Category: Spain

Travels in Spain

May 9, 2022 Gijon SP

We were really enjoying Santander and were somewhat reluctant to leave even though we need to get moving towards Galicia and Portugal, so we compromised by deciding to go to the market here, and doing our driving in the afternoon.

Our destination for the morning the market in downtown Santander. We didn’t realize it involved a 4oo foot climb and then descent to get here.

They have one of the old markets here in town that includes fresh fruit, meat, and fish stalls. Ton really loves these markets, so we decided to head there for the morning. Ton always asks how far things are away when we are walking, and Google maps told me it was 1.8 kilometers which is not too bad.

What Google maps didn’t show was it was 1 km straight up a steep hill, and .8 km down the same steep hill. It was a pretty invigorating way to start the day, but we eventually made it there.

A meat stall, you can tell this is Spain by all of the hams hanging. The Spanish love their ham.

A lot of these old cast iron marketplaces have been turned into major tourist attractions, with more tourists than locals looking at the wares for sale. But the one in Santander is not on the tourist itinerary. I would guess we were the only non-locals in the place. It is a little worn down, but we did enjoy browsing around looking at the different cuts of meat, and interesting vegetables.

Cheese selection, luckily for us you can tell the type of cheese by the animal on the label.

On the way down the hill I had noticed on one road they had embedded escalators in the sidewalk to move you up the hill, so on the return trip to François we rode most of the way up the hill on an out door escalator. Ton thought this was brilliant.

Thanks to the city government of Santander for the moving sidewalk on our return trip uphill.

Our destination today was based on traveling a good distance, and we selected a campground based on convenient access to the freeway. Greta struggled to find the entrance to the campground, but after some circling and a short dash down a narrow ally we arrived, just in time for a late Spanish lunch.

Todays 3 course lunch set us back €10 each. Again when asked what we wanted to drink with it we asked for red wine expecting a glass, and again today we received a bottle. So for €20 for the two of us we received a 3 course meal consisting of a seafood soup, or a ham salad as the starters. Calamari or a pork cutlet for the main course, and cheesecake or ice cream for desert, plus a bottle of water, a bottle of wine, and a coffee. I’m not sure where you could get a deal like that at home.

The starters for our €10 lunch.

This is cider country also, and while we were eating we noticed everyone else had cider with their meal. In Asturia you pour the cider by holding the bottle at arms length from the glass as you pour it. We were guessing it was to aerate the cider, but it just might be a cool thing to do.

A couple of local ciders.

Ton found a cidery near the campground we can visit, so we decided to spend another day in the area to check iy out. In the evening we went down to the bar at the campground where I tried pouring the cider at arms length, most of it made the glass.

As we were walking back to François for the night we ran into an Irish couple we had exchanged Holas and then Hellos with earlier. They waved us over for a chat, and the next thing we new it was 11pm, and we had made new friends while solving many of the worlds problems.

May 8, 2022 Santander SP

We enjoyed our break in Orio but it was time to move on. After a couple of days of debate we decided to head to Santander as it looked interesting to both of us. The drive was uneventful, though the Autoway thru the mountains was very impressive with several long tunnels thru mountains.

Ton loved the colors in this little lagoon.

Our parking app warned us that the very well located aire here fills up early, and they were right. When we arrived there were only 2 spots available out of 24. After a quick break to finish our coffee we headed into town.

A statue to Neptuno Nino (baby Neptune) off the beach in Santander.

In a country of great beach side promenades, we think Santanders might be the best we have seen. The area behind the beach that is usually filled with hotels and expensive condos is a park here. So not only do you have the view of the beach but you have trees and various art projects on the shore side of the promenade. Combined with glorious weather this was one of the best walks we have taken.

One of the 4 beaches we strolled along today.

At the end of the beach on a bluff overlooking the harbor is an old royal palace with its grounds intact. We climbed to the top to take in a super view of the coast with cliffs down to the sea, and long beaches in between the cliffs. Ton mentioned that this place does not seem to get the international visitors that the Mediterranean beaches get and she can’t figure out why, though I suspect it has something to do with the weather.

More days like this and all of the foreigners will show up in this part of Spain too.

Having put in a good walk we decided we would treat ourselves to our first big meal of the trip, and settled on a 3 course set piece lunch. At first we were dealing in Spanish, and when he asked us what we wanted I answered in Spanish that I wanted a beer and Ton wanted a red wine. The waiter came back with a small beer for me, but a full bottle of wine for Ton! He must of knew it was mothers day in the US. Later in the meal Ton saw a cask on the wall and asked me what I thought it was and I told her it looked like vermouth. The manager/owner saw our interest and confirmed it was vermouth and asked if she wanted one. Ton laughed and pointed at her wine bottle, so he decided to pour her a sample which was half a wine glass. When all was said and done we had a three course meal, a beer, a vermouth, and a bottle of wine for €40, which was the advertised price, so all of the alcohol was included for no extra charge. This is the Spain we remember and love.

