Spain 2003, Day One, Sitges

Day One, 17th March

Day one started the evening before, flying out of Newcastle for Stansted, no problems with Easy Jet arriving on time. Very uncomfortable night in Stansted airport but we had to check in at about 05:30 for Barcelona and again flights on time with no problems.

Had to wait a short while for the lift to the showroom but he eventually turned up and took us on a very long drive, the old showroom was close to the airport.  The plan had been to set off from the showroom and drive straight to Sitges (although the words straight and Sitges don't really go together if you know what I mean), a simple one road drive but now we are on the other side of the city.

Everything now turns very Spanish on us, we are sat down with a coffee then nothing seems to happen, I look out of the showroom windows down onto the motorhomes parked below in the compound but can not see one that looks like ours. We are eventually asked "do you require the cycle carrier", "yes thanks" I reply, then nothing starts happening again (to be honest I think paperwork is being done). While we wait, I get my laptop out with the photos of the motorhome, as I am now worrying that ours is not out there.

Eventually we are asked if we would like to see the van, now the reason I could not see ours becomes apparent, it has a roof rack and a ladder that I was told "not on this one", then I begin to wonder if this is a deferent van (has it been switched for an older high mileage one) but no, the registration and VIN number is right plus two small dents in the bonnet are there. The headlight has been fixed and the bike rack is on, we say nothing about the roof rack and neither do they.

Sometime later the paperwork is complete, we are insured through them until we arrive in England and we set off back to the van for a demonstration of how everything works. The van comes with an instruction manual, spare set of bulbs, a full 2.7kg cylinder of Campingaz, an electric hook-up cable, water hose, blue loo stuff, cutlery, pans, plates, bowls, cups, washing up liquid, cleaning cloths and several other things necessary for first time motorhoming (I am led to believe this is better than some people get in this country). After being shown how everything works (and incidentally not getting any of it), I am invited to reverse the van up to a tap, to fill the water tank, not a pretty site but not too bad for a first time.

With the original plans out the window, no one road to Sitges, we get the laptop out and set a route on AutoRoute from out present location (this is a lot easier when we get our GPS mouse, next year).  As we are well out to the north of Barcelona we decide not to head towards the coast and city centre but instead travel parallel to the coast on main roads and then head towards Sitges. What we do not have is a lot of diesel, so we stop at the first service area, also the van it did not come with the red breakdown warning triangles, so in the service station I looked for some. Being unsuccessful I attempted to ask for warning triangles, I tried everything, saying triangle with a Spanish accent, making triangle shapes with my fingers, pointing at other triangular shapes (Toblerones, etc) but could not make myself understood.   In the end I give up and go and look again, I eventually found some, on returning to the checkout the nice lady says "ha, Triángulo".

When we turn off the motorway to head down to Sitges we find ourselves on a road that is practically a dirt track, I am probably exaggerating but this is my first time driving the van or anything this size, anyway its not a very pleasurable experience.

SitgesCamping Sitges Ctra. C-246, km.38, E - 08870 Sitges Web Site

Once in Sitges, we find the site without too much trouble, we are well out of season, the pool was green but the bar/restaurant was open. Spent some time sat in the sun and getting to know the living space in the van, reading the instructions translated from Spanish was very strange.   

In one suitcase we had all the usual stuff you would take for a holiday and in the other we had a duvet, quilt cover, sheets, etc, what we did not have was pillows but thought cushions off the seats would suffice. On making up the bed we discovered while putting on the fitted sheet that the over cab bed is king size and not double, the mattress sprung up at the four corners with the sheet stretched between.

Had to have a walk in to town, quite a long walk to the seafront and then quite a bit further along the front to the centre, just over one and a half miles.  Had a drink and then back for an early night, its been a very long day, will be back tomorrow for a longer more leisurely look round.

Spain 2003, Arangments

All arrangements with Euromotohomes were done using email with very few problems, we were worried for a while, when we got an email saying that the building of a new motorway, meant moving the showroom to the other side of Barcelona. Bank transfers completed all we had to do now was to get to Spain to collect our van.

Booked with Easy Jet (not KLM) to get back to pick up the van and as its our first trip abroad in the van, we booked the long crossing Santander to Plymouth. This would save driving all the way through France (we are going back to France later in the year) and this is just a trip to the collect van.

