A New Adventure in France

We continued our meanderings south by heading inland again into the hills to the west of Valencia. We seem to be drawn to the hilly and mountainous landscapes more than some of the coastal towns. Great scenic roads took us deep into the hills and brought us out above the beautiful Benagéber reservoir in the Los Serranos region of the Valencia province. We headed down to the small town of Benagéber which has a well set up municipal motorhome area just on the edge of the village.

When the reservoir was constructed in the 1940/50s, the old town of Benagéber was flooded and its inhabitants had to move to other locations including the new town of Benagéber in its current location. The new town is built around a square, dominated by the church and seems to have good municipal facilities including playgrounds and a sports centre. It’s hard to believe this quite town is a bustling tourist hub in the summer months.

We decided to take advantage of the weather and the wonderful scenery to stay for a couple of nights and do some walking near the reservoir. On both nights we were one of only three campervans at the site, so a very peaceful location. Information boards at the reservoir showed the route for a walk so we set off to follow that along the gorges of the river Túria. Unfortunately directional signage was not as clear as we’ve experienced on other walks, confronting us with an unmarked choice of paths within the first 50 metres. Fortunately we chose the correct path and headed into the gorge.

One of the key marked sights along the route was the waterfall at Los Chorros de Barchel. We assume it has been a dry winter as the cascade was more of a fine shower head mist high above us but other scenery more than made up for it. The signage again let us down for a key left had turn so we ended up walking deep into the gorge rather than following a circular route. We more than covered the miles of the intended route but felt slightly cheated at not having done the correct route.

There is a huge variety of types and sizes of campervans and motorhomes at the various sites we stop at and everyone of course takes the opportunity to eye up other vans. At one stop our neighbours were in a large motorhome branded ‘Dogliner – 4paws’ with paw print graphics on the side. We’ve already realised that we are in the minority of those travelling without dogs – many people have two with them so there is probably a healthy market for a van designed with specially fitted out compartments for the safety and comfort of their travelling companions. At another location we saw a motorhome with panda graphics on the sides towing a trailer. We couldn’t help wondering what they might be carrying in the trailer!