N37.1663 W7.51941 - Praia de Manta Rota Car Park - Free

Got a message yesterday from friends we were wanting to meet up with saying that they were at Motorhome Friends in Centieira and that they were leaving in a week . As we'd not seen them last year we made a decision late last night to change our plans and make our way there poste haste.

The car park attendant told Mike we could empty the toilette cassette in the toilets as long as we left it clean. Grey waste went down the drain, unfortunately there was nowhere to get fresh water - just have to drink alcohol then!

It was my job to empty said cassette - oh I do hate splashback! That toilet got a jolly good clean after I'd finished - even the floor!

We said goodbye to Cadiz saying we would visit again but for a longer, more relaxed, visit and with a map!

We were planning to stop for the night in Seville but were trucking along so nicely that Mike suggested we stop for lunch and then carry on until we were fed up.

Heading towards Seville, for some unknown reason our SatNag takes on a bit of a roundabout route onto the A394 where we came across the splendid and very imposing building we saw last year which turned out to be the home of the Order de Los Carmelitas de la Santa Faz, El Palmar de Troya. Co-Ordinates are : N37.05973 W5.80725 should anyone be heading south from Seville and wants to see it.

This Convent has big concrete walls all around it, big, locked, solid steel gates and surveillance cameras. Are they trying to stop people getting in or escaping? I ask myself.

Last year we wondered why, out of three couples travelling from and to the same place, we were the only ones to come across it. Obviously, our SatNag sending us on the detour was the reason.

Traffic hold-ups around Seville caused a bit of a delay but not enough to cause any bother. Coffee stop was at a petrol station where there was a sign on the autoroute that said there were motorhome dump services. Yes, there were, three of them - all blocked off so they couldn't be used. Wouldn't be buying fuel or Kit Kats from them then.

After crossing the bridge over the river we saw the signs for foreigners to register their vehicles for the toll road. Don't want toll roads, won't go there! Having passed that bit we (or rather I) promptly panicked that we were now on a pay road - according to our new, up to date, map it was anyway. I didn't remember being on a toll road when we left Portugal going into Spain last year.

We got off at J17 onto the N125 - a really crap road surface so I decided it was time to stop for the night. So here we are again at Praia de Manta Rota (291 km from Cadiz) where we came a few years ago. This time we're not on the Motorhome parking - it's packed in like a tin of Sardines so we've come onto a car park where there are other campers who have either chosen to stop here so they don't have to pay or because they can't get into the Aire either.

Rained in the evening and during the night.