Heading back ‘up north’ to Benicarlo

Typically, as soon as we had dropped Ginny and Pete off at the airport the sun came out and for the first time all weekend we had beautiful blue skies. Feeling a little bit bereft and homesick we parked up and walked along the harbour to find the ferry port. The directions were minimal/nonexistent but this was mainly due to road works on the approach road and no one had bothered to signpost the detour. Anyway we satisfied ourselves that we knew where we were going later and headed back into town for breakfast, which soon cheered us up. I should mention the freshly squeezed orange juice, available everywhere at vastly differing prices, but always delicious and luckily this time served in large jam jars!

Once on the ferry we were pleased to find that a cabin was included in the price so dumped our bags and went outside in the scorching mid day sun to enjoy the view and say goodbye to Ibiza.

Once back at Daimus we were relieved to find everything as we had left it and the campsite was much quieter, thank goodness, other than the same 7.15 am alarm call from the nearby factory!

On Wednesday we set off for Benicarlo, another great journey other than us deciding to join the main road in a different place to the one the satnav was directing us to – big mistake as we ended up driving with the caravan the wrong way down a main street (our lane had been closed with roadworks) and then down a narrow street lined with parked cars and cafes with awnings extending into the street. So much for the great teamwork Pete! Incidentally the predictive text for satnav reads Satan – I’ve no idea why!

When we got on our way properly it was a beautiful drive up the coastline, round Valencia, and then towards Barcelona. There are so many castles in this area, all with views of the sea, and at the tops of hills so good strategic defence! We were also pleased to see Vilareal de los Infantes which we visited with Gill when we were choosing tiles for the house, it really is Porcelanosa town.

The campsite here is part English owned and on the edge of a typical Spanish fishing town. We’ve not visited the Costa Alzahar before, and we only have 3 days here but I’m sure we’ll come back to the area. We’ve cycled everywhere, around Benicarlo, to the nearby market town Vilaros, and round the bay to the more touristy Peniscola ( pronounced Penys-cola before you start to snigger!) which has a castle famous for being used in the film El Cid and TV productions, most recently Juego de Tronos (Game of Thrones) – sorry Ros!

The campsite itself is beautifully clean and very well maintained, however some of the other campers are definitely odd. Many are British long stay regulars, either in mobile homes or chalets, who don’t seem to go anywhere other than the bar where they smoke and drink all day. Most decorate their ‘home’ – one with a model of a skeleton playing a guitar amongst other things, ‘witty’ names and signs, and flags. However they are all unfailingly friendly and we seem to have been adopted by a couple from Coventry who have lived in Spain permanently for the last 9 and a half years, so they are very happy to have new people to give advice to!

We’ve also made friends with our neighbours on site, David and Anne, who are from Newcastle and who have been touring round Spain and Portugal since early January. Funny how we thought we were doing something different, and yet everywhere we go we meet people doing the same as us! They joined us on a couple of our cycling jaunts although they have Tesco electric bikes, so far less effort required when it comes to pedalling. (We’re just using plain old elbow grease – if that’s a term you can use when you mean using your legs!). We’re going on another local bar adventure with David and Anne tonight as it worked so well with Ginny and Pete!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We leave Sunday for Sitges near Barcelona to spend our last week in Spain before we take the ferry to northern Italy.

We knew this was a shorter journey so decided to leave later than our usual 9.30/10am start, and take our time. As always when we’ve made a decision we change our minds – we were both awake early so decided to get packed up and go! David and Anne waved us off and we had a very easy drive up the east coast to the Costa Dorada, with a view of the sea most of the way. The campsite is great, a 1km walk to the beach, and a further 1km along a lovely esplanade, so we’ll go to explore later. Barcelona tomorrow!