Zaragoza-Salou, Spain

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Time to leave the west coast of Spain and head east. The change in scenery is very distinct as we leave the coast and head inland. Whereas the coast was lush and green, surrounded by mountains, the inland is very flat and sparse. Reminds me of the scenery in the old western movies. Still beautiful though. Drove to the city of Zaragoza which is pretty much in the middle (at the top) of Spain. Caravan guide book sent us on another wild goose chase but eventually (after more narrow city street experiences) found our park. Quite new campsite with very good facitilites. Zaragoza is a town with a 2000 year history and lots of interesting things to see from the Roman era but we only stayed a night as we were keen to reach the east coast.

We don’t seem to be having much luck with the GPS and Spanish addresses as every caravan park search has been a drama. Our next one was no different. All are great when we finally arrive but some hairy moments beforehand.

Our next stop is Salou, a couple of hours south of Barcelona on the Mediterranean. Before we find the site we want, a heavy downpour hits and the poor drainage system overloads. The roads are swamped and flooding. Trevor manages to do a u-turn in the middle of a busy street so we don’t have to drive through flood waters. We finally find a ‘caravan park’ – if you can call it that. We are staying at the Sanguli Salou – a very luxurious, well equipped camping ‘resort’. This is very much like the Gold Coast but larger – lots of English tourists. The campsite is great and we’ll probably stay for a week before heading north and back into France. We are making great use of our bikes. Salou has great bike paths that follow the coast so the scenery is great. Trevor particularly enjoys some of the ‘scenery’ on the beaches. At the moment a lot of our fellow campers are from the Netherlands. They seem to be everywhere. This park which is huge has lots of family groups too but generally we are finding at the moment the parks are fairly quiet. Apparently things get really busy in July and August when most countries have their summer school hols. Of course we are fortunate, too, that not being holiday time the prices of parks are not so high. As an example, the resort we are staying at which has grocery story, doctor, shop, 3 pool areas with water slides etc, takeaway shop, restaurant etc all on 24 hectares, costs us 31 euro a night (that is a for site, 3 people, 1 car and electricity). But as from 1/8/11, the price jumps to 70 euro a night for the same facilities. Think it was a good move to come to the continent first and then do UK afterwards.

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Comments

[michelle rees]

Defnitely does not sound like the van holidays I'm used to! 5 star camping - i think I could convince Tim to do that one!!! nathan looks like he is having a ball!!! M