We travelled from Valencia, north towards France and I had noticed that we would pass the Costa Brava. This is where I spent most of my childhood summers, notably in a village called L’estartit firstly camping and then when the baby of the family arrived, staying in apartments. The campsite I remember the most was called El Molino, which I googled and booked. I have memories of rolling an enormous bottle of water from a shop near a windmill and the feel of pesetas to spend in said shop, of being told off for laughing at my sister as she ran, of my brother being called No and of being free. The campsite smelled exactly the same, of hot earth and pine needles, the shop is a house now and the windmill was much smaller. You can’t walk through the site to the beach now because there are houses there and the sand dunes are gone but the beach was gorgeous, powder sand and sparkling clean sea. I am incredibly lucky and grateful to have had such brilliant holidays in such a lovely place and am very sorry for being such a bitch when we went to Argeles!
We moved on and into France, we were to stay at El Molino but we have to be in Italy two days earlier because the ferry is cancelled. We had a campsite to go to but when we got there it was opposite a nuclear power station and looked like we could be murdered overnight, at the very least find our dog’s head on a stick in the morning so we moved on.
About half an hour down the road and next to a really beautiful village, in a valley between two foothills we found a perfect site, hardly anyone there, pitches in wooded glades and a gurgling stream running through the middle. Apart from the nuclear power station and ramifications of the minor earthquake at 7.34 we would have thought we were in paradise. We didn’t stay long, I’m not a fan of radiation.