Tuesday 15 February - Bolonia and Barbate

Where's Bertie? He's in a municipal Aire at the marina just outside of Barbate. It costs €9.55 per night to stay here, including use of the toilets and showers. Use of the service point is €3 extra. (Exact location: 36.18425, -5.93546)
Weather: Wall-to-wall sunshine.

Bertie ended up with a lot of neighbours in Bolonia last night.

My intended running route this morning was to go 5km SE along the Atlantic Coast Path then turn around and return. Whilst I know that's a perfectly feasible thing to do, when I was 2.5km in the good path suddenly unravelled into a multitude of cow-trods through the sand dunes. I poked around for a while, trying to find the best way forward, before deciding that all the faffing around wasn't proving beneficial to the intention of my outing. So, I made do with two repetitions of the bit I'd run to that point. It wasn't as interesting as the section of coast path I was on a couple of days ago, but still nicer than pounding the streets.

Another sunrise outing. The sun hampered me on the outward leg, as it blinded me to the trip hazards that lay on the path in front of me.

The morning was marching on rapidly towards lunchtime by the time we walked purposefully up the road towards the entrance to 'Baelo Claudia', the Roman archaeological site. There we expected to pay an entrance fee. Our guide book (now 10 years out of date) said the fee for non-EU passport holders was €1.50. An online review two years ago reported the same, but I couldn't find any up to date price information (not even on the museum website); however, we felt sure it wouldn't have jumped to anything unreasonable.

The receptionist's greeting was to ask our nationality, and when we answered she told us that entry was free. We didn't argue the point. After all, if the requirement is based purely on passports, it would be perfectly feasible for us still to have EU ones for the next few years. It's just unfortunate timing that ours expired last summer. Or maybe they've made a positive decision still to allow Brits free entry?

Either way, we were in and before reaching the excavated site, we were routed through the museum. There's stunningly little inside considering the size of building. The real interest in this place is outside.

According to the leaflet (written in faultless English): "Excavations have uncovered the most complete Roman urban complex in the entire Iberian Peninsula, with monuments of extraordinary importance such as the basilica, the theatre, the market and the Temple of Isis." The leaflet also explains that the fishing industry, especially tuna, was the main source of income.

Looking across the site at the start of the tour route

The leaflet explained the recommended tour route and what we would see, which was augmented by signs on the ground. Most of the buildings in evidence were as expected, having visited quite a number of Roman sites over the years. What was novel here was the fish processing/salting factory.

The fish factory. Note all the sinks (I'm sure there's a better word that I'm failing to grab from my bank of words!) where the fish were prepared and salted.

From front to back: square, basilica, forum and temples.

As above, but looking from a rear corner, from behind the later-added temple of Isis.

We left agreeing that it would have been excellent value for money if we had paid and that it had been worth the visit.

Once lunch had been despatched back at Bertie (I had to be a bit imaginative today with a serious lack of typical lunch ingredients, such as any bread products), I suggested it might be time to move on, as tempting as it was to stay put for another night.

That may not have been the best decision. The Aire here at the marina in Barbate is not immediately adjacent to the town, and unlike the sister Aire we stayed at Caleta de Velez, here the marina buildings are all abandoned, with one significantly vandalised, and the toilets and showers are a good few minutes walk away, rather than being just across the street. It thus feels like it offers far less value for money, despite being the same price for, on paper, the same services.

Since arriving we've only walked around the quayside (a remarkably popular thing to do, as we've witnessed through Bertie's windscreen, but there are fewer interesting craft here and lots of empty moorings). Hopefully tomorrow we'll venture towards the town, even if only briefly.

Bertie's over yonder

^{After I started typing this, I started hearing a loud bird squawking nearby. I went out to see if I could see what it was, but drew a blank. Then curiosity got the better of Mick. It turns out that our neighbours have a parrot, as well as four West Highland Terriers, in their 7m motorhome.}

Monday 14 February - Bolonia

Where's Bertie? He's in the roughest-rocky-surfaced car park ever seen, just outside the archeological site at Bolonia (exact location: 36.08700, -5.76941)
Weather: Morning - rain!; afternoon - wall-to-wall sunshine.