Unfortunately Easy Jet do not start direct flights to Barcelona until the next month so we have to go via Stansted. The only way to do it, is to get the last flight out of Newcastle one night with the first flight out of Stansted the next morning, which means sleeping in Stansted airport over night.

Spain 2002, KLM

Day Three

Taxi to the airport is quite expensive as we are on the far side of the city, it is Monday morning and the traffic is horrendous. At the airport all is going well, the plan arrives on time and we are soon on our way back to Schiphol.

However on arrival we find in Schiphol, our flight to Newcastle is delayed, for about two hours, the taxi firm at home have the flight number so should know we are going to be late, so we retire to the bar again. When we eventually go to get on the plane, the flight attendant informs me that my hand luggage is to large a must go in the hold (remember we took only hand luggage to speed things up, at least I know it will arrive as I see it go on). Now this bag has a plastic label on it from KLM, stating that it is suitable as hand luggage, it has also been on three KLM flights in three days, with no problems and to top it all, the gent in front of me has a bag twice the size of mine, so big, two people are required to force it into the overhead locker.

I have said it before but I think it is worth mentioning again, I will never, ever use KLM again. It may not sound that bad but on top of the cancellations and delays, we where offered no explanations, given no information, in fact the staff at Schiphol airport where very unhelpful and offhanded.

Now all we had to do was, wait for the entire winter, before we had the redundancy money to pay for the van and then go back and collect it.

Spain 2002, Rest Day

Day Two

Sunday, we fancy doing city tour on the open top bus, there is a bus stop back at the marina so we walk back along the front. We are in summer gear but the locals are out for their Sunday walk in overcoats, scarves and hats.

Back at the marina there is a market on, mainly Africans selling CDs and DVDs from blankets spread on the floor, when what looks like the local trading standards turn up, you see why they use blankets. Its so easy for them to grab the four corners of the blanket, lift it and run, with all their wears intact.

The bus goes from just in front of the two towers that back on to the mariner, we only wait a few minutes before the bus arrives and we hop on. There are two routes but they cross and you can change from one to the other, for a complete tour. We only have today, so we decide to do the full tour and see all of the sites, after all, we will be back in March. Between tours we stop for a sandwich somewhere in the centre of the city, overall the tour is well worth it.

In the evening we head back to the marina for food and drink again, we even have a cocktail.  As we have to be up early the next morning to go home, the place is just warming up as we leave again.

Spain 2002, Showroom Barcelona

Day one

Set off early morning 16th November for Newcastle airport with tickets for Barcelona, flying with KLM, changing at Schiphol. Now I had heard of baggage going missing there (Schipol) so we only took hand luggage, this will also help speed up our passage through the airports.

Workmates had said to me "why not book with Easy Jet", "no way" says I, having seen that TV program about an airport with customers shouting at Easy Jet personnel who do not appear to be listening (you know the one, how on earth Easy Jet let them make this program is beyond me, worst advert for an airline ever), so I paid a bit extra for KLM.  This was a huge mistake, I will never use KLM again as long as I live, I have not flown with every airline in the world but these are by far the worst, than any I have flow with (including some dodgy holiday charter flights).

So we check in, go through to the departure lounge, then about thirty mins before we are due to fly, the early flight is cancelled and we eventually find out we will be on the next flight two hours later.   KLM hade excuses but they have two flights out of Newcastle within two hours early morning, in my opinion, if there are not enough passengers to fill more than one plain, then the earlier flight is cancelled and everyone moved to the second flight (I have no proof that they do this but the airport must know what was going on).  We do however land in time to make the connecting flight to Barcelona but we can not get off the plain as there are no steps for us to disembark.  By the time we do get to the gate for our connection we are late but there is no trace of our flight, not on any of the boards, no go to gate, no now boarding, no now departing (again in my opinion, this flight never existed or was like the one from Newcastle). Along with others, we now have to find out what to do next, after much searching around miles of airport we do eventually do get boarding passes for the next flight, yes you guessed it in two hours time.

It is getting close to the time we should be arriving in Barcelona, so I have to phone the showroom to let them know we will be late as they are supposed to be picking us up from the airport (and opening up on Saturday especially for us). Not any easy thing to do but got the flight number across so hopefully someone would be there to meet us.

