robin Posted August 21, 2007 Share Posted August 21, 2007 Just been looking at the long term weather forecast for central Europe -http://www.metcheck.com/V40/UK/FREE/SUN.asp - where we are planning a trip from the end of the month. Argghhhh - looks like everywhere north of the Alps / Pyrennees / Med looks gruesome for 1st week in Sept. So if it doesn't look like improving, I am thinking maybe northern Spain, or Italy as a plan B, neither of which have yet been subjected to me with Motorhome. Question - does anyone no where I can pick up gps files for Aires in Italy / Spain - so I can ;load them onto Tom Tom and Autoroute? (?) (?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BGD Posted August 21, 2007 Share Posted August 21, 2007 Robin - Dunno about GPS files - as we always wild camp here in Spain, so only use a paper map (how quaint!!) But the Galicia region (top left corner of Spain) is fantastic - very green, lots of forests, rugged coastline, and relatively few people so the roads aren't crowded at all. Maybe an area to explore if you do come down this way? Cheers, Bruce. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robin Posted August 21, 2007 Author Share Posted August 21, 2007 Bruce, Hey, that sounds fantastic!(lol) How do you get on with the facilities, are there Aires de Service or do you visit a campsite once every few days? *-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Git Posted August 21, 2007 Share Posted August 21, 2007 robin - 2007-08-21 1:09 PM Question - does anyone no where I can pick up gps files for Aires in Italy / Spain - so I can ;load them onto Tom Tom and Autoroute? (?) (?) This might help you in Italy. http://www.mhomes.ukgo.com/aires_2005.htm Do the CC guide books include aires? I've lent our copies to a neighbour so can't check for you. This might be useful too. Speed camera positions as POIs so you can set an audible warning on your SatNav. http://www.gpsinform.com/index.asp?a=ar&s= Way2Go is the expert. Have a look at their postings on the Hints and Tips forum. Lots more URLs suggested there. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Ord Posted August 21, 2007 Share Posted August 21, 2007 The Galicia region of Spain is rightly called Espana Verde ( Green Spain) as it rains a lot therefore it's green. Great for scenery but not ideal for a sun-seeking break. Bill Ord Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Basil Posted August 21, 2007 Share Posted August 21, 2007 Italy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JudgeMental Posted August 21, 2007 Share Posted August 21, 2007 Basil - 2007-08-21 5:59 PM Italy ditto and far more motorhome friendly then Spain as well.... I would, and have visited Galicia in height of summer would not risk weather off season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BGD Posted August 21, 2007 Share Posted August 21, 2007 JM - agreed, Galicia region is a height of summer jobbie. It's rather like Ireland - very green 'cos it rains a lot more there throughout the coller months than elsewhere in Spain. But in the late-June to early-September period it's really lovely, and not so stiflingly hot as the rest of Spain through the high summer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robin Posted August 21, 2007 Author Share Posted August 21, 2007 I've now worked out the distances from Calais - roughly with Autoroute (we've already got the tunnel tickets) Calais to Santiago de Compostela = 1200 miles Calais to Florence (for example) 850 miles hmmm.... And as we 'did' Biarritz last November and the Loire Valley this July, I think we'll settle on Italia as plan B. However, my appetite for Galicia has now been truly wetted - so may be next spring...., and maybe, just maybe boat to Bilboa, although I vowed never to do that again. I have now realised that there are over 200 Italian aires on CCinfos and at least that number in the Bord Atlas - so I already have them on Tom Tom. If anyone is basking in the sun at the moment, please remember us stuck here in the Arctic UK midlands, I have reminded myself sevveral times to-day that it is August - feels like October and we have given up and turned the central heating back on. This is why I made the mistake of looking at the long range weather to-day - depressing stuff, and why I'm rambling incoherently >:-( >:-( >:-( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wirralian Posted August 21, 2007 Share Posted August 21, 2007 Hi Robin Can you elaborate more on your info on Italian aires. If the CC stands for Caravan Club can they really be of the French aires/German stellplatz type? I am touring Italy next month and am interested. John Lewis ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robin Posted August 21, 2007 Author Share Posted August 21, 2007 Wirralian - 2007-08-21 9:52 PM Hi Robin Can you elaborate more on your info on Italian aires. If the CC stands for Caravan Club can they really be of the French aires/German stellplatz type? I am touring Italy next month and am interested. John Lewis ;-) Hi John Lewis CCinfo is Camping Cars Infos - a French website, which I find really useful - it is in French but I can get the gist with my limited knowledge - you can order the whole site on CD Rom and load it on a lap top (I have), and / or download the GPS details for sat nav http://www.campingcar-infos.com/index1.htm The Bord atlas is a German publication listing loads of Stellplatz and can be purchased from Vicarious books http://www.vicariousbooks.co.uk/ The GPS files can be downloaded from here http://www.reisemobil-international.de/bordatlas2/overlays.html?