On 9th March we checked into the Alannia campsite for three nights which is near Torrevieja. I was not impressed with check in. We arrived just before 6pm, Reception had closed at 5pm, security gave us a map with our plot number. As pleasant as he was we had no information on what was or wasn’t open, timings of anything open, which facilities to use, internet or indeed their Covid protocol. If you look carefully, you can see Stella’s favourite resting place.
It’s a huge campsite designed for families – Alannia Costa Blanca | Alannia Resorts | Web Oficial – car park style, mostly empty – as campsites are in these troubled times – with a few international residents, again mostly British, the lucky ones who made it there before lock down. It’s one of those large campsites with a central Plaza entertainment area where everything is located. It had a really good supermarket, but we couldn’t buy too much as we couldn’t always rely on our fridge whilst travelling. The bar and restaurant were large, with customers sitting outside and a 5pm curfew. In my opinion there was nothing to visit within walking distance, located in the heart of Costa Blanca the nearest village was about 2km away and I wondered what everyone on Alannia did each day apart from visit the bar. The only good thing about this campsite for me was that it was totally flat which meant I could ride my bike to get from one end to the other. This was the bike that Claire from Cabopino no longer required and gifted to me. It had not been used for a while and needed some serious TLC. Using our Amazon Spain Prime and local sports shop, new tyres and inner tubes were ordered, the brakes overhauled and the chain cleaned of rust and greased. The basket on the front was incredibly useful for shopping on site, not to mention travelling back and forth with my laptop to the Plaza centre, the only area with wifi.
We planned our trip to Rome by ferry from Barcelona and found the Grimaldi Ferry personnel extremely helpful. Timing would be to leave Barcelona Monday night and arrive Civitavecchia (Rome) late Tuesday evening.
We took the opportunity to visit the Salt Plains where Steve could enjoy looking at the bird wildlife including grey flamingos and get ready for our next transit.