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 (conrad.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! 

 

Tuesday 24 February - Les Coves de Vinromà

Where’s Bertie? He’s spending a second night at the Aire at Les Coves de Vinromà.

Weather: Another gloriously sunny and warm day. The display outside the pharmacy, in the shade, said 22 degrees at noon, but I think that was about 2 degrees too optimistic.

Another cool night caused a slow start this morning, with neither of us eager to step out into the chilly air. By the time we set out at 0930 the sun was doing its job, although it was still another while before I divested myself of fleece and gloves.

With the nearby fords being underwater, we started out through the town to reach a causeway, then picked our way slowly back along the rocky path on the other side of the river, then on past the caves and on a good track for a distance. More slow terrain followed, but we didn’t mind as the surroundings got more and more impressive.

When the path petered out, the map told me we needed to ford the river which didn’t prove to be too difficult. I got a slightly damp big toe; Mick got a wet foot. The path on the other side then took us to a picnic area at an old mill, where the information sign told us some of its history, all of which I have now forgotten bar the fact that it was in use until 1930.

Other than the building and the semi-dam (which probably has a more technical name), we didn’t notice any of the other infrastructure here, but having crossed the water again (me dry-shod, Mick with a wet foot), we noticed what I’m going to refer to as the ‘mill race’ at the next one before we spotted that we’d just walked straight past the building. We were probably distracted by either path finding, or by the river, which really was quite spectacular at this point.

We’d hoped to reach a cave a distance further along, but the path takes to the river bed by then, which wasn’t feasible today, and we saw no alternative trodden line. What we did see was a big swimming hole, and I couldn’t resist. I wasn’t in it for many seconds, but did enough strokes to say that I went for a swim. It was certainly bracing, but the air was now warm enough that there was no shivering as I got out.

Our return was a retracing of steps, except that I wasn’t feeling inclined to repeat the trickiest ground between the caves and the town causeway, so once again we forded (me dry-shod, Mick got a wet foot). Having done that, we came to realise that we couldn’t then get back downstream to the caves, which in turn caused us to make our way up to the same viewpoint as we had visited yesterday, thence into town. A bonus, I would say, as if we had found a crossing point nearer to the caves, we wouldn’t have found ourselves within a minute’s diversion to a café that we’d seen, but had been shut, yesterday.

When Mick asked “How’s your coffee” a while later, I realised that I’ve become so accustomed to excellent decaf coffee being served at every establishment in Spain, that I’ve now got to the point where I don’t necessarily notice how good it is. The croissant here was big and deliciously fresh too, and the price such that if I hadn’t seen her add up the three items separately, I would have questioned whether she’d forgotten to add something to the bill (€3.90).

It was now afternoon, but we jogged straight past Bertie and went to look at the caves for which the town is no doubt named. How underwhelming! Apparently in 1947 a 10-year-old girl claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary in one of the caves, and reported that she had promised to return on 1 December and, as a sign, would turn day into night at 3 in the afternoon. News spread and an estimated 300,000 came to witness the event – or non-event, as nothing happened.

Our visit was also a non-event, as we’ve seen far more interesting caves elsewhere, and we didn’t find any rock art. I continued further along the precipitous path than Mick did, but returned with nothing more interesting to report. At least the rest of our outing had been excellent – if we had come solely for the caves it would have been disappointing.

Returning again to Bertie, we found there were now 8 motorhomes here (3 in the  designated spaces, 5 outside; another has arrived since). Funny how there can be such peaks and troughs when there were only 4 last night.  

This afternoon we have put a bit of thought into where we’re heading tomorrow, and it’s possible that we may have reached a conclusion. There are a couple of towns NW of here that I’d like to visit, but they are  at 500+ metres, so they’ll no doubt be chillier than we want. We didn’t drive all this way for such a short period to be colder than in the UK!

Rocky path = difficult to follow and slow-going

The first mill and its partial dam. We didn't see the other infrastructure described by diagrams on the information sign.

Enticing pools below the dam

                                                  

 The infrastructure that alerted us that we'd just passed another mill. 

 

Our turn-around point, where the pool proved too enticing

  

Evidence

I bet those well-dressed women on the table behind us appreciated our aroma!

View from the end of the caves path

Mick, unimpressed with the caves and declining to proceed any further.
 

Monday 23 February - Les Coves de Vinroma

Where’s Bertie? He’s in a municipal Aire on the edge of the small town of Les Coves de Vinroma. Exact location: 40.30679, 0.11893

Weather: sunny and warm (20 degrees max)

Our first mission this morning was to spend a little more money in Vilanova before we left, so we took a walk to the bakery. Had it not been for Google Maps, there’s not a chance that we would have found it, as although central, it’s down a little side street and the only thing that distinguishes it as a business, rather than just one of many almost identical houses on the street, is a little sign by the door. Even so, as I pushed back the chains of the fly curtain and opened the front door, I felt that I may be about to step into someone’s front room.

