2024 September: France and Spain – Hotel Bellavista to Camping Agüero

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After two nights at Hotel Bellavista Camping, we are ready to move on, go shopping and park up ready to take the train to San Sebastian.

Camping at Hotel Bellavista has not been the best experience, on balance when we consider our stay we would not repeat it. That’s the downside of the way we travel, we ‘wander’ and pick our next stay as we go, sometimes we get it wrong, and as this trek shows, it’s the more expensive campsites that seem to disappoint more than the free aires.

14.2°C in the Hymer when we get up, and only 7°C outside, we are at 470 metres mid September, we should expect cooler temperatures, fridge empty, time to move on.

We service Hymer before leaving Camping Hotel Bellavista, that takes us up onto the top level to find the cassette emptying point. There is a whole area of caravan shanties that have been here for years (twenty of more) crammed on with barely space for a bucket between them, clearly locals who come for boating or lake activities, now deserted. We would definitely not come here is the summer, it will be heaving with people.

On our way back on N123 along the Olvena canyon, we stop again to watch the griffon vultures, the view being quite different in the opposite direction. We stop at a large layby called Cinca Caballos, because it is alongside the Cinca river with huge iron horse statues (caballos). There is a fabulous clear blue sky and it feels hot in the sun but the temperature is still around 24°C.

Back on the road to Barbastro where we stop at Alcampo supermarket as the fridge is empty (literally), it rarely gets so empty. We stock up with fresh milk, cheese, jamon/serrano ham, fruit, vegetables and plenty of Rioja and tempranillo wines! That’s €124 well spent, we also fill up with diesel at Alcapo, €1.355 a litre, much lower price than France. Back on A22 to Huesca, where there are major roadworks as the road is being widened to a dual carriageway. Huesca is another rather old-fashioned town but not difficult to drive through. Turning onto A132 we follow the road to Ayerbe and the huge Mallos rock formations.

We pass Mallos de Riglos (we visited in Sept 2018) onto a narrow and winding mountain road which climbed upwards around hairpin bends for 5 km until we arrived at the Puebla of Agüero. At the end of the village just beneath Mallos de Agüero we find the Municipal Campsite, €15.00/night, we book in and choose pitch 30. Everything here is terraced (including the village) as everything is built on the mountainside beneath the Mallos.

The Mallos de Agüero are a spectacular orange in the evening sun and our favourite birds, the griffin vultures soar out over the village to greet us… about eight of them. We set up the tables and chairs and open a bottle of 2015 Volcán Tempranillo (all €5.95 of it) it is excellent. Later we cook the marinaded pork slices from Alcampo with green beans and huge tomatoes. We walk up to the village, picking figs from a tree that overhangs the road, the sap is so sticky it takes hot water and soap to remove it. Then we head back to the Hymer and have an early night in bed.