One of the more extraordinary things about Spain is the sight of abandoned chairs in the most unusual places. After the 'stations' we should have gone straight into photographing 'chairs in odd places' sadly we didn't, here is the first!
Wednesday 13th January.
San Pedro – Valencia
Another day in the car, it was the long drive to get to Valencia before dark. We are finally out of Andalucía for the first time in 7 weeks, and are now in Murcia. The coast is one long beach and masses of high rise apartment blocks . We went through Alicante, with an attractive port and some very ritzy looking ‘gin palaces’ - can’t remember the proper term is it leisure cruisers and some enormous yachts. They were pretty impressive so we guessed all this construction hadn’t done a few of them any harm. We passed Benidorm but didn’t stop. It is around here that over 300,000 British expats have lost everything on the properties they bought which are built on land that had no planning permission. They are facing real hardship and the papers are full of sad stories, even he king has become involved.
There is now a mixture of Oranges, Olives, and salad crops being grown, all badly damaged by the unexpected rain of the last few weeks. You can’t really see olives but the piles of wasted oranges lying beneath the trees is quite upsetting, especially as the orange groves are all fenced so you can’t get in to help yourself! We explored around Javea which is on an attractive peninsula and ate a picnic on the harbour wall at Denia
San Pedro – Valencia
Another day in the car, it was the long drive to get to Valencia before dark. We are finally out of Andalucía for the first time in 7 weeks, and are now in Murcia. The coast is one long beach and masses of high rise apartment blocks . We went through Alicante, with an attractive port and some very ritzy looking ‘gin palaces’ - can’t remember the proper term is it leisure cruisers and some enormous yachts. They were pretty impressive so we guessed all this construction hadn’t done a few of them any harm. We passed Benidorm but didn’t stop. It is around here that over 300,000 British expats have lost everything on the properties they bought which are built on land that had no planning permission. They are facing real hardship and the papers are full of sad stories, even he king has become involved.
There is now a mixture of Oranges, Olives, and salad crops being grown, all badly damaged by the unexpected rain of the last few weeks. You can’t really see olives but the piles of wasted oranges lying beneath the trees is quite upsetting, especially as the orange groves are all fenced so you can’t get in to help yourself! We explored around Javea which is on an attractive peninsula and ate a picnic on the harbour wall at Denia
There wasn't a very exciting view at breakfast but this was growing on a wall just outside the hotel
arriving in Valencia as the rush hour was starting, unfortunately without a map. We had glanced at the map on the internet, thought Valencia’s ‘not that big’ and presumably thought that we’d find the flat we had booked into with a combination of divine intervention and sheer magic. After some time in ever smaller and narrower streets having no idea where we may have been heading we finally bought one which helped quite a lot! We are staying in the district of El Pilar which is within walking distance of the old city.
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