France, August 2010

Sunday August 1st

Three days into our trip to France and I find myself in a camp site in Normandy in the town of Arramanches. My travelling companions are my wife and navigator Chrissy, and my 15 year old daughter Madeleine who is particularly good at devouring books on holiday in a way I can only aspire to. We are travelling in the Outlook Romahome which is designed to comfortably sleep two people but at a push can squeeze in three. Consequently we travel with one of those pop up tents so that Madeleine can experience the privacy that 15 year old girls desire.

Getting the Romahome on and off of the Dover to Calais Ferry crossing was no problem at all. Its much cheaper than taking the longer ferry from Portsmouth which takes you close to Normandy, although I must confess to wondering if that would be an option worth exploring in the future.

Partly in the name of breaking up a long journey South, but mostly out of pure interest, we have spent a couple of days around the site of the D day landings. We are camped at Arromanches, just a few hundred yards from the site of the famous artificial harbour that was built to enable the transfer of troops and equipment shortly after the first wave of the invasion that took place on June 6th 1944.





Two full days of military cemeteries and visits to such beaches as Juno, Utah and Omaha have left us duly inspired. As well as the American and English cemeteries, it was a rewarding experience to visit the German war cemetery too, but with the greatest respect, it is now time to leave the battlefields behind us and head towards what should (hopefully) be a warmer climate. Tomorrow we head off in the direction of Bordeaux, a drive of approximately 400 miles.

We arrived in France on Friday morning. Despite a likely total mileage in excess of 2000 miles on this holiday, it was the fear of the Dartford crossing (which is about ten miles from home) that caused us to wake at 4AM to catch the early ferry from Dover to Calais. In retrospect, I’m not convinced this was the best policy. I found myself extremely tired just an hour into the French side of the journey. Fortunately we have two drivers, so I was able to doze in the back of the van for an hour to get my strength back.

I awoke in time to see the spectacular bridge crossing at Le Havre over the river Seine. After pausing briefly for a photo opportunity, we made the short journey into the harbour town of Honfleur. This was a marvellous find and a visit is highly recommended. It’s extremely pretty and very arty with a number of artists plying their trade on the street. For some reason Honfleur was sparred any serious war damage and so has retained a unique architectural atmosphere.


We took the coastal road through to our campsite, which was slow going as it passes through several seaside towns. After crossing Pegasus Bridge we were at the start of the Normandy trail.

There is an early-ish night planned for tonight so we can hit the road and head south. We could do with some decent weather. The last few days have been cloudy at best. Although this was an appropraite way of seeing the D Day sights I feel we are in need of some sunshine.

Tuesday 3rd Aug

Yesterday was a driving day where we left Normandy and headed about 300 miles south reaching the Island of Isle De Re which is accessible by a bridge close to the town of La Rochelle (at a cost of 16 euros I might add).

We’ve clearly hit the peak holiday fortnight for the French. After a pretty good journey, we then spent two hours bouncing from one full campsite to another. We finally got the very last spot on a site called Les Grenettes. At 37 Euros a night, I expect more than the sandy pitch we are on. The toilet and washing block is tiny and there appears to be no tap for drinking water. Worst of all I can’t get the electric hook up to work despite the willing but useless help from a neighbouring Italian camper who had less idea than I did.




It’s close to a nice looking beach however, and so we will have a "do nothing" rest day today assuming it warms up a little. This is clearly going to be an expensive trip if the prices thus far are anything to go by. We will be heading further south tomorrow for the main part of the holiday. The weather better be worth it!

It’s now several hours later and I’m sitting outside the van after a hot day during which I swam in the sea and the onsite swimming pool. It’s possible that we are the only English people at the site. There was a lovely moment earlier where Chris and I stepped out to go to the site shop, when a young lad of about six pulled up on his bike and asked us a question in French. I tried to get him to understand that we couldn’t speak the lingo and that we were from England. He looked at us like we were mad, repeated his question a few times and then road off. We really ought to have a command of the language, It’s terribly rude of us.

No progress on the electricity front. I tested our cable out on the Italian’s van and it all worked fine. Possibly something amis with the supply that our UK based wiring objects to. I’ll see what happenes at the next site. With temperatures and expenses likely to be high, and eating out so expensive. a fridge is a must.

Wednesday 4th August

Well here’s something new. Looks like we will be spending the night in a car park! Rather than head south immediately, we decided to spend some time looking at the town of St Martin on the Island before leaving. This is a lovely harbour town with quaint market shops and harbour side cafes. It was well worth the stop. By lunchtime we were back on the road with the intention of camping near to the city of La Rochelle, which is back on the mainland.

The book lists a few campsites but the only practical one was full. We decided to park in the town centre and then see what happens from there. Bad idea! We queued for an hour to get in a town car park that turned out (at the last minute) to have a height restriction in place. It was then we discovered that there was a campervan parking lot which (we think) allows all night parking for free. We parked in there and then walked into town.

