Dan, Author at The Moho Diaries

Spain

Brits Galore…..Xàbia

June 2, 2018Dan3 min read

01/06/18 – 02/06/18 – Xàbia When I used to work for a Spanish company based near Alicante, I had often heard the town Xàbia (or Jávea) mentioned as a nice place to visit, so as were headed through that way, we thought it would be a good place to spend a couple of days on a campsite given we had just spent 9/11 previous nights in free aires/wild camping (A new record for us I think) We would have stayed away from the campsite longer but, boring as it may be, we had laundry and other Moho servicing necessitates to take care of. We stayed at Camping Jávea – A large site with tightly pack pitches, and not much privacy between them (Something the vast majority of Spanish Campsites share) our Moho is just over 6.5 meters long and I found it difficult to negotiate some of the bends. The site seemed to attract a lot of Brits and Dutch – many of them long termers (One English couple had been there 18 months.) The swimming pool was excellent and there was a bar and small...

Valencia….the Birthplace of Paella

June 1, 2018Dan6 min read

30/05/18 – 01/06/18 – Valencia Negotiating a 7 lane roundabout was not what I expected as we entered Valencia! Fortunately, the Spanish all seem pretty relaxed when it comes to lane positioning, so long as you keep your wits about someone cutting in front of you at the last possible minute. (It also probably helps being in one of the larger vehicles on the road.) Our overnight stop for the next couple of nights would be about 5km outside of the city centre on a strip of wasteland (Glamorous I know!) about 50 meters or so from the beach ‘playa del cabanyal’ to be honest, it was fine – quiet enough at night, it felt safe and it was free. Plus close enough to cycle in to town to see the sites. There were a couple of other visiting Mohos there during our time plus one that looked like it had been there for some time. Our first outing was Ciutat De Les Artes I Les Ciences (or city of arts and sciences) designed by architects Calatrava and Candela, it it the city’s most...

Dog Friendly Drinks Food Spain Vegetarian

Benicàssim

May 30, 2018Dan4 min read

28/05/18 – 30/05/18 – Benicàssim Apart from the annual music festival held there in July, we didn’t really know much about Benicàssim. As it turned out, it was pretty nice. Before that however, we had completely ran out of LPG in Alcossebre (Including the back-up tank) so we took a half our detour using the my.LPG.eu app to find the nearest LPG station. When we brought the van, the previous owners gave us a number of adaptors to use across Europe for filling the tanks, but the one we needed today, we didn’t have. Fortunately, the garage had one that fitted, so €15 late we were refilled and cooking on gas…..literally. We decided to use a free aire again found on searchforsites.co.uk – this place was just outside the main part of town and about 20 minutes walk from the beach – it also had free facilities. As there were no other Moho’s on site, we weren’t entirely sure that we were at the right place, but we pulled over anyway and got...

Drinks Spain

A Pleasant Surprise – Tarragona

May 26, 2018Dan2 min read

25/05/18 – 26/05/18 – Tarragona After a few restful days in Sitges, we left without really doing any research about Tarragona, so didn’t really know what to expect apart from the Roman Amphitheatre ruins and the fact that we could park relatively close to there in a free overnight stop – A carpark on a hill overlooking ‘miracle beach’ (Although what was so miraculous about it, neither of us were too sure given the industrial backdrop). We headed to the amphitheatre mid afternoon and as luck would have it, it was free entry that day, sadly though we weren’t allowed to take Marley in with us, so we got as close we could, took some photos and headed up the hill into the town. Lorraine had spotted something about ‘Castells’ (The Human Towers) on our way over. As it turns out this is one of the traditions that Tarragona is famous for – they have schools that compete again each other with teams comprising all ages – the...

Dog Friendly Drinks Food LGBT Spain Vegetarian

Sitges Bitches!

May 25, 2018Dan4 min read

21/05/18 – 25/05/18 – Sitges e have both been to Sitges twice previously for Justin and Brandon’s wedding and Justin’s 40th, both times in quite large groups (Sitges Bitches). So this time around we weren’t sure if it would feel the same with it being just the 3 of us. We found a parking spot to the north of the town centre close to Sitges Port, overlooking a small beach, playa de la Marina Aigudolç that cost the princely sum of €3.60/24 hours. It was such a stunning location, we didn’t want to leave, but after 3 nights we needed our water tank topping up. There were 2 other Mohos parked up – one either side of us and it wasn’t long before one of our neighbours came to introduce himself and give us the low-down on avoiding fines etc – thanks Pablo 🙂 The first night we had a quick walk around the Marina which mainly comprised expensive restaurants (to our budget at least) and a few boat related shops, followed by dinner in the van...

