Monday 28 February - Alcoy

Where's Bertie? He hasn't moved an inch from yesterday's reported position in the car park at Alcoy.
Weather: Sunny intervals. Low- to mid-teens (only 5 degrees overnight!)

As I headed out for a run along the Via Verde this morning, Mick set out in the other direction on a mission to find bread and, per my request: 'a bun as big as my head'.

The Via Verde here is excellent and popular. Within the first 1.5km I'd gone through two tunnels and over two bridges, and tunnels continued to be a regular theme. The views over the local hills were good, and there was many a waymarked walking route branching off from the main trail making me think one could spend days here and be happily entertained.

Lots of tunnels. Both snaps taken from the same spot, looking in opposite directions.

Taken from about 100m further on from the last snaps

The entire outward leg of the route took me gently uphill, and I was half way through a 1.2km tunnel when I turned around to enjoy the downward leg back to Bertie. Of course, what I actually did was speed up, rather than enjoying an easier plod back.

Long tunnel! At least this one was lit. The longer unlit ones were 'interesting' in the middle.

Even though the breadshop Mick was seeking was only 800m distant, he didn't beat me back by much, and had covered a much greater distance before he returned empty handed. He'd been unable to find a business at the place Google had taken him, so had wandered down into Alcoy. There he finally gave up on his mission only about 100m before both a baker's and a supermarket (as we later found out when we walked that way again).

What he did find on his wanderings was a place close to Bertie that was offering a Menu del Dia for €10.

We preceded lunch with a walk into town and back, by which time we only needed to kill a few minutes more until the clock ticked over to 1pm and we considered it an acceptable time to present ourselves for lunch.

Between Bertie and the lunch establishment, we came upon a small, neglected-looking park housing approximately 60 benches. Overkill, it seemed to me. Today one of them was in use.

We have an even bigger language barrier here than normal, as the first language is Valencian, but the waiting staff kindly switched to Spanish and we muddled our way through.

All this for €22 (or £18.40 at today's exchange rate). The coffees accounted for the extra €2

Back at Bertie a quiet time has been had for the rest of the afternoon*. What is nice to see from our vantage point here, sitting about 2 metres away from the Via Verde, is how well-used the paths are. We observe the same wherever we are in Spain. Just now, post siesta but still long before teatime, is one of the busiest times of day (the other being 9-10am), with a constant parade of people walking and running by (plus a good few cyclists, roller-bladers and skateboarders). Based on last night's observations, it will continue to be busy until dusk, with a few people even heading out in the dark.

(*Actually, there was one other minor activity this afternoon: I climbed onto Bertie's kitchen worksurface and stuck the top half of my body through his rear skylight to inspect the solar panel. First thing this morning the leisure battery was reading lower than we would have expected (although the heating fan was on high at the time - it had been a cold night), so I wanted to check that our solar charging wasn't being hampered by dirt. It was! There was a thick layer of dust, even though I only cleaned it less than a week ago. A sponge, a couple of mugs of water and a squeegee and we're now taking full advantage of the sun again.)

Sunday 27 February - Alicante and Alcoy

Where's Bertie? He's in a big dirt car park at the end of a Via Verde on the edge of the town of Alcoy (Exact location: 38.68662, -0.49511). He spent the middle of the day in a shopping centre car park in Alicante (approx location: 38.35481, -0.47232)
Weather: Some rain overnight, and mainly overcast during the day, but dry. Temperature struggling to reach the mid-teens in Alicante and just 12 degrees in Alcoy (which is at a higher altitude).

The reason for our positioning yesterday was so as to be relatively near to Alicante today. I can't now remember why we've not been to Alicante before, but having received a recommendation from Simon & Debbie when we saw them a few days ago, we added it to our list of places to go.

Our visit didn't get off to the best of starts, with Bertie doing an impression of Goldilocks. The first car park felt too dodgy; the second was tiny and full; the third had such overgrown trees that we couldn't fit Bertie into a space. With the accommodation in the city being flats, and it being a Sunday, all of the street parking was full.

