After nine nights, we have managed to leave Alclalí. This was not quite as easy as you might at first think. Finding someone available to take payment was the trickiest thing. I asked on Friday if I could pay mañana but all farming hands were busy on Friday and on Saturday nobody turned up. Finally this morning [Sunday], in an act of desperation, I went and knocked on a window waggling my wallet and managed to throw €190 at Señor Octavio senior. Success, we could leave with a clean conscience.

The question was where to leave to? We are booked in to Camping de Haro from Monday within striking distance of Bilbao and our return ferry to the crappy British climate. That’s a big step of almost 650kms, so we wanted a midway stopping point.

On our many journeys between Bilbao and Jalon, in the halcyon days of owning Casa Libélule, at about half way, we passed signs to a place of some notoriety, called Belchite. In beginning to think about writing this entry, I was going to say that Belchite was Franco’s answer to the SS atrocities in France at Oradour-sur-Glane.

Oradour-sur-Glane is a must on the French tourist route. Four days after D-Day [10th June 1944], a Waffen-SS Panzer Division stormed into Oradour-sur-Glane and murdered 643 inhabitants, including 247 children, Six of the village inhabitants survived.

Most famously, the local doctor’s car stands rusting on its axles in the street where it was parked when the Nazis entered the village. Numerous other cars stand rusting elsewhere in the village.. Most poignant, is the church, where a twisted, rusting pushchair remains, the women and girls having been imprisoned in there while the church, surrounded by machine gunners to cut down any escapees, was set on fire. I defy anybody with any emotion at all not to develop floods of tears. Francine was so overwhelmed that she was unable to use her camera, when we visited. It is really quite unbelievable.

In Spain, Belchite was wiped out by being bombed into oblivion by Franco’s forces, apparently a part of the battle for Zaragosa. Checking my history (which is very sketchy) I realized that the Spanish civil war was going on in 1937, seven years before the SS stormed into Oradour-sur-Glane. I seem to remember that some of the Luftwaffe pilots used the Spanish civil war as something of a training exercise for WWII. Thus, Belchite was more of a fore-runner to Oradour-sur-Glane.

Having driven past Belchite several times over the years, we thought we’d finally call in and see it.

Our route to Belchite took us through about 150kms off any motorway. As soon as we dived off onto the (excellent) side road, we were in the familiar ol’ Spanish quarry. After passing a few mining towns which looked as though they’d seen better days – mind you, a lot of internal Spain looks that way – we entered the Campo de Belchite, where the “quarry” seemed to transform into more of a lunar landscape.

Staying at Belchite would continue our Spanish camping education. Belchite has an aire for motor homes which is conveniently close to the ruins. The catch for us is that, being a true Spanish aire, it was off-grid, meaning no facilities. We’d be cut loose from our familiar umbilical chords. Frodo is quite well suited to such a brief stay, we’ve just never done it before. Frodo has two leisure batteries, a 100-litre fresh water tank, which was full and an 80-litre grey water tank, which was empty. The fridge runs on gas (or should) and the water heater also runs on gas (ditto) so we could use the on-board shower without discharging (see below). The theory was fine, it just seemed a bit of a leap of faith ‘cos we hadn’t done it before.

The Spanish have rules about camping, or rather not camping, on free aires – this is best summarized as “you can park but you cannot be seen to be camping”. Francine has a neat graphic explaining. For someone such as myself who is anal about getting the van level, the worst part of this is that I’m not allowed to use any levelling devices on the aire. Oddly, you can chock the wheels but not drive up a ramp; mind you, if the ground sloped such that you needed to chock the wheels, I’m not sure how you’d get any sleep. Anyway, you take what the ground throws at you.

Fortunately we found a pitch – I think there were 10 – that was not too far off level in both directions. Once we got Frodo settled and through the heart-in-mouth waits getting the gas systems fired up – it takes a while ‘cos the gas lines empty when not in use – we spent a very quiet and comfortable night.

In our earlier years at Jalón there was no supermarket. Instead, there were some local butchers, greengrocers and a breadshop. For a supermarket, we had to go to Benissa with its Mercadona and Consum.

