Wednesday 4 March - Berastegi

Where's Bertie? He's still at Berastegi

Weather: Sunny and warm, but a bit breezy

Just as I was about to put tea on the table last night, Mick nipped out to put a couple of things in the recycling bin, about twenty paces away. After a while I wondered if he'd failed to notice the big bank of bins almost next to us and had gone on walkabout, but it turned out that he was just chatting to our Dutch neighbour. His tea may have been cold by the time he got back, but it was a fortuitous chat, as he received a recommendation that the Menu del Día at the bar in the village was excellent. A plan was thus formed: I would get up early(ish), head out for a 4-hour run/walk at 8am, then we'd go for lunch about 1pm, after which we would either get on the road for the shortish hop up to France, or we'd stay here another night. 

I'd downloaded three possible routes for my outing and ended up doing a mishmash of two of them, taking in six summits (the highest being 860m) and amassing 900m of ascent over the course of 19km. 

The first summit didn't have much merit, and I felt like I'd trespassed to get there (I have no idea what the access laws are, but my observation in Spain in general is that if there's a track and it's not marked as private, then it's fair game. On this route, however, I'd left a track to walk up a field and into a felled forest, which felt a bit dubious. That said, just about everywhere that someone may want to cross a field boundary there seemed to be a gate or some sort of a cobbled together style, so maybe access is accepted even off-piste hereabouts). The second summit had a trig point and good (if slightly hazy views) over a magnificent looking ridge that still had some small patches of snow. 

I opted to bypass the next couple of nobbles along the ridge (they felt even more like trespassing to me), but detoured to the next couple. Then came the highlights of the outing - a couple of summits topped by rocky tors. The first one was easy to navigate and technically the second would have been too, but it was a scramble with some big chasms in the rock, where a fall would have serious consequences, so I erred on the side of caution and made do with getting within metres of the cross on the summit. 

My final high point (811m) was accidental. On a path through another grassy field (where I was confident I was allowed to be by the fact that another chap was following me, and four came the other way - I feel like I saw more walkers on this outing than I've seen in the last month combined) was indistinct on the ground and I wasn't sure which side of a fence I needed to be. Having crossed the fence I decided I was on the wrong side of it, by which time I thought I may as well re-route over one final top. 

Setting off back down the hill, I thought I was going to be late for my lunch date, but it was a speedy descent and I actually arrived a few minutes early, and not alone, as Mick had walked out along the road to meet me. It had been a thoroughly enjoyable route that I'd happily do again, although I'd probably choose to do the PR111 next time, and to take Mick with me. 

Back at Bertie, it was a quick shower and change, then out to Ategi Taberna, where I was pleased to see that the menu was written in Spanish, not Basque. The food was good, and the place was reasonably busy for a Wednesday. It seemed a little odd, just after being served our main courses, that our puddings were put down on the table next to us, but it wasn't just us. A couple that came in after us were still on their first courses when their mains were delivered, and their puddings arrived just after they started their mains. It's obviously just the way they do it, and as everyone else seemed to be local and regular customers (everyone seemed to know everyone else), it's obviously just accepted. It does make for a rather fast lunch, though. 

Given how close this place is to the route that we've now many times driven through Spain, we'd happily pop by again, even if just for a lunch stop.  

We could have driven on into France after lunch, but given what a nice spot this is, and that it's free and quiet, we decided to stay another night. That gives us three days to get from here to Calais, so we'll be in full-on driving mode from tomorrow. The only potential fly in the ointment is that on the TV news in the bar there were reports of queues at petrol stations in Spain due to the attack on Iran. If that escalates into large-scale panic buying and fuel shortage, that could be problematic to our journey. It's not something we can control though, so no point worrying about it.  

I'm liking the variety of field boundaries hereabouts. No one seems to go in for manufactured fence posts - any piece of straight-enough local tree will do.  

   

Dry stone walls are prevalent too

 If you can look past me and the trig point, that's a fine ridge as the backdrop. The map tells me its high points are around 13-1400m.

I passed a lot of hunting/shooting infrastructure (and I'm sure some of the paths I took were created solely to cater to that activity). I don't think the scale comes across here - the scaffolding tower atop which sits a the shooting but, in this snap, was hugely tall. No way would you get me up that ladder!

