Week 5. 27th April – 3rd May 2026. Benidorm to Cala Montgo, Spain – 395 miles.
Last week we had such wonderful weather on the Costa Blanca, but now it’s taken a turn for the cooler and the cloudier as we continue our journey north along the east coast of Spain and to the Costa Brava while stopping for an unscheduled sleepy hotel stop…
Monday 27th April 2026 (Benidorm to Calpe – 15 miles)
We have woken up to another beautiful day in Benidorm, clear blue skies and just the right temperature to have your coffee and fresh croissants outside.
We’re moving on today, but not very far, just an hour north to the town of Calpe. After breakfast, we get packed up and set off. We don’t go far before we see the view of the bay, and stunning Penan d’Ifach rock is quite something as it looks like it’s just rising out of the sea. We pull off the motorway and wind our way down to the sea.
We have booked into a camper park that looks quite new. These are popping up everywhere. They are a hybrid campsite. Not a free aire or parking spot, or a fully fledged campsite, it’s somewhere in between, and for €22 you get a space with a small terrace and full services.
We chill out in the van, H does a small shop, after which we walk into town via the large salt lake, where we can see wild flamingoes. There are a lot of new high-rise apartments going up between the beach and the salt lake.
It’s a beautiful town with a wide-open bay and is very different from Benidorm. Lots of small charming restaurants, no drunks staggering about in nappies and nun outfits. We always liked this part of Spain the best when we sailed the Mediterranean.
We used to stay in Altea nearby, another lovely town, and used to anchor regularly just north of here. This part of Spain has really taken off, with some fantastic-looking high-tech apartment blocks. It reminded us of a miniature Naples in Florida. It really is an attractive place, which will not have very attractive property prices!
We wander along the beachfront, taking it all in and then make our way up into the old town. Again, this part of Calpe is lovely.
H does a bit of shopping, then it’s back down to the sea front for a refreshing drink with a sea view. It’s now late afternoon, and time to get back to Jess. We are hungry and thirsty. By the time we get back to Jess. We have walked a total of 6.5 miles, and it feels like it.
We really like it here and could certainly stay longer than one night, but we must keep moving north; we will run out of time.
Dinner is another cookout with the tabletop gas burner. H knocks up some fantastic turkey fajitas. Delicious.
Time to get cleaned up, showered and turn in. Tomorrow is a long driving day to Benicarlo, which is 170 miles, about 3 and a bit hours by car, but for us, probably 4 to 5 hours. We also want to stop for a menu del dia, which was introduced in Spanish law in 1965. It’s true. Click the link above…
Tuesday 28th April 2026 (Calpe to Benicarlo – 170 miles)
We are doing our longest drive for a while today. We set off after a light breakfast and do a quick shop along the way.
An uneventful day so far, which is how you want it. The traffic near Valencia is very busy with trucks driving about 2 feet from our bike rack; we can even see them on our reversing camera that points downwards. Del drives most of the way, and we take a break for lunch at a restaurant attached to a petrol station, which gets excellent reviews for its food and the excellent price.
Lunch here is taken more seriously than in the UK, and truckers pull into these places and have a 3 course set meal. This one is a very good one and all for 14€. We’ve taken our time and spent over an hour over lunch, and we set back off at 2:30. By 4:30, we are at the campsite. We have been to this particular site, Camping Alegria, a few times before, and we like the vibe here in Benicarlo. This is where they make Benimar motorhomes (which was our second choice of van when we were looking around). We are given the choice of pitches, so H goes off to find one; quite a few are being taken up by an organised French pétanque tournament taking place today. We settle in and, after our free welcome glass of wine, we take a walk on the beach in the sunset. It’s a lovely night, and an end to a long day on the road.
Wednesday 29th April 2026 (Benicarlo – Day 2)
Del has an affliction. He has many, but one that has become more prominent is his snoring! As a result, we slept badly last night. It’s actually been bad for a few nights now and has come to a head. It’s a very bad combination, Del’s snoring and H, who can’t sleep at the best of times. We desperately need a reset and some good sleep, so tonight H books a nearby hotel in the town so we can sleep separately.
It’s a lovely day, and we walk down the beach for lunch at a Japanese restaurant. It’s an all-you-can-eat buffet for 17€. You get a table with a tablet where you can wipe, touch and order as much food as you like.
Indeed, we do. We have lots of delicious sushi and other Japanese dishes, and some unusual fusion dishes – Mango Salmon anyone? Back at the van, we relax, and Del gets ready to depart for his hotel. He wants to be in bed by 8pm.
Del is indeed in bed by 8 and H by 9. Let’s see how we go…
Thursday 30th April 2026 (Benicarlo to Mont Roig – 65 miles)
H is sat outside the van with a coffee ready as Del turns up, refreshed from his hotel sleep. It made him laugh. The power of the tracking technology in your phones today. She was able to watch him leave the hotel, walk along the beach, and enter the camp… (Get the coffee on). See him walk around the corner towards the van… (coffee on the table.) Here he is…
We have both slept better and are ready to carry on. We pack up and set off north to a campsite just over an hour away.
