Benidorm? – On Second Thoughts Maybe Villajoyosa
With wind, rain, hail, snow and plummeting temperatures forecast for the Costa Blanca, Kelpie is back on a campsite with the steadies down ready to face the buffeting in Villajoyosa, and plugged into electricity for some heat! (38.517564, -0.223046).
We said our goodbyes to Felixa and Wayne as they set off towards home, wishing them a safe journey with promises of catching up soon.
Armed with all our new websites and maps we set off towards the mecca of Benidorm. Alan and I both have a secret passion for Benidorm – for a day or so. I love the Chinese bazaars and the cheap eateries and alcohol and just the general feeling of the place. Everyone is there for the same reason – to escape the winter in the UK and to have a good time. We will definitely get a day down in the town before we move further south.
We called in at Camping Benisol to buy the 2017 ACSI book and I, being the nosey type, decided to have a quick look round. Obviously the residents are more than happy with the site since most of the pitches appear to have been occupied by the same people for some considerable time (years in fact).
Almost every pitch has a little fence separating it from its neighbour, and a garden area filled with gnomes, water features, toddler sized dolls hiding their faces and huge artificial plants. The toilet block is the oldest I’ve seen so far with no soap, no loo roll and no hand dryers! The roads on-site are only about 8 feet wide making negotiating a large moho into any of the pitches impossible. This is definitely one site that is not designed for bigger vans but I suspect when it was built in 1993, there were very few if any larger motorhomes on the roads in Spain so it was built for purpose….. then.
Moving on we found a great new site at Villajoyosa, just opened in 2016 its called Camping Alicante Imperium. It’s a large modern site with a cafe/bar and reception area at the entrance. A very friendly lady called Yvonne showed us what pitches she had available for ACSI card holders.
It cost us €102 inc limited electricity for 7 nights (7 for the price of 6). We drove up to our allocated pitch and parked, it was at the top of quite a steep hill and even with the ramps up we would still have been sitting at an angle. We went back to reception and asked if we could be moved to a pitch I had seen on the way in, which was closer to the toilet block (always a bonus) and level. Yvonne was extremely helpful and agreed we could move.
The toilet block is brand new and very modern. The showers are hot and powerful and after six days wild camping we needed them hot and powerful 😉 . There is an indoor washing up and hand washing area as well a three washing machines and a dryer.
Each pitch has its own water, EHU and grey waste dump pipe and the cassette dump is close at hand beside the toilets. The site is very quiet but almost full with quite a few large and very large motorhomes. The pitches are large and well spaced and although there are obviously people who are here for several weeks, it doesn’t have the feel of a gypsy encampment.
It looks like the weather is going to get even worse, with snow already falling in Javea, Benidorm and down towards Murcia. We can see snow on the mountains behind the campsite and feel the cold bite in the wind. Temperatures are forecast to get down as far as -4 over the next few days (just as well we’re from Northern Ireland) so we’re really glad we’ve got the electricity to have the heaters on. Sounds like a good excuse for a couple of Baileys coffees and another series of Game of Thrones to me.