Talking of not climbing things, this is the summit I didn't quite reach. Technically straightforward enough, but grykes were of man-eating size and a slip would have ruined more than just my day. 

There was active felling going on just to my left (two trees fell in the short time it took me to cross this section). In the UK there would have been signs prohibiting me from proceeding and warning me not to approach machinery, not to mention not to climb on timber stacks. There was not a single sign here, and do you know what? I applied the exact same degree of caution as I would have if there had been signs.

Three courses, including a bottle of wine, for €14. When we'd ordered the first item on the 'Segundo Plato' list had been rabbit.

 

 
 

 

Tuesday 3 March - Berastegi

Where's Bertie? He's in a small Aire in the village of Berastegi. Exact location: 43.12372, -1.98324

Weather: Disappointingly overcast, against a forecast of sunshine, but warm this afternoon (17 max)

We woke up to the sound of light rain on Bertie's roof - a surprise as there was no mention of it in the forecast and it must have continued for around an hour. It was still overcast as we set out, but based on the forecast we expected that either the sun would win through, or we would drive out from under the cloud. Unfortunately neither happened, although the afternoon did warm up as predicted even with the cloud cover. 

Our initial journey was a short one, to a petrol station (€1.266/litre), then a supermarket, in Tudela, where our trolley, along with some groceries, included 18 bottles of wine and 24 cans of beer. It's a long way to haul it home from Spain, but Mick knows some of the wines he likes in Spain and the prices are so low that it makes it worthwhile (our entire shop, including the food, came in at €82).

It was then a 2-hour drive up to Berastegi. If we had been solely chasing the weather, we would have continued on another hour or so to Capbreton, but I've run around the Capbreton area a few times now, and fancied something a bit different and hillier, so an Aire within 3km of our route and in a typical village in the Basque Country fitted the bill nicely.

Once again, lunch was our first priority on arrival, then I sought out a route for us to go and do this afternoon, settling for one that did a circuit around the outside of the village (6.8km, 225m).

I don't think we saw a single thing that didn't scream 'Basque Country' at us. The landscape and buildings are so distinctive that using the 'if I was abducted by aliens and abandoned here' test, I don't think I'd struggle to know where I was.  

Final remark of the day: we are parked right next to a church (a disproportionately large one in such a location, I would say) complete with a chiming clock. The chimes aren't the loudest, but I wouldn't be surprised if they continue all night. 

 

Views

 

We saw a few fields with lambs and not recent ones either.

 

We also saw more than one field containing miniature horses. Do they have a purpose?

 

 

  

 

Monday 2 March – Zaragoza and Mallén

Where’s Bertie? He spent last night in the motorhome parking area in Zaragoza and tonight he’s in a little Aire just outside of the village of Mallén.

Weather: Yesterday: sunny and warm. Today: overcast first half of the morning, then clearing to sunshine and gradually warming up to around 17 degrees.

We weren’t in any rush to leave the Aire at Morella yesterday morning. Having paid for 24 hours, we thought we may as well tarry a while and take advantage of having electricity. We weren’t entirely successful in our tarrying, and just before 11 we got on the road to Zaragoza.

We’ve driven past the city a few times now, so thought that on this occasion we'd stop by to have a look at the place, killing two birds with one stone by also making our mandatory trip to a Decathlon store. 

The motorhome parking area is on the north side of the city (we usually pass to the south) and we arrived* to find it busier than expected, but managed to nab one of two empty spaces (out of, I think, 50, although there were plenty of motorhomes parked elsewhere in the large car park too).

Being gone 1pm by then, lunch was our first priority, then I mixed the dough ready for a fresh loaf of bread. Once that was done, we thought it was a bit late to be heading off into town, so instead we filled a backpack with laundry and walked the 1.3km to the nearest laundrette.

The smallest washing machine they had there was 13kg. We had a 5kg load with us. Bit of a waste, and possibly the most expensive wash & dry we’ve ever done in Spain (€10 for one wash cycle and one dry cycle). Arguably, I should have just continued to wear my smelly running gear, and bought a few more pairs of pants!

