We left the house-sit in Pinos Del Valle early the morning after Laurie and Annie arrived home. With two weeks to make our way up to Barcelona in time to catch the ferry to Sardinia, we wanted to cover some ground early on and avoid retracing our steps, this meant a 415km journey through to the Costa Blanca. It was a long time since we’d travelled this sort of distance in a day, but the varied scenery and good roads made it enjoyable. The first couple of hours took us up through the mountains where fresh snow weighed heavy on the pines trees and deep drifts were heaped between craggy outcrops. In Spain you don’t need to go far to be in complete wilderness. We stopped briefly to admire the cave houses in the mountain city of Guadix. This is real-life Hobbiton. Houses built into the side of hills, the small entranceways deceptive of their size, which is only given away by the many chimneys popping out of mounds all over the place. People who live in these cave houses are called troglodytes and since Moorish times half the population of Guadix has lived underground. Now they are sort after, and many have been renovated into luxury accommodation and plush homes.
Costa Blanca, Alicante & Benidorm
Our first destination was Costa Blanca, just north of Alicante. We planned to stay three nights and then move on to Benidorm for a night, but when we arrived we saw there was a tramline running along the coast with a station right next to the campsite, giving us easy access to Alicante and Benidorm. So, we decided to stay put for four nights.
Alicante is a lovely city. The waterfront is lined with elegant buildings and the expansive pier has a marina filled with nice boats on one side and a golden beach stretching out on the other. Its old town, Barrio de la Santa Cruz, is a maze of quaint narrow lanes and coloured houses, and the city is overlooked by the golden-brown Castillo de Santa Barbara, set on a hilltop with sweeping views of the Mediterranean coast. We had a great day exploring Alicante, climbing to the top of the castle and relaxing in a waterfront eatery with paella for lunch.
After a day in Alicante we spent the next day around El Campello where our campsite was. The morning was spent getting a much-needed haircut, our first in 10 months. In the afternoon we biked a couple of hours along the coastal cycleways admiring more beautiful beaches, and the many lovely apartments.
After watching the TV comedy Benidorm, I was keen to see if art imitated life. The next day we caught the tram to Benidorm, and yes it does. Once a sleepy Spanish fishing village, Benidorm is now filled with Brits on cheap holiday packages looking for a boozy break in the sun. At midday the many pubs that line the beach were already filled with pint swilling patrons and even though it was only 12 degrees there were plenty of big bellies and breasts on display on the beach. Mobility scooters zipped up and down the promenade and everyone was wearing track-pants, grey marl for the lads, pink for the ladettes. It was like the characters of Eastenders and Coro had joined the guests from the Jeremy Kyle Show on holiday. We were aghast. Benidorm is not our cuppa tea. We found a semi-authentic Spanish taverna for lunch and surprisingly the waiter spoke Spanish, which at this stage was a welcome relief. It’s hard to find anything to like about Benidorm. Yes, the beaches are beautiful, and the Med is so clear and blue, but there are so many beautiful beaches in Spain. We wondered what the Spanish think.
Valencia & Peniscola
The drive up the coast from Costa Blanca to Valencia was beautiful. Vanilla villages cascading down steep hills to the sea, dramatic mountain ranges and that ever-blue sea. It was the weekend and we passed peloton after peloton of lycra-clad cyclists. The Spanish are into cycling in a big way.
Our campsite in Valencia was about 9km out from the city in a natural reserve area on the coast. A network of walkways and cycle paths wound along the coast through protected sand dunes and wetlands. I was so impressed I went for my first proper run for the year.
