On the Road Again!

With the Extremadura as the destination for some serious touristing I have booked the first night just short of the border from Castille. A bit of luxury before we enter the "Frying Pan" of Spain.   The Parador at Oropesa. I was looking last night and the Parador site has discounted rates for over 55's and in the Extremadura there are quite a few Paradors in the area. Oddly, booking.com had a much cheaper rate than the official site. Even with the senior citizen discount the cheapest rate is non-refundable and was way more than the booking.com refundable price.  How? I have no idea. The Parador's official booking site used to have a special "bulk" purchase rate. Something like four nights for the price of three or something along those lines.  Worth checking out. I need to get the Rough Guide out to see what we can see in the area. I have also bought a copy of the regional Michelin map #576. It covers Extremadura and across to Madrid and the east. Although I...

Valencia I decided to park in an underground car park opposite the El Corte Ingles store. It makes it much easier when you can follow their signs as well to find where you have left the car! Getting into the city was straight forward with the GPS doing all the hard work for us, Although she did take us past the Valencia CF football ground twice as we had a problem deciphering the directions she was giving us. The first pic I took was of the bullring at the end of Carrer Colon. Next door is the railway station but its ornate and early Edwardian facade was very hard to get a decent angle on with all the damned traffic! From here it was a right turn towards the similarly ornate and hard to photograph Correos and then the Town Hall. This is easier to photograph,m even if the guide book is misleading when it says the city's coat of arms is left aloft by two naked females. Not quite what I had expected. The bat is there above the shield as this is in memory of the fact that a bat is sup...

Day 4 - A day in the mountains. First stop to check we were on the right track was just outside Cabanes, just 14km from the coast. Another "Spanish" village with loads of building of flats on the outskirts, and some at crazy prices. Crazy LOW! Two bed and two bathrooms with underground parking for €93000?! On the outskirts they have rescued a roman archway and it is now sited in the middle of a new roundabout. It looks as though it could be quite new! From Cabanes the GPS took us further inland and after a short distance we began to get cold feet about the lack of fuel in the tank. The Panda seems to have quite a small fuel tank and we couldn't find a local petrol station. So we opted to return to the coast, to one of the many stations that line the N340 towards Benicarlo and then tank up, returning across the mountains towards Morella. Once we had a full tank we let the GPS take us off the N340 and into the mountains. Even up here there is evidence of building with roads...

Day 3 As it was Monday we thought that most of the museums etc might be closed as they are in France and so we set off for Castelló (Castellon in Castillian Spanish) to have a look around and maybe have a look in the El Corte Ingles store. In the end the morning took on an altogether more exciting turn as it was the first day of the Fete of Saint Magdalene. All the shops were shut and the people were out in their thousands in the street, many in traditional dress and many more taking part in a carnival procession through the streets. We stopped to look and Claire expended a few megabytes on hard drive from the borrowed video camera. I took a few pics of the processions and it reminded me of the carnivals we used to have when I was a kid in Oldham and more recently in Congleton. Of course as soon as we saw the "Churros and Chocolate" stall we had to stop and have some. Churros is like having a long extruded doughnut and the chocolate is rich and very thick, you can either dunk...

Day 1 Luckily we set off with plenty of time built in to the trip across to Gatwick. Not that I was expecting too many hold-ups on the way, but you never know. In the end it was the car-park that was the stumbling block. I booked the same place we always use, Courtlands, just off the airport itself. Sadly, when we arrived the entrances were all closed up and it was deserted. A quick phone call revealed they had merged with a neighbouring place and the other entrance was in use. Actually easier to find off the roundabout not far from the South Terminal building. Flight no problems. Easyjet very good and as we were there so early we got to hand in the luggage very early and earn ourselves a chance to get on theplane first. It is all very civilised at Gatwick, not the mad and unseemly scrum that you often get at the Spanish end! Car hire with http://www.carjet.com/ no problems as usual. At Valencia we had booked the cheapest car available and expected a Ka but in the end got a four do...