By this point Mick was ready to give up on Alicante, but as we'd gone out of our way to be there, my vote was to give one more place a try. I'd found mention of an underground car park that has a 3m height limit. We would have to pay to park there, but that seemed worthwhile for big-enough spaces and a sense of security.

Mick had just turned right onto the street when I noticed that the car park just to the left across the road also had a 3m height limit. An about-turn was performed and in we pulled to what we assumed would be a pay car park. But, no, it turned out to be a shopping centre that is, of course, closed on a Sunday. The only reason the car park is open is because the place houses one business with Sunday hours: a pharmacy. We thus felt happy abandoning Bertie there for a few hours (I say 'happy' but there was some nervous checking of Google for opening hours; we didn't want to come back to find the pharmacy, and thus the car park, closed at noon!).

Once we'd finally found a pedestrian way out of the car park, it was to the modern art museum we headed. Our out-of-date guidebook described it as the 'Museo de Arte Moderno' and made it sound like at least some of it would be up our street. When we got there we found it is now called the 'Museo d'Arte Contemporari de Alacant'. Fortunately, entry was free, because its contents were not such that we would have found any entrance fee to be value for money. Convinced that we must have been in the wrong place, I've just checked the address in the guide book; it seems the direction and emphasis of the place must have changed over the last decade.

On the plus side, if we hadn't gone there, we wouldn't have found ourselves having a pleasant walk along a street with a good view down onto the seafront promenade.

The castle was the only other place I was keen for us to visit whilst we were in the city. Goodness, even as a hill-bagger, that was a long and steep pull to get there; I can see why taking the lift is a popular option.

This doesn't do justice to how high up the castle is

Taken from half way down the other side. This doesn't do it justice either.

I think our experience of the castle (which is a sizeable place) would have been different had we been there on a week day. On a Sunday afternoon it was heaving with people and I think that contributed to my feeling that I wasn't getting a clear overall impression as to the layout and history of the place. It's not that it was a bad visit, but it could have been better.

If you know where to look (and zoom in accordingly), Bertie is in this snap.

 

Those distant hills look enticing.

Shove a big communications mast atop your local historic monument? Why not?

We made no effort to see anything else in the city, instead making our way back to Bertie for a quick late lunch before driving the 50 minutes or so NE to Alcoy.

Sunday is market day in Alcoy, a fact we only know because we drove around a barrier in the road on the way to this car park and found ourselves in the market square. Fortunately, the stalls were in the final stages of being disassembled, so a quick u-turn and exit was achieved without embarrassment.

Saturday 26 February - Ceutí, Murcia y Granja de Rocamora

Where's Bertie? He's at a free Aire at a petrol station, not far off Autovia 7, just outside the town of Granja de Rocamora. Whilst it's free to stay here, the service point costs €5 (and there's a €20 deposit on the key to the Aire's entrance gate). Exact location: 38.15432, -0.88282
Weather: Grey, cool morning, with a few shortlived sprinkles of rain. Warmer afternoon with some sunshine.

It's an easy week for me on the running calendar, so my long run wasn't very long this morning (although I suppose these things are relative; it was 16km). Having stayed at the Aires in the neighbouring towns of Lorqui, Ceutí and Archena before, I knew where I was going - along the river. My turning point was not far short of the Aire at Archena.

Plenty of water in this river. Most riverbeds we've seen thus far have been dry.

Once back at Bertie I made haste to get showered and breakfasted in good time to go out for second breakfast. A transient rain shower just as we were about to step out of the door didn't deter us, but did have us reaching for our warm jackets. A good call, as it was just 14 degrees as we sat at a pavement table for our café y tostada.

Café y tostada

When we went to that café in 2020, we questioned the bill, because we couldn't believe they were really selling two coffees and two servings of toast with toppings, for just €3*. The fact that we went there on two consecutive days with the same bill confirmed it wasn't an error. Prices are higher now, although €3.80 for the same order is still reasonable. (*Hmmm, just looked back through my camera reel from Feb 2020 and it looks like maybe we only had demi tostadas on that occasion.)

