Dec 30, 20236 min read

Feliz Navidad & Happy New Year

Firstly, we hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and have recovered enough to celebrate the coming New Year.

We really enjoyed our day in Cartegena. The Aire we parked up at for two nights was just a 20-minute cycle into the historic town and waterfront. The waterfront looked beautiful in the bright sunny morning. Being a major naval base for Spain, the port area has been developed around this with a military museum and an Arsenal building (booo….!).

We were most keen to visit the Roman Amphitheatre, a fascinating site with the original amphitheatre being built over 2000 years ago and seating up to 7000 people. Since that time, it was built over as the fishing industry expanded, with houses, a palace, and a Church. Its existence was only realised as recently as the late 1980’s when the palace was being demolished and some columns came to light. Since then, the site has been more fully excavated and an excellent museum leads visitors in through from the port level up various levels to above the theatre showing parts of the various buildings that have been on this site over the centuries.

We had a walk up and around the hill behind the site, then had a walk into the main shopping district down the Calle Mayor, a shopping street with beautiful buildings and paving. We stopped for some tapas to soak up the festive atmosphere on 23 December, with bands playing traditional Christmas music and some 80’s bangers for me and lots of families and friends having a pre-Christmas meet up.

The following morning (Christmas Eve) we did a supermarket shop – it all felt so calm and relaxed unlike the usual last-minute stress we have for UK Christmas’s.

We had prebooked three nights at a campsite in Mar Menor, which was close to Cartagena, but with check-in time not until the afternoon we had some time to amble along the coast. To be honest it wasn’t a very attractive route initially, but we eventually came to a small bay near a village called Portman, with a fishing harbour, a lighthouse and several basic fish restaurants looking like they were gearing up for a busy afternoon. We enjoyed a walk up to the lighthouse where there was an old army battery and very nice viewpoints of the coastline. We then took a diversion to another scenic beach/bay which took us right through the La Manga golf estate. We thought we must have taken the wrong route, but after driving past the security laden swanky villas we ended up on a steep windy road to the viewpoint.

We continued to our campsite. As we got closer, we had a moment of panic as the area was far more built up than we’d expected, and the campsite was totally full as they were turning away vehicles as we pulled up. To be fair the pitch sizes were very large, although we were one of a minority who hadn’t brought a full set of garden furniture, quad bikes, and a car. A quick look around showed it was about 90% German. Colin was particularly amused at one motorhome with an enormous picture of their Doberman on the back – the same dog that was parading around their pitch in a diamond studded collar. Gudrun, a German friend of ours suggested we could put a picture of Colin on the back of Lo11y – I was a bit concerned how keen he was on the idea. We set about using the washing machines and decorating Lo11y as much as I was allowed under the Dyson bah humbug regime.

Despite our initial concerns it made a pretty good base for our Christmas. We woke to beautiful sunrises each morning. On Christmas day the British campers suddenly became more obvious – the loud ones on the sherry by 11 a.m. then playing a board game involving a blow-up doll later in the day. Colin had planned a nice 40-mile bike ride from the site, but we discovered that a ferry we had banked on catching wasn’t running, meaning it would have become a 60 mile ride which we felt was a bit ambitious for Christmas Day. Matters where further hindered on discovering my bike had a puncture and we didn’t have metal tyre levers and the plastic ones we did have weren’t quite man enough for the job. Colin asked the Brits on the sherry if they had any tyre levers, but they were more interested in if he could do keepy uppy with a hula hoop. Our German and Swiss neighbours were more helpful, although they also hadn’t got any tyre levers. After a lot of blood, sweat and tears Colin finally succeeded.

We ended up doing a lovely 21 miles ride, to the local town San Javier where we stopped for a coffee, then on to a path that took us through some Salinas and wetlands where there were flamingos. We even ended up cycling a couple of miles down a beach which was different.

We enjoyed a semi traditional Christmas dinner in Lo11y in the evening, complete with crackers and some of our Taylors tawny port.

On boxing day, we decided to do the 60-mile route. It was a very flat ride, but unfortunately not very scenic. We cycled down the centre of the spit of land that we could see from our campsite – La Manga de Mar Menor, but it was just a strip of land with monstrous 70’s-built buildings, and to make it worse, the marina we were heading to had absolutely no bars and restaurants open. We did find some nicer beach resorts on the return journey where we enjoyed a drink in the sunshine. Some Brits who lived in this area stopped to admire my Ribble – one of them had the exact bike on order. We had dinner in the campsite restaurant in the evening. It was pleasant if not a bit cold.

We had booked a further night on the campsite to allow another day to relax – when I say relax that meant more clothes washing, truck cleaning and another bike ride. Another expedition vehicle had arrived driven by a Scottish couple, so Colin could be found drooling around their pitch for much of the day.

We now had three days to amble our way towards Oliva. We decided we should call in at Benidorm to see what it’s all about. We drove through Alicante on the way there which looked very nice, but the draw of Benidorm took us on. We were a bit surprised as the skyline came into view – there were some very glitzy high rises more like you’d expect to see in Dubai. We parked up on a street just off the sea front and jumped on our Brompton’s and cycled down the seafront towards the old town. We were shocked at how busy all the bars were in the early afternoon (why we were shocked I’m not sure….). We know we shouldn’t mock, as lets face it we may end up using one, but the sheer number of mobility vehicles was staggering (even more than Blackpool) and we couldn’t get the image of Madge off the TV series out of our head. There were even road signs for them We wandered through the old town where there was a red carpeted street full of tapas bars and all full. They looked like a British take on tapas i.e. pigs in blankets on a piece of bread – yum!

We had debated parking up for the night in Benidorm but decided to head on and find somewhere quieter. We’re glad we did as we ended up in Altea, a lovely coastal town with a Pueblo Blanco old town perched above it. The campsites were all full, but we got a great spot roadside on the seafront. From here we could cycle down the main drag and up into the historic old town for sunset which is stunning – much more attractive than Mojacar, and full of nice boutique shops and restaurants.

We woke to a beautiful sunrise. With not much mileage to cover we had a meander of a drive along the coast. We stopped for a coffee at Calpe – a tourist resort shut down for winter. We then drove on to Moraira, famous for Big Sam having an expensive villa there. Luckily for him we didn’t find it so Colin couldn’t stalk him. We ended up in the port town of Denia and are currently parked up on the beach with a pile of other campervans. I was feeling shabby with a cold coming on when we arrived, so Colin took himself off for a cycle down the waterfront and into town and was very impressed. I pulled myself together enough to go for a walk into town early evening. The town certainly does have a lovely vibe, with beautiful slightly crumbly buildings in the centre and a very foody culture. We ended up in a food/drink hall complex which was lovely, and I had a glass of medicinal vino caliente (glühwein).

Today we visited the castle that sits above the town, then had a wander around the centre and into the local food market. As always, the locals were all sitting with a wine sampling the local tapas. We purchased some picky bits for our New Years Eve get-together with Alex & Miriam. We then on the Brompton’s cycled down the seafront, through the nice port area full of bars and restaurants and ended up having a late lunch of paella by the sea on the edges of town.