The Caravan Club Hightlights of Spain Grand Tour 2015

Morning world. I havent blogged for a while but I know quite a few like to know wthat we are up to. So yesterday was day 1 of this Tour. We finishrd the Andulucian Tour which was great fun and tried to have a break at Marjal Costa Blanca for a while but that didnt quite materialise as we still had 9 sites to inspect! We found some super new sites that will be joining the Clubs network next year so that was quite exciting-maybe I need to get out more! Oh whilst we were at Marjal we had the first real problem with our Lunar Caravan. A manufacturing defect on the front gas box! Eeks It didnt look good with bungy clips holding it in place! Now could a bigger piece of the caravan break? Could I be in a more difficult location? Easter right when I needed the part? All I can say is that they were amazing! Within a week a new front box was sent to Marjal free of charge! I was able to have it fitted and on I went! What service in this day and age. This caravan as you can imagine gets really put through its paces and thats the very first time Ive had to claim under warranty. I think its already been to well over 20 countries and approximately20 000 miles so not bad going at all. To havr it repaired so quickly Im a very happy bunny!
We finished inspecting on Sunday and had a days rest before people started arriving early for the Tour. We are at Camping de Haro. The capital of the Rioja region. Last night my brief was to get everyone from the Tour into the bar for A welcome drink. A drink?!!! Well they were going to open the bar especially for us but being the tight canny true Yorkshire lass I worked out that if we did our own thing with the money allowed we could all have several drinks, if not an entire bottle up here for the money allowed for one drink! I put it to the particiapnats and guess which they went for? Well we are in the Rioja region and we needed to start the Tour in a good and proper way! The trouble was just as we started so did the thunderstorms! It would take more than that to dampen our spirits particularly after consuming so much wine! We found a sheltered area and had a great night. Im not sure what the weather is going to do today as we possibly have a group  barbecue. The group are really great as usual and from all walks of life but would you believe it more than 75 percent of the group are from....yorkshire! Dont worry about it though we are giving the others elocution lessons! They will be speaking properly in no time at all! We only have one motorhomer and the friendly banter was great fun. Some of this Tour have been with us before and its lovely to see familiar faces as well as meeting new ones. Others havent done Tours at all before and some have never ever been to Spain. Certainly with this Tour they are in for some suprises.
Tomorrow we go to one of my favourites Monte Holiday. Some were amazed how mountainous Spain is just coming from the ferry ports,. Wait until they see this and so close to Madrid. I think it could ahve something to do with the food as well as to why I love Monte Holiday so much. The restaurant there is to die for and some of the trips out are also good too-complete with food. Is there a theme running here?! I hate cooking! Theres so much more to life but eatings a different matter! I watch Masterchef but some of those dishes?! If I was served some of that up it would be gong straight back!
I wasnt very good with my camerra last night, I was a little pre occupied I will try better..so onwards and upwards Id better check out the forecast and see if I can convince the men to cook for us on the barbecue! Any excuse. Have a good day folks!

http://www.caravanclub.co.uk/overseas-holidays/european-tours/highlights-of-spain-grand-tour

www.lunarcaravans.com/brands/lunar

www.caravanclub.co.uk/overseas-holidays/sites/spain/camping-de-haro

Winter Camping in Spain A massive Catch up!

Hi Guys
Well Ive received complaints that I havent blogged for a while and seen as I have been so busy I have started this now but it probably wont get brought up to date until..?! Well  at least Im trying and that has been said before!
We are back at Marjal Costa Blanca yet again. We took off at the beginning of december to inspect sites for the Caravan Club. We have 28 sites in Spain and Portugal to inspect so we thought we would get the northern ones done first before the weather turned too bad. Oh the great theory..those bloody yanks sending their artic blasts to northern Spain! Each time I venture out somewhere new or different in Spain I just fall in love all over again with this amazing fabulous country. So a week last wednesday we left Marjal where it was a very pleasant 20 degrees and sunny and we went for a 5 hour drive to Madrid Camping El Escorial. Wet and damp but not too bad. The net day we thought we would visit another site nearby called Monte Holiday. No point in taking the van..ooo what a wise decision! It was raining.." no maybe its just low cloud as it is a bit mountainous" a little further. " Im sure that there is snow mixed in with this rain. The temperature guage must be worong. It says 0 degrees!" We keep on driving. within 10 miles we are met with snow ploughs and the road is white over! OMG I couldnt see a thing. Had it not been snowing I think it would have been beautiful! Thank god for the best driving course that I did in my last job. I certainly needed all my advanced driving skills to get us down but we did it!
I love Monte Holiday even though the mountains were white and it was cold but we were given a very warm welcome. They have just installed some super deluxe pitches there and they had views to die for that I hate to say it made Scotland and the Moors etc look flat!We found one lonely British Unit up there

The views would have been great! 