Despite going to the bakers, we had no need of bread, so we hoped to find they had some other wares for sale – some palmeras, perhaps. It turned out that bread was all they sold, so we bought a stick and enjoyed the sight, through a doorway into the back room, of a huge bread oven and a stack of logs used to fuel it. As we walked away I hypothesized that the baker (a woman who I would guess to be in her 70s) had been taken on as an apprentice by her father when she was in her teens, and nothing has changed about the shop or the manner or baking since (and I should clarify, that this is in no way a criticism).

On the way back to Bertie we passed the Cooperativa, which advertises olive oil for sale, so we swung by there too, but found it to be closed.

We soon had Bertie unplugged and ready to roll, discovering in the process that our French neighbours were actually Brits in a French-registered van.

With the toilet emptying point at the Aire blocked, our first stop along the road was la Torre d’en Doménec. The Aire there had plenty of space, and I’d originally earmarked it for our next stop, however, having run a circuit through the place a couple of days ago, and having already visited the bar, it didn’t feel like there was enough to see to warrant us staying, so with toilet emptied (insuring against the service point at our next destination being blocked, which is a common problem), onward we came another few minutes to Les Coves. We’ve moved a total of 15 minutes from where we spent the last three nights.

The Aire here was almost empty when we arrived, and is still largely empty now, with just two vans amongst its five spaces. However, there are a couple more outside of the designated area, understandably as outside is definitely nicer than inside.

With the morning rapidly reaching its conclusion, we wasted no time in making our way to the nearest bar for coffee, after which it was a turn around the town. All very quiet, with few obvious businesses, but pretty well-kept, with mainly smart houses. We had to venture down side-streets to find the typical derelict buildings with optimistic ‘Se vende’ signs in varying states of fadedness.

The river, its adjacent caves and the water wheels are the main features around here, and the plan is to take a walk along the river tomorrow. The slight fly in the ointment, as we discovered on a short pre-dinner stroll this afternoon, is that we can’t do the route I’d originally downloaded, because it involves walking along the dry river bed, and the river is currently far from dry. Nor can we easily cross the river at the nearest two crossing points, as they’re currently underwater. So, I think our aspirations for the morrow will need to be moderated.

(Blogger has decided to go with photos in reverse order today) 

View of the town from a few paces down the road from the Aire

Mick found Mick-sized bike next to the adult-sized one ;-)

Looking upstream towards the caves

A pretty, but not overly user-friendly map of the town

Possibly the worst view of the church I could have managed

Another day, another excellent decaf coffee. Comparatively expensive today (€5.50) but no complaints as the town has given us free parking. 
 

Sunday 22 February - Vilanova d'Alcolea

Where's Bertie? His wheels remain stationary in the Aire at Vilanova.

Weather: more wall-to-wall sunshine and pleasantly warm.

I did a much better job of being efficient and organised this morning, managing to get myself out the door by just gone 0830. Given the slowness of the terrain in these parts, I've translated my training plan from distance to time, giving me 4 hours as my objective today. I'd come up with two routes, one of which was 28km, which I thought might be a bit far, the other 20km, but with scope to throw in an extension. 

Once again, it had been a cool night, and as I descended from the village there were hints of frost on the greenery in the dips along the track. I was on the wrong side of the hill to get much sun at first, but once it did reach me, it warmed up quickly. By the time I was on my way up the biggest climb of the route, with the sun unimpeded, I was roasting. The sections through woodland were particularly nice thereafter.

At some point whilst I was gallivanting through the hills, our neighbour left and freed up an electric hook-up point and Mick wasted no time in nabbing it. He had already got Bertie ready to travel, but at that point it was decided that we would stay another night. A sensible choice given that it would have been mid-afternoon by the time I was ready to move on anyway. 

Back at Bertie, lunch was prioritised, followed by a shower and a few chores (like feeding the cat...), after which I thought it would be appropriate to go and give a bit of custom to the only bar in the village. Google told me it was open all day, through to 10pm, which seemed likely to be true on a Sunday. I expected there would be quite a few people there at lunchtime. 

We arrived to find it deserted save for the owner. He served us our beers, then told us he was closing at 3pm. I looked at my watch to see that it was five to! No problem though; we didn't have to slam-dunk the drinks, but rather just sit outside and leave the empties when we were done. Not really a successful attempt at giving custom by payment for a free Aire, given that the two beers came to a whopping €3.40!

We will be moving on tomorrow, by which time we will have maxed out on the (unwritten) 72-hour max stay. 

Just after I set out, on a shaded track with the sun still being low in the sky

There were waymarkers on lots of the paths and tracks I used, telling me I was stitching together various routes.

A nice shady interlude as the day got hotter

I can see the sea - with the sun reflecting off it. 

Lots and lots of scrub bushes, but all of the paths and tracks were wide enough for me not to get scratched legs today.

The processionary caterpillars are emerging, but I am yet to see any on the ground. 

I'd already taken a brief detour to visit a summit at 400m. I then dropped down to climb back up to this plateau, which was also at 400m. Even though the high points were modest, and I'd started at 350m, I clocked up over 600m of ascent. (total distance, with a couple of extensions added to the planned route, came in at 23.25km)

My sister has a feral cat who looks just like this - small and black. This one popped its head in and made it vocally known that it would very much appreciate a can of tuna, and who were we to deny such a polite request? 

Billy-no-mates, sitting outside a closed bar.