The old Royal Palace overlooking Santander.

After lunch was done we weren’t up for much besides a rest, so we headed back to François for a well deserved siesta. While I was resting both of the boys called Ton to wish her a happy mothers day.

May 7, 2022 Orio SP

Today is going to be short and sweet. We decided to take advantage of the excellent facilities here at Orio Kanpina to take care of some chores. So today consisted of cleaning the inside of François, and wash our clothes.

Ton liked this Basque fellow in town.

The highlight of the day was a trip into town to pick up a light load of groceries. Otherwise we spent the remainder of the day lounging around watching the Spanish families enjoying their weekend, and watching movies on Netflix.

May 6, 2022 Orio SP

We picked Orio for our destination because we like the campground, but also because it is a convenient place to visit San Sebastian-Donostia. This is our second time here, last time San Sebastian was one of our surprises of Spain. Neither of us had really heard much about it, and we really enjoyed it. It was our first exposure to the Basque Pinxtos, which are small bite sized sandwiches which we really enjoyed. Ton remembers the Pinxtos in San Sebastian as the best she had in Spain. Ton often says that the real test of a place is if the second visit is as good as the memories of the first. We were going to test that today.

The harbor at San Sebastian-Donostia.

The weather was much better than forecast so that was a good first step in the test. The stroll down to the waterfront was pleasant, and the beach was pretty, though less crowded than last time because it is about 15 degrees cooler. To make up for the lack of crowds there was some cool beach art in the sand. Our primary target for the day was the old town and Pinxtos. We spent about an hour exploring the old town looking for the perfect Pinxto spot. The old town here has a very nice character and is a great place to stroll and people watch. We enjoyed ourselves, and both of us noticed that for the first time since we left Paris, we heard other Americans as we walked down the street.

We really liked strolling around the streets of the old town searching for the perfect Pinxtos bar.

The place we settled on for Pinxtos did not disappoint. The big change from last time is that they no longer put the Pinxtos right on the bar and you go along and pick what you want self-service. Now they are under plexiglass, and someone has to pick them for you. We assume this is because of covid.

The entrance to our Pinxtos bar, it was as delicious as we remembered.

The bottom line on San Sebastian, is that it passed the second visit test. We were not as aggressive in our plans as the first trip when we explored both sides of the river, and climbed the hill above town to the fort. But, we enjoyed strolling through downtown and the old town, and the Pinxtos were still delicious.

The church in the old town of San Sebastian. Ton took the street photo above with the Cathedral in the background from the steps of this church.

Mission accomplished we headed back to the campground. What a difference a day makes. When we left the campground it was mostly empty. Today is Friday and when we got back from our trip to San Sebastian the place was rapidly filling with Spanish families. By the end of the evening the place was nearly full. There is a live band playing on the beach, the population has gone from mostly seniors, to young families with kids, and all of the grills at the campground are going full tilt at 9pm.

Cool street art in Orio, the scales of the fish are Sardine cans, and the gold heads and tails of the fish are from the tops of the sardine cans.

We are enjoying it, so we are planning to spend another day to enjoy the weekend scene.

May 5, 2022, Orio SP

In honor of Cinco de Mayo we decided to move to a Spanish speaking country. The next stop on our plan is Galicia in Northern Spain. Last night we had a debate as to whether to get on the road and jump down to Spain where rain is forecast for the next couple of days, or stay in the Bourdeaux region in France where the weather is supposed to be perfect. After a lot of debate Spain won.

François departing Chateau Marquis de Vauban.

The drive today was about 330km’s that was uneventful. It took a little longer than planned because we ran into a full on urban traffic jam getting around Bourdeaux. It took roughly an hour to cover about 18km’s (12 miles). After getting out of Bourdeaux our route followed the A63 which is like an interstate, but with tolls. The key is that it is only tolled in some areas. So Greta would jump on the A63 when it was free and then have us use local roads that ran parallel when it was tolled. By doing that it saved us €27 in tolls over about 200km’s. Just as I congratulated her for doing a good job, she suddenly decided to route us right thru the heart of Bayonne and Biarritz where we slowed down to a crawl. When I chastised her for her bad judgement, she retorted that if I wasn’t such a cheap skate and willing to pay a toll we would be tooling down the A63 at 95kph instead of crawling thru Biarritz at 15kph.

A nice side road in France on our trip to Spain today.

We arrived in Orio Spain about 3pm. We are in a campground that we had fond memories from our first trip to Spain. It is a small town with a nice beach and a relatively modern city center. The old town is quite small and completely dominated by modern buildings and infrastructure all around it. Despite that we enjoy the vibe of the place.

