Costa Blanca

Week 22 — January 5th - 18th (Sally)

Spain continues to delight and surprise us. We had no preconceptions of the country so everyday has brought new discoveries to enjoy and new sights to see.

Having said goodbye to Miles, Nicole and Louis after a wonderful two weeks with them in Barcelona and on the Costa Brava, we continued south while they set off north to spend a few days on Sable at Roanne and then to go skiing in the French Alps. Our day took us 600 kms south, from the Costa Brava through the Fragrant Coast, so called because of the acres of orange groves that take up every available inch of ground between the mountains and the sea north and south of Valencia and finally to the Costa Blanca, an area of coast stretching from Denia to Alicante where the mountains plunge into the sea creating a series of pictuesque coves and bays. Denia, where we had a near-new unit, is a busy fishing port and from there we were able to make trips into the unspoilt villages nestled in the craggy mountains behind the town as well as two day-trips to Valencia.

We have found sunshine; we left the Costa Brava having experienced 3 degrees the day before as we crossed the Pyrenees then travelling south the temperature increased by the hour until, as we reached Valencia, it was 23deg. Bliss. Since then we have had lovely days. Dare I say our Spanish winter has been a lot better than the rest of Europe has experienced, and from what we've heard, the present Gold Coast summer.

Fiestas: Spain loves their fiestas. Twelfth night, 5th January, we arrived in Denia, to be told it was the Parade of the Three Kings. We hurried into town so as not to miss the start at 5.30pm. In true Spanish time it got underway at 7.00pm, but what a parade. It was lead off with the standard bearers of Roman legions, then a company of Roman soldiers, more soldiers on horseback, merchants in horsedrawn carts, two troupes of dancing girls, lamas and camels, another troupe of Roman soldiers, four separate bands to accompany them, and finally the three kings, each in their own float with two attendants throwing lollies to the crowd which was nine deep all along the streets. What a start to our time on the Costa Blanca.

We then found that Denia has its own fiesta where the local lads do their own form of bull fighting. They take the bulls down to the port and taunt and tease them until the animal charges; they then either scramble to safety over a large vaulting horse or leap into the harbour. All good fun and no-one gets hurt unless the bull follows them into the water.

Not far from Denia is the town of Bunol, where their fiesta specialty is the tomato fiesta. Truck loads of tomatoes are bought into town and the whole village becomes one enormous tomato fight. I couldn't help but wonder how many of our eight grandsons would be involved in either of those days and came to the conclusion that they all would.

Meanwhile Valencia was preparing for its special day, or should I say week. The night of March 29th and the week preceeding is when the whole town sets up hundreds of huge paper mache figures lampooning politicians or other prominent people. On the night of the 29th these figures are set alight one by one and by midnight it seems that the whole city is alight. Small wonder that we noticed plaques on most buildings in Valencia to proclaim that they were insured against fire.

We have discovered that Spain is a country with an abundance of mountains and no rivers. We have continually been overawed by the mountains which form a backdrop to our travels, and in the whole length of the country we have barely seen one river. Plenty of river beds; but no water in them and in many cases the river bed is not only dry but has been planted in crops. The agricuture is fascinating. The crops have gone from acres of vines, then to olives and finally orange groves all planted on highly terraced slopes. But the most amazing is Almeria, the south east corner of Spain where they have transformed the most barren, arid area into the winter garden of Spain. As far as you can see, from the mountains to the coast, is one vast hot house. Plastic sheeting by the mile, they talk about 50,000 acres under cover but we think even more as they are building new ones everywhere, even levelling off plateaus in the lower slopes. It is obviously a great success as the markets are full of grapes, strawberries and all sorts of fresh fruit and although one could hardly call it attractive it sure beats some of the overdevelopment we have seen.

A newsletter would not be complete until I had mentioned food. Yes we are enjoying Spanish food, especially the tapas. Our first tapas in Barcelona were at a bar where one helped yourself to the variety that were spead along the counter then at the finish they just counted the toothpicks. In Valencia we were served portions of fried fish, salads etc and now at our favourite bar here in Andulucia we get a selection of small dishes with a serving in each. All very tasty and an easy way to sample lots of dishes.

We are now on the south coast of Spain in the delightful village of Nerja. A typical white washed village, spilling down to the sea, narrow cobbled streets, tiled doorways and flower-filled balconies. Everything we imagined a villa in Spain should be. From here we have made day trips to Malaga, Gibraltar and of course the Alhambra at Granada. We explored the fort at Malaga, saw all the sights at Gibraltar including a close encounter with the Barbary Apes and spent several hours inside the Alhambra. I wouldn't even try to describe that except to say if you are going to see Spain it is one sight that you must not miss.

We leave on Saturday to Cadiz where we will spend a week before moving on to Portugal.