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Spain 3 - Portugal 0
Entry 13 of 38 | show all | print this entry |
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Well our time in Portugal has come to an end, we left Olhao and drove down the coast towards Tevira which was nice, well it was very nice infact, even our usual daily coffee sat in a scenic square was nice, in fact Portugal was nice! We managed to get some LPG for Daisy before we left Portugal and a big bag of oranges for Nicky, me and Alf got nothing....not nice!
We were going to go to Seville, where the marmalade comes from (only joking Uncle Barry I know marmalade comes from Asda) but we couldn't see it for all the smog, so as I am a sensitive soul and it could make me cough and come out in a rash, we decided to go and see some flamingoes instead!!!...or so we thought.
There's a Lake (Laguna de la Fuente de Piedra) just outside of Antequera (in Spain - for the benefit of the not so well educated...hi Lotte!!) that is famous for its masses of flamingoes - 80,000 last year!!! We stayed on a site near the lake which was our most expensive yet (24 euros), it's no wonder we were the only ones on it....or was that because all the clever people had seen the weather forecast? We woke up as usual with Alf's cold wet nose annoying my foot, I got dressed and opened the van door and cor blimey govner I thought I had died and gone to heaven!!! Not because what I saw was cherrubs floating around on clouds playing harps, no no no because I couldn't see a bloody thing but cloud, well fog to be exact!!! Probably the only day this place has ever seen fog and it had to be the day we visit! Never mind, I didn't want to see bloody flamingoes anyway I've seen some caged up in a zoo when I was a kid (sorry that was before I got a conscience and stopped visiting zoo's, except for friends' houses!!!). So we left after getting lost in the fog, (or was it smog spreading from Seville?) and visiting a visitors centre that was only for Spanish people or those who know lots of Spanish words!! (sorry senora, I am not stupid just English).
We have met a really nice couple called Trish and Roger a couple of times on different sites and they are a mine of information. We met them again in Olhao and they mentioned some very impressive Dolmans in Antequera, we rushed back to the van to look the word up in a dictionery and thought umm yes let's go and see them. Dolmans are big stone burrial chambers and these ones were very big (supposedly the biggest in Europe) and very stone, they were good to see, much better than mangey flamingoes!!!We never managed to see the town of Antequera (no not because of the fog or smog!!) because as with most Spanish towns they don't have car parks or if they do they have one sign post to it and then nothing!!, we drove round for ages looking, so long infact I watched 15 episodes of 24..,,we got excited at one point when we saw a sign saying parking, we followed the 1 sign down really narrow streets, so narrow me and Alf had to breathe in at one point!! (I know that it should be Alf and I but I'm top dog round here!). So, after avoiding parked cars, women in black wrinkled tights and men so misserable I can only assume their whippets had just died, we found the car park!!! Yippee I hear you cry...no no no it had a height barrier with 2.2m on it and we quite like Daisy's high roof! So we headed off out of the place and hit the road to Granada -
didn't that old geezer from Dads Army, Clive whatshisname, sing a song called Granada, Granada we love you? (sorry youngsters you probably just got lost there) - well after my visit I know what he means..the place is lovely and the Alhambra Palace is absolutley amazing! We stayed our first night on a site 3km out of the city called Reina Isabel , this is the most run down site we have seen on our travels, in fact I haven't seen this sort of run down since the last time I was in Middlesborough!! I went in the the showers and almost got an electric shock from the bare wires hanging from the roof, the sinks in the washing up area were broken and the swimming pool looked like something from a horror movie!, but the setting was nice and there was no fog or smog. Our second night we spent in the car park of the Alhambra, as we found out campervans can park here for 24hrs for 20 euros!!! cheaper than our site and less of a chance of being electocuted!!and still no fog.
I could babble on about the architecture of the Alhambra all day but I won't, you should go and see it for yourself - its amazing. What I will say is that I had 2 really good Falafals in Granada one was lovely the other made me sick, so if you do visit go to the one at the bottom of Elvira on the Plaza Nuevo and not the one a bit further up with a chubby smiley man behind the counter (I know why he was smiling, but for the life of me can't understand why he's chubby the way his food travels through you!). The city is great, lots of streets to wander about and the Albacin (an old Moorish area) is amazing. We climbed the steep streets to go to a viewpoint overlooking the Alhambra for the sunset, but it was a bit dissapointing due to smog!!, but it was good to see all the stoned hippies and their dogs that hang out up there! So our visit to Granada has been one of the highlights of the trip so far and one I wont forget in a hurry!
I have also realised why the Spanish cities have so much smoggy stuff.....its cos no one uses enviromentally friendly LPG like us and they all drive so bloody fast!!! More thumbnails ...
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