#cantabria loos

[guguseti]

El personaje misterioso de Flagrant, de Iván Corrales a ...

En el último personaje misterioso nos fuimos hasta la preciosa ciudad de Plasencia, donde un 12 de julio de 1974 nacía nuestro personaje misterioso de la pasada edición, Iván Corrales. Un Iván Corrales que paso por muchos clubs de ACB y LEB, Joventut Badalona, Fuenlabrada, CB Sevilla, Cantabria Lobos, Saski Baskonia, Tenerife club de Baloncesto, Valladolid, Baloncesto Atapuerca, CDB Amistad y…

[jow99]

Playa de Arija to Picos de Europa, Fuente De

An early start for me this morning with a work call, which wasn’t a bad thing as we wanted to get on the road relatively early. We were heading to Picos de Europa which is an absolutely stunning National Park in Spain. Years ago we did a day drive through it and have wanted to come back and spend more time ever since.

Our Aussie neighbours were leaving today too. Harry came over to supervise Jose’s packing up progress. I hadn’t realised until they were leaving today that their van is called Waltzing Matilda - awesome!

Our drive today retraced yesterday’s bike ride and continued on. We’d really like to come back here and do more cycling. It was a beautiful drive and we were truly in Cantabria now (though we did briefly cross through Asturia).

We stopped off for groceries and Jose called the campground we were hoping to get into. For some bizarre reason they won’t take bookings. At that point they did have vacancies. We were about 2 hours away so we scooted as fast as the windy single lane each way road would allow us.

Alas the last spot had just been filled when we arrived 😩 There was another campground 4kms down the road but when we got there it was also full. We seriously thought everyone had gone to the coast, we couldn’t believe how busy the Picos de Europa was.

Our last hope was another campground a further 16kms away. As it turned out it was literally at the roads end and both fullish and a bit challenging for a motorhome, think shiny cobbles. However the road leading to this campground was wall to wall motorhomes. Happy days, looks like we’ve found our spot for the night and it is stunning.

We went for a quick walk to get some hiking info, a loo stop and a coffee. By the time we got back to Tessi for lunch it was after 3:30pm and I was starving. Replete we went for a short walk and then dropped by the bar in the campground.

Back at Tessi there were motorhomes queueing, hoping to get a spot. Having spoken to some of the other people parked here it does seem the park rangers are turning a blind eye to all us rebel motorhome owners.

Dinner tonight was simple but delicious. Local blue cheese and chorizo followed be tortilla that was still warm when we bought it at Carrefour with a salad. And of course the obligatory bottle of rose. This wild camping isn’t so bad 😉

[encountersincamperland]

Bathroom Talk

Bathroom Talk

The first thing I want to know on arrival at a campsite is not where will we pitch or what will it cost or who will our neighbours be; it’s what are the bathroom facilities like.

Having stayed in twenty-four different campsites on our two month trip, we have learnt that standards vary widely from the downright dirty to the practically palatial, with the environmentally friendly amongst them. Decent sanitary facilities can make or break your enjoyment of a camping experience.

As a minimum, I’m looking for cleanliness, hot water and a toilet seat (!). Extras would be toilet paper and hand wash. We always went prepared, just in case. Having stayed in several places that lacked the minimum requirements and some that were in poor condition with broken wash basins, missing shower hooks or heads, and poorly designed shower cubicles where your dry clothes end up soaked - you know who you are - we know what we are looking for to ensure our comfort.

The award for best campsite bathroom facilities 2018 goes to (drum roll) Caravaning Oyambre Cantabria, near Comillas on the Costa Verde.

As soon as I walked into you, I knew we were in a good place. From walking across a large terraced area where all the facilities are, including laundry and dish washing, your clean sweep spoke of high standards of hygiene and orderliness. Walking into the ladies, I was struck by the abundance of gleaming marble wash stands. There were plenty of toilets - replete with seats and individual toilet rolls rather than having to take a few sheets from a shared wall mounted drum.

There was an abundance of showers that had working hooks and a good amount of space - not least a sheltered bench and hooks upon which to place your things and be confident they will stay dry while you shower.

There were nice touches like scent sticks in jars of essential oils.

Most considerate of all was the area with two individual bathrooms reserved for parents to bathe small children. This was a first. I thought about the many times I have been using the facilities on other sites to the accompaniment of wailing toddlers, slippery in parents’ arms. Miserable for all concerned. Here were bathrooms provided to make the task of keeping children clean easier, more pleasurable and less hazardous. Comillas - I salute you!

A worthy mention goes to the sanitary facilities at Sesimbra. You may have been basic - no toilet seat or hot water in hand-basins - but you provided us with a place to shelter from the storm as Hurricane Leslie was threatening to hurl itself at us with 112mph winds. Your sturdy stone walls were part of our evacuation plan (no pun intended) if things got rough in the van. Luckily, Leslie swerved west before it hit our south facing shore and we didn’t have to put the plan into action. But you were there and that was a comfort.

The big finger goes to the campsite we almost made the mistake of staying in at Viana do Compostela when we were looking for the Orbitur site - a very good campsite company that runs 29 sites in Portugal.

This campsite is 300m from the Orbitur and we mistook it in our eagerness to get pitched after a long day’s drive. Set amongst a expanse of tall pine trees, the site is vast and has many permanently situated caravans and family-sized tents with extended canvas walls and wooden patios over sandy pitches. All well and good but the place was like a ghost town, deserted summer dwellings gloomy and grumbly in the shade as an unsecured flap slapped unhappily and cats waited lazily for their nightly hunt to begin.

We found the space at the far end of the site for campers. It was as desolate as the rest, only a pair of cyclist in a hill near the facilities were pitching tents.

I did not have a good feeling about this and said let’s check out the loos before we set up camp. Up we went only to be affronted by the crummiest, most neglected and worn out bathrooms to date. That sealed it for me. Let’s not stay, I said. I don’t

Like this place. I knew there must be other campsites nearby in this seaside town. Sure enough, having made our escape, we saw the missed Orbitur sign at the end of the road and turned into a well managed and cared for place, where there were happy campers, well fed cats and decent loos. We ended up staying a week. You cannot underestimate the importance of investing in salutary sanitaires.