Valencia After a night of gale force winds we packed up and headed down the coast again, mostly taking the motorways and main roads. This part of the coast is very unimpressive: the beaches may be nice but the development and the high rise is less than sympathetic. Our campsite in Valencia was only a little way out of town, a bit run-down and quite small. We are often the only car with GB plates - everyone else in this place was either Dutch or French t...

Peñíscola With reluctance we left La Mora. We could happily have stayed for weeks but if we did that we'd not be able to finish our trip here. The delta of the Rio Ebre is formed by silt brought down by the river forming a large wetland expanse that sticks out 20 km into the Med. We drove through soggy farmland that was the natural habitat of rice. Everywhere were rice paddies with a multitude of irrigation canals bringing the water to the fields. R...

Tarragona and La Mora After leaving Barcelona and heading south, we checked into a new campsite at the end of a little road leading to a beach called La Mora. It looked pretty nice: away from the traffic and so quiet, directly fronting a beautiful beach with fine, golden sand between two rocky headlands and backed by pine forest on the hill. We booked in for two nights; we stayed for four. Tarragona is the local town only about 20 minutes away by local ...

Barcelona After tackling the motorways which surround Barcelona and which crisscross each other like tangled wool, we checked in to Tres Estellas campsite. It might mean Three Stars but it was anything but. We had been told not to go there, but we decided that, as it is the closest campsite to Barcelona and with an easy bus trip into the centre of the city, it was our best bet. The place itself wasn't too bad and opened directly onto the beach and the Med...

On towards Barcelona Enough of travelling south for a while - we now headed north-east towards Barcelona through the Castilla La Mancha region. We passed through farming country, vast fields yellow with the stubble of harvested hay or brown with the sunflowers nearly dead but not yet picked. Large reservoirs dot the countryside and provide water for irrigation for fruit trees and grapes. Mountain ranges, heavily forested with pine trees mean we climb on ...