We decided to take advantage of Sunday to cover some miles towards Amsterdam. In Europe commercial trucks require a special (and expensive) permit to operate on Sundays so there are almost no trucks on the freeways. It makes for a good day to cover distance as we are one of the slowest vehicles on the road and I can run on cruise control for long stretches of the drive.
Another reason was the weather was kind of gray, and for the first time in 6 weeks we ran into a couple of rain showers. We selected the town of Denia to travel towards for no other reason than it was about the right distance north and had a good campground.
Most of our trip was on the A-7 which follows the Mediterranean coast. As we were driving there was about a 100 kilometer stretch where the fields on both sides of the freeway as far as you can see are covered in white plastic. The plastic covers hydroponic farms. This is the source of most of the tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers for Europe. Before the advent of the hydroponic farms this area was considered too dry for agriculture. It is one of the man made objects that can be seen clearly from space, and is referred to by NASA as the sea of plastic.
As we were driving we saw signs for a city called Benidorm. Neither of us had heard of it and didn’t expect much. To our surprise it turned out to be a city of skyscrapers. It is a major vacation destination for Europeans and caters to a middle class consumer with all inclusive stays and other affordable options. Some of the skyscrapers were quite interesting. We are constantly learning how little we know.
As we were driving Ton did some research on Denia and it turns out it is a UNESCO Cultural site for its cuisine. So it is our kind of town. It is also renown for its hiking and bird watching. We still have a little slack in our schedule so we decided after some discussion to stay another day here.
I had to talk Ton into a walk along the beach today as it was a little chilly. But once she got to the beach she enjoyed our walk along a nice promenade. There were a lot of good photo opportunities and she extended the walk far beyond what I intended.
While the town did not make a good first impression on us, the beach front near the campground is giving us hope that the center of town will be nicer than the suburbs we drove thru to get here.