Mick had not long been back from his run this morning, when I heard a few drops of rain on Bertie's roof. I didn't think it would amount to anything, particularly as the BBC was telling me we were in for another day of clear sunshine. It soon stopped, and stayed so until we reached the service point and set about emptying and filling tanks and bottles. The weather gods chose that period to turn up the volume and get us thoroughly wet.

Our next stop was only 1.5km away from the Aire - a petrol station with a laundrette on their forecourt. There, whilst I gathered the laundry, Mick went to buy two tokens - one for the washer and one for the drier. They duly gave him two tokens, he tapped his card without paying attention to the total ... and then they gave him a third token, at which point it became apparent that they had sold him two washer tokens. A refund was refused, with the attendant pointing to the sign clearly stating that tokens wouldn't be refunded. Not being in a position to argue the point (because surely that's if you buy more than you need, rather than are sold more than you asked for), we did a very expensive batch of laundry. Given how busy the place got whilst we were there, it's surprising I didn't manage to sell the token on to someone, but I didn't time my appearances in front of the machines quite right.

Fortunately, from the point of view of spiting the fuel station, we hadn't started by buying diesel or LPG, intending to do so at the end of our visit. Being immediately desperate for neither, the garage didn't get that custom.

The rain had continued as I'd gone back and forth across the road between Bertie and the laundry facilities, but by the time we'd finished folding and stowing everything the rain was stopping and blue sky approaching. By the time we reached Bolonia twenty minutes later, it was sunny.

Humphrey commented on a post a few days ago and described the beach here as 'magnificent'. He wasn't wrong. Bertie is in this shot.

There are a lot of motorhomes here in Bolonia, but they're mainly parked in places where overnighting is forbidden. On the one hand it's apparently tolerated despite the signs, on the other hand, we weren't prepared to use the 'no entry except ambulances' entrance to the otherwise height-barriered car park in order to join them. Then we found our way to this car park, where it's forbidden to camp, but with no express prohibition on overnight parking. On the basis that we are parked, not camped (legally distinct activities under Spanish law), we've decided to stay here.

The main attraction for us here in Bolonia is the Roman site (having said only yesterday that we're not doing anything cultural!), however, it occurred to us even before we arrived that, being Monday, the museum would be closed. I was unsure whether any of the site would be accessible, but it turns out that no, it's all behind locked gates and fences today.

As viewed through the fence.

Having had a stroll around, we've decided to stick around until it opens tomorrow.

Our post-lunch stroll took us through the village (everything bar one corner shop and the pharmacy is closed, whether because it's winter or because it's Monday, we don't know), where we found both horses and cows grazing the grass verges and crossing the road at will. Some of the cows strolled along the section of beach in front of Bertie's window later:

Sun wasn't in the best position for this through-the-windscreen shot.

Odd, we thought. Not something we expect to see in a settlement on the coast.

Sunday 13 February - Tarifa

Where's Bertie? He's still sitting comfortably at the Aire in Tarifa. Exact location: 36.01847, -5.61108 (forgot to include it yesterday, even after my proof-reader pointed out the omission)
Weather: Wall-to-wall sunshine and warm when in the sun and out of the wind (in fact, not too bad when in the wind either).

I feel that we're not doing an awful lot on this trip. On previous trips it would have been unthinkable for us to be 3 weeks in and not have visited a single church or museum. Once Mick's marathon is over, we might feel more inclined to visit indoor spaces (particularly as I don't think we've ever been in a busy museum in Spain, so I wouldn't consider such an excursion to be a significant risk), but we'll likely still avoid public transport. Even so, whilst our pottering around probably doesn't make for interesting reading for anyone else, after 2 years of mainly sitting in an armchair at home, it is just a delight to be out and about in such a pleasant winter climate, and to be running rotues that we haven't already run hundreds of times over the last two years.*

Talking of which... I started today with a jaunt along the Mediterranean Coast Path, to the east of here. There are paths out of Tarifa in both directions, but by choosing to go east I was getting the 'into the wind' leg out of the way early.

