VRSA to Seville (Spain at last!)

We left VRSA on Tuesday and drove a few miles north through a nature reserve consisting mainly of saltpans and onto Castro Marim. Although only a small town, it had a lovely castle and fort with great views across Portugal and Spain. We managed to catch up on plenty of washing as there was a very popular public laundry area which had dozens of motorhomes using it each day. It also had a very clean shower block so we both enjoyed a nice long shower! Before leaving Castro Marim on Saturday afternoon, we watched the start of one of the legs of the Algarve Cycle race which was held from 18 - 22 Feb at various locations across the Algarve. We then returned to VRSA as the Carnaval (Carnival) was being held on Sunday.

On Sunday morning we caught the ferry over to Ayamonte in Spain for a few hours before the Carnaval at 3pm. Ayamonte was a really nice town with some nice squares and lots of pavement cafes. It was very busy and a lot of people were in Fancy Dress ready for their own Carnaval. Before leaving Ayamonte we stopped for a coffee in one of the squares and watched the world go by. We returned to VRSA for a late lunch then into town for the Carnaval. By 3pm the main street was very crowded, the procession was large and very colourful with an Olympic theme. The procession carried on circling the main square for about 3 hours.


On Monday we stocked up on food and then drove back to Castro Marim, we were only going to stay there until Tuesday, but the library was closed both days (due to public holiday) so we stayed until Wednesday. We needed the library so we could get on the Internet to check out where we could hopefully obtain a spare part for our water pump. It’s been playing up for a while, Mark seems to have temporarily fixed it, but he’s not certain that it will hold out for long. On Wednesday afternoon we finally drove to Spain! We were sad to leave Portugal, but were excited about going somewhere new.

We crossed the bridge over to Spain, it was only a 5 minute drive from Castro Marim. The first thing we noticed is that the roads are definitely less bumpy, as soon as were were over the bridge the road improved! We decided to head to Isla Cristina which was not far from Ayamonte (which we’d visited on Sunday) but on the coast rather than the river. On the way we saw loads of pink flamingos on the salt pans, we hadn‘t seen flamingos at all in Portugal. We were a little nervous about finding somewhere suitable to park up (after speaking to others who had told us it was more difficult that Portugal), but we quickly found an area just outside the town with some other motorhomes in a clearing of pine trees and behind the sand-dunes. We went for a walk along the beach towards the town and then returned along the path through the pine wood We’ve lost an hour as we’re now in Spain, so instead of going dark at 6.30pm it went dark at 7.30pm which suits us fine! The next day we cycled into and around the town, stopping at the tourist office for some maps of the local area and Andalucia in general. Isla Cristina was in Carnaval mode too, their Carnaval ran for 3 weeks ending this coming weekend! We weren’t very impressed with the town, it was a bit grotty, but where we were parked up was nice so we stayed another night. We tried to find some chamelions as they can apparently be found in the pine woods in this area, but we didn’t have any luck.

On Friday we moved on and drove further than we had in weeks, eventually ending up in Moguer after driving eastwards along the coast through Islantilla and La Antilla, then slightly north to Lepe and Cartaya, then to Huelva and eventually to Moguer. None of the places en route grabbed our attention, so we kept going! The weather over the last few days has cooled down and the blue skies have gone. It’s refreshing to have it cooler for a while as it was getting quite hot in the motorhome at times! On Saturday morning we went for a walk around Moguer which was quite a pretty town and then in the afternoon decided to drive on to Seville. We drove round the centre of Seville for a couple of hours trying to find a suitable place to park, eventually by late afternoon we found an idea place behind the Plaza de Espana which was only a 10 to 15 minute walk from the centre of the city.

Sunday was quite overcast with sunny spells in the afternoon, we headed into the centre and after wandering around for a while went on a tour around the bullring and its museum. As the weather had brightened up we decided to have a tour round the city on an open top bus tour which was a great way to see a lot of the sights easily. Monday was incredibly wet, it didn’t stop raining all day long! We popped to the library for an hour in the morning and went on another open top bus ride late afternoon (a slightly different route) in the drizzle. We decided to move the motorhome to the front of the Plaza de Espana so we’re slightly closer to the centre in case it continues to rain over the next few days.

By the next morning the motorhome was well and truly surrounded by cars in all directions! Parking in Seville seems to be a free-for-all in the free parking areas. We managed to squeeze out of the drivers door, but only just. It appears that a lot of drivers leave their cars parked with the handbrake off and then pay unofficial parking attendents to keep an eye on their car and push it out of the way if another car needs to get out or in! Thankfully it was a dry day, so we made the most of it and walked miles and miles around the city. We visited the Casa de Pilatos which is a 16th Century palace which is covered in brightly coloured tiles. We also visited the Museo de Bellas Artes (Fine Art museum) which was in a lovely old building which was previously a convent. In the evening we attempted to drive to a tap that we'd seen a couple of days ago (we'd saved it on the sat nav so we could find it again easily) - however it was a complete nightmare, the sat nav kept getting confused about where we were (due to the tall buildings) and was directing us around in circles eventually ending up down very narrow old streets where I had to jump out and watch Mark through. We were dreading having to reverse back on ourselves as we had a lot of traffic behind us. As soon as were were able, Mark parked up and walked ahead to check the route back to a main road. We then gave up the stressful water search and returned as quickly as we could to our parking spot!