Wild Lavender

Sitting in Bessie after a bit of an easy domestic day – washing some clothes, that sort of thing. It’s now 2:38pm on Friday 23 March and time for the next exciting episode of ….this blog.

Sunday 18 March – caught the local coastal train into Barcelona and spent the day. We both fell in love with the city as it lay there half dozing out of season, basking in the warmish sunshine of a Spanish Sunday. The architecture is a wonderful mix of styles with stunning carved stone religious and public buildings, surprising patterned walls on the older apartment buildings which also have highly ornate balcony railings. A city where new rubs along very nicely with old and where our overall impression was of clean, bright streets and squares, hidden alleyways and breath-taking vistas – happy, bustling and very welcoming. We spent a good while sitting in the sunshine and people watching over excellent coffee and pastries in a secluded little square as well as several hours on Shanks’ Pony doing the whole tourist thing but finding our own way as usual. Stepped nimbly aside as a procession involving a Lion, a large Bird and a man and woman mounted on a Huge Horse along with various trumpeters, drummers and Huge Horse Keepers swept past us, Undoubted highlight of the day was the Sagrada Familia, the un (williteverbe) finished Gaudi masterpiece – but whether it still resembles what he first intended is anyone guess I think. You could spend days just looking at the outside and always find a new detail, a new angle, a new delight (we quite liked it). The harbour then revealed a different world entirely – we have never seen so many large and luxurious FGP’s or luxury yachts in one place – in fact never seen any as big and madly expensive as some of these – this size of small cruise liners and with chrome plating on almost everything – even capstans and fairways!

Monday and Tuesday 19 and 20 March – Decided to stay another two days in Pineda de Mar as it was so pleasant and we fancied a bit of quiet time. We gave Bessie a bit of a freshen up and I topped up fluid levels – she’s drinking quite a bit of oil – I’d forgotten about older engines. She also developed a leaky water dump valve but fixed with a judicious tap with a hammer. We’ve started to establish a regular meditation practice now and Sam is getting back to the yoga mat – feels like a routine is starting to kick in as we start to relax into the trip.

Wednesday 21 March – Headed out of Pineda at about 9:00am and decided to bite the bullet and use the Toll roads as the sat nav got a bit confused – probably due to a poor signal. It was an easy, scenic drive and although it cost us about £30 it saved two hours driving, about £15 worth of diesel and a bucket full of stress! We spent one night on a large, free dedicated motor home park at Moncofa, midway between Castello de la Plana and Valencia – probably 60 or so campers and motorhomes of every imaginable size and shape. A strange place – picturesque pebble beach, astonishing range of blues in the sea, from milky pale inshore to deep azure at the horizon. Lots of homogeneous but attractive apartments; some newly finished but boarded up hotels and a feel throughout of a visionary development which never came to fruition. A big feature of this coast in this season is the wind – the warmth is blown away quickly when the sun goes down and nights are pretty chilly – colder than we had expected but we have plenty of warm bedding and the gas heater is earning its keep.

Thursday and Friday 21 and 22 March – Today we opted for toll-free roads which this time were in great repair and hardly confused the sat-nav at all. Found a service station which had autogas (less common in Spain than in France) so topped up with diesel and gas as well – the heater has almost exhausted the first of our two-bottle system. Stopped again for a bit of lunch further down the coast and then parked up on a very pretty little site on the plain between Murcia and Cartagena. The site has only five pitches on what was a hard surface tennis court attached to a private house in the middle of nowhere. It’s run by John and Saskia, a Dutch couple who spent 18 months touring in their own camper van, found this place, packed up work, sold up and moved here last summer. They have only been in business since November but we are sure they will make a great success of it with their friendly, family style welcome. They know what is important to travellers too, so there is a large bathroom available as well as free hot and cold water, laundry and dish washing facilities and a pool for guests when the weather warms up. we have most valued the peace of this place and the broad, wild views across the plain to the mountains. On Thursday we made a 12k cycle trip into the nearest village to stock up on groceries – headwind going, uphill coming back – and on Friday we borrowed a map from John and Saskia and did a 6k trek along an old dry riverbed to a nearby aquaduct. Lots of beautiful flowers celebrating the Spring, including loads of wild lavender which gave the air a fabulous perfume as we walked and sometimes bruised the leaves with our passage.

Tomorrow we will saddle up again and head a bit further South, taking it slowly now as want to soak up the scenery and immerse ourselves in the culture a bit. We are aiming to find somewhere along the coastal strip below the Sierra Nevada but as usual we will play it by ear and let you know what happens next!

Namaste

Paul and Sam x