Where's Bertie? He's at a commercial Aire in a car park a couple of kilometres along the beach from the old town at Peñíscola. For a vehicle of Bertie's length, it costs €8.40 per 24 hours to stay here. Exact location: 40.37890, 0.40549.
Weather: Sunshine until late afternoon when some cloud reduced us to just sunny intervals.
We woke this morning to a clear sky. This was surprising as both of the weather forecasts I use (YR and BBC) told me that it was raining and that we would have sunshine and showers all day. They'd also told me that the temperature would drop to 4 degrees overnight, which also wasn't the case.
Leaving Mick to have his breakfast, make my breakfast and get Bertie ready to travel, I set out on foot to visit either a reservoir, or to a hermitage, the decision to be made en-route. The latter won, although it proved not to be an overly interesting bit of mid-run touristing.
I'd seen photos of another hermitage in the area that's an old ruin, so my expectations were based on the photos I'd seen of that one. This one was older than it looked (18th century), and still in use.
Other morning views
Back at Bertie we were soon on our way, first to a supermarket, then to Peñíscola. Our route from Onda to the motorway was the same as our inward route, but in the intervening few days we'd forgotten about the major feature of that road: it has two roundabouts per kilometre - for 7 km. Tedious driving, and we were pleased to reach the motorway.
The road at this end of the journey was a different prospect, being a narrow, quite busy, lane. It must see lots of motorhomes though, most much bigger than Bertie, as along it lie two campsites, both of which looked to be full. I had faith that the Aire (which lies nearer to both the beach and the town) would have space at the time we were arriving (just before lunch), and sure enough it did. In fact, it was far nearer to empty than full, and even though plenty more vans have arrived since, there's no prospect of it becoming full tonight. Why does it lack the popularity of the campsites? No doubt because it is just parking with a service point, and thus doesn't offer the facilities of those places (some of which are only a few Euro per night more).
With the sun still shining after lunch, off along the beachfront promenade we went:
It's a huge beach. This is the 4km of sand to the north of where Bertie's parked.
Looking in the other direction, there's the headland on which Peñíscola old town is situated (not entirely clear today; air quality hasn't been great).
Getting closer...
The old town is a rather nice place through which to wander, although I failed to capture that fact in a snap...
Poor attempt
...and as you'd probably noticed from the photo 2 above, it has a castle atop it. We took ourselves up there, only to decide that if we did want to pay to go inside, then tomorrow would be the better time, rather than feeling rushed late this afternoon.
So, we just wandered a bit more, reading various information signs both about the history of the place and about films/TV that have been filmed here...
Both sites used in Game of Thrones, apparently.
...then we wandered back to Bertie. Even though it had clouded over by the time we returned, my opinion, in hindsight was that shorts and sandals would have been more appropriate attire than jeans and trainers. The weather forecasts were also wrong about the temperature today.
Peñíscola has been on our 'must go there' list for a few years and is where we were headed next in mid-March 2020 when Covid caused us to change plans and scurry home. In spite of it being on our 'must go' list, I knew nothing of the place on arrival, and thus was surprised to find, extending along the coast from the old town, a significant holiday resort, with lots of beach-front hotels (interspersed with apartment blocks) rather than the usual Spanish-second-home places where we so often find ourselves. It must be heaving here in summer, but at this time of year (in common with the smaller second-home type resorts), most businesses and properties appear to be shut up, awaiting the new season.
Weather: Sunshine until late afternoon when some cloud reduced us to just sunny intervals.
We woke this morning to a clear sky. This was surprising as both of the weather forecasts I use (YR and BBC) told me that it was raining and that we would have sunshine and showers all day. They'd also told me that the temperature would drop to 4 degrees overnight, which also wasn't the case.
Leaving Mick to have his breakfast, make my breakfast and get Bertie ready to travel, I set out on foot to visit either a reservoir, or to a hermitage, the decision to be made en-route. The latter won, although it proved not to be an overly interesting bit of mid-run touristing.
Back at Bertie we were soon on our way, first to a supermarket, then to Peñíscola. Our route from Onda to the motorway was the same as our inward route, but in the intervening few days we'd forgotten about the major feature of that road: it has two roundabouts per kilometre - for 7 km. Tedious driving, and we were pleased to reach the motorway.
The road at this end of the journey was a different prospect, being a narrow, quite busy, lane. It must see lots of motorhomes though, most much bigger than Bertie, as along it lie two campsites, both of which looked to be full. I had faith that the Aire (which lies nearer to both the beach and the town) would have space at the time we were arriving (just before lunch), and sure enough it did. In fact, it was far nearer to empty than full, and even though plenty more vans have arrived since, there's no prospect of it becoming full tonight. Why does it lack the popularity of the campsites? No doubt because it is just parking with a service point, and thus doesn't offer the facilities of those places (some of which are only a few Euro per night more).
With the sun still shining after lunch, off along the beachfront promenade we went:
The old town is a rather nice place through which to wander, although I failed to capture that fact in a snap...
...and as you'd probably noticed from the photo 2 above, it has a castle atop it. We took ourselves up there, only to decide that if we did want to pay to go inside, then tomorrow would be the better time, rather than feeling rushed late this afternoon.
So, we just wandered a bit more, reading various information signs both about the history of the place and about films/TV that have been filmed here...
...then we wandered back to Bertie. Even though it had clouded over by the time we returned, my opinion, in hindsight was that shorts and sandals would have been more appropriate attire than jeans and trainers. The weather forecasts were also wrong about the temperature today.
Peñíscola has been on our 'must go there' list for a few years and is where we were headed next in mid-March 2020 when Covid caused us to change plans and scurry home. In spite of it being on our 'must go' list, I knew nothing of the place on arrival, and thus was surprised to find, extending along the coast from the old town, a significant holiday resort, with lots of beach-front hotels (interspersed with apartment blocks) rather than the usual Spanish-second-home places where we so often find ourselves. It must be heaving here in summer, but at this time of year (in common with the smaller second-home type resorts), most businesses and properties appear to be shut up, awaiting the new season.
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