Camping El Escorial

Depressing or what?! It reminded me of camping in england! On to El Astral

We were the only unit on there! There must have been 400 empty pitches and you guessed it.... a motorhomer parked right on top of us! They did the usual trick of revving engines, getting on and off bloody blocks  and banging about at 7.30 am! Did he think we were wild camping?! It is a secure campsite! I certainly felt safe unrtil mr french motorhomer came on top of me ooh l las I should be so lucky! 

On to camping Haro. Theres somethig about this site that I do like. Well I like all of them that I saw but Carlos s welcome on the bar really does help! " You are not going into the Pyranees? Are you really mad?!" Well it needs inspecting so off we went / The sat nav said something like 5 hours to do 200 miles or so....stupid sat nav. No stupid us! Off we went up mountain sides. There was a terrible gusty wind and great care had to be taken. The bends got worse and I was having to sound my horn on this single track up a mountainside. We eventually found the campsite Pena Montesena. I can only say that the welcome couldnt have been warmer-but I couldnt say that about the weather. We were the only people on site but the swimming pool, the shop,the bar and restaurant were all open! Boy did we get good service-they even lit a log fire for us so that we could eat our pizza in the restaurant

Thwe food and the wine were delicious. We then went and snuggled up in the caravan and were really grateful for the central heating. We got up in the morning and I couldnt work out what was the matter with the front window...

It was frozen solid! It had been minus 6! Look at that snow on the mountains!

The views were well worth the rough journey up there.

When people tell me that they have seen Spain as they have spent a week in Benidorm or wherever I get mad! Spain is green! Spain is amazingly beautiful. All in all I would really recomment this site but dont go in winter unless you want to visit Andora or go skiing! or there again like us and have suicidal tendancies! 

We stopped one night at the lovely Vilanova Park and then made it down to camping Javea and Kiko Park... How different can campsites get>?/

Yes it was all change again with the weather about 20 degrees again! Oh I did re visit an old favourite of mine. I still love Javea and they have spent lots of money on the new toilet blocks

The wonderful little bar.restaurant was providing menu del dia that was porkstew and potatoes for 4 euros! Well it would have been rude not to and vino 1 euro a glass! Oh Im not supposed to be checking out the vino.its the campsites! Well we visited 17 in total. Hard,hard work but great fun and really interesting. I can honestly say that there was not a bad campsite. I dont have a favourite as they are all so different/ One thing that is important to me and I can say of them all is that they were spotlessly clean. This was in half of Spain we still have the other half to do and its different again! How I love the different faces of Spain. Its like several worlds merged into one country.

So here we are back at Marjal Costa Blanca where its been quite busy. I dont know whats going on or more to the point whats not going on. Roger and I have been busy planning the New Years Eve bash again by the pool. Without putting a poster up I already have 90 tickets reserved so if you want to come....come to pitch C03! We are aslo planning a British weekend , the last weekend in January..come on lets show the Dutch that we can do markets and party too! Im not saying thatait got too much for Roger but..

its a good job this wasnt a video with sound! 

Judy and John couldnt believe how quick we got our big awning up and didnt trust us so thought it was a good ideato keep the cycling helmets on to be on the safe side! Thanks Pals but who looks the pudding?! 

Ahh well Im nearly up to date. Its a good  job that it does rain sometimes in Spain or I would never get this done!Weve been some great places and met great people. This retirement game is well untruly alright..oh just a minute I was working!  I hope you have fun too! http://www.campingelescorial.com/en/

http://camping.monteholiday.com/en/http://camping.monteholiday.com/en/

www.campingdeharo.com

en.camping.info/spain/aragon/camping-pe%c3%b1a-monta%c3%b1esa-21117

www.vilanovapark.com/?lang=EN

http://www.campingjavea.es/

http://www.marjalcostablanca.com/

Caravan Club Highlights of Spain Tour. The last supper!

Ahh its very sad-its over! What a great time we be had. We arrived back in Haro and the weather was somewhat cooler. Yesterday we were supposed to have had a barbecue but ...

So if you ate one of the bosses from the Caravan Club....." Didn't we do well?!" It took us all day to dress the field like that and it was a bugger cooking those profiteroles on the grill! Beethoven 11 Restaurant is really fantastic!

There was some lovely feedback from members saying how much they had enjoyed it. We certainly did. I made my usual stupid little poem that seemed to go quite well and have been asked to put it on here which I will do but ive got to drive into France today!  I have a feeling that we will hear from this group again. I certainly hope so! 

Thank you all and Toodle Pip!