Roquetas de Mar Has BAD Reviews… But We Loved It! 🇪🇸🚐

Hey, hey, hey, how you doing? Welcome back to another episode of A New Life in the Van. Well, gosh, we just had a moment down in our last vlog, if you were watching that, trying to get out of the car park, which was a bit skinny for our big bus, wasn't it? It was. Anyway, I've seen a couple of mixed sort of reviews about Ricketts, haven't we? So I was reading one review about one of the places we're thinking about, and this woman had gone in the sea, by all accounts, and felt her up. And I think it was a migrant. Apparently there's quite a few migrants. Don't know if that's true or not. We shall see. Anyway, felt her up in the sea. I think she gave him a swift kick in the gonads, or certainly caught him off a bit. You know, she was all right, but, you know, lived to tell the tale, as it were. But pretty unpleasant. Now, so we do need to watch that you don't get felt up, Gary. Well, I might change my plans now. I might go into the sea. So we're heading off to Ricketts de Mar, but we do realise that there might be some issues, but we've seen that there is such a lot there, including the Castillo de Santa Ana. The beautiful castles. So I do think, like everything, there's always more to it than meets the eye. Just coming into Ricketts de Mar now, and look, there's a big massive Obra map, which is like a huge B&Q. Decathlon, Carrefour. There's loads of shops around here. They've got a garage here, love. I'm wondering if they do services. Mind you, I don't think they do. It would have been on, like, search for sites or something, wouldn't it? Now, first stop, we're going to go and get our services done, because the red light's on in the toilet, so that's always a bit like, oh God, let's just sort. So we're going to Camping Ricketts, aren't we? Yes. And see if they'll let us do it. You know, usually these campsites, they might let you do it for a fiver, so we'll see. That looks like the town down there. We're going to head slightly out towards the campsite. It's quite nice around here, actually, love. It looks quite built up down that way, and there's the seafront. Let's have a look at the price of fuel here. What's the CEPSA selling it at? £1.49. £1.49, that's not that cheap. It's usually about, I suppose, £1.32 to £1.35 is a good price, isn't it? So, not the cheapest we've seen. Oh, lovely fountain. This is pretty, isn't it? I love the way that they do, like, palm trees in the centre. It just makes it look magnificent. That's nice. Oh, look, look at the way they've done those trees there. That's a beautiful bit of topiary, isn't it? That is a gorgeous roundabout. Oh, we're heading down towards the sea, are we? It's a little hilly, isn't it? Savenda, that place is for sale. Right, here's the campsite sign. Hopefully they'll let us empty, and then we can just think about where we're going to park up for the day. And for the night, actually. Oh, we think it's in here. Is this it? Oh, yeah. Camping Rockettas. Wow, it's enormous. There's a car park space before you go in, anyway. Yeah, park up first, I would say. Goodness me, that's huge. I don't think I was expecting this. Gosh, this is enormous. Look, they've got a big bar restaurant there as well. That looks great, doesn't it? It's a huge campsite. We'll see if they'll let us empty. They also do activities. Look, they've obviously got karaoke at eight o'clock and exercise classes. A bit of bingo. Wow. Okay, no go. They don't do the old services, do they? Not unless you stay here. Yeah, and actually, I got the vibe that it was a bit like, no, we don't do services. You've got to stay here, go somewhere else, you skanky mares. They were really polite, weren't they? And the guy spoke English. Gary was speaking Spanish, and he immediately started speaking English to Gary. But anyway, we've got a price list, and to stay for one night is €28.60. We're not going to stay here. It's too far away from everything, isn't it? But it does go down depending how long you stay. So for two days, for instance, you'll get a 20% discount. But if you stay for 100 days, which, no, you might as well be living here, mightn't you? Lots of people are doing it for a bit of winter sun, but they're getting up to a 58% discount. So if you are looking for a base and you're looking for a nice campsite, because it does look quite nice, it's big, it's well worth looking at what they give you as a discount. Okay, so we're going to head off to the air. I think he said you have to go to the air. That's where we're going now. Right, we're going to head off to the auto caravan place where we want to do