Costa del Zombie

After the highlights of the Alhambra then there was a danger that returning to the tourist sprawl of the coast felt like a bit of a downer.

Granada was great, not just the famous sites but the city itself. Where we stayed, Camping La Reine Isabel, at La Zubia was good too. Although on the map la Zubia looks like a separate town, in fact it has been absorbed as a suburb of Granada. This means that there is a regular bus service from outside the gate straight to the city centre. Also, there is a new shopping complex with a El Corte Ingles department store and Mercadona Supermarket just down the road. All that being said, the campsite itself does not feel 'urban'. It's set in a wooded area with good facilities and a stylish shower block decorated in the local style with white walls and blue tiles. 

Only one word of caution, the link road from the Autovia to La Zubia is being rebuilt. This means following a diversion down what amounts to a donkey track to get to the site. Luckily while we were negotiating this there were no oncoming donkeys! I realise that this is a temporary problem, but given the scale of the road building the problem looks likely to persist for some months at the very least.

So, good-bye Granada, somewhere I could see us returning to. As it had been torrential rain when we arrived, it was only on our return trip down the A44 motorway to the coast that we could truly appreciate the views you get of the snow-capped Sierra Nevada.

We had decided to stay next at a site in Playa Granada. We had fond memories of this area as we had rented, some years ago, a lovely white villa overlooking the sea at nearby Salobrena - a pueblo blanco with an old castle set spectacularly on a hillside by the sea.

Where we stayed this time, near Motril, was not lovely. Before the development of the coastal plain, the area must have been one huge mudflat. It is still a mudflat, but now 'beautified' by the addition of a palm shaded promenade, dotted with hotels, apartment blocks, the odd golf driving range and a country club - whatever that may mean. It was forlorn, empty and not at all to our taste. Perhaps, we wondered, all the coast from now on could be like this - tourist sprawl by the beach, plasticulture inland. After one day we moved on. The site we had in mind at Torre del Mar was full. The resort did look a little less 'Shaun of the Dead' and we found a Mercadona to stock up a bit. The next campsite in the ACSI book hardly looked promising, the description mentioned it was separated from the beach by the main N340 coast road. Gill phoned ahead; they had spaces. The afternoon was getting on, so we decided to head for this site at Benejarafe no matter what it was like. So here we are, parked up nowhere special, by the Med, and do you know, it's stunning.