Wiled away the time drinking with a couple of newlyweds from Hartlepool (our home town), drank a bit more than you should when going to make an important decision involving so much money and then, the flight is delayed again before we do eventually get going.

In Barcelona, our lift is there to meet us and within minutes we are at the showroom (more of a compound really but all motorhome sales are like that).  All of these motorhomes are ex-rental and most have been used for one season only (less then six month old, and as I have discovered since, had all of the minor problems, lots of people seen to have with new motorhomes, ironed out).  We look at the 410 and it is a bit small, the 432 is the same layout but longer, we also look at the 802 but think that it may be too big for us (I now sometimes think this is the model we should have gone for but I have no regrets) so the 432 is the one we choose.  At the time we do think that the styling looks a bit old-fashioned but many new models since then, by bigger manufactures, look very similar.

The one we choose had a couple of minor faults that I ask to be rectified, the main one being a cracked headlight, I also ask about the cycle carrier and roof rack and ladder. Now the answers are very unclear, the headlight is under warranty, they say I can buy the cycle carrier for €150 and the roof rack and ladder are not on this one.

I did not haggle over the price (often wonder whether I should have) could have been a mix of drink and surprise at the low cost.   I have now gone up one model (410 to 432), am paying £6,000 less than I would have at home for the smaller van and have saved over £10,000 on the 432. Admittedly it is six months old but as I have said earlier, for the same money I would have had to buy one at least seven years old in the UK.

Paid a couple of thousand Euro deposit with my VISA card, it had been previously arranged that as I will not get the money until the day I am actually redundant (my fiftieth birthday next March), full payment and collection would be held over until then. I was willing to pay more deposit but Dot was worried about losing our money i.e. the van and or the company still being here when we return.  I also took several photos of the van, inside and out, two reasons, we wanted to show everyone what we had bought (and keep looking at them ourselves) and to have a record of the van, just in case.

We shook hands on the deal and are then given a lift to our hotel, for a couple of days holiday.  The hotel was out near the marina built for the Olympics, in a bit of a downtrodden part of the city but it was being redeveloped and the hotel was very smart.  A main road was between the hotel and the beach but this was also being altered with tunnels taking part of the traffic underground.  From high up in our room, I spotted a sports stadium just over the main road and to my amazement a rugby game was in progress, I had not thought rugby was played in Spain.

We had been up since very early this morning and as it was now gating dark we thought it would not be worth getting a taxi in to the city just to come strait back as we where tired out. So we just walked over to the beach where there was a promenade leading to the marina about half a mile away. The sea air had freshened us up (as had a shower back at the hotel) so we set off for the bright lights of the marina and maybe some food.

It must have been about 19:30 by the time we got there and there was not a lot going on, there are plenty of bars and lots of fish restaurants some with a few people in them. Now you know how I mentioned earlier the Dot and I are from Hartlepool, actually we both lived on the seafront and both are not keen on fish, strange that, so after a look round the marina we have pizza in a Pizza Hut.

We then have a drink in an Irish bar before moving outside to a bar with patio heaters for another drink. It is now about 21:30 and an empty bar we are sat opposite is starting to lock up or that's what we thought, they actually open the front of the bar up fully and by 22:00 the place is getting busy. As we set off back to the hotel the whole place is coming to life, the bars are filling up and the restaurants are full some have queues out side, there seems to be lots of families out for the evening meal.

Spain 2002, The Idea

2002, October.

When I was made redundant from work after 33 years, I thought it would be a good idea to sell up and move abroad but where? Dot eventually came up with the idea to buy a motorhome drive round Europe and then make a decision.

Next question was which one, checked out showrooms, the press and some web sites. What we discovered was, they are not cheap or that the cheap ones where about twenty years old but we did decide on the layout we liked.

To get a van for the money we had, with the layout we wanted, we would have had to buy something about seven to eight years old. Then we found a dealer in the Newcastle area, that sold the Italian made Mclouis and for a few thousand more, we could get new, the 410 model, same layout we wanted, albeit a bit small, so we went home to think about it.

Then I got to thinking, If they are cheap new how much would they be second hand, so back to the internet, none in the UK, so I started looking in Italy and then Spain. One showroom Euromtorhomes in Barcelona had loads of them (many this years model), so I emailed them to arrange a visit.

Next thing was to get low cost flights to Spain and a hotel booked in Barcelona.