Whilst it had been a semi-overcast start to the day in Morella, we’d driven out into clearer conditions, enjoying wall-to-wall sunshine and a warm afternoon in Zaragoza. With the forecast being the same for today, we were looking forward to good sight-seeing conditions…

…we awoke to a heavily overcast morning! Perhaps, with hindsight, we should have lounged around for most of the morning, but we didn’t think to do that, so it was only just gone 0930 when we donned warm jackets and gloves and wandered the few paces to the tram stop. The trams run frequently, and we had no wait at all - just as the ticket machine spat out our tickets, a tram pulled up; ten minutes later we were in the city centre. 

First on the agenda, having walked past some of the city’s Roman remains, was the Basilica, which is a mightily eye-catching building from afar. It had a good smattering of bling and features inside too, but wasn’t one of the most awe-inspiring interiors I’ve seen.

Next was the Goya museum, except it turns out that it’s closed this year for complete renovation. Harrumph! We might have gone to the city museum instead, except that is also currently closed. So we wandered around a bit, saw another church and the adjacent mansion, wandered around the market, then ducked into a bar next door for coffee (and to warm up – it was somewhere between 8 and 12 degrees out, depending on which display you believed).

At that point, we decided we’d seen enough of Zaragoza. It’s a bigger city than either of us had realised, and although we only saw a bit of it (we probably saw more of the suburbs than of the centre, with our walk to the laundrette yesterday and our further wanderings whilst the washer was washing), we liked what we saw.

We walked back to Bertie, via a big shopping centre that housed Decathlon. There we were restrained, coming away with just a new fleece for each of us.

The sun had won through and we were overheating in our jackets by the time we got back to Bertie, whose interior was also toasty warm with the sun on his windscreen. We might then have sat around for the rest of the afternoon, to move on tomorrow morning, but the Aire is neither attractive nor in the quietest location, being metres away from a busy road, along the middle of which runs the tram. Thus, after a quick lunch, Bertie rolled back out of the car park and came, via a detour to a Lidl, to Mallén, which is just a stone’s throw away from the motorway.

We’re just outside the village here, but it’s only a 1km walk to the church, so for another leg-stretch as much as anything else, we wandered up to see it. As with almost all churches these days, it was locked, and the outside wasn’t interesting enough for me to trouble to take a snap. However, we did get the impression from our walk there, together with an information sign we found showing the location of five or six mansion houses, that this used to be a prosperous place. On the street we walked, we noted some very grand historic buildings, with their lower walls bulging outwards, other old houses in a similar but worse state, intermingled with far newer buildings that have obviously replaced some of the former category. It made me wonder whether there had been an earthquake hereabouts to cause all the structural degredation and such an extensive programme of replacing the old with new (rather than the expected renovation of the old).

 (*As we arrived in Zaragoza there was a marching band practice in progress in the car park where the motorhome parking is location. I feel that if there was to be a bingo card of things that we often encounter on a trip to Spain, a marching band practice in a car park where we're staying is one of them.)

We got to see Morella under a blue sky before we left yesterday morning

The basilica in Zaragoza. It's not short of domes and spires. 

Fountain of the day

Roman remains and a wonky tower  

Saturday 28 February - Montegordo, Tirig & Morella

Where's Bertie? He's in a Camping-Car Park in Morella at a cost of €12 including electricity.

Weather: Mainly overcast and cooler (although partly because we've spent much of the day at altitude)

A couple of days ago Conrad (conradwalks.blogspot.com) commented that the prominent hill in this photo looked inviting:

I agreed, and it was a focal point for a chunk of our outing around a smaller local hill yesterday. Examining the map, I found that it's called Montegordo, that it stands at 837m, and that there's a path all the way to the top. From where we were parked, it would be a round trip of 12km. It also lay in the path of our onward journey, so I asked Mick whether, if I nipped up it first thing, he would come and pick me up from the nearest road, saving me 2.5km uphill on tarmac to get back to Bertie. Mick readily agreed, and thus at 8 this morning I set out to visit its summit.

After weeks of sunshine, I managed to pick an overcast day, and although there were more patches of blue sky around than I expected, at the relatively early hour, the very top was shrouded. I could only hope that the cloud would rise quicker than I did. 

