite territorial and I get one bite me on the leg giving me a fright.  It would be me and not Scot that the sea creatures seems to like to gravitate to.  After a swim we sit and read and Scot decides he will ride into the village and get a couple of things at the supermarket.  Funny, he stops at the local café for a beer and meets up with a couple Zak and Nicki who are actually from Woody Point but have moved over here to Greece to live as it is too expensive In Aus for them to live off the pension.  They are building a house up the hill in Agia Sophia.  They tell us some of the incredible challenges they have come up with here in Greece where the corruption is rife.  Payoff seems to be the only way around things but it doesn’t always work.  It is interesting to hear that people don’t pay taxes/rates (the same thing) until they actually finish building their house/business/unit block etc.  So Greek people have learnt that in order for them to not have to pay taxes they never finish their homes even though they may be living in them.  They leave a few pieces of reinforcing sticking up from their roof and this is considered to be incomplete.  The Govt need to change their laws as everywhere you look there are unfinished homes where people are getting away with not paying the Govt anything (hence rubbish that cannot afford to be collected).

If you have money in a Greek account here you are not allowed to take out more than 60euro a day no matter what your problem.  So god help you if you want to pay someone cash for something, you can not do it.  Tourists are different, we can withdraw what we like.  Zak and Nicki were saying that one week they got fined for something and because the police wanted cash they were unable to buy food that week as they couldn’t withdraw any more money.  There are 2 atms in this town but one is closed for the winter.  Go figure. Of course locals don’t need to withdraw money from it over winter, they can live on olives….lol.  There are still a lot of people here who are unfriendly and appear to look at us with contempt.  I can’t figure out why as we are spending money here and not causing any problem which I thought they would like since there is little money coming from outsiders at this time of the year.

Anyway I go back with Scot to the café and meet Zak and Nicki and we end up having a couple of drinks with them until they leave and we stay for pizza for tea.  The standard local cats come around our camper for anything there is on offer which isn’t much.  Scot ends up biking into the town the next day to get a bag of cat biscuits as these cats are really hungry and I can’t bear to see them like this.  We are told the locals hate tourists feeding the cats as they want them to catch the mice and rats (likely that the rubbish brings around), but the cats are also destroying their bird and reptile life here which I don’t think they care about.

The second day we are here we take a hike up to Agia Sophia to see Zak and Nicki’s house building location which is right up one of the gorges and has a lovely ocean view in between the hills.  The hike up is about 1km up a very steep rocky narrow pathway on the side of the gorge.  It is interesting and we get great views as we climb up.  It is a beautiful day but by the time we get back down the hill to the camper about 3 it has cooled down and a swim is out of the question.  We sit and decide dinner is best at home tonight.  The cats congregate around for theirs and it’s like I now have 5 cats of my own to look after.  The littlest one is hardly more than a kitten but I am sure she is pregnant.

It is raining the next day so we sleep in and end up going in to the village for coffee and free wifi on the laptop.  We have lunch in the café and see Zak and Nicki as it is too wet for them to be working today on the land.  Eventually we finish up and head back to the van.  It is a very cool day so we snuggle up in blankets on the bed and read.

Saturday dawns as a clear day so we decide we should stay another day here and enjoy the sunshine.  Most of our day is spent sitting reading and we have a swim at the warmest time of the day.  A camper near us tells us that the guy whose place we are slightly parked in front of doesn’t like people parking where we are and may tell us to buggar off, but this doesn’t happen so we are fine.  Late in the day we head into town and have a drink and pizza for dinner and go into another little bar near the waterfront to have one drink before heading home.  We have decided that we need to leave in the morning as we need to have a shower, charge the battery and empty the toilet, plus we have washing that we need to do since it’s been a couple of weeks.

Sunday  13 December

We head away from our lovely seaside campspot and I say goodbye to the cats.  It is another nice day and it would be so nice just to stay put but we really need to leave Greece.  We travel north along the coastline up to Kalamata.  There are lovely little villages down on the water front from the road we are driving along.  This part of the coastline is still mostly free of litter but only until we get to Kalamata.  We stop on the esplanade and have a coffee before continuing on our way up to a camp ground about 60km south of Patras.  As we reach the road on the west coast the rubbish is becoming the most horrendous thing we have seen and there are piles and piles of rubbish strewn all over everywhere.  There is definitely a problem here as there is more rubbish than we have seen and one can only blame the Govt for not doing what it needs to, to keep the rubbish at bay.  This is a recipe for disease and there are cats scavenging and I can only imagine the rats and mice this rubbish is breeding.  The smell is dreadful and we are really shocked.  We have to buy a couple of things from the supermarket and we feel we are in a very unpleasant part of the country and can’t wait to leave with our groceries. We pass up to 5 of these dumpsites in something like a 100m. Just so sad and unnecessary.

We continue to travel until we reach the campsite at Ionion beach which is a pleasant surprise.  It is clean, well maintained and the facilities are not only great they are clean.  Nice for a change.  We need to do washing and the guy promises to bring us tokens for the machines, but we see nothing of him until we have to go back up in the morning to remind him we need tokens.  There are only a couple of us staying here so there is no excuse for him not remembering us.  Anyway we decide our washing is more important than leaving so get it all done and hang it up all around the campsite to dry in the sun.  We balk at paying 5euro to wash and again to dry our clothes, it is a ridiculous price to pay. Our campsite resembles a gypsies camp on washing day and we are happy that there is no one here as probably not a good look for relaxing campers but we save 10Euros and the clothes dry with healthy sunlight instead of a machine. We read all arvo then have a walk along the beach but it is a bit ordinary and again rubbish everywhere and looking like it has been there for a while and not recent. Couldn’t be bothered swimming either as not overly inviting as our previous beach and also not as warm today. Funny enough we see no cats anywhere which is a first. We settle in for a quiet nite as we want to be away early tomorrow as we have about 330kms to go to “Eatallmypizza’ (Igoumenitsa) to get the ferry at 1am Wed morning then a full days drive across Italy to ‘Civinoceva’  (Civitoveccia) to get the ferry to Barcelona – our 25 country. Three countries and two ferries in three days. We will look forward to relaxing days in the south of Spain and we are also looking at a trip without the van to Morocco for a couple of days as everybody raves about it and very cheap for a B&B so will see what happens.

