Baguette's Travels

Today we continued south arriving at a lovely France Passion site just outside Mazamet. On the way we stopped for lunch at Albi where we visited the famous cathedral, the largest brick built building in the world.
During the day the temperature hovered around 33°, getting out of the MH was like stepping into an oven. Tomorrow we are planning to head for the coast where the forecast is for a cool 20°. Bye for now

Our company last night, our France Passion host and our way out this morning

All set up for the next three weeks, daughter and grandchildren arrived by plane to share pitch with us.
Today's temperature is very toasty 33°
For anyone collected at Perpignan airport it is not MH friendly. It is best that anyone to be collected is waiting outside and are ready to hop straight aboard while the MH is stopped for a few seconds at the mini roundabout which facilitates making a U-turn to avoid having to enter the barrier controlled drop-off area. Same drill can be used if dropping some off.

Camping Le Soleil, Argeles. BBC's, ITV's, 4's & 5's gone but RTE's and Virgin's plus loads more still coming in with a good signal.
The dish is a 14 year old 65cm Maxview Crank Up.

How three weeks fly when having fun. Argeles is a great spot with lots to do and Camping Le Soleil is a perfect base even without a car or motorbike.
It's a very restful area as the phone reception, WiFi and mobile data if third world standard
My trusty Tomtom Start 25 on which I was running TT Camper gave up the ghost but the nice people at TT have sent me a TT Go Camper at a heavily discounted price .
The daughter and grandchildren flew back from Perpignan yesterday and we're now taking a few days R&R at the Aire in Port Carcares before heading in the general direction of The Alsace, although with 40°+ forecast for inland France during the week we'll stick to the coast as far as Arles until the heatwave breaks.

Bye for now

PS, contacts tell me Dungarvan have progressed to the planning process for their official Motorhome Parking Area down by the sports centre.

New TT arrived but it's not here, it's in Ireland, so Google maps on the phone is having to do. Not having truck or camper routing I've now visited some really interesting back streets in medieval towns, not for the fainthearted .
Currently in the free Aire outside the municipal campsite in Sommieres slowly cooking in 36° in the shade.
https://sommieres.fr/

One of our neighbours tonight in the Stelplatz at Augsburg

Oh the joys it !!!
Now sitting in the customer waiting area enjoying a cappuccino at s FIAT Professional Dealer while a mechanic is investigating why the Aircon has stopped working. In my own preliminary investigation I discovered the cause was a blown fuse in the compressor circuit, I replaced it and it promptly blew again. The possiblity of the compressor being kaput has been mentioned

Good news .
The source of the problem turned out to be a cable which had gone astray and had been partially cut through by a pulley. The cut was fixed up and the cable resecured. All now okay again, bill was just €82 (1 hours labour)

Tonight parked up in the Apcoa car park in Rosslare ferry port (€5/24 hours). Off to Bilbao tomorrow heading for The Algarve via Seville. Planning to arrive Algarve by early next week. Meeting friends in early Feb and then heading to the snow in the Sierra Nevada followed by restoring the sun tan for a couple of months along the coast as we wander along in the direction of France.
Tune in for progress reports.

Should be on time, the weather is very calm on the Bay of Biscay at the moment.
Note for all, if following in our tracks, make sure all your Covid-19 documents (Spanish and EU) are in order, there were a couple of vehicles in front of us in the check-in queue which had problems and were directed to park up to one side.

Just arriving, due to be on the dock at 13.20 Irish time. Fast crossing smooth as a mill pond

Parked up for the night before heading south tomorrow morning. Weather overcast with occasional light rain, very Irish

After a four hour drive, including a coffee break, at a relaxing 85km/h we arrived at Palencia. We'll spend the afternoon and night here before heading off on the next leg tomorrow. On the drive down the outside temperature dropped to as low as 1.7°c at times on the high stretches of the motorway.
Filled up with diesel, @ €1.428 to qualify for the free overnight parking.
It's 6°c here at the moment, forecasted to drop to -4° overnight, so the heating will definitely be on all night.

