![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.vennwood.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/Millau.jpg\" "\\"Millau\\"")
<\/a>Millau is a nice place to use as a base as it is a collection point for each of the gorges that end near Millau.\u00a0 The Tarn\u00a0gorge being perhaps the most famous.\u00a0 Unfortunately we can’t take our camper down the Tarn gorge as we are too high for the bridges – 3.2mtrs limit – so beware all you camper folks with tall vans.\u00a0 The bridge over the river Tarn is the highest in Europe and at over 1000mtrs long must be amongst one of the longest.\u00a0 For sure it is a spectacular sight when viewed from any angle.\u00a0 Our favourite is in the evening if you walk up towards it from the town centre and catch the sun setting then it can be a great photo.\u00a0 Early in the morning when the mist covers the tops of the structure can also be very atmospheric.<\/p>\nFrom Millau we continued down the A75 to stop of for a few days at one of our favourite spots – Gruissan.\u00a0 We use Gruissan as a resting place for a few days as it always seems to us to have a micro climate of its own.\u00a0 Here we bumped into some friends that we have met on our travels – Sandy and Pete.\u00a0 They had been here a few days and were moving on but had not decided where.<\/p>\n
Gruissan Aire<\/h2>\n
Peniscola is a nice resort that is split into old and new.\u00a0 The old town encompasses the harbour and fish market where the local fishermen offer their catches to the locals with some good bargains available to those that don’t mind what the fish look like or what they arwe called.\u00a0 The old town was pretty deserted during our stay in late Jan.\u00a0 The new town was pretty deserted also but that may have been due to the large number of blocks of holiday flats and hotels all closed up for the winter.\u00a0 We parked at the Camper Van parking place at the northern end of the town, set back some 100mtrs from the beach.<\/p>\n We stopped at Port Vendres for a few days again in the hope that the wind would decrease however that was not to be and in fact the wind speed increased significantly with speeds of over 150 kph recorded at the local Coast Guard station on the hills avove the town.\u00a0 The wind chill caused a major upset on the AIre where we stayed as all the camper vans experienced frozen water pipes and tanks – all that is except us.\u00a0 We did consume over 100 ltrs of LPG in a little over 12 days though.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Strip Statistics:<\/strong><\/p>\n Time Away:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a036 days\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Distance Travelled: \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a03801 miles \u00a0 \u00a0 Cost of Tunnel: \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a3142\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Cost of fuel: \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a3780.15 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Cost of LPG: \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a390.30\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Cost of tolls: \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a359.26 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Cost of Aires\/Sites \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a3160.00\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Vet fees: \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a336.20 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Exchange Rate: \u00a0 \u00a31 = \u20ac1.05<\/p>\n Note:<\/strong> The cost of LPG replresents a whole year of camping car use not just 36 days<\/p>\n Sadly our Border Collie\u00a0Chase passed away two days after we got home – 7 years and 4 months.\u00a0 Such a short life.<\/p>\n It always seems to me that the British camper van clan all travel to Spain or Portugal for the winter.\u00a0 Now I’m sure that’s not the case that all UK camper community go there as we have met up with … Continue reading <\/a>We stayed here 4 days as the weather was great and we did our usual walk around the L’Etang with our Border Collie Chase who was still recovering from an operation the previous December.\u00a0 From here we moved on to Leucate plage where surprise surprise we joined up with Sandy and Pete again.\u00a0 Sandy bakes a wonderful fruit cake where the fruit has been soaked in Brandy for at least 7 days.\u00a0 We spent a couple of good nights putting the world to rights and drinking wine.\u00a0 Unfortunately on the third night the wind gained in strength and we had a rocky night with quite strong gusts and a noticable drop in temperature.\u00a0 After cycling along the coast to the next town – Port-Leucate to try out the local oysters and sample their wine\u00a0and cycling back via the Leucate village centre we\u00a0discovered that the Tramantal wind was set to blow for the next 5 days at least.<\/p>\nLeucate Plage<\/h2>\n
<\/a>We made our farewells to Sandy and Pete and set off for Spain and the hope of better weather.\u00a0 We travelled down to Villanova and stopped at the campsite Villanova Park for a couple of days.\u00a0 This is a huge campsite with spaces for around 1000 campers.\u00a0 It is set back from the coast and there is a bus service to the beach from outside the campsite entrance.\u00a0 Unfortunately they wouldn’t take dogs on the bus\u00a0so we decided to walk down – to this day I don’t know if we went the right way but it took us all day to walk down and back having spent only an hour or so on the beach.\u00a0 Villanova Park is too big and commercialised for us so we moved on and\u00a0made our next base at Peniscola.<\/p>\nOld Peniscola<\/h2>\n
<\/a>We cycled into the town centre every other day, and walking into town on the opposite days.\u00a0 While the sun came out we just couldn’t escape the wind that was still blowing from the North East.\u00a0 We met several Brits returning from the south who stopped over night in Peniscola and all without exception complained of the poor weather of wind and rain during their stays further south.\u00a0 Frequent comments of “coldest\/wettest\/windiest January in memory” filled the topics of conversation.\u00a0 We stayed at Peniscola for over a week and each day in the hope of lull in the wind strength – all to no avail.\u00a0 By this time Chase, who had been ill before we left, \u00a0had stopped responding to treatment and on contacting the Vet a new course of medication was prescribed and was sent to our friends who were due in the\u00a0South of France the following week. \u00a0After\u00a0looking at the French Provence forecast, we decided that enough was enough and so we set off back up to France, staying overnight at Sitges on the Sitges camping site.<\/p>\nSitges<\/h2>\n
<\/a>We strolled into the town in the afternoon and stayed until the early evening.\u00a0 Sitges appeared a nice place but raised a few eyebrows from our son when we got back.<\/p>\nPort Vendres<\/h2>\n
<\/a>Port Vendres is a nice town with a very active port.\u00a0 We walked up over the cliffs into Callioure with its sheltered harbour and old streets.\u00a0 From the Aire there is a lovely walk up over the cliffs to the Coast Guard Station where you can see down the coast into Spain – in better weather we would have enjoyed it more.<\/p>\nCallioure from the cliff walk<\/h2>\n
<\/a>With a weather forecast stating the wind would continue for at least another week we decided to move over to Le Lavanou to the eastern side of Marseille, arriving to calm winds and clear blue skies in the late afternoon.\u00a0 Peace at last.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Le Lavandou is a place that we would love to retire to as it has a good social life all year round.\u00a0 While there are lots of holiday flats around\u00a0 the town centre is bustling all year.\u00a0 One of our favourite activities is the watch the Boule matches on the promenade with either a coffee or beer in our hands.\u00a0 There are several walks around Lavandou, one very attractive walk takes you from Le Lavandou round the headland into St Claire and beyond.\u00a0 You can’t get closer to the sea than that.\u00a0 There is a bus service from the town centre up to Borme Les Mimosa with walks up behind to the ridge where\u00a0the view is breathtaking.<\/p>\nLe Lavandou from Faviere<\/h2>\n
<\/a>The restaurants are reasonably priced and mainly open all year.\u00a0 \u00a0We intended to stay at Le Lavandou for over a week before heading north towards home but Chase had a turn for the worse and our friends who were bringing down more medication for him had to cancel because their camper broke down.\u00a0 This left us without the new drugs prescribed by the Vet so we decided to cut short our trip in order to get Chase home.\u00a0 We broke the journey by stopping off at Viviers just to the west of Orange, then into Bonny-sur-Loire to get Chase’s passport stamped, then a dash for Calais.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"