Home on Wheels – Motorhome Blog

Using a motorhome to explore cities is not the easiest thing to do in my opinion, but maybe that’s because we are novices. Also, we have been settled into the same campsite for a month now and moving the motorhome to use it as transport is a bit of a pain so we decided to hire a car for a week, and we have certainly made the most of it. We are just back from a visit to the city of Murcia where we explored the old town and had lunch sitting outside in a charming restaurant. It’s the middle of December and the temperature reached 21C – Perfect! The Spanish were dressed in their winter clothes of thick jackets and scarves and it was like a good English summer day. The weather is one of the reasons we decided to spend the winter in Spain and when we hear that it’s bad snow in England it makes me feel a little smug! Other places we have visited this week on our whistle stop tour of the Alicante region include the quaint town of Orihuela, famous for its cathedral, built between the 14th and 16th centuries and the poet Miguel Hernandez. We have also visited the seaside town of Torrevieja, which is instantly forgettable, although to be fair it does have a nice seafront promenade. We drove north past Benidorm and onto the delightful town of Altea, a must visit old town and sea front. Santa Pola, La Marina and a drive up into the mountains to see Pinoso as well as numerous other small villages have all been visited this week with our little Kia, which incidentally cost the same for a week as 3 days car hire costs in the UK. We have learnt some lessons this week! The first lesson learnt is that there are not many public toilets in Spain so you have to use them when you see them. Whilst walking back along the long promenade in Torrevieja to our car, Anne was desperate for the loo. All the public conveniences on the beach front were closed for the winter despite there being hordes of people wandering about. The only option was to call into a cafe for what turned out to be a very expensive pee, 12 Euros –  ( with a free ice cream sundae!). The second lesson we have learnt is to learn more Spanish phrases. At the restaurant we visited in Murcia the waiters did not speak English and we ended up misunderstanding what he said. What was meant to be a cheap snack for lunch ending up costing us 50 Euros. We ended up with eight  starters and a huge Paella between us. A little embarrassing! I have now re-installed, the learn a language app, Duolingo and will try and learn one phrase a day from now on. Our journey goes on and as Christmas approaches we have put Christmas lights on the outside of our motorhome and we have a small Christmas tree. It’s all looking festive and we have even put our food requests in for the restaurant on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, Tapas and a turkey dinner, now that is what you call the best of both worlds. As an ex- travel and tourism lecturer and travel agent I’m learning more than ever about Spain and witnessing Spain’s travel and tourism industry at first hand. Who knows – I might get offered a job! We move on again on Wednesday and I read a phrase on another motorhome blog about life on the road – it’s a small living room but a very large back garden. Perfectly true.
One of the attractive buildings in Murcia.
Altea old town
Santa Pola fishing boats
Oriheula old town