our dump. But on the way is where we're thinking of staying overnight tonight. So we're just going to give it a quick recce, aren't we? Yeah, and see what the score is. It's quite a thin road sort of coming away from that campsite as we're heading down towards the other camping area. And there's loads of greenhouses right sort of in the centre, really. A tonne of rubbish. There's quite a few places that you could probably easily park, but they're all filled with rubbish. Yeah, right tight little roads, aren't they, Gary? Yeah, they are. You're only supposed to be doing 30, but you kind of need to get away from it. But wow, it's boiling hot. It's easily sort of 23, 24 easy. Oh, see what I mean? Look at that rubbish. So I think you can park down this street here overnight, but we're going to where there is a motorhome sort of park up area, parking for motorhomes. Lovely wide streets. This sort of reminds me of Marbella in a way. You know, when you drive down that road and there's shops either side, plenty of room. Gorgeous bridge. And we think we're going to turn left after this bridge, don't we? Looks like there's some motorhomes up there by the look of it. It's not too busy. It's a Saturday as well. Famous last words that'll be though, won't it? I think you can go, that's a two-way street, isn't it? I can see a motorhome. Excuse me. I can see a motorhome right down the end. That must be the car park, sweet. Yes, I think it is. We're actually just reccying this to see whether it's worth coming back to stay here or whether we should think about staying at the camper area that we're going to get our waste done. Yeah. You know, because we might do that. We might stay there tonight and come out for the day. Clearly, because of the overflow. Oh, is this the overflow to reckon? See, I think it's going to be chock-a-block because it's free. I think we'll struggle. I think we'll struggle as well. So, these guys are parked on the road, look. They're a bit bumper-to-bumper, aren't they? They might as well park in the street, though. They ain't got a sea view or nothing. There's quite a few people here. Oh, this is going to be busy, isn't it? Let's have a quick look. Right. Strictly forbidden to camp. So, like tents, basically. You can take a motorhome here, but you cannot bring a tent or a caravan. Now, I think one of the... Oh, look, see, that's a slight issue. So, that guy's got a car there, but that might be the car for someone who's using their motorhome. I don't know. He shouldn't be in there, really. That's not right. And I don't know if there is... This is quite good. I'd like to stay here, if I'm honest. It looks really close to the beach, but there's not really any space at the moment. I mean, it might change. Right, let's get up to that air and let's go and get emptied. At least we know what this looks like. Okay, we've just seen the Camper Park Roquetas sign, and you really are right in the middle of the town, almost. But also, there's loads of these greenhouses everywhere. Okay, here is the little air in Roquetas. So, Area de... What's it called? Panocta. Wow, it looks absolutely chocker. Here's your office. Here we go. One day. Oh, it hasn't got the prices, but I think it's about €10. Pretty little office setup. Hello. Nice one. You can do your services here and it's €8. I tell you what, it looks rammed, Gary. I don't think we'd get in. She said it was full. Is that what she just said? That's what she said. She said there's no space. There's no space. Oh, my gosh. That's why she said we only want to use the services. They've got a little bar, look there. That's quite nice, isn't it? Right on site. They are absolutely chocker block. So you won't get in here. Well, we were going to think about going back down towards the coast anyway, weren't we? Yeah, we were. But this is rammed. Wow. So I think he's just going to do his services. He's got like a blanket on the front of his wagon. He obviously can't be asked to take it off, so he can just empty his services. People are here for the long haul. They're here for the long haul, definitely. Right, we're down by the port, and we were hoping to get a little bit of space to park around here. But the car park, although quite empty, is too tight for us to really get in realistically, isn't it? Yeah. Looks really nice down here by the port. But I don't know if we want to just park up and have a bite to eat or have a little look around. That looks a yellow, doesn't it there? That's just... I hope you're not going to get stuck down the end here, love. Oh, my God, Gary. A little bit of parking there. These are quite big