After a good lunch in a harbour restaurant we made our way to the town’s main attraction, the Aquarium. Allegedly this is one of the largest in Europe. All I can confirm at this stage, is that the queues were the largest in Europe. We were advised that it would be a 90 minute queue and if we were able, it would be better to come back in the evening.

So it looks like we will be sleeping rough in the car park with no toilet facility other than the bush we are parked alongside. Doubtless we’ll have an early start tomorrow!

Thursday 5th August

An early start we did have. It worked pretty well in the camper van park but we hit the road and headed south at first light. The aquarium was certainly worth a look last night, although I would say that it is on a par with the London version.
We took a scenic coastal route stopping at the village of Talmont for a late breakfast. Talmont has an overnight parking facility for camper vans with very nearby toilet facilities. All for 4 euros per night.



The weather is really picking up and so we were keen to get to our main holiday location on Biscarrosse, which we first visited two years ago. We arrived in good time but once again had to play campsite tag as the crowds had followed us. We eventually found a spot on a very busy commercial site (run by the Campeole chain) at Navarrosse, where we booked a five night slot. It’s busy and noisy. It’s about a 15 minute drive to the beach which is not what we hoped for, but we’ve learned a lesson about seasonal timing! It works out at a very expensive 40 Euro’s per night. On the plus side it is located on the edge of a very swimable lake. I guess you can’t have it all!

Saturday 7th August

We’ve just spent two extremely hot days on a very crowded beach at Biscarrosse. The sea was of the rough sort that the ladies like and I tolerate just to be sociable. As the tide turned later in the afternoon it was just about safe enough for me to have a go at jumping the waves. Another home cooked meal this evening from Chrissy which left the aroma of curry swirling around the site.




Sunday 8th August
We’ve decided to have a chill out day around the site and the lake today. I can’t really be doing with another crowded beach. The nomadic spirit is also kicking in so we will check out one night early as it’s really not our sort of site. Hopefully we’ll find something a little quieter slightly further south for a few days (fat chance!)

Tuesday 10th August
It’s been an interesting couple of days with mixed fortunes. After checking out from the Bicarosse site we headed south to explore resorts further down the coast. The sleeping arrangements would once again be left to providence as nothing was booked.
We arrived in Minizan for breakfast and the inevitable gift shop trail. Nice place but it has nothing that Bicarosse doesn’t have.

The next port of call was Contis Plage which turned out to be a great find. We stumbled upon another of the Airre De Service campervan only sites. This one had the luxary of a toilet and shower! It was a short stroll (uphill) to the beach that had the type of waves that my lady companions have become accustomed to. It was also a stones throw to a small town of restaurants and bars. A really worthwhile stop. The site costs just 8 Euros per night which is a damm site better than what we have paid thus far. All in all it’s been a great day to add to the impressive collection we had already built up.




Then came today. It was always the plan to set off even further south towards the Spanish border to the city of Birritz. We took a senic route which was nice but slow (very slow). After a short stop to glance at yet another southern resort, we eventually mad it into Birriitz. Now I’m sure this is a nice place but I can not positively confirm this as we couldn’t actually get out of the car to examine the evidence. My wife tells me that there were some fantastic views as we crawled through the hill top coastal road, but I never saw more than a glimpse. There was nowhere for even our small camper van to park and there was no sign whatsoever of any campsites. The end result was that we pulled into a car park a few miles out of town and actually ate in McDonalds.

We’d been driving for something close to four hours. Clearly we were not going to make any progress in the area, so we headed for the motorway and made out way back to the the familiar area of Bicarosse. We'll just have to go back there one day (in June next time!)

Despite the trials of the day, it ended on a high as we stumbled upon a lakeside campsite (Camping Calede) about five miles out of Bicarosse that squeezed us in. The initial pitch on offer was horrible (next to one of those bowls sand pit things that the French are so fond of). After a gentle complaint, the site staff took pity and offered us a pitch next to a large wooden shed. It turned out that this shed had a bed in it and they said we could use it free of charge. I’m writing this sat just outside of it after a much needed swim in the lake.




This really is a great find and it came at just the right time as we were tired and patience was wearing a little thin. It’s a much quieter site than we have found elsewhere on this trip. Those French types really know how to make a noise when they all get together.

Tomorrow, we’ll make the most of the area and maybe split the day between the lake on the site and the beach at Bicarosse. After that we intend to head in the general direction of home stopping off at three places to spread the journey and give us some relaxation time to boot. What could possibly go wrong?

Wednesday 11th August

Well I suppose you could say that belting down with rain counts as going wrong. Not that it stopped the ladies from going in the sea at Bicarosse for a final dose of rough sea on this holiday. I’d already dipped into the lake on the campsite earlier so felt justified in giving the sea a bit of a miss. That said we can’t complain about the weather on this holiday, its been fantastic.

Saturday 14th August
We’re about 500 miles North of my last paragraph. We decided to make the long journey home in three stages. We left Bicarosse on Thursday and headed North towards the theme park of Futurscope. A pleasant enough journey in which we avoided the motorway tolls by using the national road. Futurscope is close by to the town of Poitier where we stopped off for a walk around and spot of lunch.