The same place also had a fine display of cakes, so as we paid the bill we chose a couple to take away and got a stick of bread too.

Yum!

We went sharsies, and agreed that the big yellow one was disappointing, with barely any flavour. The chocolate one was exactly as I'd hoped when I chose it.

There was no tarrying once we were back at Bertie and after a quick emptying of tanks, off to Murcia we went.

We stayed at the Aire at Murcia on two non-consecutive nights in 2020 (indeed, the last meal out we had pre-Covid turned out to be at the Ikea next to the Aire). It's not an attractive Aire, being in a big retail park, yet is popular with long-termers who ignore the unenforced 72-hour limit, as well as with people who want to visit Murcia. On both of our previous stays we were able to find a free slot in the Aire, although by the end of each day it was full and would overflow into the adjacent car park overnight. On this occasion there wasn't a spot to be had within the Aire and there were dozens of vans in the adjacent car park. We joined them, but only for as long as it took us to search Decathlon for the two items I was after (they had neither, so a wasted trip).

With no merit in staying put, as we had no intention of going into Murcia again (we've been three times before), we travelled the extra 20 minutes along the motorway to this place. Being a petrol station not far off the motorway, it doesn't sound enticing, but it's surprisingly nice.

Ten spaces, marked out with newly planted bushes. View of palm trees and hills in front of us.

Why would a petrol station install a facility such as this, including a secure automatic gate, and then allow people to stay for free? The only logical answer harks back to what Cathy, who we met at La Peza last week, told us: the Spanish Government is giving €40k grants to any town that wants to install a motorhome parking area.

Once here Mick was happy to fritter away the rest of the afternoon, but I felt like we'd not really done anything today (perhaps not an accurate view, on reflection!), and with a castle just 2.2km away, it seemed like a good objective for a leg-stretch.

Awful snap of the castle. Can you even see it, on top of the nearest mound?

From half way up the mound

Google's directions led us a merry dance (no Google, you can't just take us to the nearest point on a road, then put a dotted line straight up the rock to the castle!), but a short backtrack revealed the entrance to the steep access path (pretty newly laid, by appearances).

We knew that you can't access the castle itself, so only went up there for the view:

Bertie's over yonder, but behind a stand of trees

There was another couple arrived at the castle entrance within moments of us. They left a little before us, and as we started following them along the road, I began to suspect they may be our neighbours (they looked like tourists but it's not remotely a touristy town, and the only thing to see is the castle, so it stood to reason that the only non-locals who visit the castle are motorhomers). So they proved to be. They've got a good paint job on their van:

I'll finish with a slightly random snap:

As I ran along the river, I passed this section of flyover. A relatively short section, with no hint of a joining road at either end, and no hint of any ongoing work either. There was another similar piece further up the valley. I have no recollection of seeing these in 2020, but maybe they were being worked on at that point, so weren't remarkable?

(A forgotten detail from today: For runs of an hour and a half or more, I take food with me. On this trip I've been mainly having small, soft, sweet rolls slathered with homemade jam. Until today I've always cut the roll in half and put a piece in each pocket. Today I left it whole. When I came to have my first bite, I took it out of my pocket, fumbled it and threw it on the ground, where it rolled through the dirt and dust. I picked it up and examined it, but had to conclude that it was unsalvageable. Such a shame, particularly the loss of the jam (I'm half way through my last jar from last year's batch). I will be going back to cutting them in half in future!)

Friday 25 February - Ceutí

Where's Bertie? He's at an Aire in the small town of Ceutí, about 10km or so north of Murcia. He also spent three nights here in the middle of February 2020.
Weather: Some overnight rain, but not enough to leave wet ground this morning. Overcast most of the day (high of about 18 degrees), but with a few glimpses of sun this afternoon.

After 3 nights on the wasteland at San Juan de los Terreros, we were away before 9 this morning, driving a whole 2km to park outside a laundrette in town. Within the hour, everything was washed (bar the one sock that escaped the laundry round-up), dried, folded and put away, and off we went.