ATHENS

Friday 4 December

Actually after further reflection on the Schengen rules I realise we have breached more than 4 countries.  We have done 24 countries but only 14 have signed with NZ to allow us 3 months in each regardless of how long we have spent in other Schengen countries.  The other 10 countries are either non Schengen or do not allow you in if you have already spent 3 months in other Schengen countries.  So the list of those we should never have gone into start with Estonia, onto Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Switzerland and Slovenia and the non-Schengen one we were ok in is Croatia.  I did read last year that NZ had an agreement with all Schengen countries and it was on a Govt website so someone got it wrong which meant we ran the gauntlet in all the above countries and are lucky we didn’t get caught.  We are ok from here in Greece, Italy and Spain.

Breakfast is done and we go to have a shower but there is no hot water.  We were really looking forward to one this morning and we are both a bit pissed off.  Scot says the fella inside is a bit grumpy so maybe it is the guy we met on the way in who seemed a bit cranky yesterday.  So we get dressed, pack up and are about to leave when the lady comes out and says there is now hot water.  We are ready to leave so say no but instead she insists we come in for a free coffee before we go as I think they feel bad.  So we go in for coffee and have a good chat to the people who live here and there seems to be a few of them.  The grumpy buggar is ok once you get talking to him it seems that it is just his manner and perhaps he has a lot on his mind.  Summer saw less people staying than normal so maybe they are struggling a bit.

We leave and head towards Athens.  There is an amazing mix of different houses as we drive, from the well maintained, expensive homes to the run down shacks that you wouldn’t put a chook in, but unfortunately people do live in them.  Like Croatia and some other countries we see many buildings that have been started but it seems just never finished.  Or there are some buildings where people are living in one part that is semi finished but the rest of the building is still open to the elements with a lot of work to go.

As we near Athens we can see the smog from the city hanging over it.  It is a nice day with a great weather forecast to come.  The entire road from Patras to Athens is virtually completely under re-construction as a two way highway but thankfully they are doing it so that we are not held up all the way like we experienced in Latvia.  We are grateful we are early as we don’t want to get caught up in the hectic Friday afternoon peak hour traffic.  The countryside continues to be just the same scrubby rocky landscape and is really nothing to look at.  As we head into Athens we hit a 4 lane highway which I quickly realise is the road I thought was a small suburban road that runs right past the campsite.  We are in the midst of traffic that is insane.  Trucks, buses, cars, motorbikes are all weaving, ducking and driving insane speeds.  The road rules are the same as in Poland whenever the road narrows to one lane – you are expected to move over as much as possible to let everyone pass and they do regardless of what is coming towards them and regardless of whether it is safe.  On this 4 lane highway we watch the crazies as we stay in our safe slow lane on the right.  This road houses a lot of small industry and we see car and bike wreckers, not with large yards but with all the parts stripped off the vehicles and housed in low level apartment buildings that have no windows or doors.  The buildings are small and narrow.  There are many different types of small businesses, but the most obvious thing here is the rundown state of everything and the rubbish that is strewn all over.  It look like pictures I have seen of Delhi and what I imagine it would be like there.  Scot says it reminds him of Fiji where everything is filthy and in tatters.

I am amazed and horrified I guess all at the same time at how this place looks.  People are parked and stopped everywhere and they don’t care.  We find the campsite and park up.  We saw a carpet place down the road and think maybe we can find a remnant to replace the carpet in the van to have something fresher, so we take a walk down the street.  It is a scary feeling as there is little place to walk that seems safe with the footpath littered with vehicles and all sorts of other things people have parked there.  The carpet is a no go and we decide to cross the road to the other side.  This sounds like a simple exercise, but in this country it is putting your life on the line.  People do not like to follow any rules here and so even through the light may show red and the traffic must stop, there are those who do not.  If you do not watch out they will just run you down.  It is quite a scary process and we cross back via an underpass but are confronted by motor bikes that think they have right of way there as well. Motorbike riders here are required to wear helmets by law, but from what we have seen most don’t.  They are travelling on this road outside the camp (with a speed of 60) without helmets, without any kind of gear and they are doing speeds that appear to be well over 100km.  You can watch in amazement as they weave in and out of traffic at high speed without a care figuring it won’t be them that has the accident.  Or you hear them from the van winding the throttle right out at full speed.  We have seen them on bikes with little kids in the front and on the back without helmets or any kind of protection either.  Life is not held in any esteem here.  It also appears that most don’t wear seatbelts again even though they are compulsory.

We head into a local supermarket to buy a couple of things and get fresh feta, olives and tomatoes for a Greek salad for tea and Greek yoghurt for my breakfast.  So delicious and cheap.  Back to the van for dinner.

Saturday 5th December

Off on the local bus in the morning at 9am.  We are told they go every 10 minutes but we wait over 20 so they obviously don’t run on time.  The buses here do not pull into bus stops they just stop in their lane and everyone has to walk out on the road to get on, so you often see people standing right out on the road waiting and watching for their bus.  We get ours and it is often a challenge to know which is the right stop to get off.  It is much easier in other countries but when things are in Greek it is a challenge.  Some things are in our alphabet as well but not all.  We get off at a stop that most other get off at and I am not sure if it is correct so I ask a couple.  No it is the wrong stop but is still ok as from here it is easy enough to get the metro to where we are going.  We have decided to do the free walking tour today to have a look around so we get off the train and head up.  Our first introduction to Athens as we stand on the side of the road is 3 African fellas doing a drug deal in plain sight of all and then a couple of minutes later on the steps to the first Greek style building we looked at there is a fella sitting on the steps with his tourniquet on shooting up.  Holy shit, I am now a bit concerned about this city and even more so when we walk to the end of a nearby mall and there are police with machine guns standing around.  I am not sure if Athens is still on any kind of alert after their bombing a couple of weeks ago, but our tour guide reckons not.