Then a Masymas supermarket opened up changing the face of food shopping in Jalón . Whilst it may have been more convenient, it was not necessarily all good news. Whether it was as a direct result or not, I don’t know, but the old, very traditional pork butcher disappeared. There are still butchers and grocers, though.

Now Jalón has a bright new second supermarket called MyMercat which, of course, gets referred to affectionately as My Meercat. Some friends here said it was like a Spanish equivalent to Waitrose – high praise indeed. When Francine told me about it and before seeing the text, I imagined “MiMercat”, the “Mi” seemingly more Spanish than an anglicized “My”. The “My” made me wonder about the provenance but it does, indeed, seem to be solidly Spanish, there being not one but two branches in Calpe down on the coast and declaring itself to be associated with the Sol y Mar Group. We have been in and it’s a very pleasant shop.

Along what our friends used to call the golden mile, that is the drag alongside the river, there is a new, very fancy looking restaurant called Can Caus. This is a complete new building on what was, until relatively recently, waste ground. It is a very neat, new, purpose built construction with very neatly arranged tables and chairs, all laid out with wine glasses. On Saturday, which is rastro [flea market] day and a day to be avoided in Jalon, in our view, because it’s heaving, the tables were well utilized and the place was clearly doing good business. On every other lunchtime that we’ve seen it, it looked pretty much empty. By local standards, it is an expensive menu which gets even more expensive when you note that all the accompaniments are charged as extras. Frankly, I can’t see its business model doing well for very long in the valley. There is a sister business 2kms away in Alcalalí called Ses Feixes. The word is that the owners are used to Ibiza and are trying to apply Ibiza prices in Jalón.

Happily, some things remain refreshingly familiar, though. The Aleluya bar is still there and doing a good trade. It still sells an excellent array of tapas including the most delicious pulpo a la brasa [grilled octopus] and calamares, which are freshly prepared in-house and most definitely not any frozen supermarket offering. You cannot buy better anywhere. This is our regular lunch spot.

After our brush with a mega-campsite, we have moved back to our more normal habitat. We are at Alcalalí, a village just 2 kms from Jalón beneath our former house, Casa Libélule, which we can see up the hillside behind us..

Francine found a relatively new camping venture at the Heredad de Elias Ferrer, which translates as the Country Estate of Elias Ferrer. The property is a former bull and horse farm concerned with the controversial Spanish pastime of bull fighting. Since it is small site, in terms of number of pitches, I managed to make a reservation via email and we were expected. When we arrived in the narrow lane with 90° bends, Francine disembarked to see where to go. She was greeted warmly with hugs from the lady of the property, Susana, who pointed our way.

Elias Ferrer was the original proprietor but this is now run by Octavio and Susana Ferrer, along with a younger (teenage) Octavio. It is no longer associated with bull fighting but has been turned into a 15-pitch campsite. It is a delightfully rural setting and much more “us”. There were about 7 units here when we arrived. We are camped beneath the very mountains we used to gaze at from our former balcony. Whilst there are no longer bulls on site, there are still horses, though we haven’t seen them put to any use, yet.

Octavio senior, or should that be Señor Octavio senior, perhaps because of having been raised on this property, had once been involved in the bull fighting scene; he used to be a toreador. I get a bit confused about the various –dors involved in bull fighting but Octavio used to be on horseback. His old horsebox is parked next to our pitch, which is the last in the line. Since he has been retired from that game for a long time, we will forgive him.

Without doubt, the most intriguing feature of this property is that it comes complete with its very own bullring. No kidding, it has its own bullring standing as a monument to its past. The bullring, apparently, is where Octavio used to train as a toreador. I know such things are contentious but this is just a fabulous slice of history. Let’s be honest, we have our own chequered history with packs of hounds tearing foxes limb from limb, though bull fighting is still prevalent.

Octavio came and said hello in the evening. With his limited English and our limited Spanish, we had an entertaining conversation. He asked where in the UK we were from. We said in the middle of the country. “Birmingham?” “Ah, no, Milton Keynes”, we replied. “Ah ha, John Lewis”, he said with a beaming smile. It seems that one of his more recent ventures was using his truck to make deliveries to the UK, with Susana sharing the driving. His delivery destinations included JL in MK, also places at Birmingham (no idea if the Bullring was involved but that would be poetic), Manchester and Leeds. He thought the English were helpful and polite if his truck had a problem – not so the French or Belgians, he said.