spaces. They are. They are big. But people are parked like right over. They're a bit skinny. What about these, love? This one? How are you going to get out of here? Down there and circle. There's lots of bars and restaurants down here, and we're really close to the castle here. Oh, God, that was a bad move. We've now got to come out of here this way. So don't do the same mistake we did. We don't know where the hell we are now. Oh, God, it's so skinny. What have we done? I would go down there, love. I wouldn't go down here. No, it's not. There's people going that way. Two ways. I don't know how it's two ways. Oh, my goodness. Right, we've just come to the back streets, and we've parked up here. Now we do actually have a little sea view. And we're in walking distance to the castle, which is what we want, and the harbour. And we think we're going to risk it for a biscuit. We can't see anything, can we? No signs that say you can't do it. It's absolutely brilliant. It's super quiet as well. So we're just going to have a little mooch across down to the harbour now, aren't we? Yeah. It's time for a bite of some tapasas. Now we could do with going on the chocks, because it's a little tiny bit down at the front. But it ain't terrible by any stretch of the imagination. Are we all locked up there, babes? All locked up. Oh, gosh. Wouldn't it be amazing? This is lovely. I don't mind staying here, love. No, I don't either. So we're parked there. And I'm just going to spin you around slowly, just so I don't make you too sickly. Look at this. We're right by the beach player. How amazing is this? It's a little tiny restaurant, and couldn't be closer to the van, to be honest. So we might have a bite to eat there tonight. We'll see. But look, there's a great boardwalk. We'll go down and see how far it is. That's towards the harbour, look. That's where I really wanted to be anyway, because the castles around this area. But it's a gorgeous sandy beach as well. Look at that. Isn't this lovely, Gary? Nice, isn't it? So I think that restaurant there I saw was quite well rated. We'll see if we can get a table with a sea view, get a bit of tapas. As we suspected, it's going to be quite busy on the seafront today. It is quite busy at the restaurant, but it does look really nice. We're trying to find a shaded seat. It's too hot, isn't it? Look, see? Absolutely ramped along here. It's really nice. It's good to see people out and about. There's a little table here, Gary. So it's actually a pizza restaurant, but it's got some tapas, and they're really good prices. Look, 1.50 for like little... That's pork lomo. Little bits and pieces, hamburguesa. Gosh, it's really good value, actually. Lots of different tapas. And here's the pizza prices, which is also really good. 1.50 for a margarita. Now, unpopular, I know, but I love a tropical. Give me a bit of pineapple on my pizza any day. And here's our little outlook. I mean, check out the colour of the sky today. It's absolutely magnificent. It's lovely and busy, which I really like to see. There you are. Here's my esposo. Right, I think we're going to do it. We both quite fancy a pizza, don't we? I'm going to go for the pineapple one. It's okay. Love it. And he'll go for something a bit meaty. Perhaps a bit of meat in him. He's proper annoyed at that comment. Oh, here we go. Lovely. Right, we've got the vino and the cerveza out. So all's good, isn't it, Gary? What did you go for in the end? An Americana in the end. You've gone for the Americana. Loads of meat. Mushrooms and onions. I've gone for the tropical. So, chin-chin. Let's see what it's like when it comes out. Cheers, everyone. Crikey, this is the life, isn't it, Gary? Oh, it's great, isn't it? Nice touch here. They frosted the glasses as well for the water. How nice is that? So we've just realised Cabo da Gata is over towards that way, where we started this road trip off, heading down towards Nueva Almeria, which is about round here, about there's Almeria itself. And then here we are, Raquete de Mar. And we're going to head further along the coast. But this is absolutely magic. Okay, here's my little pizza. Hand for size. And there's Gary's. Hand for size. Looks pretty good, actually. Just about right. €6.50, €7. That's a bargain, isn't it? That's the right bargain. Wow, look at all those birds in the sea. It's absolutely heaps of them. There's lots of fishing boats keep coming back to the harbour. Right. Empty plates. Verdicts in? What do you reckon, Gary? Very, very nice. It was amazing, wasn't it? It was really good, wasn't it? €6.00. A good medium size. Not too small, but certainly not