The cloud did not rise one bit, so I didn't get to enjoy the views from the summit, although it was clear for most of the way up and down, giving me sight of a most pleasing landscape. The ascent gradient was easy enough, so the only slowing factors were a few rocky steps and the combination of the narrowness of the path and the spikiness of the scrubby bushes lining it, which saw me finish with scratched and bloody legs. Mick and I timed our rendezvous perfectly, both arriving at the pick-up point at the exact same moment.

Our onward route to Museu de la Valltora, involved a relatively narrow and very winding road, just wide enough for Bertie and a car or small van to pass (fortunately, it's not a heavily trafficked road, which kept stress low). The subject of the museum is cave art, and it comprises four main rooms with a couple of other minor exhibits in the entrance hall, but the main attraction is a visit to one of the caves to the see the art. The latter has to be as part of a guided group, the tours are only in Spanish, and they happen at 4 different times during the day. We were timed nicely for the 11am tour, but after consultation with Mick, we decided we weren't that fussed about it. Having visited a cave in France to see the art, it was difficult to see what we would get out of another similar visit, particularly when we would likely understand almost nothing that was being said.

I did, however, understand most of what the chap on the reception desk explained to us about the museum, then we set about seeing the exhibits. Interesting stuff - if only we could more readily have understood more of the explanatory text. I started learning Spanish on Duolingo a little over 6 years ago, have missed two days in all that time, and have almost finished the course, yet still I've not met my objective of being able to understand exhibits in museums. 

Leaving the museum, the question was 'where next?'. One option was the Aire at Tirig, and we did pause outside its entrance and consider going in, but the final decision was to continue another 45 minutes to Morella. 

The reason I wanted to visit Morella is because this is its striking appearance when you drive past on the N232...
 

...which had caused me to put a pin in Google Maps when we drove by last year, reminding us to visit. On our outbound leg this year, the Aire was marked on Park4Night as being closed for renovation, but I'd since seen that it was still possible to park here, but the Service Point was out of action. 

So, we drove to the Aire, to find that as of 3 days ago, it has had a barrier installed and is now part of the Camping-Car Park scheme, taking it from a free stop-over with a service point, to a €12 per night stop with electricity and a service point. That feels rather expensive for what it is, in rural Spain, but it is in a tourist hot-spot. We deferred the decision as to whether to stay by driving up towards the town car park, but nabbing a free spot by the aqueduct on our way.

Wrapping up warm (11 degrees feels awfully cool after the last few weeks of warmth), we headed off for the city walls, thence to the castle. Having taken the trouble to do that, I thought it was worth the entrance fee to go inside. It turned out to be slightly cheaper than it should have been, as having asked for one adult and one senior, I was sold two senior tickets. I didn't complain, but was also slightly insulted.

It proved to be worth the admission price, and we wandered around at some length. Unfortunately, the App advertised on various signs around the place as offering an audio tour no longer exists, but there was a good smattering of tri-lingual signs. I approved of how brief they were - using very simple language (I could even understand the Spanish!) they just gave a sentence of explanation about each feature. Incidentally, the (literal) high point of the castle stands at 1070m; when I topped out at 837m on Montegordo this morning I had absolutely no expectation that I would be walking up to an even higher point today, although granted our starting point was somewhat higher this afternoon. 

On leaving the castle, we dropped down to the far side of the town before walking all the way back around to Bertie, thus seeing a fair smattering of its streets. 

By now the afternoon was marching on rapidly towards teatime, and a swift decision had to be made: to fork out for the Aire that was a 2-minute drive away, or to continue another 45 minutes to Alcañiz. If the Aire here hadn't had electricity, we would have driven on, for a lower altitude and a warmer temperature, but if we're paying €12 for electricity, we are darn well going to run our electric heater!

Montegordo, with cloud just capping its summit. The outward leg started with 2.5km of road (avoided on the way back by Mick picking me up on our way to our next stop). 

Views. That olive orchard contained cows with clanging bells.

In places the path was nice and open...

...but most of the time spiky things wanted my blood

 

On the way down, a bank of cloud on the left, clear on the right.

