Spain

CAMPING

Not being Spain experts but hanging out there for a while we have these suggestions.

Unfortunately there is no Spanish equivalent of the german “Stellplatz” or the french “Aires”. The Spanish complain about this and they will come across the border into France to enjoy the “Aires”. We even met one Spanish man that was in the process of getting petitions signed and bringing this “problem” to the politicians. Who knows, if he is successful you can say, “wow, I read the blog of a family that met the man that made this all happen”.

Wild camping can be difficult on the coast of the mediterranean. There are signs everywhere prohibiting wild camping. Just go inland about 5 minutes and it should be no problem. It is kinda hit or miss. The farther you get from the big touristy cities the better as well.

For campgrounds. It is always good to shop around. Dont commit to an unknown campground by pulling into their drive before you know the price. Park on the street and shop around. Can you tell that we made this mistake? North of Barcelona we paid a whopping 60 euros a night (they charge by the person, generally, on the continent and we are a very big family). We couldnt believe it. Andrew walked about 1 block away and found a place for 25 euros.

For winter camping in campgrounds. We have heard that there are many campgrounds in Spain that offer a special if you stay for 3 months, not a day less, in the off season (winter). Now we just dont seem to be able to stay still long enough to do this but it sounds like a good deal if you can stay still. The English seem to like to do this and there is an annual pilgrimage of motorhomes in the fall.

FOOD

I was walking around a village with my 2 oldest daughters and we saw a sign in a coffee shop “churros and chocolate”. We had never tried churros but thought to ourselves, “hey, if it goes with chocolate it cant be bad”. We loved churros (long skinny fried donuts) and Lizzy now craves them when away from Spain.

Now, we have not spent time with locals in Spain and dont think we have lingered long enough to really know the food. Maybe I will have more to say about this later.

CULTURE