We stayed three nights here and caught the bus into Valencia on the Sunday. We find Sundays are great days to explore cities as everyone is out and about with family and friends and the pace is much slower than during the week. Valencia was no exception. There was a market in the main square, Plaza del Ayuntamiento, with fresh produce, cheeses, honey, crafts and street performers entertaining the crowds. The place was humming. We walked up to the old train station and the bullring, stopping for lunch before heading to El Carmen, the historic part of town, where the Valencia Cathedral links two of the iconic squares of this city, Plaza de la Virgen, home of the Turia Fountain, and Plaza del la Reina. The cathedral is an impressive structure and, like all these religious giants, has been added to over many centuries, becoming a blend of architecture styles – baroque, Romanesque and gothic. From here we walked through the narrow pedestrian lanes in what appeared to be the hip, artistic part of town with plenty of galleries, boutiques, organic cafes and theatres, to Torres de Quart, the twin gothic-style defensive towers that were built in the 1400s as part of Valencia’s city wall. The central market was closed, but we could still admire this striking Art Nouveau building from the outside. Slowly we wandered back to Plaza del Ayuntamiento and then through to Turia Gardens. This is one of the largest urban parks in Spain and runs for nine kilometres through the city on a former river bed. We walked over two kilometres through the park, down to La Ciudad de las Artes y Ciencias (The City of Arts and Sciences). This is one the most beautiful modern complexes we’ve ever seen. Truly space age, made up of huge domes glowing bright white, the City of Arts and Sciences is an impressive example of modern architecture. The “city” is made up of an opera house and performing arts centre; Imax Cinema and planetarium; walkway and garden; science museum; open-air aquarium; and many other versatile spaces to hold varied events. Surrounded pools of water, the whole complex feels like it is floating. In Europe history is everywhere and the historic buildings are magnificent, but there are also amazing modern buildings that are just as significant, La Ciudad de las Artes y Ciencias is one of these.
With only a week until our ferry sailed, we left Valencia and headed closer to Barcelona, to the pretty seaside resort of Peniscola. I had read about Peniscola and the claim that it was one of Spain’s most beautiful towns. When you’ve seen as much of Spain as we now have, that is a big claim and I was sceptical. We arrived in the late afternoon, it was overcast, the grey sky was tinted pastel peach and the beach was a mango sorbet. At the end was a rock dominated by a storybook stone castle surrounded by narrow whitewashed houses. It was beautiful. Peniscola is often called the “Gibraltar of Valencia” – a rock on the end of a point is the only similarity these two vastly different places share.
If you are a Game of Thrones fan, this castle was the city of Meereen. In fact, Peniscola is very proud of the many films an TV shows that have used their castle as a film set, and there are information boards around the city showing scenes from these films. The 13th century castle is immaculately kept and there was barely anyone there when we went through the museum. The artillery gardens on the seaward side of the castle are perfectly manicured and the historic town that covers the rest of the rock is gorgeously quaint with winding cobbled streets lined with narrow houses, complete with bright blue doors and shutters. One more famous than the rest is Casa de Las Conchas, a house covered in shells. Like all Spanish towns this one is immaculate; the streets clean and free of rubbish and the beaches beautifully groomed. We had mentioned this at our last house-sit and were told that anyone on a benefit or welfare must do a certain amount of community work for their town to keep it beautiful, and they do it happily, all ages too.
There are only 8,000 permanent residents of Peniscola but the number of apartment buildings with shutters down, and the number of restaurants closed for winter, indicates the population must swell considerably in the summer months.
We spent two nights in Peniscola, and apart from exploring the castle we spent our time walking and biking along the coast, making use of the amazing bike paths and paved waterfront walking areas that are so common in coastal towns in Spain.
Cambrils, Tarragona and Barcelona
Our next destination was Tarragona, 100km south of Barcelona. We couldn’t find a campsite that was open in Tarragona so decided to stay 20km south, in Cambrils. We were pleased we did. Cambrils is another beautiful seaside settlement and when we arrived it was warm and sunny, so we walked along the beach to the town centre. The marina filled with expensive looking boats and the many upmarket eateries suggested this is a well-heeled area, most likely used as a weekend getaway for “Barcelonians”. Sadly, this peaceful town was thrust into the limelight last year when terrorists drove into a crowd of pedestrians and stabbed and killed a local woman. This happened at the same time as the attack in central Barcelona.
The next day we caught a train to Tarragona. Tarragona was formerly the Roman colony of Tarraco and boasts many Roman ruins, the most impressive being the amphitheatre right on the waterfront. The ruins are UNESCO listed and bring many tourists to the town. Andrew wasn’t as keen as I was to step back into the Roman times, but, as always, he warmed to the idea and we were soon exploring these ancient sites. Unlike the Amphitheatre, only part of the Roman Circus remained intact, but a 3D movie inside brought the ruins to life and helped us understand the enormous scale of this structure. The medieval city was built around and over the Roman ruins and at it’s centre is a magnificent 14th century cathedral. As we’ve moved north again we’ve noticed the architecture change. Gone is the Moorish influenced Mudejar Style, the white-washed facades, colourful mosaics and tiles, replaced by the golden-brown sandstone, romanesque and baroque, and northern Europe influences.