Summit selfie

Next stop, cave art (reproduction, in the museum)

Next stop, Morella (taken from half way up the hill, where we parked Bertie)

 

Looking down on the town from the castle

 Walking through the town, back to Bertie

 

 

 

Friday 27 February - Albocàsser

Where’s Bertie? He’s still in the Aire at Albocàsser

Weather: Some thin cloud around today, but still warm and sunny

We started our day with a circuit around a nearby hill, the summit of which is somewhere around 630m, although we didn’t visit it. My experience is limited, but it seems to me that whilst the Spanish love walking and trail running, they’re not fussed on visiting high spots and more often than not I’ve failed to find a path through the spiky scrub to get to summits. So, we kept to the path, which took us up to 600m, then down the other side.

It was a good route, mostly on easy-going terrain, so we made pretty good time, arriving back at Bertie just before 1030. I then gave Mick the option: to go out for coffee or to hang around for lunch? Coffee was his choice, so a quick wash and change, then it was straight out to see if we could refind the bar we’d passed yesterday. That we did easily, and seeing that they had a whole tostada menu, we added some toast to our coffee order whilst also eyeing up the tortilla that was on the counter.

The tortilla proved irresistible, so we had some of that with our second round of coffees, before moving on to the supermarket where we had to make the usual judgment call to only buy as much as we could comfortably carry the kilometre and a half back to Bertie. The most notable item amongst our purchases was the celery, just because the shortest pack we could find was still about 2 feet long. We had to cut it down to fit it in the fridge.

Back at Bertie we concluded that there was little point in moving on at such an advanced hour of day … that being all of 1pm. Clearly if we were trying to squeeze in as much as we could into a small window, we could have done more with our day, including a visit to a nearby cave art museum for its late afternoon opening session, but that would have run into tea-time, so we’ll pencil that into tomorrow morning’s agenda instead.

Seeing as we were sitting around this afternoon, I thought I’d check out one of the bonus facilities of this Aire. It’s located at a sports facility and the changing rooms are open and available for use. I ventured in with low expectations, but had a shower that was ridiculously powerful and so oversupplied with hot water that I struggled to make it cool enough. So, a free Aire with free electricity and with better showers than on most campsites (if I overlook the fact that the cubicles are tiny and the locks all broken).

Given the attractiveness of the countryside, a perfectly pleasant town, and all of these facilities, why is it so quiet here? We were joined by a French couple yesterday who initially only stopped for the service point and a meal, but once they realised there was free electricity they decided to stay. They left this morning, and this afternoon we have been joined by a German chap. I can only think that people are being put off by the reviews. The most recent review said that there are only really 3 spots here, rather than the advertised 8, due to low trees, and the reviewer had found them occupied. Others reported that the entrance is really awkward and that the place is infested with processionary caterpillars. The comment about only three spaces nearly put us off, but I’d say there are a couple more that would be feasible even for a 3m high van, and a new entrance was created late last year so it’s no longer difficult to access. The comment about the caterpillars is true, but as we don’t have a dog and can easily avoid them ourselves, they’re not such a concern to us as they would be to others. Also, no-one has yet publicised the fact that the electricity is now free and no one has raved about the showers.

The randomness that is Blogger has decided that we're going in reverse order with the photos today:

Look at the thickness of that tortilla! 

I'm not sure this really shows the scale of how massive those pieces of toast were

Some of the terrain was less runnable...

We went through abandoned terraces and still-tended allotments of almonds and olives

There were quite a few of these huts dotted around - stone igloos as Mick quite accurately described the design. 

A hut looking like a pile of stones from the back.

The initial climb. The whole route came in at a touch under 9km with 225m of ascent. 

(As I've just finished up typing, would you believe that in the space of three minutes, 3 more vans have arrived. Given they're 3 different nationalities and they don't seem to be conferring with each other, I don't think any of them are together.)

 

Thursday 26 February - Albocàsser

Where's Bertie? He's in the municipal Aire just outside of Albocàsser. Exact location: 40.36516, 0.0209

Weather: After a foggy start, sunny and warm. 

I’d already put bread under the grill for toast by way of a pre-run first breakfast when I looked out of a window and saw, well not very much really, as we were fully enveloped in fog. I didn’t feel much inclined to dash out on a cold, foggy morning, and could justify the decision on the basis that I'd intended to run on the road today and visibility wasn’t good enough for that to feel safe. So, the run was postponed and, after no small amount of faffing around, we took ourselves off for second breakfast at the same place as we went for lunch yesterday.