Given the length of drive we had ahead of us, it was negligent not to have made travel mugs of coffee whilst waiting for the laundry. What I had, however, done during that period was to write out the days that are remaining on this trip and a list of places we want to visit. It turns out that there are significantly more days than places, and although we're not going to have any trouble finding places that we don't yet know that we want to visit, I didn't get any further in the planning. For today, so as not to have too long a journey, we took the easy option of aiming for somewhere we'd been before (having visited this area twice before, we've already sampled most of the motorhome parking areas, and a fair few car parks, that lie within a short detour of the direct route through the region).

The journey was broken with a quick supermarket visit, allowing Mick to make hot drinks whilst I shopped, then to Ceutí we came.

The car park here is exactly as we remembered it: full of long-term residents who are seemingly happy to spend months sunning themselves in a car park in an industrial area of a not-very-pretty town. Each to their own.

We were impressed to see an Amazon Prime van pull in and make a delivery to one of the vans! I know we've had a take away delivered to Bertie before, but it wouldn't have occurred to me that we could have Amazon deliver to us in a car park in Spain.

A stroll was taken into town after lunch, but having done the tour of the sculpture/artwork trail previously (now described as an open-air museum), there was nothing cultural for us to do here (if you want to see a selection of the art we saw here previously, Click Here to see my post from 2020). Our main objective was to establish that the café/pastelería we liked is still in business (it is).

Arriving back to the Aire we decided to put some water into Bertie's tank using the labour intensive method of carrying bottles from the service point to pour in via a funnel and hose, rather than moving Bertie to the service point (or indeed, waiting until tomorrow, when the facility may or may not be busy when we want to use it). It gave us a bit more exercise, and we weren't short of time.

I then set about fixing a couple of things. The blind in Bertie's door broke last November, and just before this trip I effected a fix*, but last night that fix failed. The cause of the failure was obvious, so today's fix is more robust, and was quick to effect. The other issue was that the bathroom door handle was coming loose. My problem with that fix is that the allen keys I have with us are part of a penknife-style set, and the 'body' holding the set together was too big to allow me access to the grub screw I needed to tighten. I clearly needed to remove just the one allen key, but to do that I needed an allen key... A bit of fiddling around finally got it released and, for now, the bathroom door handle is back in a secure state.

Talking about shoddy fixes, I don't think I've ever seen a door patched up in a more 'cartoon style' way!

^{(*that isn't to say that I entirely fixed the blind. My fix involved four shirt buttons, a cable tie, and the sewing of one bit of cord to another. I know how to fix it properly, but I just can't work out how to remove one of the parts I need to access. Before we came away, I also made a removable curtain for that window, so we always have that to fall back on.)}

Thursday 24 February - San Juan de los Terreros

Where's Bertie? He's still on the patch of wasteland at San Juan de los Terreros. He's the Billy-no-mates van on the left of this snap:

Weather: A few high clouds in the morning; sunny in the afternoon. Warm, particularly when out of the wind and in the sun.

We went to a castle when it was open! Our entrance tickets say 'El castillo San Juan de los Terreros', but 'castle' is a grand description of such a small fortification.

The northernmost of 13 fortifications built in line-of-sight along the coast.

Looking north up the coast

and south

It comprises a terrace, a roof terrace and three small rooms of exhibitions. Given that almost the same views can be seen from various places outside of the castle, the only good reason to go in is for the virtual tour of 'la Geoda del Pila de Jaravia'.

Here's a bit of the description of la Geoda taken from the mine's website:

"In December 1999, members from Madrid’s Mineralogist Group discovered Pulpí’s Geode in Mina Rica, a colossal mineral geode measuring 8 metres length times 2 metres height fully covered in huge gypsum crystals. It’s upholstered with gypsum crystals, some of them measuring 2 metres long. Its transparency and spotlessness make it a wonder of nature. Given its dimensions as well its crytals size, transparency and perfection, this is a unique phenomenon worldwide."

As we won't be visiting the mine in person (few slots available over the next few days, and €22 per head), the virtual tour was the next best alternative.