To give us a day without driving we spent all day Friday in the park. It’s nothing like the traditional Disney type theme park. Instead it’s an educational / environmental arrangement consisting of 3D cinemas and motion rides. There is also an evening show that makes use of projections on the lake. A pleasant but extremely long day. We entered the park at around 9:30 in the morning and didn’t get out until just before midnight. As part of the deal we had a room in an adjacent Campomile hotel. (I preferred the van bed to be honest). We were lucky to have spent the previous evening close by to the park in a municipal campsite (where we got the very last pitch).




As I write this, we are back pretty much where it all began in the Normandy town of Honfleur. There’s been some torrential rain on the journey which has resulted in us camping in a bit of a mud bath on a site close to the town. It is a short walk to the centre where there are plenty of bars and restaurants to pick from for our last evening. Tomorrow we’ve left ourselves a relatively easy drive to Calais for the return crossing scheduled for seven o’clock in the evening. It means we can have a casual morning before heading off (possibly to visit the scene of the battle of Agincourt.

Sunday 15th August

This is more like the sort of holiday I remember! Its about 9AM and its lashing down with rain. It’s our last day and we have to be about 175 miles away by 7 this evening. We’ve got the morning to please ourselves until a dry bit comes along that will give us a window to drop down the small tent that Madeleine is (still) sleeping in. (Although at the time of writing,there seems to be little prospect of a dry bit!)

We had a particularly good evening in Honfleur last night. A stroll around the harbour and backstreets was followed by a nice meal in an off street restaurant. This finished the holiday off nicely. Honfleur is a a great place place and I’d like to come back one day out of season. I wonder what it would look like at Christmas? There is a campervan park the other side of town they may well be open in the winter months so a December visit one year would not be out of the question.

Coming back out of season is a sentiment I can put in front of most locations we visited on this holiday. It really has been busy everywhere we went. I suspect all experienced Romahomers would know not to travel in the first few weeks of the school holiday, but this particularly seems to apply to France. We always found somewhere to stay but at times that was hard work.

We ought really to get to grips with the language too. Although last night we carried out the entire ordering process in the restaurant using a combination of badly pronounced French and pointing. We got pretty well what we ordered so it does work. I was useless at learning languages at school and this has generated a limiting belief in my ability to learn ever since. I think throwing ourselves into the deep end is the way to do it.

It could be a few years before we get back to this part of the world as my good lady travel planner is already thinking of Scandinavia and Italy as destinations for forthcoming trips. I’m certainly not learning Norwegian, so it would be a good use of time to learn some basic French as I suspect we will be coming back to various parts of the country over the coming years. It really is easy to get to and the road system is very impressive so I think we will have the confidence to travel here in later life.

Anyway,its time to get breakfast going and then to start packing down in the rain. If it clears up we will visit Agincourt on the way home. Signing off now, England tonight and work tomorrow!

Tuesday 17th August

What a crossing! The ferry from Calais to Dover was extremely rough. We had spent a casual day visiting the site and museum of the battle of Agincourt. It’s only an hour away from Calais and so if you like that sort of thing, it makes an ideal way of filling in time before a ferry crossing.




As I drove towards Calais, I noticed that the van was rocking far more vigourously than usual. The wind was certainly picking up which gave us an idea that we might be in for a rough ride to Dover!

Once on the (delayed) ferry, the announcement came over the tannoy that despite a couple of goes at it, the ship did not have the power to safely get out of port in this weather. A tug boat had been summoned to pull us out, which would take a little longer to organise.

We eventually rocked and rolled our way into the port of Dover after staying firmly in our seats throughout the entire crossing to avoid motion sickness or tumbling down the corridors.

The delays meant that we did not arrive home until around 11:30 at night. A very quick unpacking of the essentials followed before I had to retire to prepare myself for work next morning.

It was a particularly enjoyable holiday to a country that I'm sure we will be returning to on a regular basis, but never again in the first two weeks of August!

Gentleman's summer attire

Just in case there is any doubt, the official casual attire to be worn by Englishman in the summer should be as pictured.

Mostly Portugal Summer 2008 (with a little Spain and France thrown in)

15th August 2008
Did someone say let's have a holiday in Scotland? Why then do I find myself in the cabin of a huge ferry on route to Bilbao in Spain?

We’ve wanted to tour Scotland ever since we picked up the Romahome, but once daughter realised that there were no beaches to speak of in the highlands, then that idea was shelved. The weather in the UK so far this summer has been terrible and so heading south has to be a good idea. Doesn't it?

I’ve spent the last week tracking down all those motoring accessories that one needs to stay legal when driving in Europe (which was a much tougher exercise than it needed to be). Yesterday, we set off to Portsmouth to pick up the ferry for a two night crossing. It’s expensive, but we felt it would be worth it to cut out the need for driving the entire length of France.

