Explore europe in a campervan

We picked up Aaron, Sam and Shannon from Girona airport where they arrived from Blackpool.  Shannon had never flown before and had a good flight, apart from the ear-popping landing!  That evening we explored the town a little – scoping out some bars for the evenings that Sam and Aaron would be allowed out for a few drinks without the whole entourage!  We stopped at a beach front bar for what looked like big goldfish bowls of beer (and a bowl of fanta for Shannon).  Big beers seem to be a trend in Lloret de Mar!

Shannon was itching to get in the pool so that was the first stop in the morning. It was a little bit overcast and Simon and I thought we’d wait for an afternoon when the sun had been warming the pool for a few hours, but Shannon braved it out and had a splash around.  We headed into town kitted out for the beach, where we hired a couple of pedal boats.  The sea was lovely and flat but we were all a little worried by the wake from the tour boats, which certainly rocked the boat, but we didn’t take in any water!  While the boys were desperately looking for some fish Shannon and I cruised around – but we saw a tiny silver fish skipping across the surface of the water being chased by a much bigger one.  They seemed to go right under the boat so we never knew if the big one got his dinner or not.  The sun came out while we were pedaling so we stayed at the beach – it was perfect for sunbathing but it took around half an hour of toe-dipping for anyone to get fully immersed in the water – hats off to Aaron and Sam for sticking it the longest!  That evening we spent a long time searching for a restaurant serving something for everyone and had a pretty good dinner in a Spanish/Italian/Pizza kind of restaurant.

We spent a day shopping and chilling out at the campsite, then trekked into town again the next day.  It wasn’t quite sunbathing weather so we all played mini golf – Shannon shone getting two holes-in-one!  We all had dinner at the van and one or two drinks – so it is just about possible to cater for 5 in our limited kitchen!  And we finally commissioned the generator, despite it having a broken choke switch – this is being sent to us via our visitors in the Algarve in June.

The following day we had booked to go on a coach excursion to Portaventura – Spain’s biggest theme park.  That meant an early start, but we just about made it in time! The theme park is pretty big with loads of rides and shows, but the map didn’t give much away.  It did categorise the rides as suitable for everyone, kids particularly or ‘thrill’ rides – so Shannon and I knew which ones we wanted to avoid.  We went on an undersea submarine simulator, a rollercoaster (big one for the brave people, little one for the girls), the log flume where we all got pretty much soaked and the river rapids, by which time we didn’t mind getting wetted so went on twice!  I was brave enough to go on one ‘scary’ ride which was a big wooden rollercoaster.  OK, if I’m honest I thought it was a great idea until we were walking under it to get in the queue and then Simon wouldn’t let me back out.  The last ride was another boys-only one – accelerating from 0-135 kph in 3.5 seconds!

There’s loads to see and do at Portaventura and I think to make the most of it you’d need to stay nearby and go for two days.  There were so many shows we didn’t manage to look at and more rides we’d have gone on if there was more time.  There’s also a water park attached, so definitely a good two days worth in high season with really hot weather.  We squeezed in a little souvenir shopping before boarding the coach for a nap on the way back.

Unfortunately that night the rain started so we had a few van-bound days where we found time to play snakes and ladders, hangman, sudoku, Nintendo, do some drawing and read the 5-day old Sunday newspapers!  It wasn’t solid rain so we also fitted in a walk to the beach where we all watched the massive waves and visited the monument of Dona Marinera – where traditionally tourists and locals look out to sea and make a wish, while touching her foot.  Also the awning finally came out so we could all have dinner at the van again – it was good to have many hands and brains to work out how to put it up and it held up well during the rainy night!

We also fitted in some more mini golf, (where I excelled myself by NEARLY winning twice!)  a couple of football matches and a great lunch in a small café that we wished we’d discovered earlier in the week – fish and chips for under €5!  On our last night we did the last of Shannon’s souvenir shopping and had dinner in a Chinese restaurant.

Now we’re alone again and it feels strange!  The quest for internet is back on and tomorrow we’ll start heading south, hoping to escape the clouds and rain and hoping to find some nice spots where we can overnight for free?!!  There’s no concrete route planned (surprise, surprise!), but we aim to go to Tarifa, via the east coast and to be in Portugal at the beginning of June, where we’ll have more visitors.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 15th, 2008 at 1:41 pm and is filed under Diary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.