Young Octavio has decent English and helped our chat along from the side lines, chuckling as Octavio snr. mimed his sylph-like youth as a toreador. They seem like a perfectly delightful family.

It’s a good job we’d made Octavio jnr’s acquaintance since we needed his help in the evening – I popped the 6amp electrics which needed resetting.

For a variety of reasons we have spent our first night at the humongous Alannia Costa Blanca resort.

1. There were no appealing options between our previous stop at Granada and here.
2. Whilst there are a couple of small campsites in the area, booking would have required an email exchange giving us an unknown period of uncertainty. [Alannia has an online booking system.]
3. Alannia is actually the closest campsite to the Parque Natural el Hondo, which I wanted to visit, being just 1.5 kms away.
4. We were just plain curious to experience such an enormous campsite with >1400 pitches.

We had been very lucky with our pitch allocation and really could not have picked a better one (given the caveat that we have not seen the entire campsite – I don’t even know if that’s possible) and our night was perfectly peaceful.

First impressions are favourable. Being huge, this appears to be one of those impersonal campsites where people keep themselves to themselves, there being hardly any interaction with other “guests”. Suits me.

In a futile attempt to show the scale of this site, here are two images taken from a central roundabout (yes, a roundabout) looking both ways up and down the main drag, the first looking back towards the entrance.

There are six large sanitary blocks, one in each of the major zones, so nobody is far from showers and toilets. We see many staff constantly buzzing about on electric carts doing maintenance and cleaning. There are two pool areas for those keen on such things, a bar, a restaurant, a modest supermarket, a hairdresser and a medical centre. To some extent, you don’t have to leave and I imagine there are those that don’t; it is pretty much a self-contained village.

The minimum pitch size is 95m²; these being the great majority. However, there are a few larger pitches available, going up to 180m² and there were a number of these in our close proximity. One such was needed by a garishly coloured, stonking large Winnebago, which arrived yesterday not long after ourselves. We’d seen outfits of this size waiting to board our outbound ferry and wondered where the hell they could park them in Spain. Here’s one answer.

Quite a few of these pitches are clearly seasonal and some look completely permanent, given the support structures crammed onto the pitch, which ends up 100% utilized. This unit doesn’t look as though it’s going anywhere any time soon, with a huge sun canopy fixed onto the front of whatever lies behind. Planters surround the pitch enclosing the usual back garden paraphernalia like full-sized Weber kettle barbecues..

Almost opposite our pitch is the most incredible “camping” unit I have ever seen. At first, we thought it was a fifth-wheel but, on closer inspection, no, it’s a caravan. That’s if something on this scale can be called a caravan. This behemoth must be 10m long if it’s an inch. [How’s that form mixed units?] Facing us were two wind-out side sections. On the opposite side was another wind-out side section. In addition to the attached veranda/sun shade complete with wind up and down side sections, there are not one but two garden shed storage structures at either end of the pitch. Along with a few other local inhabitants, the man has his own leaf blower. I looked at all sides of this beast but failed to find any identification name as to what it might be; I desperately wanted to look it up but couldn’t. The car, I noted, was Belgian registered.

This site is one of those used by the Caravan and Motorhome Club for its winter rallies when it books, I believe, 200 pitches (not that I’d want to get involved in a rally). The site was not, however, as scary as I might have first of all thought. I think because you can never see everything, just your own somewhat restricted area, it doesn’t actually feel as large as it is. We were lucky with our placement, being on an edge, though.

Having made our reservation at the full price, I was also impressed that the receptionist asked if we were with ACSI and gave us the reduced rate when we showed our card.

I have to say that I was favourably impressed, though it’s still not and never will be our natural habitat. As a necessary stopover, it’s fine.