Since booking however, I’ve had reservations. Every other person I speak to says something along the lines of “You’re not crossing the Bay of Biscay are you?” It turns out that the Bay of Biscay comes a close second to the Bermuda Triangle in the shipping routes to avoid stakes, mostly due to legendary tales of sea sickness. That said, we have cruised a bit in recent years, and may have grown some sea legs. That’s the hope anyway. We’ve just spent a fairly comfortable night on board, and so far so good. Off now to experiment with breakfast!

16th August 2008
All things considered the Ferry experience was good. None of us felt seasick (although we had dosed up on calms) and by the look of our fellow passengers everyone seemed fine. During an on board talk giving tips for spotting Dolphins and Whales, the presenter spoke of the great myth surrounding the Bay of Biscay. Absolutely they get their rough days, but these are the exception rather than the rule. Luck of the draw I guess. The boat was in fact delayed on its previous journey due to a storm which meant that we were a couple of hours late in leaving.

On board the food was a good standard but a bit pricey. There are bars, restaurants and cabaret shows. The entertainment wasn’t quite up our street but the crossing was a pleasant enough experience and it saved us driving the entire length of France. We will be able compare the experience as on our way home we are doing the long haul drive back to Calais and Dover.

After docking, we departed the ferry at 8 am local time and immediately set off towards Portugal. Whenever tumbling off of a ferry into a new country, you need to have your wits about you to make sure you end up on the right road, but my matrimonial navigator had done her research sufficiently well to ensure we were heading in the right direction.

460 miles later we arrived at our destination on the west coast of Portugal in a camp site called S. Jacinto. It’s in a region called Rota da Luz close to the town of Aveiro. The journey through Spain from Bilbao was fine. The roads were good and we managed a fairly constant 70mph throughout. There was one toll road which cost us 16 Euro.

The camp site was in a lovely woodland setting which gave it a nice relaxed feel. As with most Portuguese campsites you just pitch up wherever you can. On arrival, we found a nice spot under a tree, and then headed on foot down to the site’s private beach (which was a twenty minute haul) for a much needed dip in the ocean.



It was apparent that we were pretty well the only English people on the camp site. Reception spoke English well enough, and so the transaction of handing over money and passports (which they keep for the duration of your stay) was completed without incident. Rather naively I had assumed that I would be able to plug my standard UK electrical cable (the big round one) into the site supply. This was not the case. It turns out you need a two pin adapter just like those you would need in a European hotel room to get anything to work. I kind of assumed that I would be able to buy an adapter on site or at least in a town. How wrong I was! They don’t tend to have many UK visitors in this part of the world so why bother to sell them? The site did actually have a rather home made version that they offered to sell me for twenty Euro. As it was rather cumbersome (and they only cost a fiver in Millets) I declined that offer and simply borrowed it instead.

Sunday 17th August 2008
This is clearly not a tourist area! It feels really embarrassing that I haven’t learned some basic Portuguese as a courtesy. Today we intend to explore the surrounding lagoons that the area boasts of as well as the town of Aveiro which has a “Venice like” reputation.

It’s the late afternoon now and I’m sitting by the edge of the lagoon just outside the van that we have backed right up to the water’s edge. My two lady companions (wife and daughter) have gone in for a dip which leaves me sometime alone with pen and indeed with ukulele. The uke is now an essential travel item wherever I go (although this level of enthusiasm is not necessarily shared by the rest of the party). During my turn sitting in the back of the van on long journeys, I find that it is nice to have a strum. It certainly attracts some strange looks from passing vehicles!

For our trip to Aveiro today we used the car ferry which saves a round trip of about 25 miles. I’m not sure I’d recommend it, as it was a slow old process waiting to get on and off. The drive would have saved us some time.

The highlight of Aveiro was undoubtedly lunch, where after a careful restaurant selection process we ordered a local delicacy which is essentially eel stew. It arrived in a big tin pot filled with eels, potatoes, onions, garlic and peppers. We did good justice to it. Good value too.

We genuinely haven’t heard any English spoken here at all aside from waiters, shop or bar staff when addressing us. The locals don’t seem to mind sign language which is just as well. Tomorrow we head further south towards Lisbon for a two night stop. We get the feeling that we are experiencing the Portugal that tourists do not usually get to see (especially Brits!) The Romahome and / or my wife’s blonde hair and blue eyes are attracting tons of glances.

Tuesday 19th August 2008
Two days have passed now and I am writing this following a really pleasant day in Lisbon. To give us a much needed break from driving (and to avoid any city parking challenges) we decided to use public transport to get from our camp site to the city. We are camped approximately twelve miles from Lisbon close to the coastal town of Cascais. The journey involved bus, train and tram. It was good to have a day away from the wheel and it also meant I could take advantage of the Lisbon pavement bars and cafes.

Our journey yesterday was a very different story. The motorway network in Portugal is great and we made good progress at a steady 70 mph. It does get confusing when leaving the main roads however. Any prospective campervan travellers would need a decent navigator as well as a patient driver. It really does require a team effort to get around.

