{"id":2224,"date":"2019-07-09T18:09:20","date_gmt":"2019-07-09T18:09:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=2224"},"modified":"2019-07-14T08:29:28","modified_gmt":"2019-07-14T08:29:28","slug":"14-not-the-best-of-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=2224","title":{"rendered":"14. NOT THE BEST OF DAYS!"},"content":{"rendered":"

The day we left Dos Moinhos for Spain was just one of those days.\u00a0 Nothing seemed to go right.\u00a0 And some things went badly wrong.\u00a0 I suppose every caravanning holiday has a couple of days a bit like that!<\/p>\n

First up was the motorway.\u00a0 \u00a0We had paid our \u20ac10 for the electronic tolls, but all the motorways we used today were manual pay-as-you-go jobs…\u00a0 so we’ve left Portugal in credit.\u00a0 But I guess that balances the books from last year when, as I recall, we left with a probable debt!\u00a0 Then at one automatic toll booth we were charged as a class 3 vehicle.\u00a0 In Portugal, unlike France, they don’t charge for caravans!\u00a0 Usually!\u00a0 A long conversation in Portuguese\/English revealed the fact that staff on duty at the toll plaza had no authority to give refunds – nor even help fill in the form for a refund…\u00a0 Not happy!<\/span><\/p>\n

We had chosen a campsite which came with good reviews and pitches with direct views over the sea.<\/p>\n

This was on the Spanish coast road some 20 miles out from the rather large and sprawling town of Pontevedra.\u00a0 The map said we should take the N550 along the coast, but the sat nav said don’t.\u00a0 It said go 500 miles (well, a long way) North on the motorway then cut diagonally back to our target.\u00a0 At first we thought this was a joint marketing effort for the Spanish toll roads.\u00a0 Later we discovered that the 20 miles around the coast was basically a tiny, twisty road through a conurbation of small seaside towns which had all overgrown and joined up<\/p>\n

A continuous, overcrowded, busy stretch of coast with a million visitors all trying hard to force a British caravan off the road!\u00a0 On arrival at our “chosen” site, we found what I suppose we should have expected, not what we had hoped for!\u00a0 The site did indeed have sea views – but they would be shared with a lot of (mainly) Spaniards in a tightly packed space.\u00a0 After a discussion lasting about one minute we both decided that we needed to move on.\u00a0 Our back-up plan was, we discovered, another 80 miles further North.<\/p>\n

We abandoned our coastal road and did the diagonal thing our car had previously recommended to get to our now “un-chosen” site.\u00a0 This time going NE not SW.\u00a0 Still not the fastest of roads.\u00a0 However, we did see trees and green fields instead of apartment blocks.<\/p>\n

Muros and the adjacent village of Louros, which are quite close to Finisterre, have three ACSI listed sites within five miles each other.\u00a0 \u00a0We had chosen the furthest one.\u00a0 But, just to be certain, we stopped at the first one first!<\/p>\n

Bad mistake – on three counts.\u00a0 First it was stupidly expensive; second it was over-crowded with small pitches.\u00a0 And thirdly because while negotiating in the packed carpark outside I misjudged my turn and caught the back corner of the van on a parked car.<\/p>\n

Bad news!\u00a0 I now have a dent in the caravan about one mm deep by one mm wide.\u00a0 And a bit of blue paint.\u00a0 Almost invisible.\u00a0 … but you should have seen Carmen’s car!\u00a0 It was undriveable.\u00a0 The whole of the front end had fallen off.\u00a0 Lights on the deck – the works.\u00a0 Exchange of telephone numbers.\u00a0 Insurance company involvement.\u00a0 Police officer 007 (yes, really!) inspected the caravan and said where was the damage.\u00a0 He couldn’t believe it – and neither can I!\u00a0 First moving car accident I’ve ever had.\u00a0 Enough said.\u00a0 Too much said.\u00a0 Sorry again, Carmen!\u00a0 And thanks for being so understanding about the whole thing.\u00a0 I hope I’d be equally nice if something like that happened to us.\u00a0 I can always hope!<\/p>\n

Moving on, which we did still a little shocked I think, we settled in the second campsite – Camping San Francisco, in Louros.\u00a0 It was OK.\u00a0 Better than we first thought.\u00a0 But we did venture the last two miles later that evening to check out our first choice site – Anchoradoira.\u00a0 This was what we had been looking for.\u00a0 Right on the coast between two beautiful mile-long beaches with it’s own little cove two minutes walk from our caravan.<\/p>\n

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True it would be very exposed in heavy weather, but we had several days of calm sunshine predicted.<\/p>\n

So, after a bit of indecision, we moved the next morning and took up residence on pitch P5.\u00a0 Fabulous sunset views.<\/p>\n

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(That’s the view from the loo!)\u00a0 Fabulous views all day long actually!<\/p>\n

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Everything to do with caravanning appears to be a bit of a compromise.\u00a0 The sites with the best views might have dodgy washroom facilities.\u00a0 Friendly sites can have tiny pitches.\u00a0 \u00a0Great sites can come with expensive restaurants or surly staff.\u00a0 Anchoradoira had nice big pitches with fab views, but the hot water was a joke and the manager so surly and rude it was a real shame.\u00a0 He should have listened to his careers adviser at school (about 50 years ago) when he must\u00a0 have been recommended to stay away from anything remotely connected to the hospitality industry!\u00a0 But the site, on balance, was brilliant.\u00a0 Adequately quiet for us but still connected to the populated world so there was plenty to do for the time we stayed.\u00a0 I bet we go back one day!<\/p>\n

One of the things we had wanted to do was visit Finisterre – or Fisterra as it’s called locally.\u00a0 Cape Finisterre is the most westerly part of mainland Spain and is named after our oldest grandson, who is known as Finn for short\u00a0 Actually, I think the cape was named a while before Finn was born.\u00a0 But who’s counting?<\/p>\n

The town of Fisterra was obviously a compact village grown up around a fishing port.<\/p>\n

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Now attracting a lot of tourists and Camino walkers.\u00a0 Yes, we are back on The Trail yet again!\u00a0 At Finisterre lighthouse we found a sign saying Camino Trail 0.000 km.<\/p>\n

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Must be a starting point for the collection of pilgrims coming from the Cape.\u00a0 They’d be the lighthouse keepers I suppose – originally.<\/p>\n

The Cape was a slightly sinister place.\u00a0 Vertiginous cliffs wreathed in a faint, salty haze.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

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Pictures taken and\u00a0 sent to Finn.\u00a0 He didn’t seem overly concerned!<\/span><\/p>\n

We have suffered from a total lack of internet access.\u00a0 The owner of our wonderful site switches off wifi for the summer visitors at the same time as doubling his prices!\u00a0 For everyone’s convenience!\u00a0 So I’m getting behind again.\u00a0 Now we have things to do at home!\u00a0 Especially the cricket, Wimbledon and the British grand prix.\u00a0 Just have to work out how to get the TV switched on – it’s been a long time!<\/p>\n

But there is still one more episode to come!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The day we left Dos Moinhos for Spain was just one of those days.\u00a0 Nothing seemed to go right.\u00a0 And some things went badly wrong.\u00a0 I suppose every caravanning holiday has a couple of days a bit like that! First… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spain-may-2019"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2224"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2269,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2224\/revisions\/2269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}