After Hondo, we did venture into the local town of Catral, a mere 1.5kms away, looking for a bar. In this area I was expecting something Spanish but was sorely disappointed. We could pick between two Indian establishments, a Chinese, I suspect an Irish bar and an English-run bar called Vibe, which, in desperation, is where we drank a beer. The menu included “a giant Yorkshire pudding with 2 sausages”, along with nothing remotely Spanish (unless calling a sandwich a bocadillo constitutes Spanish). “Follow us on Facebook”, it declared. Jeez, NO!

Unsurprisingly, living in such close proximity of each other, Francine is now going down with the lurgy.

I declared myself fit enough to drive. I just needed a supply of pañuelos [tissues] in the cab with me. Francine had searched and searched and searched but could find nowhere appealing to stop in between Granada and our old haunt of the Costa Blanca, a distance of about 340kms. We’ve booked in to a wonderful sounding small campsite in Acalalí to meet some of our old friends in and around Jalón but we needed something in between.

On the coast at Elche is Hondo, one of my old Costa Blanca dragonfly locations. Within spitting distance of it is the Alannia Costa Blanca resort. Now, this is very definitely not our normal habitat and to some extent we booked it out of pure devilment, to see what on earth it would be like. This is a campsite of … wait for it … 1432 pitches. Yikes! You can allegedly cycle 5kms around the campsite.

We set sail from Granada at 09:15. With autovias pretty much all the way we covered the 340kms trip comfortably in about five hours. Back country Spain seems to vary between looking like a quarry, to looking like scrubland that nobody wants to do anything with. On this journey we saw plenty of both and no wonder there was nowhere appealing to stay. We certainly didn’t see anything that said, “come and relax here”.

The mercury hit 34°C as we approached on the autovia del Mediterraneo and frankly, the journey, though the longest yet, had been a doddle. If there’s nowhere to stop, you may as well drive. We turned in to the Alannia complex, and I do mean complex.

I have to say that we checked in with some trepidation, due to the immense size of the place. Happily, so far my fears were unfounded. We were directed to a pitch, though we could have changed, but there’s no need. We have a 95m² “comfort” pitch (which I think is the basic pitch, large-ish by Spanish standards) and Frodo’s awning is nicely oriented for providing shade against the 34°C sun. Well, let’s face it, this is why we’re here. We’ve also lucked out by being on the edge of an area with no pitches immediately in front of us; instead there is a tree-lined pedestrian walkway so we aren’t staring at anyone else.

After relaxing, Francine investigated the on-site supermarket and, to her delight, having been suffering withdrawal symptoms, she found a bottle of Ricard. This place just keeps getting better.

Two nights ago I had felt as though I had a bit of a sore throat. Today a cough has developed. No wonder I had found yesterday’s walk uphill to and from Güéjar Sierra a tad arduous.

Francine, bless her, volunteered to repeat the uphill and downhill trek into Güéjar Sierra to visit the farmacia in search of some cough jollop. Mission successful, having learned a few more words of Spanish.

I wasn’t good for much for the rest of the day, including eating and drinking, so it must have been bad. I began dosing myself up with Francine’s hard won cough mixture, which we think was herbal so probably more of a placebo. If you work your way beyond the units on the edge of the Sierra Nevada pitches, there are worse views to be stuck with.

We have wound up at Camping Las Lomas about 8kms east of Granada and 360m higher than Granada.The approach was a twisting mountain road which, on Sunday, was littered with cyclists, maniacs that they are, crawling up the 360m round an almost constant series of hairpin bends that afford no overtaking opportunities. Nonetheless, we finally made it without killing any.

We booked a “Sierra Nevada” pitch which, by Spanish standards, is supposedly more spacious at about 90m².  These are in the highest area of the campsite and in theory give a view of the surrounding mountains, if you look beyond the units parked in front of you. Still, it’s relatively pleasant.

I suspect that one of the normal reasons for staying here would be to visit the Alhambra Palace in Granada. Nein danke! There is a bus that goes up and down the cyclist-strewn mountain road, mostly also without killing any. However, we’ve done the Alhambra before and, frankly, whilst I know Francine enjoyed it I was left a little underwhelmed, but then I am a Philistine. Even though it’s religious, I was much more impressed by the Mezquita in Córdoba. If Granada isn’t your thing then I’m sure there are good walks in the mountains here.