We meet up with our tour group which consists of about 25 mostly young people from many different countries and we head off having a look around.  It is cold in the wind but as we head out into the sunshine is quite a nice day.  The tour guide takes us past a few important buildings and we see a few ruins from a distance.  We walked through their botanical gardens (ex royal palace gardens) which the guide thought was very nice, but for us it was a very badly kept excuse for a garden.  Very overgrown and unkempt, sad really as I imagine they would have been very nice when in royal possession.  We walked around the bottom of the Acropolis which we will see properly tomorrow.  He took us through an interesting area of little narrow walkways and whitewashed houses which for me depicted what you imagine the islands in Greece would be like.  This guide doesn’t get paid by anyone and the tour is free but they say that if you enjoy it then they would be grateful if you paid money.  The guide, like tour buses, had his little haunts that he took us past.  One was a yogurt shop where he was given a free smoothie and we had free samples in the hope we would buy more.  We did buy yoghurt with cherries which was lovely.  We also went past a few other places he wanted to promote on the way.  As we walked around there were many stray dogs that up and followed you around the streets and there are many stray cats as well.  The dogs looked a little worse for the wear but unusually the cats were in better condition than we have seen them in other places.  In a few places though we saw the cats eating biscuits and tinned food, so someone is feeding the cats and possibly dogs around the city.

As the tour winds up he takes us through the market area which is an area with hundreds of little stalls all crowded in narrow streets.  All selling different stuff, from souvenirs to flea market style stuff, to clothes, food – really anything went.  We finished late and I was getting really tired.  He took us through all these back streets that were unbelievably dodge and I was thinking holy shit what are we in for here.  Half of the tour group had dropped off on the way and there were only 12 at the end.  He took us to a hostel where he said they had a great view over the city which was partly true.  It had a great view over a few other buildings in the area, but the city, I think not.  I was a bit cranky as we were in the middle of nowhere in a dodgy setting and I had no idea how to get back to the metro.  Athens is the first city I have felt that maybe we could be done over or pickpocketed due to the amount of people here.  Athens houses half the population of Greece – 5 million people and we can believe it from the throngs that we are seeing here.  We leave the hostel where we have literally been dumped and try to find our way out.  It is chaos and there are masses of people everywhere.  I am tired and feel a little uncomfortable where we are.  We end up in a main shopping street that is jammed packed with people and they are not even tourists.  Most here are locals out for the day.  I would hate to see this place when it is packed with tourists.  We manage to get past all the masses and out to a major cross road that I work out is our road back to the metro.  One thing that is really obvious and in your face here is that everything and I mean everything is covered in graffiti.  They even tag beautiful historical buildings and ruins.  It seems that nothing is exempt and the city does nothing to remove the graffiti.

On the way back we stop at a phone shop and get a sim for the tablet.  I doubt somehow that the coverage is going to be good as I doubt Greece cares very much if the other half of the population outside Athens gets phone coverage on not.  We find the metro, travel two stops and get on the next bus going past the camp.  We get back and we are both unbelievably tired.  We have done quite a few cities but don’t remember when we were both this tired.  We lie down and rest up for a couple of hours before dinner.  We were both feeling like maybe we don’t want to go back into that horrendous bustle of a city and battle the crowds as we were so glad to get out, but we haven’t seen the ruins up close so that is really a priority for tomorrow.

Sunday 6th December

Up and off on the same bus as yesterday.  We change to the metro and head to the Acropolis.  The mass of tourists won’t be there this early so hopefully it will be a more peaceful experience.  We walk up to the ruins and what a blessing, today it is open for free.  Great stuff no payment.  We head in and are really quite in awe of such magnificent structures.  They have scaffolding on most of these ruins as they are trying to stabilize them and stop them deteriorating further.  Some parts have been removed and preserved in the museum and replica parts put in their place that are identical.  You wouldn’t really know the difference.  In some places they have had to insert newly made pieces to help keep parts together but it’s ok as they help show you what these places were like.  There aren’t masses here so its good that we get some people free photos.  The views over the city are amazing here and the city stretches out for miles in every direction.  Most buildings are white so it’s difficult to see where one starts and another finishes.  As we walk around we see what appears to be a building on fire.  Thick black smoke pours out the top of possibly an apartment block in the distance and we wait and watch and listen for a siren, which doesn’t happen for at least 20 minutes.

We run into a couple of the American girls that were on the tour yesterday.  Scot wishes he was 30 years younger and single as they are both really lovely girls.  They are studying at Uni in Amsterdam but must be finished for the year as they are due to fly home next week.  We spend quite a bit of time here at Acropolis and looking at the Parthenon as they really are quite spectacular and they are really the only reason we came to Athens.  Personally I wouldn’t have come here for anything else as it is not a city I would care to return to.  After these ruins we head away to find a large area where there is another temple – temple of  Hephaestus and Ancient Agora plus multiple ruins that you can walk amongst.  After these ruins we head into the market area where we walk past multiple cafes and into the throng of market shops that really I dread to be amongst.  Scot spies a leather jacket store and as we finish off a pita bread he heads in to see what they have.  He has wanted a leather jacket since we started travelling so he checks out what they have.  He finds one he fancies and the salesman is keen for a sale so he discounts by 30% and he gets himself a sale.  He reckons it is made in the UK but I am a little wiser and doubt very much it is made anywhere near the UK, more likely Romania or Bulgaria where a lot of goods are made with cheaper labour.