Arriving at the castle, having negotiated the steep entrance road in the company of a stray dog that *really* wanted to play and communicated that by running around us barking, we were informed that entrance to the castle was free today, but that there was a €1 fee if we wanted to do the virtual mine tour.

We were the only visitors (for the whole time we were there), so the receptionist led us straight into the Virtual Reality room, gave us hair covers to don and then fitted us with some VR googles and earphones. Then started the VR tour, which was absolutely excellent. It was an effort to remember that we were, in fact, sitting on office chairs on a solid floor, as it felt like we were moving through the mine, able to look 360 degrees around us, with our virtual headlight beams moving accordingly. The whole tour was only 7 minutes long, but well worth while.

The rest of the tour of the castle only took as long as it did because I wanted to get the gist of some of the exhibits and whilst my ability to read in Spanish is improving, I'm very slow.

Walking the 4km back to Bertie (we could have driven closer, but it was a nice day for a walk), we were tempted to stop for café y tostada, but with bread in Bertie from yesterday's bread van, that needs eating before it goes stale, we resisted.

This afternoon we've walked a few kilometres the other way along the coast, where there's a big urbanizacion development under construction. Neither of us was much taken with the appearance of the place - too many buildings that all look identical, even down to the plants in the window boxes. The walkway that has been installed in front is, however, pleasant, and allowed us to complete a loop, having walked out along the compressed-earth track alongside the beach.

As tempting as it is to stick around here until the fiesta for Andalusia Day on Monday, we feel like we ought to move on tomorrow. I spent a good chunk of time this morning looking at options as to where to go next and drew no conclusions, so I suspect we won't come up with a plan until about a minute before we leave tomorrow.

Wednesday 23 February - San Juan de los Terreros

Where's Bertie? He's still on the bit of wasteland at San Juan de los Terreros.
Weather: Lightly overcast, with the lack of sun making it feel much cooler (a long trousers day for me).

I had a semi-excellent run this morning. My fastest 5km since the incident with my foot at Halloween. It wasn't completely excellent as I finished with a bit of a sore calf. Not sure that doing hilly trails on a Tuesday and efforts on a Wednesday is working entirely well for me!

Fountain of the day, snapped mid-run

I was nearly back at Bertie (at a walk, because bad planning had my 5km finish a good 1km away, and with the sore calf, walking seemed like the sensible return method) when I saw a bread van pulling out of the adjacent bit of wasteland. I was just about to send a quick text to Mick to warn him to get out of bed ready to buy, when the van turned in the opposite direction. It turned out the van had visited our area first, and Mick had got out of bed in time. The resulting chocolatines were enormous. We went sharsies, saving the second one for tomorrow.

Chocolatine on steroids? 

Food featured again a while later when we met up with Simon & Debbie to have a second bash at lunch at the restaurant 100m away from Bertie. I'm glad we only ordered starters!

Lunch.

Late this afternoon, into this evening, as I type this, we have a game of petanque going on outside of Bertie. This is pleasing! I mentioned a while ago that Germans are the dominant nationality of motorhomes in Spain this year, rather than French. Whereas previously the clank of boules has been a common occurrence wherever we've been parked, this is only the second time on this trip when we've seen a match in progress.

The players are housed in 3 vans who arrived in convoy earlier and snuggled themselves up (not indecently close) to Bertie. Mick was a little indignant when they first arrived, as the woman directing the drivers into position placed one of the vans behind us such that it would have been difficult for us to leave. Fortunately the driver (after a period of gesticulation that made the content of the discussion clear) pointed out the problem with where she had put him and corrected the error.

Within minutes of arrival they had two tables (with tablecloths) out for a communal lunch, and now they are continuing the stereotypical Frenchness with the petanque. Mick is rather enjoying spectating from the comfort of Bertie's lounge. They're all now wrapped up warm, but with the light fading out of the day, I don't think they'll be playing much longer.

Sugar sachets, pandemic edition. 