About 2kms further up the winding mountain road lies the village of Güéjar Sierra. [Wrap your tongue around that if you can.] We decided we’d walk in and have a look. Going along the main road seemed a bad idea, trudging pedestrians getting squished along with the crawling cyclists. However, there was an alternative country road route, which we took.

The country road route went up a mountain beside the village, and I do mean up, before plunging back down into the village itself. At the summit of our climb, we’d gained 60m. One of my dislikes is slogging my way uphill, only to lose my height advantage by going back down again. What goes up must come down. You just know you’re going to have to reverse the process on the return.

Once we had descended back to the level of our campsite, it was 11:30. We found the main square with a shady café and sat down to enjoy a cortado. When 12:00 spun around, we enjoyed a beer as well. As we sat there watching traffic in unbelievably narrow, steep streets, one of the buses arrived and proceeded to turn around in said unbelievably narrow streets. Most entertaining, and impressive. Once it had completed its 3-point turn using a side street and began to leave, it met traffic coming into the village and had to reverse back uphill to let a car and motorcycle in before it could again try to depart.

We went in search of lunch but, being a Monday when many establishments are closed, there was a serious lack of open eateries.

We began the slog back uphill out of the village before descending once again to our campsite altitude of 1100m.

Today we left our Villafranca de Córdoba campsite to head for a Sierra Nevada site near Granada. Unusually, the little town had a supermarket that was open seven days a week so, having paid for the campsite, we called in to top up our supplies. There was even a gravel parking area for us to leave Frodo in.

Our journey was almost 200 kms. We began with a very short stretch of autovia before heading across country, which proved to be absolutely fascinating. After about 10kms we began passing olive plantations. These were olive plantations the like of which I’ve never seen before. The countryside was rolling but with serious hills. On both sides of the road, the hills as far as the eye could see were covered in olive trees and nothing else. Shooting it from a moving vehicle doesn’t do it justice but you may get the idea.

We were heading for a town called Jaén, about 70 kms further on and the scenery had not changed; we were still surrounded by olive trees as far as the eye could see. What I cannot comprehend is how on earth this crop could be harvested. We’re talking rolling hills like those of the Beaujolais in France, covered in millions of olive trees instead of vines.

At Jaén we completed our cross-country jaunt and joined another autovia. Once we left the conurbation behind us the olive trees continued unabated. This was utterly incredible, we had eventually been driving past at least 120kms of solid olive trees covering the land from horizon to horizon. With the hills, though, the horizon wasn’t as far as usual hut it was still a massive operation that I just couldn’t quite comprehend.

As we approached Granada we turned off onto more rural roads and began climbing up into the Sierra Nevada. We were on mountain roads and, being a Sunday, the road was full of cyclists which needed some careful negotiating.

Finally, without killing any maniac cyclists climbing ridiculous hills, we arrived at our campsite, Güéjar Sierra [try saying that after a vodka or two]. We’d booked one of the “posh” pitches – posh because they are a massive, by Spanish standards, 90m².

Other than being next to a very yappy small dog nearby, Frodo is very comfortable at 1100m altitude. The sky is clear blue and we are reasonably well equipped. I even managed to raid some brilliant fresh rosemary from a bush at our Villafranca de Córdoba site for yet another paella.

You cannot have too many paellas.

Scary spiders!

We are really here to see one of Spain’s most famous monuments, the Mezquita de Córdoba, the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba. If the concept of a Mosque-Cathedral confuses you, it does me, too, but then I am a self-confessed religious numbskull. This has to be something to do with the mix-up between the Moors and Christians in Spain way back when.

As if visiting a religious monument wasn’t enough scary spiders for me, I was also being asked to ride the 25mks into Cordoba on a Spanish bus. Yikes! The campsite had helpfully provided Francine with a bus timetable, the buses going from a stop a short walk outside the campsite, so my chances of getting out of it were two: slim and fat. Besides, what else would I do on the campsite all day? Along with a couple of Spanish couples, we set off for the 09:00 bus into Córdoba.