On the journey we took a slight planned detour to visit the monastery / cathedral at Alcobaca. This is best known as the last resting place for a particularly famous couple. In a nutshell, a prince in the 1300’s fell in love with the wrong sort of girl. This caused all sorts of grief, so much so that the girls own father had her killed. The Prince eventually became King and when he died he was buried here close by to his lover (whose body he had had shifted). Their tombs are arranged toe to toe, so that come judgement day, the first thing they will see when they wake up will be each other.

After this visit we headed off to Cascais. We probably added an hour to the journey when we came off the motorway to cut across country. This plan went pear shaped as roads were missing from maps and the signposting was non existent. Still, we got there in the end!



Our campsite is probably the closest site to Lisbon and consequently is extremely busy. Like the previous site, it is set in woodlands (as we are finding out, the shade from the trees comes in handy if you can get some!) The site is once again run by the company Orbitur who clearly have cornered the Portuguese camping market. If you are used to UK camping, you would not believe how tightly they cram everyone in to these sites during high season. When you are used to Caravan and Camping Club sites where they use spreadsheets and slide rules to calculate the precise distance you need to be from your neighbour it all comes as a bit of a shock.

Here it is the absolute opposite, and is more akin to a UK rock festival arrangement. That said the atmosphere around the site once you get over the shock of being the only English people around is nice. In truth, there are a few English accents starting to appear as we edge closer to the Algarve.

Lisbon today allowed us to relax. It is a lovely city and we treated ourselves to a very substantial fish based lunch. A bit more pricey in the city I have to say. I was particularly taken with the stunning bridge that crosses the water at Lisbon with the huge statue of Christ on the other side. I’m looking forward to driving across the bridge tomorrow as we head even further south.



It is exceptionally hot out here and sun cream is a must. We shouldn’t complain of course as it seems the weather back home continues to be terrible. The evenings tend to turn cool though especially in the wooded areas.

Thursday 21st August 2008
It’s Thursday morning now and we are camped on another Orbitur site about one mile from the most south westerly point of Europe. The local town for pinpointing our location on a map is called Sagres.

The word windy does not cover it! The land juts out so that there is coast on both sides. As a result sand and dust gets whipped up and spread around so much so that the van is now filthy. I thought it strange when I noticed the car wash facility on the site as we drove in.

Every night there is a pilgrimage to see the sun set from the cliff tops at the most south westerly point in Europe, and we willingly took part yesterday evening. Local entrepreneurs set up market stools selling jumpers and blankets for those who arrive in T-shirt and shorts. We had read about this in advance and so had come fully prepared with our coats and jackets.




There really does seem to be some lovely beaches in the surrounding area. On route yesterday we called in at one such beach at Castelejo where we had lunch overlooking the bay.

Once again our journey from Lisbon took about an hour longer than it should have taken. The road we intended to take was closed for repairs, so we were diverted in a large half circle through deep country. On the plus side we saw some spectacular scenery that tourists would not normally get to see including a reservoir and dam.

Ever since we arrived in Portugal, I’ve been looking for a Euro electrical adaptor to fit our UK camping plug. You just cannot get them here. I really regret not paying the £5 in Millets before we left home (I even have a £10 Millets voucher in my pocket!) In the UK you can usually get away with it, but out here you really do need to power up the fridge. If any potential campers are reading this and I had to pick just one key point for you to remember for a similar trip then it would be,” never ever leave the UK without one!”

I’d given up completely until about ten thirty last night when we got engaged in conversation with an Englishman on the site who spends his retirement permanently touring Europe. It turned out he had a couple of spares and was only too pleased to let us have one. Result! Cold beer tonight!

Sunday 24th August 2008
Time has moved on now by three days. We left the windy west coast in search of the Algarve proper in good spirits, but by the end of the first morning I was pretty well distraught. We’d driven across Europe and ended up in what might as well have been Great Yarmouth.

The first resort we stopped at for a few hours beach time was Lagos. The beach here was fine but driving through the town was a nightmare, and then came the parking process! To be fair, I’ve still yet to pay for any car parking anywhere on this trip, but we have to remain vigilant of putting the van at risk of tow away due to any misunderstandings over language or local customs. We eventually found a spot on a sandy bank behind a garage which felt a little creepy, but was only a short walk to the beach (across a railway line!)

We spent a few hours there, then headed off to have lunch in a place that the guidebook said was one of the most spectacular beaches in Portugal called Praia Da Rocha. This place took a bit of finding as it wasn’t signposted from the main highway. Once again we had to drive through a busy major town and then negotiate parking the van. It looked and felt a bit suspect leaving the van in a fairground, but there were plenty of cars around so we went with it.

It was when we reached the beach that spirits began to drop. The beach itself was nice with some impressive rock formations but it was what lay behind it that really set the scene. The guidebook omitted to mention the concrete jungle of sprawling hotels, gift shops and bars that seemed exclusively designed to cater for the English invasion. There were pretend Irish pubs and themed premiership football bars everywhere. It was almost as if the entire population of Romford had been lifted in our absence and planted in what was supposed to be our main holiday area.

First one side that the brochures might show.


