Where's Bertie? He's in a beachside parking area (more waste ground in appearance than a car park) a few throws of a stone away from the Mediterranean sea at Platja de Puçol, which is not far north of Valencia. Exact location: 39.59653, -0.26943.
Weather: Mainly sunny with just a bit of light cloud. Varying from 3 degrees up high this morning to 17 degrees on the coast.
Our day started with a run along the Camino de Cosuenda, from Cariñena, which on the stretch we covered comprises mainly a stony track running through vineyards. There was just one section, on our way out of town, that was the sort of clay mud that sticks inches of itself to the bottom of your shoes the moment you step on it.
Nice surroundings with slightly snowy hills ahead of us and grape vines all around.
Back at Bertie, one of the two other British vans who had been our neighbours last night had already left and the other wasn't far behind. It was some time later, after breakfast, when we finally got ourselves organised to visit the service point and get on the road.
That road, the A23, turned out to be mainly uphill for most of the morning, taking us up to a large plateau where we gently undulated between 1000 and 1200m. I'm glad we weren't a week ahead of ourselves as it seems that recent storms have dumped a lot of snow up there that hasn't yet thawed. Indeed, we even passed a couple of snow ploughs still clearing up the outside lane.
We've experienced snow when driving through Spain before, but further north.
I didn't get to admire the snowiness for the first half hour of the journey as, whilst Mick drove, I was consulting various internet resources to try to find out whether the Aire to which we were headed still exists (conclusion: no it doesn't, but there's a new one right next door). It was only after we paused for lunch that I realised that my effort had been nugatory: the location of that Aire wasn't a sensible destination considering our plan.
So what is our plan? To head down to Mazarròn, then to perform a u-turn and head north towards Barcelona, with a requirement to be in Paris at Easter. Granted it's not detailed as plans go, but it was sufficient to tell us that there was no point heading to an Aire that was north of the where we were going to hit the coast, when our objective is to head south. We can always go there when we're pass through on our way back north.
Bertie looking seawards. We would have parked on the other side of the parking area, right on the edge of the beach, but Bertie was uncomfortably nose-down when we tried him over there.
The replan brought us here to a large area of shingle next to a beach, in between two resorts. We walked along the promenade in Puçol (a few hundred metres N of where we're parked) this afternoon and found it to be like many other similar places we've visited in Spain in winter: mainly locked up holiday homes with well under 10% of the properties showing signs of being occupied. Once again I find myself wondering what these resorts are like in summer.
A sand-covered promenade (presumably from Storm Gloria - this area got battered, by all accounts) and lots of locked up holiday homes.
We may (or may not; who knows?) take a stroll through the resort to the S of us tomorrow to see if there are any more signs of life there (would it be too optimistic to hope for an open cafe?).
Weather: Mainly sunny with just a bit of light cloud. Varying from 3 degrees up high this morning to 17 degrees on the coast.
Our day started with a run along the Camino de Cosuenda, from Cariñena, which on the stretch we covered comprises mainly a stony track running through vineyards. There was just one section, on our way out of town, that was the sort of clay mud that sticks inches of itself to the bottom of your shoes the moment you step on it.
Back at Bertie, one of the two other British vans who had been our neighbours last night had already left and the other wasn't far behind. It was some time later, after breakfast, when we finally got ourselves organised to visit the service point and get on the road.
That road, the A23, turned out to be mainly uphill for most of the morning, taking us up to a large plateau where we gently undulated between 1000 and 1200m. I'm glad we weren't a week ahead of ourselves as it seems that recent storms have dumped a lot of snow up there that hasn't yet thawed. Indeed, we even passed a couple of snow ploughs still clearing up the outside lane.
I didn't get to admire the snowiness for the first half hour of the journey as, whilst Mick drove, I was consulting various internet resources to try to find out whether the Aire to which we were headed still exists (conclusion: no it doesn't, but there's a new one right next door). It was only after we paused for lunch that I realised that my effort had been nugatory: the location of that Aire wasn't a sensible destination considering our plan.
So what is our plan? To head down to Mazarròn, then to perform a u-turn and head north towards Barcelona, with a requirement to be in Paris at Easter. Granted it's not detailed as plans go, but it was sufficient to tell us that there was no point heading to an Aire that was north of the where we were going to hit the coast, when our objective is to head south. We can always go there when we're pass through on our way back north.
The replan brought us here to a large area of shingle next to a beach, in between two resorts. We walked along the promenade in Puçol (a few hundred metres N of where we're parked) this afternoon and found it to be like many other similar places we've visited in Spain in winter: mainly locked up holiday homes with well under 10% of the properties showing signs of being occupied. Once again I find myself wondering what these resorts are like in summer.
We may (or may not; who knows?) take a stroll through the resort to the S of us tomorrow to see if there are any more signs of life there (would it be too optimistic to hope for an open cafe?).
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