Mazarrón, Spain

From Moraira, we travelled back down the coast to Mazarron for one night before meeting up with friends Sue and Graham in Aguilas the next day.

The campsite we stayed at was Playa de Mazarrón, Bolnuevo, Mazarrón, in the Murcia region of Spain.

Campsite Mazarrón (Click for larger image)

Campsite Mazarrón

What a lovely campsite right next to the beach and a lively village (not too lively that it was noisy) just outside the gates.  The site is well kept with lots of brightly coloured flowers and perfectly trimmed topiary trees.

Campsite Mazarron.

CampsiteMazarrón.

One thing we have noticed about a lot of sites in Spain is that they have a lot of shade which they use in the summer.  The shade is provided by the framework (a bit like the framework used on Market stalls) with a tarpaulin over the top that can be pulled across if needed.

Toilet/Shower Block Mazarron Click for larger image

Toilet/Shower Block Mazarrón

The toilet/shower block was lovely and more like walking into a hotel with the water fountain feature and plants.   Take a look at the picture.

The showers and toilet were extremely clean and the shower cubicles a good size with shelves and hooks.  (one of the problems with some shower blocks is that they don’t always have shelves or enough hooks, which makes it awkward).   The shower itself was really powerful.

Once we set up we took a walk out of the back gate of the site to the beach and long promenade to a bar at the end of the town.  We passed lots of small houses on the beach front.  Each one different and made it an interesting walk.  We sat for ages in the bar just looking out to the beach people and bird watching.  Well, sparrow watching actually because when someone left their table after eating a flock of sparrows descended on the table to finish up.

 

What we are enjoying the most about this trip, so far, is the freedom to go where we want, when we want.  Every town or village we visit is different. I did wonder if we would get fed up with the coast and that it would all look the same but so far that’s not the case and each place we visit is very different.

The sun is nice but seeing lots of different places is better.  Although saying that it might be nice to spend 3-4 days in one place again which we intend to do for Easter.

It doesn’t look as if we are going to get into Portugal this trip as we really wanted to see Italy and spend 3 – 4 weeks in Croatia.  The journey up through Spain and through the South of France is going to take some time.  Perhaps next time we can leave the UK a little later (so that we don’t hit the bad weather) and do what we had originally planned this trip which was to travel through Northern Spain through to Portugal.

Aguilas, Murcia, Spain

Wild camping on the seafront in Aguilas.

View of the sea from our van in Aguilas (click for larger image)

View of the sea from our van in Aguilas (click for larger image)

We travelled down the coast to Aguilas which only took an hour and parked up in the car park next to the Marina. We stayed here 2 nights.  There were quite a few other motorhomes parked up, and by the look of it, had been there for a few days.  We made our way to the Marina boatyard to find Sue and Graham working on their boat.  Unfortunately, Graham had to carry on working on the boat as he had a deadline to get it back in the water but Sue joined us for coffee, tapas and a catch up in the hotel opposite.  It was really nice catching up. We did say that we would try and pop back on our way back up the coast and when the boat was in the water but unfortunately, we have run out of time.

It was lovely staying on the beachfront there and we had some lovely walks along the promenade to the town and visiting the local market on a Sunday.

Aguilas is an old Roman fishing port located at the southern end of Murcia and close to the border with Almeria.  The hill in the old town overlooking the city is occupied by a castle-fortress called the Castle of St John of the Eagles.  It looks lovely when it is lit up at night.  The Plaza de Espana’s beautiful gardens full of rubber plants are worth a visit also the City Hall (19th century), and the parish church of San Jose, where the image of the patron saint is housed.

Almerimar

We set off for Almeria on Sunday 24th March but as we drove through it we felt it was too big and busy for us to stay and so carried on to Almerimar which Sue had recommended.

View from the front of the van on Almerimar marina

View from the front of the van on Almerimar marina

As we approached Almerimar we saw another motorhome so followed them into the marina.  We were surprised to see that there were quite a lot of other motorhomes there and that it was an official stopover.  We had electric, wifi, use of the marina’s showers and of course were on top of the restaurants, bars and shops surrounding the marina.  We couldn’t believe how beautiful it was and how lucky we were to be able to park up facing the boats on the marina and sitting on the bed at the back of the van looking out to watch the windsurfers on the beach.  The only problem was that on the day we arrived it was extremely windy so much so that we didn’t want to walk around in it.  We were lucky though to get Monday morning until after lunch walking around the marina until the wind got too strong again.  This was bad enough for us to want to move on.

Now we could go further down the coast but this is when we looked at the map and decided that it was quite a long journey back up the southern coast of Spain and into the South of France and perhaps we should start to head up and could maybe stay for 5 days over Easter on a site.  We were not sure how busy the campsites would be and if we would be able to get booked in also we did not know if we would get a free camping spot as perhaps the local police would not tolerate it if the towns were busier.

We decided to stop off at Cartagena still in the Murcia area.