It is time to head away.  We don’t want to be in this city after dark, I am uncomfortable here and do not like the looks we are given as we walk the streets.  We find a metro station and know we can travel one stop and get on another line that will take us to the bus station.  This train is already jammed packed and there are many people needing to get on so we all squeeze in and when I say squeeze I mean just that.  I have no room to move and as I stand squished between many people I feel my bag move.  I grab for the zip and it has been partly pulled open.  There is nothing I can do to look for who may have done this and I do not want to try and open it further to see if they have managed to take anything so I hang onto it as best I can with the crush and we get out at the next stop.  A lady beside me has apparently said something to a fella behind me who throws his hands up like ‘what, it’s not me’ and she said something to me but it’s in Greek so I have no idea.  I think she knows what was going on.  Outside the train I check my bag and my wallet is still there but I reckon it was close.  I did have partially hold of my bag but just not quite where the zip was and I had been holding onto my pocket that my camera was in but shit these people will try anything.  I am happy to be out of the squash and the next train isn’t so bad.  We get off and wait for the bus.  Now I am double suspicious of anyone that stands or sits near me.  I really can’t wait to leave this city which has not impressed me one little bit and head out to the countryside.  I only hope it is better  away from here or I think we may be heading away sooner than not.

Back at the van and we run into the French man who is parked beside us.  He was on our bus.  We have a part English, part French conversation and discover that he spent 3 months in NZ and 3 months in Australia a couple of years ago travelling around.  He is on his own and I always feel sorry for anyone I see travelling in a van on their own as I reckon it would be a rather lonely journey.  I often wish we had seats and a table that we could invite people like him in for a drink but I could not handle pulling the bed down everyday only to have to make the bed back up at night before bedtime.  Plus, there is nowhere to put our bedding really.  Anyway back to the van, dinner and an early night.  Tomorrow we are off somewhere a little nicer and quieter than the city.

Actually as we sit watching the news tonight we see a lot of rioting that appears to be happening in Athens as we watch, so I check out the internet to see what is happening.  The train stations were locked down this afternoon and we had to go to a different station as our ones were locked down ones.  We wondered why, but it was because protests were happening on the anniversary of some teenager who got killed years ago.  The fire we saw burning earlier today was in fact the start of the riots not far from where we were and it was close to where we walked through yesterday.  The protests got out of hand and Molotov cocktails were thrown and teargas was put amongst the crowd.  I am glad we are leaving here tomorrow as the city screams of very unhappy people and unrest.

SPLIT, SLOVENIA AND THE FERRY TO GREECE

Thursday 26th November

Wow 12.30 check out so a whole half day of luxury so we make the most of it. Vicki is into the gym by 8.00 and, because my back is still sore, I get to the pool at 8.30 and Vicki joins me after her workout. After a swim, sauna, shock pool and aroma steam ahhhh we are scoffing ourselves as if this is the last breakfast for a while which it probably will be. When we check out the price of the room has jumped from 717K to 792k so we argue that we had established the price and they say that maybe 717k sounded like 770k but this doesn’t gel cos it still doesn’t sound like 792k! So we get our way with no hostility as they really are a friendly hotel. We retrace our steps from the way up and make our way back to Trpanj along the coast but this time I am driving so Vicki can admire the scenery. We are travelling along the inside of the road so nowhere the edge so she is more comfortable. Even though we have been this way and recognise it is still feels different and you see different things travelling in the other direction. Along the way where there are wineries we see grapes still on the vine but not enough to harvest and make vino so even though I want to stop and taste them we can’t find a safe spot and any way it might be seen as stealing. (later on at a market in Split we see where they are selling slightly over ripe grapes sort of like plump raisons so maybe they weren’t ready for harvest and keep them for this). We arrive at the ferry port of Trpanj just on dark and it was rainy and blowing a gale. We were going to stay at a closed camp out of town but the town is safe and there is a good park next to a truck right next to where everybody lines up for the ferry and we are sure there will be no worries. We have a coffee at a small café with a fire going but everyone is smoking and for us not a great atmosphere so move on to a little bar just opening so no one has arrived so I have a beer with a clean atmosphere. Back to the van and watched the ferry come in and take away the last passengers for the nite. Early next morning the ferry wakes us (sort of) coming into port and we are loaded and away by 6.45am. A hot coffee/cappuccino for brekky  with a croissant and an hour later we are at Ploce.  It is cold and rainy and we enquire at the ferry office about getting the ferry from Split to Ancona. She says that the reservations are full but not everyone has paid so we should be able to get on. We ask if we can go on a reserve list but no. She says the best thing is to go to the office in Split when we get there. It won’t let Vicki do it on line so we hope for the best but we don’t really have a choice. We again drive the same route back to Split but it does feel different.  It is really blustery and we see small waterspouts out on the sea. The weather is clear so visibility is real good and the view is fantastic. The sight of huge rocky islands rising out of the sea is dramatic and it is what this part of the Adriatic is famous for. We stop at a new café/bakery and from inside we see the van rocking and rolling in the gusts outside and hope it doesn’t take of haha.

We have made good time and get into the campground around midday, park up in a place closer to the sea even though it is not in the sun and we get two loads of washing done. It is always a relief to do this and though Vicki I know is tempted to do it tomorrow as stripping the bed , washing, drying etc can take up a couple of hours for a change I say get it done then we have tomorrow with no plans other than to suss out ferry tickets.  When we were checking in a couple who were on the internet say hey is that an aussie or kiwi accent?’ We reply that we are kiwis as this has become a standard answer travelling but do say we are kiwaussies. We get a laugh and find they are from Northern NSW so we figure they are nearly Queenslanders. Vicki was later chatting to Garrie and found out they are also travelling for 12 months but have just started so she mentioned we had some maps we didn’t need any more so we took them over to him and his partner Julie along with books that we have both read as we know that it is neat to get English books. We ended up chatting till midnight with a couple of coffees and chippies and had a great chat. It is fantastic when you can meet people for the first time and hit it off as if you are old mates. I think we all have friends that remind us of other friends and being from the other side of the world we have a lot in common. It got real weird when we found out another couple that had left the day before knew Rob & Sue that we have befriended previously. A very small camping world indeed.

