How quickly the time passes when you’re traveling interesting places. We’re halfway through our trip already and actually starting the zig-zag return drive back towards Dümo in Germany. But fear not, we still have lots of new and exciting places to see and things to do on that long drive north.
We really enjoyed our time at “Dümo Camperpark” in Aguilas. It was the perfect place to take an energy break and catch-up on things like laundry. The staff was great, the Dümo campsite facilities are excellent, and the restaurant food was delicious. The location is good if you don’t need an ocean beach at your doorstep. When Michael found out we were at his campground, he sent a message to staff to provide us with the campground car and also pay special attention to our exiting camping bill. After working with Michael and Dümo Reismobile for over 12 years, we feel we have more of a friendship relationship with them than a transactional one. Thank you once again Michael and Anne for everything you’ve done for us over our many years of European travel.
From Dümo we took a couple of days and drove north east along the coast to have a look at Alicante and Benidorm (a major hotspot for British sun seekers). We then returned to Dümo Camperpark to reorganize ourselves before starting out on our westerly drive. We stopped first at the Dexter’s Spanish home-town headquarters in Nerja that is not just a beautiful seaside resort. Nerja is where you’ll also find one of the world’s most significant and famous natural caves. Only recently re-discovered in 1959 by 5 young men skipping school. This is a massive five kilometre ah-inspiring cave with many huge chambers that are garnished with countless spectacular stalagmites and stalactites. Including the largest geological column in the world. This cave has human history, and cave paintings, that possibly date back 42,000 years to the Neanderthal era and, archaeologists are still exploring and excavating the site.
We made our way to Gibraltar where we stayed at a fantastic new marina stellplatz very near the British border crossing that has you walking across the airport runway (only when the walking light is green). Gibraltar was a fun place to explore before heading inland to Ronda. What a great campground we found but an even more impressive town. Ronda with it’s famous 100 meter high “new” bridge (Puente Nuevo 1793) is a very beautiful village and, it boasts one of the oldest bullrings in existence. It’s also become a major and very busy tourist attraction. We spent a couple of days here before heading west again towards the oldest continuously inhabited city in Western Europe. We found a nice stellplatz in the centre of Cadiz next to a fortress on the water just a few minutes walk and we were in the centre of old town. Cadiz was established over three thousand years ago by the Phoenicians so it was old even when Christopher Columbus sailed from here a couple of different times to the new world.
We’re now in southern Portugal camping at a very nice seaside stellplatz just east of Albufeira. We’ll relax here for a couple of days before continuing our journey north. We hope everything is good on the home-front, we’re missing everyone, and we’ll keep you posted on our progress over here.
Brumablog 