And now the view behind!


After a week where we had barely seen or heard other Brits, this felt really wrong. Was this the true Algarve? Had we come all this way for nothing? It’s a good job I’m writing my own guide book!

We lasted about an hour and a half in Praia Da Rocha then headed back to the van, jumped in and set a course for due east. We need to find the real Portugal again and our research suggested that this would be on the right hand side of the map. After an hour or so on the road, we arrived in a place called Olhao. It doesn’t have a beach as such, but it does offer a short ferry ride to an Island just off the main coast.

The camp sit in Olhao was easy to find. It was larger and more commercial than any that we had found so far, but it was going to have to do for a few days. Once again, they take your passports away at the reception and then send you off to find a spot on the sandy, dusty site. It took a while, but we found a reasonable enough spot in the corner. The toilets and showers are cleaned more regularly than the Orbitur sites and it has a well stocked store, a bar and a pool. Madeleine was able to make good use of the pool on that first evening. Rather encouragingly, most of the campers were Portuguese and very little English is spoken on site (apart from reception).

Next morning we walked into town. Not a particularly pleasant walk as it crosses an industrial area, but after a bout a mile and a half we came into a lovely local market. It seemed that that we had indeed arrived back in the real Portugal. After browsing the market, we caught the ferry across to the Island for an afternoon on the beaches. Armona Island was a revelation. The main beach is a stroll across the centre of the Island, which takes you past cottages and holiday homes of real character. The weather was great and our faith was restored. Annoyingly I had left the camera behind in the van, so you’ll just have to take my word for how nice this place really is.

Next day we did a similar thing but drove off to a town called Tavira which was about twenty miles to the east and very close to the Spanish border. A nice town and well worth a visit. We arrived early and were able to park close by to where the ferry left for its version of Paradise Island. We spent a nice afternoon on the Island which included a good fish lunch in one of the many (but tasteful) restaurants. Tavira Island is less residential than the one near Olhao and is larger in size. Once again we felt that we were the only English people around (slight exaggeration) but it is certainly patronised by the locals.

At one point in the afternoon, Madeleine and I went for a short walk along the beach. After a cry of “That old man’s got no clothes on” I realised that I’d stumbled across a nudist beach. It was mostly men lying either face up or down in the sand plus one or two female backsides in the sea, but we did a quick about turn anyway.

Having never really done any foreign beach holidays in Europe, my experience of topless bathing is limited. Most people here remain covered, but you do get the odd female who decides to wander along the beach topless. I’ve never had an opinion on this before, but I’ve now had a few days to develop one. I’ve no real objection as such, but I’m a firm believer that 99.9% of the world’s population look more attractive when covered to some degree. People such as myself for instance really shouldn’t be seen without T shirt and shorts as a minimum.

I’m proud to admit that there is usually always something to be admired in the female anatomy. All the more so, when attractively supported and covered to whatever degree is necessary for the individual. Naturist beaches are another story, and one I just don’t get. I’m comfortable and brave enough to be writing about such things here because my wife never reads anything I write anyway!

All things considered, this had been a great couple of days. We are planning to spend today (Sunday) on the site to get some reading, writing, sunbathing and swimming done. This must be what normal people do on holiday. It makes a change for us not to be chasing around all the time like we do when touring. There is a balance to be found between exploring as many new areas as is possible and finding time to relax and wind down. In general we have limited time on our trips (day job issues) and so we lean heavily on the chasing around. Must do better! Role on early retirement I say. Anyway barbeque time now, followed by sitting around in the evening sun doing nothing.

Tuesday 26th August 2008
We’ve moved on now to the tune of two more days. We’ve just spent today on the beach which is just a short walk from the campsite that we checked into yesterday in a town called Quarteira. It’s a large and exceptionally busy site with a swimming pool. We spent absolutely ages yesterday driving around it looking for a suitable pitch in the shade. (It remains really hot out here.) Eventually we had to settle for a very open, sandy pitch. Not ideal, but at least we got in. It certainly helps being able to plug a fridge in.

Yesterday, we headed back towards central Algarve and I feared the worst. We had a short stop at a nice beach near Albufeira which is becoming a settlement for British people who want to relocate to Portugal. The guide says that it has taken just one generation (25 years) to transform the place from local industry into the tourist trap that it has become. As a result there is an incredible amount of building work in progress.

We spent a few hours in the town. The buildings look nice and are clearly the original Portuguese architecture, but they are occupied by tourist shops (which the two ladies in my party seemed to enjoy) and themed bars or restaurants. Rather strangely there are full length posters of Cliff Richard advertising wine in some of the shops. Turns out he has a thriving vineyard out here. It was not entirely the fault of Sir Cliff, but I was glad to get away from town, although if truth be told, it was nowhere near as commercial as my Algarve shock last week!

The town of Quarteira is about a 15 mile drive away from Albufeira. On route you drive through an area that is absolutely littered with golf courses. Clearly a lot has been invested in setting this up to attract visitors and new residents. If I sound disappointed with the Algarve, it’s only because I’m measuring it against my enjoyment of some of the other regions we have visited on his trip.