big. Yeah, good size. We could eat it. We're full, but we ain't like... I'm not stupidly stuffed. I've had two wines. I'm toying with a third. But the sun's starting to hit my back. So I'm thinking we'll go and have a little stroll round. We know that the castle's shut until five o'clock. Yeah. So we think we're going to have a little mooch around the harbour. And then... I think we'll come to the castle about five o'clock, won't we? Yeah, I think so. We're definitely coming out for dinner tonight. I sold it. I ain't cooking. Prices though. It's like €1 or €2. Like €2 for each amazing tapas. So I read this tapas that said croquettes made with goat's cheese and caramelised onions. I was like, Gary! God, I don't know. I just want to eat everything on the menu. So I don't know if we should just turn up at six o'clock and say dishes one of each. One of each. Everything you've got. You know what I mean? They hate that. They ain't big in our standards, baby. They're big in skinny Spanish people's standards. You know what I mean? They have like two tapas and they're like, I can't eat them until Christmas. I'm only kidding. But we are having the best time, aren't we? We're having the time of our lives, aren't we? We are. It's lovely, isn't it? There's so many restaurants along the Strip but there's this lovely one. It's like a juice bar along here and they do like a bottle of wine and four tapas or a jar of sangria for €18. I mean, that's a bit of a bargain, isn't it? Fabulous mural. And this is just the car park that we had to drive up that ramp, if you remember, before we parked. We're really close to the port. It's just like a few hundred metres away. Just a few steps up from the port is the gorgeous Santa Ana Castle. Now, by all accounts, the castle is free to enter and there is a little museum in there. We'd really like to go in but we've got to wait till five o'clock to be able to have an opportunity. It's so perfect, this location, isn't it? It's great, isn't it? So we found out a little bit of information about it. This is not actually the original castle. It's been kind of built up, hasn't it, over the time and restored. And it was a very important point as a lookout, wasn't it, towards the sea? It's still very old. I mean, this particular castle was built in the latter stages of the Middle Ages on top of what they don't know. There looks to be a bit of a regatta going on outside in the sea. Look out there. Amazing. There's a few people on the rocks, isn't there? Well, they're doing maybe a bit of fishing. But the castle goes all the way around here. It's absolutely stunning. I tell you what, if you had an idea that Riquettes du Mar was just some kind of, I don't know, like, Brits on board nightmare, we've not found that at all, have we? No, we haven't. It's completely different to what we expected. It's just absolutely stunning. All the food's been incredible and really well priced. And also, it's quite quiet. It's not over the top at all. So as you come round by the castle, there's lots of housing around here, but loads of accessible access to the beach as well. It's all on little ramps. It's really good. There are stairs as well, but you can get down. The beach is rocky. I've just realised this is actually an auditorium. That's incredible. I tell you what, this place just keeps on giving, doesn't it, Gary? It's fantastic, isn't it? Oh, we're both like, oh, I wonder how much it is to live here. There's another fabulous roundabout here just before you get into the walkway. Oh, this place is amazing. I mean, look at this. You've got the auditorium to the side. It's stunning. There's hardly anyone here as well. Right, we're boiling hot. We're just stopping for a quick drink. I'm going to get a carrot juice, which is one of my favourites. Are you getting a beer? Yeah, I'll have a beer. So I didn't want to wear my shawl because it's actually hot and we've just come out. So I said, I'll just tuck it around the bag. And Gary said, I don't want it on there like a ******* cape corset. Super bad man. Oh, it's all right. No one's looking. It won't fit in. It will fit in. Trust me. If I have to fit it in, I'll fit it in. Well, you try and get it in then. Don't get it on the floor though. This dog's a red deer. We're just coming out. We want to have a quick look at the old castle, don't we? We do, yes. Oh, how lovely. The Christmas tree up by the castle. It changes colours. It's gorgeous. It's a bit annoying. The castle's operating on reduced hours today, isn't it? Yes. So we might come tomorrow morning if we've got time. But I don't think it opens till 11 and we probably