Food Spain

A Load of Tossa

May 16, 2018Dan3 min read

14/05/18 – 16/05/18 Tossa de Mar & Cala Llevado Having spent some time in the city, we were itching to get to the coast so decided to visit the nearest beach Tossa De Mar – Yes we had a laugh at the name too…..or maybe its just us that are immature still… We arrived just after lunchtime, it was an overcast day and we parked on the closest road we could to the beach. The walk there was somewhat depressing, through dated looking hotel developments catering for the off-season long-termers having their afternoon siesta to the scheduled entertainment… The beach had little more to offer, it was largely empty, partly due to the weather and partly due to the time of year I suppose. The castle at the headland looked mildly interesting but not enough to draw us up there (Perhaps because we had just come from Girona). So, 10 minutes later we were heading back to the van to formulate a plan on where to go next. Out came the ACSI app and we found a campsite with...

Spain

Viva España

May 14, 2018Dan3 min read

13/05/18 – 14/05/18 Girona The drive from Carcassonne, France to Girona, Spain varied massively from the scenic to the seedy. Avoiding the toll roads we were taken through lots of small villages with narrow roads not entirely suitable for the Moho however all was made worthwhile when we came to a junction just outside of Ferrals-les-Corbiere where they had closed off the road to heard sheep through the town – Not something I’ve seen before being a townie. Before long we were moving again and it wasn’t long before the road wound up through the midi Pyrenees – lots of switch-back bends and steep inclines but amazing views (The Scenic) – The van seemed to handle it pretty well. (I daren’t look down at the MPG however!) This led us on to the border town of Le Perthus (the Seedy) which felt more like some of the border towns we had visited in South America – A busy main road through the town with sex shops, hemp seeds and night club that...

Dog Friendly France

Run-to-the-Sun – Poitiers

May 12, 2018Dan2 min read

11/05/18 – 12/05/18 – Poitiers (Nieuil-l’Espoir) Nouvelle-Aquitaine Today was the start of our run-to-sun mammoth drive (Or at least compared to date.) We left Monteneuf around 1pm and spent the majority of the afternoon avoiding the toll roads and driving approximately 350km through the rain to arrive at our destination Nieuil-l’Espoir, a pretty free aire just outside of Poitiers. The aire should have accommodated 12 Moho’s but unfortunately due to British motorhomers who parked too far apart from one another, the aire was completely full. Luckily, there was an adjacent carpark where we spent some time thinking do-we-dont-we until some other campers turned up and we decided to stay. It’s a beautiful location to stay, set around a river and lake with giant carp and cat fish – Lorraine thought there maybe alligators given the big splash they made! We took Marley for a walk and thought we’d see if he’d go down the slide in the park, which he did. I...

France

Pitstop at Mum n Dad’s – Monteneuf

May 11, 2018Dan2 min read

08/05/18 – 11/05/18 – Le Ville Jehan, Monteneuf, Brittany Yes, I know we are only a week in to our travels and already running for cover, but the weather in Dinard chilled us to the bone (Over dramatic I know) but it was bitter. What better place to take refuse than mum n dads place about 1.5 hours to the south. No sooner as we’d arrived, the sun was out again and we spent the afternoon in the garden sunbathing. The three of us got a shock when next doors giant dog (at least compared to Marley) turned up in the garden to say hello. Marley was scared and made some unsettling yelps but the owner turned up and took the dog back with him. The next few trips outside, ‘the dog’ kept escaping from garden – desperate to say hello to Marley, what choice did we have but to let him – Of course, he was fine – we were probably more worried than him. We took a couple of cycle tours of the local area. One to Monteneuf where we came across our first...

Drinks France

Clifftop Camping – Longues Sur Mere

May 6, 2018Dan1 min read

05/05/18 – 06/05/18 – Longues Sur Mer, Normandy This was our first night of ‘wild camping’ (no facilities) in France. (GPS 49.3452648,-0.6955442,16) The site was perched on the clifftop, overlooking the sea and consisted of about 6 hardstanding spaces, with the rest on the adjacent grass. It was a busy little strip with campers and cars coming and going up until around 9pm. We took a walk down the steep road to the pebbled beach and sat for about half an hour in the sun before heading back for the evening Before long, a local farmer knocked our the door selling his cidre – 3 for 10 euros …..rude not to really….even if (as Lorraine put it), it tasted like a manure….did the trick though. The next morning we explored the WW2 battery’s and took Marley along the clifftop in the basket on the back of the bike. I think he is starting to tolerate it! It’s probably due to him realising the benefits of not walking in the heat (see...

Author - Dan