We had a bit of a sleep in and after brekky we caught up with Garrie and Julie who were also heading into Split so decided to go together on our bikes. We had a map but nothing is as easy as it seems and we ended having a pretty tough & hilly ride about 8-10ks to town. The weather was just beautiful with no wind and blue skies. Lots of families were out on their Saturday picnics and about a kilometre of seaside cafes, amusements and parks gave them the most beautiful setting.

We finally found our way to the port office to see if we could get on the ferry. They just told us to be there at 7.30pm the next nite in case there was a cancellation. She told us there was no standby list that it was just a case of turning up just before the ferry left to see if there was some extra room. So we all head over the old town and had a look around and a meal & bevvy at a small kebaby type café.  We thought Split would be a bit ‘cityish’ and busy but this part was really cool and we enjoyed an hour of wandering.  The town centre has quite a few ruins that look a little like they belong to Greece but they were definitely worth the look.  Garrie & Julie had explored the day before so it was great to have tour guides. We would have loved to look around further and especially to climb the Bell Tower but it was closed and, as it is winter it is best to not linger because it gets dark so quickly and early, so we got on our bikes to head home what seemed to be a  bit early. As it was we got back at 4pm and it was getting dark. Unfortunately the peddle on Vicki’s bike had come off and I tried to a quick fix and only succeeded in breaking the peddle so Vicki had to bike without a peddle which was a real pain in the butt. Hopefully we can get it fixed but really along with the rooted gears maybe better to trade or ditch. A very busy day and a good nights sleep awaits. Still up in the air about if we can get the ferry but tomorrow is another day.

In the morning and move our camper to a location that is right by the sea and has more sun to do a bit of a quick spring clean before we head off to the ferry.  We have a chat with our newly made friends and Scot decides he has to have a swim in the ocean before we head away.  The dust inside the camper builds up so quickly and is hard to keep away so it is always nice to see it fresh and dust free if only for a few hours.  The time flies by and before we know it the time is almost 3 and we need to pay and leave.  We say our goodbyes to Julie and Garrie and hope to catch up with them in Spain before they head to Morocco.  We drive to the ferry terminal where we were yesterday and try to figure out where we can park.  Scot stays in the van and I go in to find out if there are any cancellations yet.  A bitchface blonde (Scot’s words) wasn’t helpful at all and told me we had to come back at 7.45pm and no sooner so Scot went in another way and talked to another lady. He gave her the Hood charm and smiles and got a bit further but still was told to come back tonight at 7.00pm. He asks if we can put our names down as first cab on the rank but got the standard reply be there at 700pm. They tell Scot we can park in the queue through the gate behind the other camper which we recognise as one that left the camp ground earlier this afternoon.  Apparently they don’t have tickets either and we wonder now who has priority to get on first since we have been asking for 3 days but they got there first today?

Anyway, we have a walk around and about 6pm we see the other camper people sitting inside so we decide that we need to make ourselves seen inside too so head in.  Scot goes and asks if there is any change and she says no that we are first cab off the rank, until another lady tells her we are second not first.  About 7pm nothing is happening but I am getting pissed off that it appears that there are others now in the queue – that we were told didn’t exist – so I quiz the lady who then proceeds to tell me we are now 4th in line.  I can’t figure it out and express my dissatisfaction at being pushed down the queue when we have been asking for 3 days now – but I get the sense they think we are English and I feel there is some contempt there.

8pm and the ferry should be leaving and we hear ‘Cars, no campers’ called out.  The two car people are happy and get their tickets and head on board.  I am ‘Not Happy Jan’!!  However we had been talking and decided that since it didn’t look likely to get on it would actually be much cheaper for us to just get the ferry from Trieste like we had originally planned so that will be out next move.  As we left the other camper couple appeared to be trying to cajole the ladies into getting them on but we don’t know what happened.  We headed back to the camp for a last night.

We head out early as we want to try and get to Slovenia before night fall.  We take the opposite roads to how we travelled down which is what we were wanting to do originally, so we take the highway to Zadar which only costs only about 12euro which isn’t bad and then take the coast road all the way to Rjieke.  This road is a great drive, good road and only a little traffic and the best scenery in Croatia really.  It isn’t a fast drive as the road has lots of horseshoe bends with drops to the sea so slow and sure wins the day.  It doesn’t take long and as we near Rjieke some of the coastal mountains show snow on them down quite a reasonable way so it has obviously snowed along this stretch since we passed about 10 days ago.  As we head into Slovenia and drive off the highway onto a road that will take us back to Koper (to the great cheap campstop we previously stayed at before) the sun has gone and we can see snow and ice off to the side of the road.  It is cold here and there must have been a good snow fall for it to still be around.  I take it easy on the road as it almost looks a bit greasy or icy and we don’t think it has seen much sun.

We arrive at Koper.  We are very fond of this place and are quite pleased to have the opportunity to be back here again.  Although it is right on a very busy highway it hasn’t bothered us before and we don’t notice the traffic this time either.  The ferry from Trieste doesn’t leave until  the morning after tomorrow at 4.30am and we find out that the ticket office isn’t open until midnight so we don’t have to leave here early, but we want to arrive in daylight to make it easier so late afternoon will be fine.

We head into town next morning to a café we know does great coffee and have a bit of a wander.  We find a sports shop that is selling cheap runners and we know we will both need new ones soon so have a look.  We both manage to get a pair for about 40 euro – both asics that we know are around $220 in Aussie so a bargain.  Time is getting away so we head back to the van, pack up and off to Trieste.  As we head over the border the smog get worse and seemingly in typical Italian style that we have experience in that country there is heaps of pollution and it is awful.  We find the port and drive down to the office.  We are told it is closed until midnight, so we park in the queue and sit out the long 7 hour wait until we can buy tickets and then wait another 4 hours until we leave.