want to get off. And if it's due to the bank holiday, I think it might be closed tomorrow. I think today might have been it for the weekend. I do think if you get the chance to come here, you should though. Yeah, definitely. It's really nice, isn't it? Yeah, it's lovely. There's loads to see, even just on the outside. It's a really pretty walk. Oh, excuse the old shadows everywhere. There was a shadow on my bloody chin earlier. I look like I've got a right old beard. We stopped for a drink and a bite to eat and it's a supermoon that night so we managed to capture some images, which aren't amazing. Well, good morning. It's a bit overcast. You can't really see the sea view from here, but we reckon that'll burn off nicely later. But there was some sort of music just bursting out there. We don't know what happened there, do we? I think it's like one of those cars that drives around with a speaker on the roof trying to get you to vote for somebody or something like that. Maybe an advertisement or something. Well, we've just had our breakfast and wow, this was a great night's sleep, wasn't it? It really was. It really was nice and quiet. It was so quiet. A police car just drove past about maybe half an hour ago. Didn't bat an eyelid at us, did it? No. And then the second one about five minutes later. Yeah, so it seems like it's perfectly legit to stay here, but obviously it goes without saying put all your rubbish away, don't leave any trace, spend a bit of money maybe, you know, just be really great neighbours and then move off. We only ever stay really one night, don't we love? Because we don't, well, that's the beauty of having a motorhome, isn't it? Right, Gary's just took the van off the chocks, haven't you? And actually, we did put it on the chocks last night and it was perfectly level pretty much then, It was great, yeah. Police went past, didn't say anything. So, you know, as long as you're not sort of like overtly camping or doing camping behaviour, don't ever get your chairs out and stuff like that. You know, keep yourself to yourself, keep your volumes down in the van. I mean, I told him a few times to quiet down. But it was a really good park up, wasn't it? Yeah, it was great. Really quiet. Yeah. And I tell you what, Raquetes de Mar completely surprised us, didn't it? Oh, completely. We were kind of, we came with a bit of a notion, I suppose. We were expecting it to be a bit, well, I suppose a bit chavvy, a bit rough and it was absolutely the opposite of all of that, wasn't it? It was none of those things at all. It was great. Now, we were down at the port area and it was fabulous. It was a real mix of people. There was predominantly Spanish people here yesterday. There was a few Brits out last night at a bit of a laugh with a couple of people and we had a, met this really lovely old Spanish guy last night, didn't we? Yes. He was 83 and he was taking a picture of the supermoon and it was just really nice to have a chat with all these people and had such a fun last night. It was a good night, wasn't it? We had a really good laugh, didn't we? We've loved, we've absolutely loved Raquetes de Mar and in fact, we've completely changed our opinion of what we, well, we didn't have an opinion. No. We had an uninformed opinion, if you will and we love it now and we think it's great here. In fact, we'll probably come here again next year sometime, won't we? Oh, definitely. Definitely. We really enjoyed it. So, we're heading up the coast now. We're going a bit further along to Almerimar. Almerimar, yeah. Now, we have seen, it's like a motorhome air so you can pay and get electric and stuff like that. It looks like it's on the harbour. It might well be chock-a-block because this weekend is a bank holiday weekend and today is a Sunday. Just to put it into context a little bit. We're in December. It's a Sunday. It looks, it looks a bit overcast today and we think it might have rained last night, don't they? It did when I came off the chocks. The water was pouring off the front so definitely rained. We didn't notice it. We had a brilliant night's sleep. It was fantastic. Really highly recommended. Right, so, that's the end but if you're not subscribed, please, please hit that subscribe button. It's completely free. I don't know why they call it subscribe. Makes it sound like there's a bit of cash to be paid out. Leave us a like, a comment, give us one of those hypes, whatever. Just let us know that you're watching. We really like to hear from you. It's always good to see who's actually watching us as well. Until next time, we'll see you on the road. Take care. Ta-ra. Bye.