It's Cold Up North

One thing about travelling rather than staying put, is the changes in weather and temperature. Benidorm has a micro climate all of its own. Once you trundle away from there, it gets cooler and windier and duller, well in March anyway!!

First stop Benicassim, need to chill in familiar surroundings and get Jake fit and healthy again. Plus
we like the site and the town is small but typically Spanish and I want to start speaking the local
lingo again. For those of you that don't know, Benicassim holds a week of House and Dance partying in the summer and the little town is filled with thousands of smiley faced young folk.
http://benicassimfestival.co.uk/benicassim-line-up-2011/

After Benicassim, we moved up the coast to Penicola, made famous for the filming of El Cid in the 1960's.

The Castille at Pensicola

The beach at Peniscola which Charlton Heston made famous.

Ready to follow in the Cid's hoof prints.

Apart from the history of the place, Peniscola hasn't got a lot going for it and it's hell of a windy all the time! We decided to get the bus to the next town, Benicarlo, which again was a bit of a let down. 

It appears to be a 'new town' in so much as there are lots of apartments and businesses geared toward the local populace, which seem to be mainly of North African decent and Islamic in faith. Obviously 

the Cid didn't push the Moors all the way back to the Middle East and their descendants are alive and kicking in this part of the region.

Two days was enough here, so onwards we go to Pineda de Mar on the Costa Brava, just North of 

Barcelona. A very Spanish resort town with a nice beach and camp site, En Mar. Would use this again if needed. Once again, we decided to visit along the coast and hopped the train to Calella, which 

boasts a shopping street over 2 kilometers long. So with shops either side of the road, that's 4 

kilometers of things to look at. We bought a bag of coffee!

We also visited an excellent family run tapas restaurant with Jamon hanging from the roof and boars heads along the walls. We will miss the whole aspect of Tapas when we get home. It's a very civilised way to enjoy food and conversation.

Only a couple more stops in Spain and then it's the road home through France!

The Long And Winding Road

That leads to our door! So yesterday we started the five week drive back to Orkney. Leaving Benidorm isn't easy as we know that our comfy lifestyle will end and it's back to hunter-gatherer mode again. But that said, it's exciting to be moving again and there's still so much to see and places to go.

We have stopped in Benicassim again as we like the site, the town and the beach area. Not that we go on the beach, Jake doesn't like sand in between her toes!!! And talking about Jake, she's got the flu again!!!!!!! Not well at all and it's the third bought of this in two months! We had a long talk about this and why she keeps getting no well and we can only put it down to the microphones! When your doing Karaoke, the mikes re being passed from person to person and there's a lot of spit and snot about at the best of times, so flu bugs live on microphones!

Next time we will be ready!!!!

According to Google Maps, we've got around 2,400 miles to go to get home, that's without any sidetracking and I think we may do a bit of that, so around 500 miles a week to do. Must leave some time for vineyard hopping through the middle of France...........

Deja Vu

So we're sitting outside the van, the sun is shining and we are discussing where to go after Bolnuevo. We could slowly travel along the coast of Spain and then into Portugal, but what happens if we lose the first game at home? Do we really want to drive almost 700 miles if we have no chance of winning? Where to go for a week until the next match then? 

Not my idea you understand, no siree, I'm still trying to get rid the tail, but the lovely Jake said we should go to where we feel comfortable and watch the game there, after all, in most places in Spain they won't show the first match on the telly. There's only one place where we are guaranteed to be able to view the game on the box. 

So here we are again....................

On the Road Again

So we leave Benidorm and head down to Marjal, a sizeable campsite of 1500 places. The size of the place is amazing, although it is a fair hike into the small town of Catrel along busy and dangerous roads. Like, don't road builders in Spain believe in footpaths!!!!! No photo's of this place and having stayed a week, feel it's time to move on.

So further down the coast we go, back to Bolnuevo, where we stayed back in September. Great little site and town, though the place was jam packed and we only had the offer of one of two pitches!

Then a funny thing happened. My beloved Spurs managed to stare defeat in the face and make an amazing winning comeback against Dinipro of Ukraine. So, what's the big deal? Well, the next match in this topsy turvy Euro competition is against Benfica of Portugal, in Lisbon, which is only 600 miles away!!! We will now change all our (plans) and providing we win the first game in London on the 13th March, make a run into Portugal for the second leg on the 20th!!!!!! My how things change!

Valentines!

We stayed at a really nice small hotel in Benidorm old town for Valentines day, called the Fetiche, and this is our room, the whole top floor of the building!

For dinner we went to a lovely French restaurant called Vagabond. The whole package was wonderful and Jacky did a great job in arranging the hotel and meal. 

After dinner we went singing at a great little bar called the Intimate Bar, which is the oldest gay bar in Benidorm. Brilliant time here as well. All in all a fab Valentines day.

Abstract!

There's an old Spanish guy who gets around in a mobility buggy and frequents the bars offering to draw your picture for a Euro! I was all in favour of just giving him the money but he insisted on doing a picture, so Jacky was his model.

Not bad for a Euro!!!!!!

Pinocchio

Six weeks in Benidorm and the end result is similar to that befallen by the little wooden boy! Nothing comes without a price and turning into a donkey means I've gotta get out.........