-session=bordatlas:C1855CE51187f27877Ivn22642D3 HTH :-> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Git Posted August 21, 2007 Share Posted August 21, 2007 Hi John Lewis CCinfo is Camping Cars Infos - a French website, which I find really useful - it is in French but I can get the gist with my limited knowledge - you can order the whole site on CD Rom and load it on a lap top (I have), and / or download the GPS details for sat nav http://www.campingcar-infos.com/index1.htm The Bord atlas is a German publication listing loads of Stellplatz and can be purchased from Vicarious books http://www.vicariousbooks.co.uk/ The GPS files can be downloaded from here http://www.reisemobil-international.de/bordatlas2/overlays.html?-session=bordatlas:C1855CE51187f27877Ivn22642D3 HTH :-> Thanks for this Robin - very useful. If you are not aware of this perhaps I can return the favour. http://world.altavista.com/ You would not expect grammatical perfection, but it works pretty well. Cheers Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robin Posted August 22, 2007 Author Share Posted August 22, 2007 I've now found this site for Italian aires (aree di sosta) http://www.turismoitinerante.com/sostare.shtml?osCsid=7d04179b68fcb31109a9a4263a6a788a Just about managed to follow it with the aid of the Alta Vista Babel fish and loaded them into Autoroute for planning - there are around 1300 with verified co-ordinates and about the same number not verified. Now going to load them into Tom Tom (after the match). It also includes a list of Camperstops which I have deduced is an initiative whereby some camp sites offer an overnight stop for motorhomes at a reduced rate - around 10 - 13 Euros. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrianR Posted August 23, 2007 Share Posted August 23, 2007 If you do a search on this site with "sosta" you will find some useful earlier posts on this subject. The website previously mentioned - www.turismoitinerante.com - has some useful maps for each province and the other site - www.camperonline.it - has more detail on the locaton and facilities at each sosta, plus the occasional warning about security problems, noise, etc. The site http://arcipelagoverde.altervista.org/ has a download for a detailed list plus POIs for most sorts of satnavs and Autoroute. http://www.caravan.it/aree%20di%20sosta%20e%20campeggi/aree_sosta.html is another list of sostas. I hope this helps. Brian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robin Posted August 23, 2007 Author Share Posted August 23, 2007 BrianR - 2007-08-23 12:18 PM If you do a search on this site with "sosta" you will find some useful earlier posts on this subject. The website previously mentioned - www.turismoitinerante.com - has some useful maps for each province and the other site - www.camperonline.it - has more detail on the locaton and facilities at each sosta, plus the occasional warning about security problems, noise, etc. The site http://arcipelagoverde.altervista.org/ has a download for a detailed list plus POIs for most sorts of satnavs and Autoroute. http://www.caravan.it/aree%20di%20sosta%20e%20campeggi/aree_sosta.html is another list of sostas. Thanks, Brian - it does help - and it never occurred to me to search here on 'sosta' - hey ho. The maps on www.turismoitinerante.com look really useful - and they print out well as they are gif files. I hope this helps. Brian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yesmad Posted September 22, 2007 Share Posted September 22, 2007 We are new to the forum and found the information brilliant. I have noted that a lot of the sites mentioned on this thread are not in English. I use the Avant Browser and on the top menu bar in the tools drop down list, you can translate the whole site into different languages, I have to say that some of the translations are quite funny. The browser is free and is very simular to IE. Hope that helps. regards Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BGD Posted September 22, 2007 Share Posted September 22, 2007 Robin - We've just got back (to our home in south east Spain) from a 9 day motorhome tour up to Galicia region of North-west Spain. FANTASTIC!!! Big places we visited included Salamanca, Pontevedra, Santiago, Toledo, and Segovia (our personal favourite on this tour), as well as lots of other smaller villages. Scenery was superb - very lush and green (somewhat similar to English countryside, with little stone housed villages everywhere). Traffic was minimal - a joy to drive up in that region. Food - SUPERB!! If you like seafood, you'll be in absolute heaven there, so good and so cheap. Weather - great. Not as hot or stifling as in southern Spain, very fresh. Architecture/history/castles/mountains/beaches/harbours - all just wonderful. If any other travellers are heading to/through that region, I really would recommend staying off the motorways (autopistas) and sticking to the regional "N" roads (they are like "A" roads in the UK), or even venturing onto some of the local roads too........not because the motorways aren't good (in fact they are superb), but simply because there is so much of the local culture and scenery that you'll miss if you just stick to mile-munching. A mixture of mainly wildcamping (so easy anywhere in Northern and inland Spain), plus a couple of nights in official campsites.......to allow the boss to use her hairdryer. I really cannot recommend the region highly enough - we loved it, and will be going back again as soon as we can. Cheers, Bruce. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alan k Posted September 23, 2007 Share Posted September 23, 2007 I found this very useful this year www.camperonline.it/sosta.asp lots of out of the way places with some reports on them alan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derek500 Posted November 4, 2007 Share Posted November 4, 2007 Came back yesterday from a wonderful week in Galicia. Although A Coruña is just under a thousand KMs from our home in Valencia, we did the journey comfortably in two days each way, on non toll roads, stopping overnight at the Spanish aire in Rueda (175 Kms north of Madrid). On the way crossed Madrid on the M30 around the south of the city and on our return the M30 around the north. Excellent roads, so close to the city, yet no hold ups. We stayed at free Spanish aires whilst there. http://www.lapaca.org/areas/espana.php We had clear blue skies and warm weather most of the time and no rain. Highlights included, Santiago de Compostela, Pontevedra and A Coruña. Also the coast road from Noia to Finisterra is spectacular with lovely fishing villages where you can park up on the quaysides. Like most of Spain there are no parking charges in car parks and with three course 'menu del dias' from 7€ including drink and coffee an economical trip is possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Kirby Posted November 4, 2007 Share Posted November 4, 2007 DerekYou've listed A Coruna as one of the highlights of your trip. We went, and I thought it the nearset place to hell that could be created on earth!Assuming there is only one A Coruna, what did we miss? Then we can go back again and enjoy it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BGD Posted November 4, 2007 Share Posted November 4, 2007 Hi Derek - We too had a tour up from our home on the Costa Blanca to the Galicia region a couple fo months ago for ten days. I have to say that we absolutely loved that "top left" corner of Spain, but also that for us personally A Coruna wasn't our favourite place. The coastal areas, scenery and villages just to the North of it were lovely, green and verdant all along that region, but the city itself didn't hold any particular appeal for us. The seafood along that whole coastline is however simply fantastic! For us, the medieval "Old-Towns" of Santiago, and also Toledo and surrounds were wonderful - but it's horses for courses I guess. We'll definitely be going back up that way. We're off tomorrow on another little 4 day jaunt, this time to the Cuenca region of Spain - have been there before last year on a biker tour, and it's another gem of a region. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Syd Posted November 5, 2007 Share Posted November 5, 2007 Robin The easiest way to wortk out milages to and from anywhere is to use the Via Michelin web site, it does it all for you. Gives you the route, milage, tolls and a cars expected fuel consumption. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derek500 Posted November 5, 2007 Share Posted November 5, 2007 Brian Kirby - 2007-11-04 11:17 PMDerekYou've listed A Coruna as one of the highlights of your trip. We went, and I thought it the nearset place to hell that could be created on earth!Assuming there is only one A Coruna, what did we miss? Then we can go back again and enjoy it!Very walkable, long prom and good beach, lovely old city, nice harbour, easy free parking for MH in centre..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Kirby Posted November 5, 2007 Share Posted November 5, 2007 BGD - 2007-11-04 11:28 PM Hi Derek - We too had a tour up from our home on the Costa Blanca to the Galicia region a couple fo months ago for ten days. I have to say that we absolutely loved that "top left" corner of Spain, but also that for us personally A Coruna wasn't our favourite place. The coastal areas, scenery and villages just to the North of it were lovely, green and verdant all along that region, but the city itself didn't hold any particular appeal for us. The seafood along that whole coastline is however simply fantastic! For us, the medieval "Old-Towns" of Santiago, and also Toledo and surrounds were wonderful - but it's horses for courses I guess. We'll definitely be going back up that way. We're off tomorrow on another little 4 day jaunt, this time to the Cuenca region of Spain - have been there before last year on a biker tour, and it's another gem of a region. Toledo, Bruce. Toledo? In Galicia??? Methinks you're thinking of somewhere else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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