Camping Miramar is right on the beach in Mont Roig, and we are given a spot just a few metres away from the sea. It’s a bit of a struggle to get in as the lanes and roads to access the pitch are narrow with low trees, and just for fun, the entrance to our pitch has a lampost right in the middle… Very handy… It takes us a good 10 minutes of shuffling about and attacking the problem from different angles, but H eventually squeezes Jess into the spot with Del’s expert direction.
It’s a lovely small campsite, and we are lucky to get in as it’s the May Day bank holiday tomorrow.
We give Jess a bit of a clean out and set off for a walk down the beach to a restaurant located right on the beach. We can’t help ourselves and have a larger and more expensive lunch than planned. Well, what else are we doing? It’s all very nice, salad to start, then octopus Galician style for Del and baby squid with spicy potatoes for H, with a couple of desserts to follow.
It’s a perfect setting, quiet, right on the beach with an aqua coloured sea gently rolling in and a cold glass of white wine to enjoy the view. It’s hot.
Friday 1st May 2026 (Mont Roig to Lloret de Mar – 130 miles)
Today we are setting off for Lloret de Mar, a very popular holiday destination on the Costa Brava. Before we leave, we need to do a van service, drop the grey water and fill up with fresh. Again, it takes a bit of van ballet as the site is so tight and close quartered, but with a bit of ‘to you, to me to you’, we eventually get in. A little bit of tree and bush trimming would make life a bit easier. There are lots scraping down the side of Jess; fortunately, they are soft, and there’s no damage.
We finally set off north, passing west of Barcelona, avoiding the city and its punitive low-emission zone, and into a massive traffic jam! That’ll keep the air clean. It’s a bank holiday today here and everywhere is busy, but there are five accidents on the motorway all near each other.
The accidents add over an hour to our trip. It’s no wonder there are accidents; there are chevrons to show minimum distance, and nobody is observing them. Trucks are tailgating us, people are on their phones, driving too fast, some even too slow, the list just grows…
In the end, it takes hours to get to Lloret, where we finally get set up in a campsite that we visited in December 2024. At that time we were the only ones there; today, May day bank holiday it’s packed, but there is a small space for us…
Once settled in, we set off into the town of Lloret and the lovely beach here. There’s a fierce wind keeping people off the beach, but the restaurants are busy. Lloret is built very low-rise compared to Benidorm, and the vibe here is a lot calmer. Most people here are Spanish, enjoying their bank holiday weekend. Windy but nice, as we walk along the sea front, reminiscing about our boat adventures around these very waters more than 20 years ago.
Dinner tonight is onboard Jess, for a change. It’s been a while since we did that, and it makes a lovely change. Tonight, we start watching Chernobyl again. This week is the 40th anniversary of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster. It’s an excellent watch and won many BAFTAs in 2020 when it was released.
Saturday 2nd May 2026 (Lloret de Mar to L’Estartit – 50 miles)
Our journey moving up the coast of Spain continues today. We are only driving an hour today on the back roads to L’estartit, an old sailing favourite of ours, with the Illes Medes just off the coast. A lovely place.
The campsite we have picked is very old school and basic, but right on the beach. Camping Molino is celebrating its 60th birthday. Whilst basic, it does the job. Everything is there, and it all works.
We get a pitch right next to the dunes, and the entrance onto the long sandy beach that stretches right around the bay of L’Estritt. From our van, we can hear the sea crashing on the beach. We take the 40-minute walk from the van to the town.
The weather has taken a bit of a turn up here in the north with cloudy skies and strong winds. No matter, it’s time for lunch, and there are plenty of places to choose from here. We have a set lunch as the sun pops out! About time…
We struggle with the walk back against the wind, but once back at Jess we get showered and have a lovely evening in.
Sunday 3rd May 2026 (L’Estartit to Cala Montgo – 14 miles)
We wake to the sound of the sea on a windy, grey day. It’s quite cool, and we are in warmer gear than usual. We’re only going 30 minutes north to Cala Montgo today. The journey will take us around the Montgrí, Medes Islands and Baix Ter Natural Park. There is no direct route.
After filling up with cheap diesel and a quick Jess wash, we arrive after negotiating the largest amount of speed bumps ever, and into Cala Montgo.
The campsite, Illa Mateua Campsite, is immense and even has its own supermarket and restaurant. It’s a shame the weather isn’t better, as this is a beautiful area with very fond memories for us.
We set up our outside furniture and get a rotisserie chicken and some potatoes from the local campsite takeaway.
Catalonians do the tastiest spit roast chickens, and takeaways are everywhere. It’s delicious with a fresh baguette and a glass of wine.
Time to walk it all off, so we take a good walk to the bay, through the pine trees and to the entrance to the deep bay of Montgo.
We used to anchor our boat here and rent kayaks regularly back in the day.
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