At midnight we head to the ticket office.  Our previous plan was to take a ferry from Split to Ancona, a ferry from Ancona to Patras and then another ferry from Patras back to Ancona ready to go to Spain.  The guy does us a fantastic deal where because we book an open ticket back to Ancona and because we have a camper we get a free room so we can sleep and 30% off any meals plus I can still use my uni student card and get a major discount for my ticket.  The total price of the return trip we pay for is 800euro less than we would have paid for the other 3 ferry trips – a massive aud1300 saving just by driving to Trieste.  I am happy with that as we are just a bit over budget so this saving is great. And we are also grateful we didn’t get on the ferry at Split.

We manage to stay awake until 3.30 when we board the ferry.  There are hardly any vehicles leaving from here and the ferry is very empty at this point.  We head to our room which is an inside cabin with shower and toilet and two single beds.  Fantastic, much better than sleeping in an aircraft seat which was our other option.  We hit the hay and at least manage a few hours sleep before announcements wake us to say we are in Ancona.  Eventually we get up and check out Ancona where we are docked for about 3 hours.  They must have loaded heaps of trucks as when we go to leave the ship the deck that we are parked on that was empty is chokka.  We have a smooth sailing which is great.  We head up on deck to check out the pool….lol.  It is empty and is dreadful looking so maybe it hasn’t been used for a while.  There isn’t anything happening on the boat other than a few people playing pokies and a limited menu put on in the café at meal times.  Staff are on a skeleton schedule by the limited amount we see.  We spend all day up in the lounge watching the scenery and reading until tea time.  The meals are unfortunately ordinary and expensive so we choose the best of it but wish we could get down to the campervan to cook our own.  They actually don’t allow you to go back to your vehicle during the voyage and I can understand why.  When we head to the van the next afternoon, just trying to slide between the trucks to get to our van is a nightmare.  Walking between the front and back of a truck is hairy as there is no room for movement or you would be crushed.  So if that happened whilst on the ocean you would be mince meat.  Unpleasant even when we are in dock.  They park the trucks so close that we can’t even slide between some of them.

We end our first night watching a movie on the laptop in our little cabin.  A reasonable nights sleep and we get up when we hit Igoumenitsa.  This place is difficult to remember at first so we nickname it ‘Eat all my pizza’ as it is similar and works for us.  We watch the first cars and trucks and a bunch of teenagers leave the ship and this little town actually looks really quite cute.  We may change our plans again and get back on the ferry here instead of Patras if we feel the roads are ok to travel on.  Woohoo, finally in Greece – country no. 24.

Our experience on this ship is a fairly ordinary one, but we know this company is owned by Grimaldi lines who are renowned for not great, dirty unkempt ships in Europe perhaps lacking a bit of safety.  Our room was ok, the beds clean, the bathroom clean but the common toilets were disgusting, the sofas uncomfortable and in bad shape and the staff really didn’t appear to be very happy at all, but hey we were only on there for 36 hours so it was fine.

After breakfast and another 5 hours and we dock in Patras.  We are almost last off our deck as there are heaps of trucks first.  Driving through Patras it appears as if it is a typical port town.  Dirty, rubbish everywhere and just a generally unkempt rundown city.  The countryside is similar to Croatia, not quite as rocky, but mountainous and barren.  The roads are badly in need of repair, that we have seen on our short time here so I doubt we will be travelling to all the places we have thought of.  We are still a little tired from our 4am morning so we decide it isn’t worth travelling too far so I have picked a small camp half an hour out of Patras where it will only take us a few hours to get to Athens tomorrow.  The camp has a few dogs that are very bark happy but the labby is a lovely girl despite her barking habits.  We sit and have a drink in the fading sun.  I do some research thinking maybe we could spend a couple of days on Santorini or Mikonos leaving the van at Athens but most places are closed and even those that are open I am not sure how you get meals as there are few taverns etc open.  I think it is too hard so we will have to come back to see the Greek Islands at a later date in our lives at a more suitable time, not in the summer and not in the winter!  We get wifi for the first time in a few days and we find out we have a new baby grandson born a few days before, how cool.  It’s times like this that it is a shame we are away from home, but we will see photos and hopefully Skype home so we can see our new Grandson.

We could have bought wifi on the ship but I am still in shock at how pathetic it was.  4euro for 4mb….yes 4 mb of data.  That wouldn’t even receive an email these days, I am in a WTF mode.  Or you can get 8mb of data for 8euro or for the princely sum of 11euro you can get 12mb of data.  I think this data must be from 10 years ago as no one in their right mind would pay that kind of money for that pittance of data, again I say WTF!!!

Oh dear we have just realised why we got the 3rd degree on the first border crossing between Slovenia and Croatia.  We had breached the Schengen agreement NZ has with Slovenia unknowingly but my innocent bluff (I didn’t know I was doing that at the time) meant they let us through, but we would have been classified as illegal overstayers in Schengen and then travelling back through Slovenia two days ago was another breach.  Thank goodness we are ok where we are now.  I thought I knew the rules thoroughly but I missed the rules of 4 countries that we should never have been allowed into.  Lucky!

DUBROVNIK, CROATIA

Saturday 21st November

For us we left early at 9.30 as we had to catch the 2.15 ferry at Ploce. It was a very peaceful and pleasant drive and the coast road was picturesque and as Vicki was driving I got to sit back and enjoy the scenery. There were little seaside villages along the way but we really only get to glimpse them as there is always a road going down to them as the main road travels above them on a higher ‘coast’ road. It is a bit annoying as we are sure they would be neat to look at but probably not much to see and too hard to get down to with the campervan. One place looked real neat at the start and I would have loved to stop for a coffee but too early. It is surrounded by huge mountains and a river and quite quaint, with a sort of a pass way gorge to the interior. Maybe we will stop there on the way back to split. We arrived into Ploce around lunchtime got our tickets for the ferry and had a coffee. Coming into Ploce we passed a bunch of lakes and I think this is a tourist attraction in the summer and the geography is interesting. But as we get close to Ploce it seems to contradict itself with, being a busy inland port, expectations of modern facilities and infrastructure but it is very dingy and run down. In fact there is a decidedly hideous and architecturally bizarre housing that looks like something out of Mad Max v Logans Run. Everything seems to smack of the old days but when you consider the hard times in the Yugoslav wars and the subsequent splitting of the countries it is understandable and a little sad but at least there seems to be happier times now even if some of the wealth hasn’t reached here yet.