Very interesting post Flipperdipper, but another time perhaps.
Today we continued south to [url=Cáceres‎ https://g.co/kgs/79C6Uc:8HdcWmzS]Caceres [/url]. The Aire here is way oversubscribed, four or five late arrivals couldn't find space and left. My idea of arriving at an Aire in the early afternoon in the summer seems to hold good even in the winter now.
The drive down from Palencia had some spectacular views and reached an altitude of over 1,000m in places. I didn't notice the climb up but there were some very long stretches of 6% descents at the Caceres end of the route. I wouldn't fancy doing the route the other way round in my old X244, particularly if heavily loaded and/or towing a trailer or toad.

Today we continued south on the Autovía Ruta de la Plata. We made a small detour for a coffee break at Zafra where we checked out the town 'Aire' and refilled the tank with €1.40/l diesel. We are now at the marina in Gelves close to Seville, €15 p/n. We got one of the last two spaces, the other was filled within half an hour of us arriving . The Irish TV channels plus some others are still coming in on our 65cm crank-up dish. Tomorrow we are to get our Rapid Antigen tests before heading to Portugal on Tuesday.
No photos tonight, both the WiFi and Mobil data speeds here are only hovering around 1meg.

First a photo of the parking area at Gelves

On Monday we got our Rapid Antigen test certificates at a clinic in Seville. Yesterday we headed west to Portugal and arrived at Pargue Da Palmeira motorhome Park in Albufeira. We plan to stay here for a week or so before heading back towards Spain. On the return trip we plan to revisit some of our old favourites spots along the coast between here and the Spanish border. A photo of our pitch @ €9 p/n including electric hook-up and services. Mobile data here is running at nearly 40Mbps.
Registering for the electronic toll for tourists entering Portugal was a hastle free experience.
Currently diesel is €1.749 in Portugal

Today we left Albufeira and headed back along the A22 in the direction of Spain. Along the way we filled with gas, got the front wheels alignment checked, it was toe out quite a bit and had been mentioned by the tester after the last CVRT, but put on the long finger. The alignment was done at Servipneus in Loulé who were very nice to deal with, the charge was an acceptable €30. While there I enquired about their price for 225/75 16 Continental Camper and was quoted €208.80 each, fitted and balanced.
Due to what's called in rugby 'an unforced handling error' the sat dish got dropped while being taken down from the roof to oil up its rotator bearing, it had become a bit stiff to adjust. Result, the LNB arm is now a seperate and unattached component
At the moment we have no sat tv, but if the mobile data is decent we have all the channels we want on the telly via an iptv app. A replacement part is now winging its way from The Netherlands to our next port of call which will be Gelves where we are due to meet up with friends.
After eight nights in Albufeira it is nice to be back on the road and we haven't seen rain since we left Bilbao on the 21st of last month.
This afternoon when we arrived at Vila Real de Santo António we found the large Aire here (100 spaces) was full so we're now parked up along the edge of the adjacent road in the company of French, Dutch & German vans. It seems the northern part of Europe is overwintering in Spain and Portugal.

This morning after a few checked out we checked in to [url=Hi, I found this location on Campercontact! Check it our here: https://www.campercontact.com/…s:zGaJHvMc]Vila Real de Santo Antonio parque de autocaravanas[/url] at €6 per nigh ehu extra but the sun is shining and the solar panels are putting out enough.
Some of the long termers really have their elbows out and taking up nearly two spaces while late comers have to be happy with 2 or 3 metres seperation. All that said it's still one of our favourite places. And, the mobile data speed is plenty fast for video streaming and iptv

After a few days we left V. R. De Santo Antonio and headed back to Puerto Gelves to meet up with friends and collect the replacement part for the sat dish.
After two nights there we headed to the ski resort in the Sierra Nevada where we spent two nights. The road up and the parking area was snow free.
However, there was plenty of snow on the slopes
On Friday we headed back down, mostly in third and second gear plus a dab of the brakes now and then to keep the speed down. Dropping the best part of 2,000m over a 30km route is a steeeep bit of road, particularly when some of it is level and other bits are actually uphill
Early Friday afternoon we arrived at Camping Cabopino near Marbella and were lucky to get one of the few vacant pitches, the Site Full sign went up shortly after
We're settled in here until Wednesday at the ACSI rate of €22 all inclusive.
Our next move is to head in the direction of our favourite area of the Costa Calida in Murcia.