Aside from the fact that it was bone dry and 'crushed stoney' rather than 'dirt and mud' underfoot, and that I could clearly see Africa just across the water, it put me very much in mind of the Welsh coast path.

These snaps aren't particularly illustrative. It seems I only took photos showing flat sections of good path.

The second of these gates that I had to go through was a squeeze and a duck; this one was just a squeeze.

I would have carried on further than I did, except that I'd not been on the path for long when my phone received a message welcoming me to Morocco and telling me what the charges would be to make calls etc. As my plan doesn't include Morocco, and I don't have any credit, that meant that not only could Mick no longer track me, but that I couldn't send him a message telling him what was going on either. I did a few manual searches, looking for a Spanish phone signal, but I couldn't identify an obvious one out of the long list of those available. So, after an hour, I turned back. Oh, how lovely it was to have the wind behind me!

Once back at Bertie and showered, changed, lunched and second lunched, out we went, for a look around Tarifa.

The old town was to where we headed, finding it to be a veritable maze of streets and walkways such that I'm sure it would be very easy to get lost and start walking in circles.

Old town street

Every now and then we popped out into a tiny square, each filled with tables and chairs, all full of chattering diners on this Sunday lunchtime.

The church in the old town

Our other objective of the outing was to go and visit the most southerly point, on the 'island' connected to Tarifa via a causeway. We failed in that mission, as the entance to the island was firmly barred.

If there weren't too many places to see and too little time we could easily be persuaded to spend another day here - it's a nice place with a huge number of eateries with enticing menus - but time is pressing, so we will leave tomorrow, on schedule.

^{(*Out of mud season we have quite an array of appealing running routes at home. In mud season we are severely limited.)}

Saturday 12 February - Tarifa

Where's Bertie? He's in a municipal Aire at Tarifa, where it costs €8 for 24 hours.
Weather: A few high clouds, but I didn't notice any of them blocking the sun. Warm enough when in the sun and out of the wind.

Last night's parking spot had been excellent during the day and I'm sure would be fine most nights too. However, it turned out to be a surprisingly busy place on a Friday night, such that at midnight I was not only awake but searching the map to see if there was anywhere else we could go for the rest of the night.

I place no blame on the people causing the main disturbance, which was a car full of lads, with their engine running, playing music, occasionally singing, and often opening and closing the car's doors. The music wasn't being played loud enough to disturb anyone but those trying to sleep just a few feet away, and it was entirely our fault that we were trying to sleep in a car park. The problem with these situations is that you have no idea whether they're going to last a short while (=may as well sit it out) or for most of the night (=would rather be somewhere else).

I didn't check the time when they left (by which time we were twitching the blinds to observe them, as if that would give us a clue as to how long they intended to stay), but I reckon they were there for about an hour. Why they needed to leave the engine running all that time, I know not. Maybe they'd got a dicky battery or starter motor...

Peace finally reigned and eventually, in the early hours, to sleep we went, only for the alarm to sound what felt like five minutes later. I didn't feel inclined to jump up and head out for my run, deciding instead to go later in the morning, once we'd moved to Tarifa, in the hope that I would have livened up by then.

We arrived at the Aire in Tarifa at just after 0930, by which time I'd realised the problem with our timing. The Aire here is manned, but only from 0930-1300 and 1930-2300*, and to stop people sneaking in to use the service point without paying, they have put the facilities behind a high fence and gate, which is locked when the site is unmanned. A good way of stopping service point theft, but inconvenient for those staying here, especially if you want to use the service point before you leave, and you want to leave early. If our ticket expired at 0940 and there was someone ahead of us in the queue for the service point at 0930, we wouldn't be able to use it before we left. So, rather than pulling straight in here, we parked in a car park across the road and had a cup of tea first.