It was, once again, busy, mainly with workmen, many of them (as is a cultural norm) drinking beer or wine with their breakfasts. I wonder how many of them would be back three hours later for lunch?

We only had coffee and a croissant, but just as we were leaving the table next to us were served cooked breakfasts and food envy ensued.

The sun had won through the fog whilst we had sat there, and it was warming up nicely by the time we stepped back outside. Resisting the urge to just stay put another day, we slowly got ready to move, via a long chat with our neighbours (a British/Portuguese couple).

I’d spent far too much of the morning contemplating where to go next, but with the sky now clear, the final decision was to come to Albocàsser, hoping for a spot at the Aire, and with the knowledge that we could carry on to Tirig if it was full. We arrived to find it empty!

This is another of the local network of Aires that offers electricity, needing to a token (€3 for 3kWh) from the town hall. With there being no competition for the hook-up points, we thought we may as well make use of it, so after a slightly early lunch, we wandered into town. We got a friendly welcome at the town hall, but I couldn’t quite keep up with the speed of the response we got, although I did catch that we didn’t need a token, we just needed to plug in. Resorting to the microphone function on Google Translate, the message was that they would send someone to the Aire to show us how to work the electricity. Thus, rather than looking around the town as planned, we hot-footed it back here, being overtaken by a council van on the way. It was duly waiting for us when we arrived and it all seemed like overkill, until the chap led me not to the obvious electric hook-up points next to the parking spots, but to a row of conifer trees off to the side. There he furtled around and showed me the extension lead into which we were to plug. There was no charge (as in fee; not electrical charge!). He waited around to be sure we were plugged in and everything was working, then off he went.

So, rather than giving the town hall a small contribution, we seem to have taken up their time and resources AND they are giving us electricity.

With that done, back into town we went, starting back at the Town Hall, where the Tourist Information interactive screen proved to be less useful than it looked. The adjacent QR codes were more useful, leading me to a website showing the points of interest in the town, starting with the church that’s directly opposite the town Hall.

Three Ermitas, a tower and the historic public laundry followed, all with short audio guides (only in Castillian or Valencian, but the former was clear and slow enough that I could understand enough of what was said). And, of course, in the process we also wandered many of the town’s streets.

Whilst the temperature was only forecast to be 17 degrees, it felt so much warmer than that on the sunny streets, and when we passed the pharmacy, the display outside (in the sun) said 24 degrees. With the town being at an altitude of 520m, I feel that the current temperatures are probably unseasonably warm. It may have been the influence of the clear blue sky and the warm weather, but this town was much more to our liking than the one we visited yesterday morning.

The whole tour was (according to an information sign; I didn't measure it) only 1.5km, so it didn’t take us awfully long to see everything, by which time we were right in the middle of the afternoon, when everything is shut. Few people were about as we wandered our way the 1km back out of town to Bertie.

As the sun was starting to burn through the early morning fog

Such a typical Spanish street

Quite a plain church on the outside; we didn't get to see the inside so can't report on that.

 

 The tower, the history of which I've now largely forgotten, was originally square and much smaller (the section to the left of the windows when viewed from the back) but was subsequently extended to the large rectangle of today. It's now a house. 

 

One of the Ermitas. Unfortunately the gates were padlocked shut, so we couldn't get closer than peering through them (I didn't think to snap a photo until we were walking away and was apparently too lazy to walk the few paces back to stick my phone through the gate to get a shot of the front)

View from the second Ermita on the route. The surrounding hills are around 900m. As we are at over 500m, it wouldn't be too big a job to go and visit the top of one of them. 
 

 

 

Wednesday 25 February - Alcalà de Xivert & Les Coves de Vinromà

Where’s Bertie? To his surprise, he’s back at the Aire at Les Coves de Vinromà, where he spent the last couple of nights

Weather: Wall-to-wall sunshine and warm in Les Coves, misty and cold in Alcalà de Xivert

A brief summary of our day is that we drove 21km on a very windy road over two passes to have a cup of coffee and then drove back again, but there’s a little more to the story than that.