Tuesday 23 February - San Juan de los Terreros

Where's Bertie? He's on a patch of wasteland (rather a nice patch, as wasteland goes) adjacent to Playa de Entrevista, on the edge of San Juan de los Terreros (exact location: 37.35062, -1.68181)
Weather: wall-to-wall sunshine. Cold start in La Peza, but warm afternoon on the coast.

Having surveyed the elevation profiles of the two hills I had the option to run up this morning, I chose the one behind Bertie (150m ascent versus 200m; I am inherently lazy!). Waking to a temperature of 8 degrees inside Bertie was an indication that it had been a chilly night, and as I stepped outside I reconsidered my options. My intended hill was in the shade, whereas the other option was in the sunshine. Figuring the climb would soon warm me up, I stuck with the plan ... for a whole 100m, until I noticed that a snarling dog behind a fence wasn't being kept in by a closed gate.

My general experience in Spain is that dogs out on the streets without a lead (whether with a person or not) will completely ignore you. Dogs behind fences will bark and/or snarl agressively - but that's fine because they're locked in. I felt reasonably confident that this dog would run to the end of the driveway then stop, having reached the end of its territory, but the chance that it wouldn't was just enough to cause me to think that the sunny route was the right one to take after all.

I have no idea what I missed on the originally intended route, but the one I ended up taking was lovely.

Views. I don't think the snow-capped mountains really show on the second photo, but they were perfectly visible to the naked eye.

Back at Bertie, Mick was up and largely packed away, so once I'd breakfasted and after a visit to the service point (and another chat with Cathy and her husband - a couple of British full-timers), off we went for another lengthy drive (200km today).

We started by heading 2km in the wrong direction. Bertie was in desperate need of diesel and that is where lay the nearest petrol station. He could have made it to Guadix but: 1) Mick was eager to get to the coast, so I'd written off our visit there; and 2) having not spent any money in the town that had given us a night in such a good Aire, using a local independent fuel station was the right thing to do. It was a bonus, when we got there, to find that their fuel was 8-10c cheaper than the norm. (As is common, the fuel station also doubles as a restaurant, so as the attendand filled up Bertie I sat and observed a man sitting having a coffee and a cigarette on Bertie's other side; smoking, on a petrol station forecourt, is not something that seems to raise an eyebrow here.)

The impressive road engineering I mentioned yesterday, in between La Peza and Autovia 92.

A few hours later, with a stop for lunch en-route, we arrived in San Juan de los Terreros, a place chosen because we had a honeymoon to gatecrash. A friend of Mick's got married just before Christmas and has been honeymooning in San Juan for the last two months. Being now in the final week of that trip, we had an imperative to make haste to the coast to catch the happy couple before they headed home to France. The meet-up also allowed us to offload the 1200 Yorkshire teabags we had for them as a wedding gift (the fact that they live in France being the reason why this was an appropriate and appreciated gift; it would perhaps have been a strange thing to choose for someone who lives in, say, Harrogate).

View along the beach next to which Bertie is parked (although he's right at the back of the wasteland, so doesn't have a view)

The wasteland upon which we have parked (along with a whole collection of other vans, who seem, currently, to be well tolerated hereabouts) is only a hundred metres from the bar where we'd arranged to meet. The problem was that, by the time we'd met up, had drinks and surveyed the menu and chosen, it was firmly in that window between lunchtime and tea time (that being, in Spain, between 4pm and 8pm). "The kitchen is closed" was the response to our request to order (pity they didn't mention that when we'd asked for the menu!).

Having walked the couple of kilometres into town (via a drink and quick snackette at Simon and Debbie's villa), we were just going to give up on food when one of the bars suggested somewhere that would be serving tapas. Their directions were followed, and we were just going to give up on finding the place when we came upon it. A small bar on the ground floor of a block of flats, it had a distinctly local feel to it.

They also reported their kitchen to be closed, but showed us the tapas options that were available in two chiller cabinets on the bar. They looked good! They were good!

Not the best shot, but I often take these snaps just to remind me what we did on any one day

Whilst the afternoons are warm, and objectively the evening wasn't cold, after a few hours of sitting still outdoors (albeit in a semi-enclosed gazebo), I was uncomfortably cool by the time we left the bar at approaching 9pm (sunset is 7pm).