With only three nights left in Spain we drove our final leg to Barcelona, stopping briefly at Decathlon to get Andrew’s bike pedal fixed and buy some new walking shoes for me. Decathlon has become our favourite European chain store.
Our campsite outside Barcelona was on the beach and right beside the airport. When we arrived, we went for a walk through an area of market gardens directly under the approach to the runway. We were trying to recognise each of aircraft from their livery, but there were some we’d never seen before. Much to Andrew’s amusement I spent the rest of the afternoon excitedly monitoring the departures online and jumping out of the van to look up and confirm the passing aircrafts identity – who knew plane spotting could be so much fun. Even after three days the novelty hasn’t worn off.
We spent two days in Barcelona city, taking the bus in both days. We love Barcelona and spent four days here in 2016 and both of us have been separately before then, so we have seen many of the tourist attractions, in some cases more than once. This allowed us to relax a bit and enjoy the city for what it is without rushing from one place to the next. I did have one place I wanted to visit – Palau Guell, or Guell Palace, the last of the Antoni Gaudi buildings on my “to-see list”. More of a palatial townhouse than a palace, it is stunningly elegant and is the only example of domestic architecture that Gaudi completed hat has not undergone significant alteration. Like all of Gaudi’s houses the roof terrace is the most magical, this one having 20 chimneys all turned into fantastical works of art with bright colours and curvy shapes. In the middle of them is the 15-metre high spire which tops the dome of the central hall, covered original recycled stone and typically asymmetrical in shape.
Gaudi’s influence on Barcelona is everywhere and his unique architectural style has become symbolic of the Catalonian capital – his most famous work being La Sagrada Familia, the unfinished cathedral that is an iconic image on the city’s skyline. Despite having visited the cathedral before we couldn’t go to Barcelona without seeing La Sagrada Familia – the outside is much more impressive than the inside anyway. We also had to stop by Gaudi’s Casa Batlló too. I have been inside before and it’s magical, but the outside is fantastic too – all curvy and flowing, it’s more of a living thing than a building.
Our first day in the city was a Sunday, it was sunny and warm, and the waterfront area was teeming with people. Barcelona’s marina is full of superyachts, and last time we were here we were impressed by a Mexican billionaire’s 93-metre boat, Mayan Queen. That boat looks like a dingy compared to what was in port this time. The 156-metre-long shiny gold Dilbar, owned by a Russian Oligarch, dwarfed everything in the marina.
The rest of our time in Barcelona was spent people watching in Plaça de Catalunya, eating tapas on La Rambla, meandering through the narrow lanes of the Gothic Quarter, enjoying ice-cream outside the Basilica de Santa Maria del Pi, doing a spot of shopping in Passeig de Gracia, and generally soaking up the vitality of this lively and beautiful city. Barcelona is the rebellious sister to Madrid – wild and wanton, the one wearing red lipstick and dancing all night. Madrid is elegant, refined and sophisticated, but ever so slightly uptight.
Yellow ribbons hang outside many buildings in Barcelona, and we saw many people wearing them too. These ribbons are calling for the release of the Catalan vice-president, Oriol Junqueras, the Catalan home affairs minister, Joaquim Forn and two activists. These four men are considered political prisoners as they lead the push for Catalan independence. Independence from Madrid.
Tonight we waved goodbye to Spain from the deck of the Grimaldi ferry taking us to our next adventure, Sardinia. We’ve spent three months in Spain and have seen and experienced so much in this vast country of tapas and siestas. The landscape has stunned us – wide open plains stretching forever in the north; dramatic mountains in the south; rugged wilderness and beautiful beaches. The history has wowed us – imposing cathedrals and intimate chapels; forts and castles; palatial Moorish Alcazars; Roman ruins; and the quaint Pueblos Blancos of Andalusia. And then there’s the people. The Spanish seem to have an innate enjoyment of life, appreciating the simple things. Family and relationships are everything. Other countries may scoff at their 3-hour siestas and numerous public holidays and fiestas, but we think they may just have the balance right. They have been welcoming and helpful and have generously shared their magnificent country with us.