€3 each got us to the Córdoba central bus station. The bus was very nearly full up but then, it was a Friday. This was where we’d hope to catch the return bus. Disembarking, we began wandering towards the Mezquita.

Mezquita is Spanish for Mosque. It is officially known as the Catedral de Nuestra Senora de la Asuncion [Cathedral of our Lady of the Assumption]. As a mosque, it was begun in 785 [it says here]. Right, that’s as much history as I can handle.

We made it to the old city walls, entered and wound our way through some amazingly narrow streets finally arriving at the entrance to the mosque-cathedral. Coughing up our €10 each, just in case the Roman Catholic church wasn’t quite rich enough, we got tickets to enter the hallowed walls – but please remove your hat on the inside. I do that, anyway, by the way. Odd. I also spell God with a capital “G”, which is the respectful term, even though I’m a non believer. Mixed up, or what?

The interior of this confusing edifice is, I think, famous for one thing – well, hundreds of more or less identical things, in truth  – the terracotta and cream arches spanning the countless marble columns which abound in the enormous space of the interior. The enormous space was, of course, heaving with enormous numbers of tourists and I spent an age waiting in one of the quieter spots to snag the arches (almost) people free. This is the best I could manage and, after a good 10 minutes waiting for tourists taking selfies to disappear, especially those in red T-shirts, I was reasonably pleased.

I had, at least, taken a proper camera with me to play, so I wasn’t resorting to a crappy phone camera. Francine had also taken her real camera but she has also recently “upgraded” to an iPhone which she was playing with in the Mezquita. She also loaded six wacky photographic apps which do weird things to photos to pretend you’re using a proper camera. Here’s one of her efforts. That’s me bemused.

Completely religioned out, we eventually left the Mezquita and wandered down to the river to cross yet another Roman bridge giving us a view back to the Mosque on the opposite side of the river. You’ll notice that Cordoba is devoid of high rise. Well done them.

We wandered a little way from the tourist trap of the Mezquita in search of some lunch. As usual, we were a bit early for Spanish lunchtime, which seems to start at 13:00. A very pleasant waitress was happy to serve us a drink while we waited for the kitchen to open. Once it did, we chose Berenjenas con miel [aubergines with honey], Fried Boquerones [Anchovies] and a Timbale of Rabo de Toro [oxtail]. As is also usual, we ordered a bit too much.

Just outside the walls of the old town we got quite a surprise. There was what appeared to be a completely sterile stone and concrete pool. There was vegetation at its side but there was no vegetation within it, certainly nothing emergent for nymphs to emerge. Francine first spotted one dragonfly on the pool side, then we realised that there were four different species. There was actually another pool, with absolutely no vegetation, hosting some of the same species. I don’t get it.

Now we had to get to the bus station for our return 15:45 transport. The place was heaving. We were in plenty of time but Spain has no concept of queuing so it ain’t first come first served. A hoard was gathered around the port our bus would depart from. Eventually, half the hoard loaded onto the bus before ours, leaving another half a hoard. If we didn’t get on, the next (and last) bus was at 20:00. Eventually our 15:45 bus pulled in and we managed to finagle our way on while there was still plenty of space.

With just a single seat remaining, we arrived at Frodo having filled the last seat with a student from the university.

Today was a (happily) uneventful drive of 240kms. We had booked a campsite in Villafranca de Córdoba, Camping Albolafia.

Our route was largely cross-country and rather unscintillating, though it was better than trudging down a tedious motorway. Most memorable to me was passing through the town of Peñarroya-Pueblonuevo, which clearly had a rich coal mining history. We past what looked like old spoil heaps, now turned into mini mountains, with many old metal pitheads standing by the road as a reminder.

We negotiated a lengthy descent of the high plateau towards Córdoba. The traffic and road system of Córdoba was a bit of a shock after a rural journey but we made that unscathed and began heading to Villafranca de Córdoba.

The campsite reviews were a bit mixed but, having checked in, we managed to find Frodo what we thought was a very decent pitch right on the edge, although we were facing the rugrats’ playground. Even better, were facing the right way to maximize the shade from Frodo’s shop-blind awning.

Fingers firmly crossed.