I commented whilst sitting across the road that there was absolutely nothing stopping us from staying where we were. Indeed, it turns out that there are many free places one can park in Tarifa. €8, including use of the service point is not, however, an outrageous charge, hence this is where we've chosen to stay.

Tarifa is the town at the southernmost tip of mainland Europe, it marks the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea, is the closest place in Europe to Africa, and it is reputedly the windiest place in Europe. The latter snippet of information perhaps made it ill-advised to come here for a run. At least only half of it had the wind against us!

Running across the causeway with the Med on the right and the Atlantic on the left

The windiness makes it a popular place for kite- and wind-surfers.

Massive beach!

Our beachside run had taken us close to the southernmost tip of the continent, past the castle and through a nature reserve, giving us a good first feel of the place. We approved and were happy that we'd committed to two nights on arrival.

It was lunchtime by the time we were back at Bertie, and the birthday boy's choice was that we would go out to eat. Having already eaten two massive lunches out this week, and with this being a special occasion, we weren't after a cheapie menu del día. Instead I did a few minutes of research and found a couple of well-reviewed restaurants in town where we hoped to be able to have something small but tasty. The first place was rejected for its outdoor tables being in the shade and fully in the wind. The second one was busy, but we nabbed their last kinda-outdoor table (it was under an enclosed canopy).

It took us an age to chose what to order, as we had no idea what the portion sizes would be. In the end we settled on four dishes, which I think would have been appropriate, if it hadn't been for the freebie dishes that the restaurant gave out to all diners. As it was, we couldn't manage a pudding and came away every bit as stuffed as if we had eaten a three-course menu del día.

I didn't take any decent photos. The first one here is to illustrate the 'undertable' - when there was no longer any room on top of the table, the dishes that came next got put on a shelf under the table. The second snap was just after the final dish was delivered when I caught Mick seemingly thinking "We really don't need this one".

A round of 'Feliz Cumpleaños' was sung just as we were about to leave. A nice touch for Mick, even if it was intended for the 93-year-old lady on the next table. I suspect that if we had stayed a little longer we may have been able to wangle a slice of the cake that was served to her.

Nothing else has occurred this afternoon. We've been sitting around reading whilst digesting our food-babies.

(*Our arrival time turned out to be a non-issue for three reasons: 1) I had the opening time slightly wrong - it was 0900, not 0930; 2) the entrance/exit is entirely manual, so I'm sure we wouldn't be charged extra if we were a few minutes late leaving due to a service point queue; and 3) Even though we drove in at 1030, the guardian wrote the expiry time of 1100 on our ticket.) 

Friday 11 February - Getares

Where's Bertie? He's in a small informal parking area at the very east end of Getares Playa (exact location: 36.10197, -5.44113)
Weather: Sunny and nice and warm before the wind got up this afternoon.

With how busy the Aire at La Línea was last night, and not wanting to find ourselves waiting in a frustrating queue for the service point this morning, we moved earlier than our parking ticket's expiry required. With Bertie's tanks serviced, we were out of the marina and on the road before 9am.

As our destination was only 25km up the road (just 9km as the crow flies), we were early arriving here too.

I wondered how much of this place I would recognise, having last been here in 1999, for the wedding of friends Vic & Juan. The answer was that as soon as we parked up and I looked out of the window along the promenade, I was able to point out to Mick the location of the incident of the rucked-up skirt*.

I'd described the place to Mick as having a large sandy beach, but had almost convinced myself that it wouldn't be as nice as I remembered. Turns it it is.

Looking along the beach towards Gibraltar

With most of the beachfront cafes and bars that are open at this time of year (a surprising number) humming with customers in the late morning and through lunchtime, the place has a nice feel to it too. Presumably the customers are mainly locals, as there's not a single hotel and we didn't see anyone else who stood out as a tourist (although there are a couple of other motorhomes in another car park at the far end of the beach, of which I think one may have been foreign).

There were lots of fish in the river (and two turtles, but I don't think they're in this snap).