Fortunately the route back to Bertie wasn't difficult, even in the dark. As long as we kept close to the sea, we would eventually spot some motorhomes and know where we were.

As for San Juan, it seems like a nice place. I'm not sure how much of it we will see, as tomorrow will feature more eating and catching up, rather than sight-seeing.

Monday 21 February - La Peza

Where's Bertie? He's at a free Aire overlooking the village of La Peza, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, to the east of Granada (exact location: 37.27530, -3.28179)
Weather: A few high clouds when we left Seville, but clear skies further east. High of 18 degrees.

I lay in bed this morning and contemplated the question of 'to shower or not to shower'. Even though the available facilities were less than inviting, it seemed somehow wrong to give up the opportunity for a mains-water shower. After a back-and-forth intercranial battle, I threw a towel and soap into a bag and off I went in the pre-sunrise darkness.

I was so quick that I was back at Bertie almost before I'd left. The water temperature wasn't the issue today, but rather that to access the shower I'd had to walk through a waiting room full of transporter drivers. With no locking door between the shower and that reception area, and no door (or even curtain) on the shower cubicle itself, not to mention the clear glass window on the wall opposite (albeit someone would have to be rather tall to see through it), I didn't find it conducive to lingering.

After breakfast, and once Mick had levered his aching quads from the bed, there seemed little point in hanging around, particularly given the length of drive we had ahead of us (300km). Duties were reassigned from the norm (I emptied the toilet whilst Mick paid our bill), a quick stop at Aldi was had (me: shopping; Mick: using the recycling bins in the adjacent road to get rid of the three bags of recyclables we had amassed in Bertie's boot), then eastwards we headed.

The route was straightforward: stay on the A92, although not to Guadix, which had been my original thought as to a destination for today. You may recall that we nearly visited Guadix on our journey south last month, but turned around just a few kilometres short, based on the weather. However, the motorhome parking in Guadix didn't look promising for a quiet night, and in the interests of Mick recovering quickly from his marathon (he's got another training plan to start in 2 weeks' time), a quiet location was appealing. I came up with two options, one of which was on the way to the other.

Stopping at the first (roadside parking next to a large dam), we thought we were going to stay until I decided that La Peza sounded like it might be the more interesting option. A good call! The Aire here is new and nice, sitting looking over the village of La Peza.

The Aire, complete with brand new street furniture and picnic benches.

View from in front of Bertie

I immediately fancied walking up to the top of the nobble opposite, so pencilled that in for tomorrow morning. In the meantime, I left Mick with his head in his book and took myself off for a walk around.

It's an interesting place (in a completely non-touristy sort of way) in that there are bits of the town that have clearly received investment (and the road here is an impressive bit of engineering, cutting straight through the undulations of the landscape), but there's an above average number of abandoned houses. Or maybe the number of abandoned houses isn't that high, but it's just they're more eye-catching here for the number that have fallen completely to ruin.

On the left - one of many examples of buildings beyond salvage

I liked the optimistic 'se vende' sign on the front of this one

I was on my way back to Bertie, when this sculpture caught my eye...

...if you're viewing on a big screen (or otherwise zoom in) you may be able to see the three old chaps sitting on benches on the other side of the road, left of shot. The sun was obviously troubling them and two of them were holding up what looked like the lids off pizza boxes to shield their eyes.

I'd like to blame my preoccupation with the sculpture for the fact that I then took a wrong turn. I thought I was returning to Bertie, but instead found myself at the castle ruins on top of the nobble that I'd pencilled in for tomorrow. That gave me half an hour of entertainment, as I made my way around the site testing out my Spanish by trying to understand all of the information signs.

View from the castle. Bertie is in shot on the left; snow capped hills peeking into shot on the right.

Whilst I had an intersting afternoon, I concede that this wasn't the best possible location for Mick's current purposes. His legs aren't appreciating downhill today, so he's had to make do with my descriptions of the place.

