Showing posts with label Peniscola. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Peniscola. Show all posts

Monday, October 5, 2015

Peniscola Revisited

Peniscola, strange name but a lovely place.

Before we left Tarragona I wanted to give the van a 'tub' as it was covered in salt from the ocean spray.

There is a wash area on the site plus a little dog compound next to it (called a 'Pipican').  Sammie freaks out with the noise of the hose on the van so in the pound they went ...

Such an easy job when there is a hose available ...

All finished...can I come out now? 

We had no real destination today so just drove for a while checking out some wild camping spots on Autoroute.  Unfortunately all the spots were a bit dodgy so after a stop at Aldi for a food top up I checked the map and we headed for nearby Peniscola ...

We found this place just off the main beach road.  It is a 24 hour parking area, with water. elsan etc. -for 6.50 euros (£4.74 /$10.30) ... that will do nicely!

We visited Peniscola before back in June 2014.  At that time we explored the old town on the hill but this time we just walked along the prom into the new town.  You can see the old town on the hill on the below pic and read about our last visit here.

Bombo was happy bounding along the prom - leaping the gaps like a puppy... 

.....he is eleven now! 

It was very warm but humid today.  There was one Nigel-no- friends on the beach in her deckchair ... 


Next it was the steeple chase ...

The old town sitting on the hill ...

Again the tourists were mostly old Spanish.  We only heard one English voice all day.  Where are the poms?  I'm sure we will find them soon!

We had a couple of drinks and tapas in a bar then started off on the walk back to the van.

The sky looked incredibly threatening, but it actually rained for about 10 seconds ... 

Bombo staring at the beach longingly, but no chance today!  There were lots of signs saying 'no perros', plus a lot of the old bill about so we didn't take a chance ...


Here we be....


We will move on again tomorrow to where I know not ... yet! 

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Penis cola & Sitges

Sorry about the 'Sun style' headline but I am dropping down the ratings and have got to stop the slide at all costs, I even have some page 3 girls in this post!

It was a big day for us (Monday).   Firstly we drove to Peniscola ... a rather unfortunate place name, we always thought it was Pensicola, we still don't know how to pronounce it! 

Peniscola is a lovely town with a bit of everything ... nice beach with bars etc, a fishing port plus the old town which is on a hill with a fort atop.  We concentrated on the old part of town.  Firstly Sammie decided to cool off in the moat surrounding the fort before we hiked up the hill ...
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It's one of those magical Spanish spots with little alleys, bars and shops ...
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The views across the Med were very impressive at the top ...
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No prom pose today, we have a fort wall pose instead ...
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Apparently the neighbouring houses to this place started sticking shells on the walls in the 50s…..they got a bit carried away and completely covered the place ...
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A lighthouse sits on top of the fort, a relatively new building, the fort was constructed in the 1400s ...
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Bombo has no fear of heights, although Elaine had a firm hold of his lead ...
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We made it to the top, time for a rest ...
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Then back down the hill again ...
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Towards the sea, there were quite a few tourists about but I try to take pics without them ruining the image ...
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So that was Pensicola Peniscola, which is a top spot to visit and stay if you are going to Spain.
It was then time to hit the road to Sitges.

These nice girls were plying their trade beside the road….
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I thought they were just Ladies of the night but a daytime version, but Elaine tells me they are a Spanish Government initiative to slow the traffic.  Don't know about that, I have trouble keeping my eyes on the road. There are loads of them in certain sections.  They all sit on chairs, but when you pass an upturned chair I am sure it is a sign that they are off doing their business.  I still don't know where they do their business though!
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We drove straight into Sitges and had a cruise around looking for a park.  I headed for a parking station but it was underground so no chance of us fitting in!  The problem was that it was in a busy one way road so I had to do a 30 point turn with Elaine watching the height as I had a low roof behind me. As you can imagine the local 'latin temperament' wasn't impressed that this twat was holding them all up and they let me know it!  I politely gave them a V sign and told them to go and get f*****d!  There were no signs to say it was height restricted or weight restrictedv... all good fun!  We drove to a signposted motorhome parking station, which turned out to be way out of town and well dodgy plus the word had got around of this pommie registered motorhome that had held up the traffic for all of eight minutes.  A posse had been formed and they were waiting to flog me and drag me through the town behind a rusting Seat Ibiza.

We took off out of town and parked up in a proper site instead, and a really nice one it was too.  It was just down the coast about 2 ks from Sitges.
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We walked into the centre of Sitges and straight away noticed that this wasn't your typical Spanish town ... it had great feel about it.

There was also some very nice and very expensive looking houses ...
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Not just one of two but streets of them ...
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Another big positive to us was that there were lots of Spanish people walking their well cared for dogs. It's something that isn't to common in Spain and virtually non existent in Portugal ...
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The big event that was happening was Gay Pride Week 2014, Monday was the last day ...
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The place was going off bigtime!  There was plenty of excitement and good humoured crowds.  Elaine was loving this Zumba guy but Sammie was getting scared of the music, so we had to move on ...

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Sitges is a top place and is our new favourite!!  It's funny how our favourite places just happen to be the most expensive.  Favourite place in UK ... London.  Favourite in Australia ... Sydney.
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The gay theme was all over the town ...
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Funny story ... we were talking to a very gay Yorkshireman ... although I know a lot of people from Yorkshire would claim that to be an impossibility, not the talking bit, but the fact he was gay!  He commented on Elaine's hair, saying "Ey up, I like your hair, it really suits you ... looks well nice ... no point in having it long in 't' heat"!!  Made us laugh !

We had a nice dinner in a Chinese restaurant, who had an 'all you can eat' buffet special on, so Elaine had what she called a 'Sushi fest'!  The dogs got some prawns and chicken as well ... bargain!

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The three degrees were singing on the beach, one real woman and two trannies  ...
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We had a great night and thoroughly enjoyed it apart from the long slog home in the dark.

We are now at Lloret De Mar, which is the first place I went overseas as a young 'un circa 1975.
We have just driven through the town and are now parked up on a campsite on the outskirts.
It could be fun, its makes Benidorm look sophisticated!  It is the complete opposite end of the spectrum to Sitges!

  Full report later.

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Where we stayed in Sitges:

El Garrofer, Sitges, Barcelona (good website, click the name to go there)
Coordinates:  N41º 14’ 2”       E1º 46’ 51,5” 

It was in the ACSI book so it was 18 Euros a night, but they added on a 1 Euro tax on top, which some sites seem to do.  However, I just checked out their website and they have a sleep and go deal which costs only 15.99 Euros a night, if you arrive after 7 pm and leave before 10 am the next day ... which we had known about that as we arrived pretty late!!  Their wifi was off the richter scale, but they offered 10 mins free, so we just took that !

Nice, easy going campsite with the quickest check in ever!  No frills kind of place but nice vibe to it.  Nice shower facilities ... they even have a kids shower room with low showers and cubicles etc, which is a little odd, we thought !  Nice looking pool but we didn't stay long enough to use it!