After a 5km run this morning that saw me gain 130m of altitude in the first half, then lose it again in the second, we headed off over the hills to the town of Alcalà de Xivert. On the map the road that joins the two places is a tiny one, and in the UK it would have been a single lane with hedges brushing both sides of passing vehicles. Here it was a 2-lane road of perfectly smooth tarmac, that wiggled its way up and over the hills. We passed four other vehicles the whole way and contemplated that one of the reasons that roads tend to be in such good condition over here is because they see so little traffic.

Having decided against going higher into the hills on the basis of wanting to be warm, we’d opted to spend a couple of nights on a campsite in Alcalà. We knew from other reviews that they only accept ACSI cards (a scheme that gives members access to cheap off-peak rates at listed campsites, ranging from €13 to €27; this campsite was at the €17 level) on their smallest pitches, and there was a risk that there wouldn’t be one available, but I’d checked their online booking system and it was (I thought!) showing availability.

We  arrived to be told that they didn’t have a cheap pitch available, but we could have a superior one for €24. I retreated to Bertie to consult Mick, and whilst there I looked again at their online booking system, which was still offering me a pitch with electric for €18. So, I filled in the details and clicked ‘Book now’. It turns out that when they show availability they mean ‘it’s possible we may have availability’ and when they say ‘Book now’ they mean ‘make and enquiry and we’ll get back to you’ (and clearly, given the conversation I’d just had, the answer was going to be ‘no’). The compromise was that we would stay for one night, so I went back into the office to be told that the price had gone up to €26. We left, drove around the corner and parked in the free car park, where we could have spent the night, had we so chosen (but bear in mind that it was only just after 10.30am at this point).

The next issue was that we’d seen on our way down the hill towards the town that there was a sea fog cloaking the coast (which explains why for the last few days the temperatures where we have been, at some altitude, have been higher than those on the coast), and extending inland as far as Alcalà, and as we walked across town to find somewhere for coffee we came to realise quite how cold it was. 12 degrees said the display outside of the chemist, but with the breeze blowing it felt much cooler.

With coffee and croissant despatched, we braved the cold again to take a walk around the town. I’d seen mixed reviews of the place but we came down on the side of ‘not much to recommend it’. Perhaps it would have felt different on a warm and sunny day, but although the exterior of the church was impressive, we didn’t see anything else in the town that grabbed our attention. It was all a bit shabby and below average.

We repaired to Bertie to formulate a new plan, and finally settled on retreating whence we had come, making a lunch out the focus of the day.

Our pitch within the designated spots in the Aire had been taken in our absence, but that pitch hadn’t been ideal anyway, with overhanging trees obscuring the solar panel from the later afternoon sun. The two empty pitches were also of no use, as they sit under a sun canopy (undoubtedly most welcome in summer). However, all of the vans on the adjacent rough ground had now gone, so we took a spot there instead.

At 1pm we wandered up to the eatery next to the petrol station on the edge of town, just at the end of the road we’re parked in, and as we approached we agreed that we were likely to be the only people in there. We were wrong! There were already three tables of workmen, most in high-viz clothing, when we arrived, and as we sat there the place filled up with a pleasing mix of workmen, ladies-wot-lunch and couples. It’s obviously the place to go.

At €18 the menu del día may be the most expensive we’ve ever had, but we also have to acknowledge that costs and thus prices have increased and €18 is now a reasonable price. Very reasonable on this occasion; an excellent meal was had.

At the end of the day, we aren’t sorry that our visit to Alcalà didn’t work out. I’m sure we would have found some positives in the town, and some way to entertain ourselves there for a couple of days, but we’re happy to be back in the sunshine in a place we like, and we are only slightly kicking ourselves that we didn’t try the local eatery on Monday, so we could have had a return visit today (as I typed that I thought ‘Were they even open on Monday?’, and Google confirms that, in common with most of the eateries in this place, they were closed on Monday). Tomorrow, we will make another attempt to move on. 

Views from my run

The only impressive thing we found in Alcalà de Xivert

This only shows about a third of the tables

Ate pudding before I took the snap. Everything in these photos was included in the €18 each (and I've just noticed that the collage has trimmed off the bottle of wine and big bottle of water). It's been a long time since Mick was given a whole bottle of wine with lunch!