We boarded the ferry which wasn’t full and a very modern and clean it was and we had a misty rainy trip for an hour to the peninsula port of Tripanj. Managed to have a cappuccino and a beer (no prizes to guess who had what). We got off the ferry and had a short stop to sort out our journey down to Dubrovnik(I will call Dub). Vicki’s original plan was to take the short 10k journey to Orebic where she had found a campsite but it was a little bit in reverse of the way to Dub but the weather was wet and windy and the roads were narrow and dodgy. Also we would have been travelling on the cliff side and the Armco barriers were very low and only bolts holding them in. I know it sounds paranoid but sometimes it is just not worth it, especially in inclement weather, and some risks are worth taking and some aren’t. Luckily we have the advantage of street view on the tablet with google maps so we can physically see them (along with potential parking places) and make a decision. Since it doesn’t really change any plans except make it easier as we are heading in the direction of Dub we decide to take the left and not the right turn. How this will influence our journey we will never know (sliding doors syndrome) but the decision is made and we continue in the rain and wind.

Again the afternoon is quickly coming to an end and by 4pm it is starting to get dark so we are on the lookout for a potential overnight stop. I have the advantage of Google and can see what is coming up and when you convert to satellite you can see the lay of the land which is fantastic finding carparks, forests and space to park up where it looks safe. So we turn into a small village called Drace and park in a carpark right on the small harbour. By this time it is really blustery and rainy, the little boats are bobbing like crazy in the water and all the houses, cafes and buildings are shuttered up and seem deserted. We take our bikes out and settle in for the night only disturbed by the comings and goings of a few locals checking on their boats but they seem oblivious to us. Funny enough we feel more content and safe here than some campgrounds and sleep well. We do feel very safe here in Croatia, I get the feeling that they are a respectful and proud people and despite or because of their past history and hardship are not a frivolous or false people and on the whole have better things to do than be petty criminals.

The weather is a little better in the morning and we continue on our way on the narrow roads across the peninsula where it changes from inland to seaside roads punctuated by lots of wineries which are closed except for a few. The land here is a harsh provider and the vines are very stunted and gnarly but I bet they provide the most tasty grapes and subsequent wine and liquors. The vineyards are situated on every available hillside that faces towards he most sun and are terraced using the abundant rocks which I feel make up 80% of the soil so can only imagine the amount of hard labour that goes into producing any small area of production. The villages are not always pretty but are functional and I understand that scarce money can’t always be spent to make the outside look ‘nice’ for us tourists. I get the feeling they are probably one hell of a lot more happy than kiwis & aussies that are obsessed with keeping up with the Jones’s and spending big for no real gain.

We continue the spectacular coast drive to Dub and look out over the Adriatic to the islands with the sea truly sparkling in the afternoon sun. It is beautiful and I can totally agree with the hype over this area and I am glad we have made the effort considering the difficulties getting here without going through Bosnia and the highway. We pass the most beautiful bays where the lucky few reside or can holiday at the huge resorts that seem to occupy a whole bay. I suspect that the locals may resent them but it does bring in $$ and employment.  We can only dream of staying at these but dream nevertheless. We approach Dub and the road looks down at the city and the huge suspension bridge that you have to enter by. We stop at the lookout to take the obligatory photos and as us hardcore campers do take the opportunity to empty the toilet at the portaloo as there is no camper horror more terrible than a full potty!! We also take the time to find the best route to the camping ground we are planning to stay outside even though they are closed.  In a place like Dub where parking is at an absolute premium even a closed ground is gold and after a disastrous attempt to get to the old town and see if there is a park (more chance of winning lotto) we get to Camp Solitudo which lives up to its name as there is no one here and we find a park outside in an actual new camping park. We figure that since there are no signs saying we are not allowed to stay during the closed season then we will find a pitch for the night.

We lock up and walk into the old town which is 4km way and a pleasant walk and being Sunday quiet with little traffic. The old town is surrounded by a wall and looks really cool and is small compared to others we have explored. Outside the walled city we are approached by a young chap who, with his band, are touring Europe and are selling their own CD to raise money to play in Vienna next month. We have a nice, informative chat (they are from Parnu in Estonia where we have been) and help their fundraising effort by buying one after hearing a song on their Samsung tablet. It sounds ok so hope the rest is good to listen to. We couldn’t resist asking how many tablets they have gone through given our experience! Entering the city we are surprised that it is not similar to others. It looks clean and new looking sought of like a theme park attraction but it is genuine so maybe they have done a lot of renovations. It has wide main thoroughfares and not as many shops but it is now the off season so to be expected. We wander around and there is evidence of buildings being reno’d and because all the buildings are beautiful stone and none are painted there is absolutely no shabbiness which adds to the unreal look for something so old. There are still cute alleyways where people live with a few shops and restaurants but maybe we were spoilt or influenced by Venice but all seems a tad sterile. Somehow now I appreciate the originality of the other old towns we have seen which at first impression I see as shabby and a bit rundown but reflect the real world. Maybe it is better when bustling in summer.

We find a small Cliffside bar and though a bit exy for Croatia it has the best view and the coast today is blustery so enjoy the waves crashing as we saviour our first drink of the day. On the way to the old town we have noticed a huge 5 star hotel which overlooks the bay and curls around it so nearly every room has a view like the ones we saw in the way in. We drool at the pool but today it has waves crashing into it and is now closed for winter. We end up getting the local bus back to base to save our legs for $6aud. We had decided not to eat out as we have food we have to cook as we do not waste anything if we can help it. Vicki gets on the net and checks out the Rixos hotel we saw just for fun and find out the reviews are really good and only 600kuna(about $120aud) for a night in the cheapest room including buffet breakfast and the use of indoor pool, sauna, shock pool, aroma steam room, gym and mineral pool. We look at our timetable and figure we can afford the time and $$ to spend a night and finally have our long awaited wedding anniversary that we have planned to have but have not found anywhere we hope it is worth it. We see other offers from different agencies but decide to go to the hotel in the morning see what they can offer and more importantly whether we can park our van there. It is no use getting a night then find there is no parking and no refunds.