That said, I must confess that I enjoyed our walk yesterday evening along the seafront of Quarteira. It has retained a Portuguese feel. Yes, it’s touristy, but it all seems quite tasteful and Portuguese people are clearly in the majority. We had a nice meal in an Italian style restaurant which also helped to keep the spirits high. As we walked backed to the site we discussed the plan for the remainder of the trip.

If things stay as they are then we plan to have two more nights here before we start heading towards home. The Algarve to Romford is quite a drive and so we need to be careful to spread it carefully. After today’s relaxing beach day we intend to spring a surprise on Madeleine tomorrow and take her to the water park that we see advertised on every corner. The plan then is to head north and stay one night in the mountains of north east Portugal. The next day will be about getting as many miles out of the way as possible. We’ve targeted Bordeaux in France where we think we might have two nights with a beach day in between.

So, as the Portugal leg of our trip comes to a close, what would I recommend for anyone thinking about a similar journey? Top of the list is to be aware that there is much more to Portugal than the Algarve. There are some great places to explore particularly on the west coast. Camping has been simple and all the sites spoke English well. The further south you drive, the dustier it all becomes. I can’t remember what it feels like to camp on green grass. The dust gets everywhere and it’s not particularly healthy experience breathing.

Do remember to bring a Euro electric adapter for your hook up. They cost next to nothing back home but you can’t get them out here. Also remember to pick up some loo role as this is rarely provided on Portuguese camp sites.

On a more subtle level, we noticed that on camp sites, people tend to keep themselves to themselves. You rarely get a good morning or even eye contact when walking around the sites. This is most noticeable in driving habits. If you give way to someone, don’t expect a wave of acknowledgement. It seems that they think something is wrong with you if you give way!

It’s certainly been more economical camping here compared to the UK. Site and fuel costs have been pleasantly low. Eating out is good value (only got stung once in Lisbon) and a bottle of wine or beer from a shop is cheap too. That said, Chris has done some fantastic dishes in the Romahome including some of her curry specialities. I must get her to write a Romahome recipe guide one day.

The good weather means we spent most evenings sitting outside the van. That is quite an unusual experience for us. In the year and a bit that we have owned her, when we’ve been able to sit outside at all, the British weather has usually driven us inside quite early. As a result, the three of us have been able to fit quite comfortably into the experience for the best part of three weeks.

There is a rather worrying trend that I notice is also creeping into UK camping, but it is far worse out here. Just about every campervan and tent seems to have a television. TV is one of the reasons I like to escape in the Romahome. It’s particularly irritating to hear Portuguese children’s television blaring across the site. People here actually put their TV’s outside of their units and watch in the open air. On the plus side, watching a German tourist fiddling around with his aerial for an hour, before driving a few yards away at a time in an attempt to get a better picture, was quite entertaining.

I do feel quite guilty not having any Portuguese to use in Restaurants and shops. It’s never once been a problem though. Waiters, receptionists and shop assistants are very happy indeed to experiment with their English. (Especially if money is likely to change hands!) As a last resort, sign language comes in handy too. I’ve managed two Portuguese words. “Ola” and “Obrigado,” which mean hello and thank you respectively. (Oh and Gaseleo for Diesel fuel is the one word you don’t want to get wrong!)

Friday 29th August 2008
Two more days have passed and I’m sitting on a beach somewhere in the Bordeaux district of France. During those two days we have driven 900 miles.

Before leaving the Algarve, we did the day at the water park nearby to where we camped. It was extremely busy and there were long queues for the rides. By a stroke of good fortune the biggest water / roller coaster ride got jammed while we were on it, which meant that we got to go around an extra couple of times without queuing. By a stroke of bad fortune, later in the day, Madeleine slipped and badly grazed her knee. We finished our Algarve experience with a nice meal on the seafront in Quarteira in a restaurant run by some ex pat Geordies.

Next morning, we headed off early for the long drive to Northern Portugal. We missed a significant motorway junction which meant that we had to do a slight detour via northern Lisbon. This turned out to be a blessing as we got to drive over what was certainly the longest and most spectacular bridge I’ve ever seen. A later internet search told me that this is called the The Vasco da Gama Bridge and is over 17 kilometres long.

The plan had always been to spend the night in the mountains of far north east Portugal. When we left the motorway, we began the scenic climb to what felt like as high a point as I had ever been to. The van behaved well as it always does, but the winding mountainous terrain caused the temperature gauge to climb up much higher than I had ever seem it go. Mind you, we had just forced her up a mountain immediately after a 400 mile drive!




Our campsite for the night took a bit of finding as it was badly signed from the direction we came from. Located near the village of Gouveia, it was well worth finding. Once again we had just one evening and one night in an area where you really need a few days to do it justice. The site was as wonderful a setting as you could imagine and there looked to be some great walks in the surrounding area. We were even treated to a few spectacular lightening streaks in the distant mountains.



