Jane & Rog Plod to Portugal

[pjay]

Jane And Rog how do you get on with the Skotti grill, quite fancy one myself?

Pete

 

[G-RMPS]

Took the words out of my mouth

 

[Mousy]

Excellent, we are off to India next week for a few weeks and this is on the list.

Check out the site known as the baby Taj Mahal. It’s beautiful, not busy and you can spend ages exploring the wonderful workmanship.
I’d 100% recommend a visit.

Baby Taj Mahal: Tomb of I'timād-ud-Daulah in Agra, India - Through My Lens

Located in the same city as the Taj Mahal itself, the Baby Taj is a beautiful example of both the history and the architecture of the country. It is an amazing place to visit in Agra.

www.throughmylens.com

 

[cliffanger]

Healing crystals

We’ve mentally turned towards home. Of course we physically turned towards home in Portugal but last night (actually day before last as I had trouble posting this) we calculated the mileage to Calais and days to our Shuttle booking. We never really planned to be on the current 5th November crossing but by now it would have been far from a leisurely trip back. Who knew Spain and France were so big? We pushed back to the 16th after which we have to be back in Blighty anyway. It does make the trip back somewhat leisurely but even this means we need to move a little more quickly.

So today was a driving day. We also did some touristing: the world’s second biggest geode - or biggest if you, like the BBC, split hairs about geodes vs mere “caves filled with crystals”.

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Jane near a mine​

We arrived at about 10am and rushed to beat a coach load of brits to the ticket office. Sadly we were informed the whole day’s tours were booked. It’s the Alhambra all over again. Thinking I’d grab a similar screen shot of the booking form I loaded the page and strangely it showed availability. In just an hour. I ran back to the ticket office where they explained they’d had two cancellations which, if we were ok with a Spanish tour, we could have them. Of course we would. Especially as they had talkie machine tours available.

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And splendid hats​

The Pulpí geode was discovered in 1999 and only opened to the public twenty years later after the cave was made safe. The tour of the mine itself was interesting enough - originally a hand dug iron mine which switched to lead and silver when they discovered that. It was closed when all the gypsum started to be too bothersome. It’s not clear when it was closed but I’m guessing during the civil war.

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The gypsum inspector ​

In my limited experience, there are only a few things that genuinely exceed the hype they’re given and make you say “wow!”. One other is here in Spain: Gaudi’s Sagrada Família. The Great Pyramids and James Cameron’s 1986 film Aliens also spring to mind. To enter the geode, we descended a long spiral staircase, then another straight flight before climbing a tiny set of steps, leaning forward “like Superman” then craning our necks to the left - unlike superman who could just X-Ray vision through the rock.

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We’d later be smug about being able to climb these without needing a rest halfway up.​

Sadly, we couldn’t take photos of the inside of the geode but the BBC link above has one. The best we could manage was this photo taken by the guide at the whatever-the-hole-in-a-geode is called.

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Lois and Clark​

After spending a couple of hours in the mine we wanted to get some kilometres under Denby’s wheels. We set the GPS for Banyeres de Marolia; a smallish town off the tourist trail with an impressive castle. As we approached town, signs started appearing directing us to a different aire. We dutifully followed - it was slightly further outside town but right next to a large park with a river, ruined paper mill and lots of sticks.

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would camp here again.​

When Flynn and I got back to the van, Jane had been in investigating our new home:

“P4N people say only day parking…”
“… yeah, there is nobody else here, I’ll check.”

Sure enough for some unknown reason the whole park is closed from November to Easter. No reason given and not much obvious signage. As Spain seems hot on enforcing camping laws at the moment, we packed up and drove 200m closer to town to our original destination. It’s nice but not quite as good as the first one.

For dinner we walked 25 minutes up the steep streets of Banyeres to L’Almàciga a little bar promising to be open before 8pm.

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Dos vermout por favor​

Although the bar was open, the kitchen wasn’t so we had to have a few drinks before they would feed us. they were really friendly and the food was very good.

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“Russian” salad​

The Russian salad was just to keep us going. We pleaded with them for something whilst we waited for the kitchen:

“We’re English, it’s a long time since our lunch.”
“Yes, you should be in bed by now”

Veal tonnato, korean crocettas, squid soup and tuna tataki.

On the way back down the hill it started raining again.

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Meh​

Flynn got a quick walk around a haunted factory just below the aire. He suspects rather strongly that this was also a paper mill and there’s a mill pond to be found.

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We were in Las Vegas years ago. We went to the Nevada Museum of Prehistoric history (purely because we had a book of coupons, one of which was free entry to the museum).

It was a distinctly underwhelming experience, with nothing original and everything made of plaster of Paris.

It was however, our first ever experience of customer feedback, as we were proudly handed a pre printed sheet of ‘Questions often asked’

The first question?

‘Is this all there is?

Some 40 odd years later we still find it incredible that they would have printed that - only in America!

It has become the byword for underwhelming visitor experiences though ….. ‘Questions Often Asked’ I’ve had to snatch the pen from his hand more than once

Keep up the brilliant thread - absolutely loving it.

 

[Zoobec]

Another driving day.

We’ve driven Another 344km and about most of that east past Barcelona, back near the coast at the nice “fishing village” of Capella de Palafrugell. The site is another we wouldn’t normally choose - full of caravans parked here for the year and now wrapped in tarpaulins - but it’s a nice enough location.

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Haunted caravans.​

The friendly lady on reception gave us a pitch with a sea view and it’s pretty big - we feel like we have a balcony.

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A van with a view, later this evening.​

We walked down into town and gave Flynn a brief swim from a small sandy beach below the village. Then a drink looking out over the med before back to camp.

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Swim & view​

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Salt and sweet.​

We’d bought a Gallacian steak earlier in the week and this felt like the right time to eat it. Jane made a tomato and avocado salad, we cooked up the last of the spuds and even broke a bottle of cava albeit one we brought all the way from England!

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Not been for years and not been in the van yet but we love Callella de palfrugell. What was the name of the campsite you stayed at please?

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[Jane And Rog]

Not been for years and not been in the van yet but we love Callella de palfrugell. What was the name of the campsite you stayed at please?

The Moby Dick. Friendly receptionist, tired but good showers, we got a prime spot with Med view. Lots of trees for summer shade. Downside is the most of the site is through a tunnel under a road, so a bit of a trek to walk out & no direct access to trails & woods behind. Not far from town though. Also not cheap - wish we’d not had electricity as we didn’t leave Flynn so didn’t need aircon

 

[Zoobec]

The Moby Dick. Friendly receptionist, tired but good showers, we got a prime spot with Med view. Lots of trees for summer shade. Downside is the most of the site is through a tunnel under a road, so a bit of a trek to walk out & no direct access to trails & woods behind. Not far from town though. Also not cheap - wish we’d not had electricity as we didn’t leave Flynn so didn’t need aircon

Thanks! I don’t mind tired as long as it’s clean. And for there I think other sites would be out of town.