Where's Bertie? He's in a dead-end residential side road, about 30m from the beach, in a dead-in-winter area of Cullera. Exact location: 39.17995, -0.23560.
Weather: Wall-to-wall sunshine, but breezy. Around 23 degrees.
The Aire where we stayed the last couple of nights, just outside Valencia, was located just within the Parque Natural de La Albufera. Whilst the huge lagoon of La Albufera was too far away for us to visit on foot, we were close to the dunes and the beach and, as the Aire didn't require us to leave until 1700, we had time to take a stroll there this morning.
Open land with stunted trees and other greenery and no doubt the home to much wildlife...
...all cut through with a number of walking and cycling tracks and promenades and with a prohibition on wandering off the tracks.
Having exhausted the length of the duneside promenade (with only occasional glimpses of the beach on the other side), we rejected the notion of making a circuit of it by returning via roads, in favour of retracing our steps. All very pleasant and if I had been in the market for a run today it would have been the perfect location.
It was 1300 by the time we'd paid our bill and left the Aire and our intended destination was only 12km along the road. The reason we hadn't eaten paella in Valencia yesterday (the home of paella), was because our guidebook advised that the best examples of the dish are to be found in some of the villages around La Albufera (right within the rice growing area). I've no idea whether our unfussy palates would be able to tell the difference between the 'authentic' dish and the examples we've had many times elsewhere in Spain, but our intention was to find out.
Past the huge lagoon and many paddy fields we drove, into the village of El Perellonet where we easily found somewhere to park Bertie. Finding somewhere for the famed paella was less easy. In fact, we only found one place that was obviously open and whilst we perused their menu both times we passed by in our search, we eventually decided that our rice eating would have to be deferred. We will, of course, be passing Valencia again in a few weeks, so maybe we'll have more luck then.
A couple more lunch options were explored a little further along the coast, but the problem is that it's January and most beachside conurbations are deserted with all businesses locked up.
Sticking to the wiggly coast road, we arrived here in Cullera, pulling into a space at the end of a dead-end beachside road, in amongst the deserted high-rises. The immediate intention was just to have lunch, but that morphed into a decision to stay, albeit we did move one street further along when we found the parking here to be nicer (looking onto a green area), flatter and away from the whistling building (the original spot was next to a block of flats that, in an attempt to make it look more visually pleasing, had been given, presumably by accident, an impressively loud whistling/howling sound as the wind rushed over it).
The beachfront promenade here is around 2 miles long and we walked around two-thirds of its length this afternoon. Even though the property is all high-rises, it's a lot nicer than where we were a few days ago - all open land is grass and palm trees, rather than wasteland, the beach is golden sand (closed for cleaning every day from 0500-0800) and on the landward sides the town is bounded by small hills. Of course, almost all of the property and businesses are shut up for winter. On the basis that these are second homes, rather than hotels or holiday apartments, we have to wonder, with so much property here, quite how many Spaniards own a second home.
Beach shots at Cullera. The sky does set it off nicely.
Bonus photo. No fountains today, so we'll have 'church of the day'.
Weather: Wall-to-wall sunshine, but breezy. Around 23 degrees.
The Aire where we stayed the last couple of nights, just outside Valencia, was located just within the Parque Natural de La Albufera. Whilst the huge lagoon of La Albufera was too far away for us to visit on foot, we were close to the dunes and the beach and, as the Aire didn't require us to leave until 1700, we had time to take a stroll there this morning.
Having exhausted the length of the duneside promenade (with only occasional glimpses of the beach on the other side), we rejected the notion of making a circuit of it by returning via roads, in favour of retracing our steps. All very pleasant and if I had been in the market for a run today it would have been the perfect location.
It was 1300 by the time we'd paid our bill and left the Aire and our intended destination was only 12km along the road. The reason we hadn't eaten paella in Valencia yesterday (the home of paella), was because our guidebook advised that the best examples of the dish are to be found in some of the villages around La Albufera (right within the rice growing area). I've no idea whether our unfussy palates would be able to tell the difference between the 'authentic' dish and the examples we've had many times elsewhere in Spain, but our intention was to find out.
Past the huge lagoon and many paddy fields we drove, into the village of El Perellonet where we easily found somewhere to park Bertie. Finding somewhere for the famed paella was less easy. In fact, we only found one place that was obviously open and whilst we perused their menu both times we passed by in our search, we eventually decided that our rice eating would have to be deferred. We will, of course, be passing Valencia again in a few weeks, so maybe we'll have more luck then.
A couple more lunch options were explored a little further along the coast, but the problem is that it's January and most beachside conurbations are deserted with all businesses locked up.
Sticking to the wiggly coast road, we arrived here in Cullera, pulling into a space at the end of a dead-end beachside road, in amongst the deserted high-rises. The immediate intention was just to have lunch, but that morphed into a decision to stay, albeit we did move one street further along when we found the parking here to be nicer (looking onto a green area), flatter and away from the whistling building (the original spot was next to a block of flats that, in an attempt to make it look more visually pleasing, had been given, presumably by accident, an impressively loud whistling/howling sound as the wind rushed over it).
The beachfront promenade here is around 2 miles long and we walked around two-thirds of its length this afternoon. Even though the property is all high-rises, it's a lot nicer than where we were a few days ago - all open land is grass and palm trees, rather than wasteland, the beach is golden sand (closed for cleaning every day from 0500-0800) and on the landward sides the town is bounded by small hills. Of course, almost all of the property and businesses are shut up for winter. On the basis that these are second homes, rather than hotels or holiday apartments, we have to wonder, with so much property here, quite how many Spaniards own a second home.
I was quite excited with the tension you were building up with the paella hunt but had to come back down to earth when none was found. I suppose you could have "asked Siri" but as far as I can remember you don't have an iPhone? You are missing nothing if that is the case - all Siri does is an Internet search and I can do that myself, but better.
ReplyDeleteI can talk to my Android phone, but as you observe, I can do an effective Google search without using that function.
DeleteOur walk around Le Perellonet was guided by Google's list of restaurants there, but we only found one showing signs of life and their menu was decidedly odd.
You'll be pleased to hear that we did (belatedly) get to eat paella today.