Sunday 20 February - Seville

Where's Bertie? Slightly to his surprise, he's still at the Aire in Seville.
Weather: Less cloud than forecast and warmer too.

Six years ago today we visited the archaeological museum in Seville, on our way stumbling across the Seville Marathon in progress. The seed of taking part was planted in Mick's head, and with his age marching rapidly towards 70 he decided that if he was going to break his marathon PB (set in 2010), then he needed to get on with it, and why not in Seville?

Of course, there was the small hiccough of Covid, such that when Mick bought his entry last October we didn't know for certain that we would be able to get here, but travel restrictions seemed to have calmed down enough for us to have a reasonable level of optimism. Then along came Omicron and the ban on tourism to France combined with all ferries to Spain being booked up to the gunwhales. Mick continued diligently to train, but as the French border closure dragged on, our optimism waivered. We knew that we could leave home in the middle of February and still get here in time, but also knew that it would be less than ideal not to have any time to acclimatise to the temperature. Would we have jumped on a plane had push come to shove? Probably not.

Anyway, today was marathon day, we were in the right city, and all that lay between Mick and his medal was the small matter of 42.2km of running (or 43, if you don't take the racing line...).

Daylight was barely seeping into the day as we stepped out of Bertie this morning, but we could already hear the sound system in action at the start/finish line (I bet that delighted everyone at the Aire who thought they were going to get a Sunday lie-in). I suppose it wasn't very far away as the crow flies, but was 2.5km by road.

We joined the hordes heading to the start, where with 15 minutes until the gun I waved Mick off to find his starting pen. By good fortune, he had thought to activate the 'Live Tracking' function on his watch, which made the rest of my day much easier. Instead of standing on various streets wondering if I'd missed him, and having to stare intently at the passing runners the whole time, I could take a look at my phone and see exactly where he was. 

Live tracking - a most handy thing!

Thus, I spent my day variously cycling and walking around the city to stand on various street corners to cheer him on. Whilst there were crowds of people milling around that I had to weave my way through, most of the roads in the city had been closed to motorised traffic, making junctions quicker to cross (although I noted that many people still waited for the green man, even where the roads were closed), and giving the option of doing things like riding up the wrong side of dual carriageways.

Looking relaxed and happy at 12km in

The first time I saw Mick was at 12km, when (as you'd hope!) he was looking relaxed and happy. The second time was at 22km when he said he was struggling a bit with a tight muscle in his groin. When I saw him again only a few kilometres later I could see he was leaning to one side. This was not good! I'm not sure my words of encouragement were overly helpful ("Only 20km to go!", "Just 3 parkruns to go!" "You're looking much better than lots of people I've seen" (the latter was not a lie)).

Probably the best part of the course, as it takes a little looping detour around the fountain at the Plaza de España

Alas, for the second half of the course he had to stop at increasingly frequent intervals to stretch the cramping groin, which scuppered him from achieving the time for which he was aiming. On the plus side: 1) he finished! What a star!; 2) he felt a lot better at the end than he did last time he ran a marathon; 3) He *didn't* go out too fast; 4) His calf held out!! (this is worthy of more exclamation marks, but I shall be restrained); 5) He ate enough that he didn't lack energy at any point. In fact, he reports that cardiovascularly and muscularly (save for the groin) he felt fine.

It was getting a bit warm by the time he finished.

The finisher approaches, finishers' goody-bag in hand and medal around his neck.

His chip time was 5:00:48.

When, within five minutes of him finishing, I said that he just needs to sort out the groin, do some strength work in that area to prevent a repeat and come back and give it another go next year, he didn't either dismiss the idea or say that he would think about it later. I have every confidence that if he can get through both training and the marathon without injury, he can still beat his 12-year old PB.

I lent him the bike to get back to Bertie.

The rest of the day has mainly involved eating and drinking (for both of us; I severely undercatered for my own food and drink today), and whilst we had planned to leave Seville this afternoon, purely for the ease of driving out of the city in the quiet of a Sunday, when it came to it neither of us could be moved to move. We will, however, be off in the morning. We've a rendezvous 500km away in a few days' time.