We are pleasantly surprised when we can stay in a superior suite with king size bed and sea views for 700kuna ($140.00aud) and we can park out the front We accept and get our stuff from the van farewell Morrison the Van for the night happy in the knowledge that he is ritzing it as well! We are shown to our room on the 9th floor and the staff are exceptionally friendly and we are happy with our decision to have our first night out in Europe in 8 months. We are shown to our room which is beautiful and we look at each other with huge grins on our faces as we sit on the most comfy bed and look out over the Adriatic Sea to the old town and islands we saw yesterday from the Cliffside bar. And to top it off management send up a bottle of bubbly to celebrate our belated anniversary. What are wonderful gesture and makes spending a part of our careful budget on a bit of luxury. We spent a wonderful 2 hours in total swimming in the 36c pool followed by a 15 minute sauna, plunge cold pool, mineral pool then 20minutes in an aroma steam room another plunge and mineral swim then back to the room for a drink on the deck and a small snooze for me while Vicki takes advantage of the internet.

We decide to check out the buffet or A La Carte for dinner as a treat and though not expensive compared to anywhere else is still $40aud each but what the hell we deserve it and I for one gorge myself silly!! I wonder how they can have a buffet when there are only 8 people eating including us but halfway through a horde of inevitable tour bus Asians tramp in, take over and cough, hoik and talk loud so now we see why. It is interesting that the next night there is no buffet as there are no numbers to warrant it. We retire for the night and wake up not touching each other for the first time in ages in a bed the size of our van.

Vicki is totally refreshed and revelling in a real bed but funny enough I have woken up to a crook back which I get now and then usually being an idiot on the diving board or camp trampoline and ironic considering the bed but probably from the stretching and swimming from the water pools and sauna yesterday. So I take inflammatory pills after a mega buffet brekky which had fruit, cereals, hot and cold buffet, croissants, chocolate  pastries etc etc so had an hour relax then back to the pools for another two hours. Yes by now we had decided to rearrange our schedule and spend another 2 days as this is too good to leave and it doesn’t hurt our travels as we now realise we will probably be spending less time in Greece after research has shown a lot is closed and we will spend more time in Southern Spain. At 5.0 we head into town towards the old town to have pizza as they are so yummy over here, real crispy base and tasty at a good price as we share. We find a small pizzeria and have our favourite Capricciosa – tomato, cheese, ham and mushrooms, sometimes with artichokes- with a Greek salad wine and beer for $30.00aud. Back to our room watch tv as there are English channels have a drink then cuddle up away from each other due to the football field size bed. We wake refreshed but my back is still a little sore and not up to a gym session so I pursue a comfy position in the now my best friend bed and Vicki goes off in her Lorna Janes for a gym workout, the first in over 8 months. She comes back revitalised but at least I am sitting up by now watching BBC,CNN & Euronews as well as the odd roadrunner v wile e coyote cartoon. Today is a repeat of yesterday and as I write this we will be heading out to the pizzeria.  The only bit of excitement is when we left the sauna put on our bathrobes and slippers and went to the pool to leave our towels. Vicki commented that I was wearing her slippers but I said no as I hang my robe on the right and she on the left outside the sauna (this is our 3rd time and routine is important something we have learnt in the van) We don’t think much of it until we look at each other and her robe is to her ankles and mine is around my knees and I discover the door card in MY pocket! We try the door and our card doesn’t work and we can’t get into our room. Funny enough this is the first time that Vicki has taken both cards with her IN the cover that has our room number on it. She is so security conscious and normally she would take only the door card with no indication of what room we are in. We have visions of someone getting our card while we are relaxing and stripped our room then put the card (or different ones) back in the wrong robe pocket.  Somehow our robes have been switched on the hanger outside the sauna and now we can’t get into our rooms. Panic. I know it sounds a bit paranoid but in our room are our wallets, cards, Passports, Tablets and basically all our vital things and a robbery would mean the end of our travels.  We have felt that it is all secure as it is also the low season. We go to reception and they get us new cards and we reopen our room and everything is ok, what a relief. The only explanation is someone has gone to put our robes on thinking they are theirs (unusual considering we only saw one couple and a single guy use the facility), realise their mistake and put them back wrong, along with our card electronically failing at the same time. A relief but weird. Or someone was f**king with us and switched robes which is hard to fathom. Never mind all k in the end.  (Actually after Scot wrote this he realised that maybe he had picked up my robe by mistake after the pool so maybe it wasn’t someone switching our robes after all, but it was still strange that our cards didn’t work in the room.  We think they may have thought we were only staying 2 nights in total and not 3 and locked our cards out during the day).

I felt so silly going to reception in a bath robe and slippers to have to explain that our room cards weren’t working anymore and we were worried about what had happened at the spa, but since there essentially isn’t anyone else staying here other than 3 more couples it was ok and no one saw us.  After that episode we calmed down and I worked on some computer work I needed to get done and Scot sat outside with his pencils and did some sketching of the picturesque scenery from our room.  We went down to the same place for dinner to have pizza and Greek salad which was so nice.  we am looking forward to having some real Greek salads in Greece when we get there.

No one turned up to do a turn down and give us choccies tonight so I think they definitely think we have gone.  I can only hope they only charge us 2 nights stay as well – wouldn’t that be good!  Our last night of luxury.  In the morning it will be a reasonably early rise, off to the gym for a bit of a workout (mostly due to the large brekkies we are enjoying) then a swim, maybe a steam or quick sauna before showering, breakfast and off.  Don’t know what checkout time is but since no one is staying here I am sure they won’t mind if we leave a little late.