Valencia

When I came to add our latest trip, I noted that the last blog entry was October 2022. Oops. We've been much better at keeping our YouTube channel up to date. There you'll find at least half a dozen videos from the summer of 2023 when we went 'Huttopia Hopping' - that is to say we stayed on six different Huttopia campsites over our six-week road trip, from the Atlantic coast, across the Pyrenees and over to the Mediterranean.

Back to the present and we're just home from nine nights on the continent. Our ultimate destination was Valencia where we spent five nights at Devesa Gardens. 

We didn't rush our drive down, though I guess some would say we did. We stayed on a Camping-Car Park about an hour south of Paris for night one. Knowing it would be 10/11pm when we went through Paris we thought the roads would be quiet. They were not and I wouldn't ever want to go this way again. 

The Camping-Car Park at Souppes Sur Loing was a nice peaceful site. Only two other of the 48 pitches were taken. However, I'd recommend only using this in dry weather. The grass pitches were quite boggy and I think we might have had trouble driving off. So we did what another motorhome had done and just pitched up on the road.

The next morning we continued south, crossing and stopping for lunch at the Millau Viaduct. We arrived in Spain around 4pm, choosing an ACSI site, Camping Albera, so we could plug into EHU and have a hot shower. While I'd definitely recommend this site as a stopover, I'd make sure you have cash since, when I asked to pay by card, the receptionist said, well you can try but the cable is broken. The payment failed and we had to drive ten minutes down the road to an ATM.

Another five hours on the road brought us to Devesa Gardens. The satnav directed us right through Valencia and, in hindsight, I wouldn't do that again. Several six-lane roundabouts feel like a free-for-all. However, as we found when we departed, you can avoid this with a short (20-minute) detour by taking the roads to the south around the lake nature reserve.

I chose Devesa Gardens for its public transport links into Valencia. A bus departs every 30 minutes from right outside the campsite gates. It takes around 30 minutes to the centre of the city, or you can get off at the Museum of Arts and Sciences and walk through the park. It's just €1.50 for a single ticket which you can pay for in cash, by contactless (you only have to tap on, not again when you alight) or, download the bus operator's app (EMT) and buy your tickets there - you can save a bit of money this way as the more tickets you buy, the cheaper it is - five tickets were €6.

Valencia is a beautiful city and we caught the bus on four of our five days. We went shopping, saw the sights and enjoyed horchata and fartons in a delightful cafe. 

Back to Devesa Gardens then. I would recommend it as somewhere to stay to visit Valencia. The pitches are hard standing, the facilities are good and cleaned often and the ACSI price is 21 euros per night. Just be aware that the booking site is flaky (it told me my payment had failed even though it had come out of my bank). Reception is very busy when you check in and you have to take a ticket and wait to be called. Also, I was annoyed when we checked out and required the 20 euro deposit for the barrier fob returned and, though reception said it opened at 8am, the receptionist told me I would have to wait while she opened up and wasn't ready to help me until 8.10am. I appreciate that doesn't seem like the end of the world, but when you're halfway down the Spanish coast and are departing for the UK, it's quite frustrating. The good outweighs the bad though and, though I'm not adding it to our campsite recommendations map, it's quite likely a good (and probably best) option around Valencia.

That's a short account of our exploration of Valencia but there's a 30-minute YouTube video already up. 

Coming home we used a Flower Camping campsite to the north of Montpellier for one night. The second night was more of a problem. We'd hoped to stay at a site near Beaune, Camping Les Bolleaux, but found a closed sign on its gate, despite its website saying it was open. We used the aire de camping car right in town to park up (free for four hours) and explore the pretty town. We decided to press on another hour to the aire at Corgirnon near Dijon but found a chain across the road (maybe due to wet ground?). So I referred to the ACSI app again and found a site we've stayed on previously on Lac d'Orient near Troyes that was open. We arrived at 5pm and were allowed to choose a hard-standing pitch.  

Now around two hours nearer to Calais than we'd intended, we were able to bring forward our Le Shuttle crossing and crossed the channel at around 12.30pm.