Our sea view is more interesting than most too, as it features a number of ships moored in the bay, with one occasionally making a move either into or out of the port at Algerciras. As night has fallen, they're lit up like little villages (which, as Mick pointed out, with all the crew on board, that's effectively what they are).

Taken from Bertie's front bumper. In this shot as well as the ships there are three kite surfers, and two flippered and snorkled swimmers just heading out with spearguns. More interesting than our usual sea view!

On arriving we weren't sure if we were going to stay here the whole day, or just have a quick look and move on. The answer, as you'll have gathered, is that we've stayed, filling our day with ambling and sea-watching (I even got the binoculars out a couple of times - a rare event).

With time now pressing before we need to be in Seville, we'll be on our way again tomorrow. (Just for the record: we are exactly where my itinerary said we'd be tonight and we intend to move on to exactly where we're supposed to be tomorrow - so maybe our adherence to the plan isn't quite as bad as expected.)

You can play games on the beach as long as they're not annoying.

^{(*June 1999: I was walking along the promenade in a short skirt, carrying a small backpack, and it seeemd to me that an awful lot of people were staring at me. Was it the blonde hair and blue eyes? Surely not so uncommon around here as to make so many people stare. I pondered the point at length before eventually realising that the movement of my backpack had caused my skirt to ride up, such that it had become bunched entirely around my waist, exposing my not-overly-substantial underwear to the world. I'm pretty sure that even 23 years ago my first thought, after a slight sense of mortification, was exactly as it would be now: at least I don't know any of them!)}

Thursday 10 February - La Línea de la Concepción

Where's Bertie? He's still at the Aire at the marina at La Línea.
Weather: Some cloud, but mainly sunny.

As of today face masks are no longer mandatory in the vast majority of outdoor settings in Spain. Our expectation was thus that people would be walking the streets barefaced. To our surprise, not only was that not the case, but it seemed that far more people were wearing face coverings today than has been the case for the last few days. I even saw an elderly woman sitting on a plastic chair alone in her own front yard with a mask on.

As, in my view (and its a subject upon which I've done some reading), mask wearing outdoors in uncrowded situations is pointless, this was unexpected and, as we went around masklessly, I had to wonder:
1) What has the message been from the Spanish government/media to cause such behaviour?
2) How many of these people didn't know the law had changed?
3) How ingrained has al-fresco mask wearing become here after such extended periods of it being required?
4) Were we doing something culturally offensive, the equivalent to how we might have viewed people between mid-July and mid-December last year who chose not to wear masks in shops (because 'it's not legally required of me' doesn't equal 'polite and considerate behaviour')?

I have no answers to those questions, but we brazenly went around barefaced, possibly causing consternation and offence.

As for today's activities, Mick (now in the taper period for his marathon) joined me for the first 2.5km of my run today, whereupon he turned back and I continued for double that distance, reminding myself in the process that not all of the coast of Spain is attractive. It's rather industrial around here:

Nice to see that irrespective of the backdrop, the municipality has made a successful effort to pretty-up the concrete bunker of a building on the beach:

Back at Bertie, after showers and breakfast, I set about finding out whether there would be any requirements for Covid tests or paperwork if we were to walk over the border into Gibraltar. After quite a period of reading, I concluded that no, there weren't any requirements and a trip over the border was feasible.

So did we go? Nope. Because setting out at noon, we concluded that if we went to Gib we would end up eating fish and chips for lunch, and we didn't come to Spain to eat British-style fish and chips. Thus, instead of turning right to cross the border, we turned left and started an extensive scout around La Línea in search of somewhere we fancied for lunch. We found two contenders: a tapas bar, or the one place where we found a Menu del Día displayed. The former would have won, but for the fact that they didn't start serving food until 1330, whereas we thought the latter would be serving at just gone 1300 (albeit at that early hour we were, as expected, the only people eating).

In my opinion, I won on the best choices for the first two courses (goats cheese and mango salad; 'meatballs of fish'). Mick won on the pudding (baked cheese cake). The whole lot, including bread, drinks and olives, came in at €10 a head.