Knowing what we now know, there is a fantastic holiday to be had one day touring northern and indeed western Portugal. As you might imagine, I would lean towards avoiding the Algarve altogether. Although, if we had avoided it, we would never have got to see those two Islands to the far east of the Algarve. What you really need is plenty of time and the flexibility that a small motor home provides. One day!

One small warning I ought to pass on before leaving Northern Portugal. English was barely spoken in this area. Sign language was the only way. I’ll never know what the campsite owner was trying to tell me. I think it was something to do with amps and electricity.

Faced with what was likely to be our longest drive of the holiday where we hoped to reach Bordeaux, we decided upon an early start. Trouble with that was that the site owners had my passport and we couldn’t raise them before reception opened at nine. We eventually got on the road after giving an interested Portuguese man a tour of the van at around 9:30.

Getting back onto the motorway took a while. The long winding road that took us through a few villages would have been most welcome had we more time. Our last glimpse of northern Portugal were these villages where there were lots of elderly women all dressed in black as if they were off to a funeral.

As promised, this was to be a day of driving. It wasn’t too far from the Spanish border once we hit the main road. Nothing remarkable about the border so we stopped purely for a driver change. All I remember about the next few hours is sitting in the back of the van, strumming the Ukulele whilst the other two did their best to ignore me by singing along to Madeleine’s Iron Maiden play list.

We made just two short stops on route, one for fuel and the other for a quick cuppa and a sandwich. We made really good progress until we crossed the Pyrenees mountains towards San Sebastian near the French border. Traffic here was a nightmare. We must have been stuck in traffic for at least two hours. What with that and having to put the clock forward (Portugal is on UK time, whereas France and Spain are the standard one hour ahead) it was pitch black as we crossed the French Border. Our target of reaching Bordeaux was still a hundred miles away. It was late; we were tired and so took advantage of a motel on route. We felt we deserved it!

Having enjoyed a comfortable room, shower and breakfast, we drove onto the beach area of the Bordeaux region. The original plan was to have a total non driving day and have two nights in a campsite in the town of Arcachon. Once we realised how nice it was there, we again felt disappointed that we had run out of time! Another holiday clearly beckons! We toyed with the idea of staying an extra night and doing the journey to Calais (and then home) in one hit. Our ferry was booked for 3pm and so the practicalities of that idea ruled it out.

The campsite we stayed on at Arcachon was without doubt the most expensive campsite that I had stayed on anywhere in the world. (35 Euros for the night). Not sure how they justify that. Prior to checking in, we spent a few hours on a great beach to the south of Arcachon called Biscarosse. We’ve seen enough of the area to realise that we will be returning one day armed with more time.

Saturday 30th August
We had planned a compromise for next day where we would have a few hours on the beach before getting some more mileage out of the way. As it turned out, the English summer was edging into the area and there were a few showers about. We decided instead to head off early and find a campsite half way to Calais with a pool. At around six PM we arrived at a lovely little site close to the town of Tours, It’s in a village called La Chartre Sur Le Loir in the Loir Valley region. I’m writing these final lines now from there whilst the other two are in the pool.

We will be walking into the village shortly for a nice end of holiday meal. I hope it’s better than last night when we ate in a restaurant in Arcachon. We had mussels and chips all round which was fine until we got showered with glass when the waitress knocked over a bottle. On top of that I managed to get a wooded splinter in my hand from the chair.

It has just struck me that this final night of the trip is the first time that we’ve actually camped on grass! Tomorrow will be another few hundred miles or so to Calais and then the ferry to England. It seems strange to think that I will be at work in a day.

All in all this has been a great trip. With foresight we would have done things differently but it’s been a great learning experience. I’ll reserve judgement on the pros and cons of the ferry versus the road journey until I get home. One thing I forgot to mention. For some reason, during this trip, I grew a beard.

Postscript
We’ve been home now for a few days. Regarding the final leg of the journey, all I can say is that we won’t be doing that sort of driving again! We absolutely left far too much to do to make Calais on the last day. We made the Ferry (just) but had no time for the intended shopping visit to one of the famous hypermarkets.

The ferry crossing was fine and we reached Dover at around four thirty. Tired and weary of travelling, what we didn’t need were problems on the M20, the M25 and just to add insult to injury the A127 into Romford. It took three hours to do a one hour journey which meant we had been travelling for twelve hours since leaving the Loir valley region in the morning.

That evening I felt dreadful. I’d never felt jetlag like it. Must be getting old I guess.

Foresight and experience are wonderful things. We now know that for our purposes, we should have done the return Ferry from Spain. It would have saved a really long drive and would have left us feeling refreshed and not needing another holiday instantly. If you have plenty of time (as in months) to travel then the drive would be fine. If you are intending to do a camping holiday in Portugal for two to three weeks then the overnight ferry is a must. The Ferry costs for the three of us would have been about £600 each way. It gets close to being value for money when you consider fuel and toll costs.

All in all we did over 3000 miles on the round trip which is more than we did on our USA west coast and east coast trips.

Next stop the Maldives for a non driving holiday!