A postprandial perambulation was had before returning to Bertie, since when the only time we've been out was for a walk around the marina to eye up the boats. There are some mega-expensive-looking super-yachts here, but they are significantly outnumbered by yachts of varying size that look affordable to more 'normal' people.

Just one last observation before I end for today. The Aire here is busy today and having walked along the rows of vans, taking in the number plates, two things are apparent:
1) it's a more multi-national gathering than we're used to seeing (French, Dutch, German, Spanish, Austrian, Swiss, Italian, Danish, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, Estonian, Polish, Jersey (Jersian?!) plus a handful of Brits, masquerading as Ukranian, since our international identifier was changed from 'GB' to 'UK', causing confusion to the rest of Europe);
2) The Germans are significantly outnumbering every other nationality. I'm sure that on previous trips to Spain, the French have been the dominant nationality, followed by Dutch with a handful of Germans. I wonder what has happened this year to cause so many Germans to travel to southern Spain?

Wednesday 9 February - La Línea de la Concepción

Where's Bertie? He's in an Aire at the marina at La Línea de la Concepción, where it costs €12.50/24 hours. Exact location: just on the border between Spain and Gibraltar.
Weather: Mainly overcast and breezy. Warm when the sun's out and you're out of the wind.

Six years ago, on a tour of Southern Spain, we skipped the Costa del Sol between Almeria and Estepona, opting to venture inland instead. Had we stayed on the coast then, we probably would have had an easier/better time of it, as we've had to conclude on this trip that the west end of the Costa del Sol (from Malaga) is no longer good for touring by motorhome. There are no coastal Aires, commercial or otherwise, and campsites are just too expensive to be using them on a daily basis (indeed, even on an occasional basis it's too painful to fork out €25-€35 when all we need is somewhere to park). With motorhome travel (not to mention #Vanlife) now so prevalent, resulting in a constantly increasing number of bans on overnight parking, there are too few places that one can legitimately stay.

Not wanting a knock on the door from the police in the middle of the night (which is exactly what we thought we were experiencing at just gone 10 last night, but it turned out to be some hilarious ignoramus* who thought it would be fun to knock on our windscreen on the way past.) (*Feel free to insert a more colourful term; we certainly did.) 

View from Bertie's front bumper this morning

Because of the lack of legitimate/desirable parking places and with a continuing need, until the end of this week, for flat running places for Mick, it was a longer-than-normal drive for us today (an hour and a half), bypassing Marbella and Estepona on the busy coastal highway, to arrive here on the border of Gibraltar.

View of Gibraltar from our run. Bertie has a closer view, but with a chain-link fence in the way

There's no good reason for us to be here in La Línea. Surely the only reason tourists come here is to visit Gibraltar, and that's something we'll likely not do on this visit, unless I can be sure that there's not going to be any Covid restrictions in either direction on the border crossing*. Moreover, we've been here before (although not to this Aire; six years ago one could park at the football stadium for €3 per night). We've only returned as it was an easy and reliable option for somewhere to stay for a couple of days.

New running shoes. I brought two pairs each of road and trail shoes with me, but regretted not bringing a certain other pair. These were one of the Decathlon purchases the other day, to fill that gap.

Having not ventured into the town of La Línea last time we were here, when Gibraltar was our focus, that's where we headed this afternoon. In his RAF days, Mick visited both Gib and La Línea and he described the latter as a dive. My opinion: whilst it does have a couple of nice-enough squares, it's not otherwise visually appealing. Even so, we intend to stick around tomorrow.

Mick bought me a present! No idea where we're going to keep it, but it will get plenty of use.

Mick declined to imitate art today using the excuse that he didn't have a book with him.

^{(*It'd be tempting to nip into Gibraltar in Bertie just to fill up with cheap fuel, but to do that we'd need to leave and then re-enter the EU, and legally we couldn't bring back into Spain the food in Bertie's fridge, even though we bought in Spain in the first place.)}