One of our favorite things about Spain is the sense of family and community you see when everyone comes out in the evening for a stroll and conversation.

This is Basque country thru and thru. There are virtually no Spanish signs in town. The conversations are again almost exclusively in Basque, even amongst the children and walking around town we heard as much English as Spanish being spoken. Basque is a tongue twister of a language and Ton and I had fun trying to pronounce the names on the signs.

Ton said the laundry on the balconies reminded her of Hong Kong. The sign is for a fruit stand.

Catalonia

This section covers Barcelona and the area around it.  Once again another city we really enjoyed, it seems to be a pattern for us in Spain.

October 31, 2018 Mataro SP

The problem with traveling during shoulder season is the weather is unpredictable.  It has been a wet October in Spain, and it culminated with today.  When we checked the weather last night they predicted a very large storm with possible flash floods, high winds and thunderstorms.  It was supposed to last all day.  Our original thoughts were to begin moving north towards France by bounding up the coast to Roses.  But when we checked the weather there it was actually supposed to be worst than Mataros.  Eventually we decided to hunker down for the day.

This picture is recycled as the weather did not allow us to get anything nice today.

Unfortunately the weatherman got it right and it was spectacularly bad weather all day.  We were a little surprised that so many people were choosing to leave when the weather was so bad, and we were beginning to think we were wimps for not carrying on with our plans.  It turns out we did not know that today was the last day the campground was open this year and everyone has to be out by tomorrow morning.

We were going a little stir crazy so we decided to see if the campground had anything planned for the evening, and they did, a wine tasting.  We signed up and it became the highlight of our day.  The tasting was by a local winery in Mataro, and there were only 6 people at the tasting, two English couples and us.  Laura the representative from the winery had brought 4 wines to taste.  She did a great job of explaining the characteristics of the wine from Mataro, and the wines were quite good.  During the tasting we struck up a conversation with one of the English couples , and at the end of the tasting Laura surprised us by putting the 4 bottles in the center of the table and told us we were free to finish them, not knowing this we had also purchased a wine from them, so the 4 of us had the duty of finishing off 5 bottles of wine.  Lyndsey and her husband  John were kind enough to invite us over for supper so we could have some food with the wine.  It turned into a fun night, and it was nearly 1am when we made it to bed having done our duty and finished off all of the wine.  Thanks for the exceptional hospitality Lyndsey and John.

October 30, 2018 Barcelona SP

Today we planned a second trip into Barcelona.  The primary purpose was to visit the interior of the Sagarda Familia, much like the Alhambra visitors are limited per day, and you have to register in advance to get a time to visit.  When we returned to the campground on Sunday we signed up for the next available spot and it turned out to be at 4:45 PM today.

Today was by far the nicest day of our visit to Barcelona with clear blue skies, though it was still on the chilly side.  We took the first bus into town as we wanted to spend some time in the markets at Barcelona.  They have two markets and we (particularly Ton) really enjoy poking around in the markets to look at the different food products.  We also used the time to look around the old town.  We pretty much just wandered around looking at churches, stores, and people.  Barcelona is now the third or fourth most visited city in Europe, depending on who is counting, so there is quite a lot to see. The shopping is diverse and interesting.

The entrance to the Market.
A fruit and vegetable display complete with jack o lanterns, here in Spain they attach tape to the exterior of the pumpkin to make the face.

We have become addicted to Pinxos which is Basque Tapas, and had them again at lunch.  In the past we had been eating mostly seafood, so today we went more towards meets and sausages.  They were also delicious, Ton also had her new favorite drink at lunch, a good Spanish Vermouth.

Finally we headed over to the Sagarda for our tour.  They are really serious about the time on your ticket, we got in line at 4:30, and when we got to the door they turned us around and told us to come back in 15 minutes. 

While we were waiting to get in Ton took this shot depicting Judas kissing Jesus before betraying him.  The numbers on the left add up to 33 in all directions, Jesus age at his death.

We have seen a lot of cathedrals in our last two trips.  Ron thought the exterior of the Sagarda was a little overwrought for his tastes, and preferred the more traditional gothic cathedrals.  Ton thinks you cannot compare the Sagarda with a traditional cathedral.  However, Ron was wowed with the interior of the Sagarda.  While the exterior is extremely busy, the interior is magically elegant, and the use of light is masterful.  His vision of the columns of the cathedral as a forest of trees is stunning.  The soaring ceilings are really something, and seem much grander than the large gothic cathedrals.  Ton was impressed with the stained glass windows, and the way the colors effected the mood of the interior.  The Sagarda is an extremely moving place, and we think Gaudi’s genius came thru on the interior, and his madness comes thru on the exterior.

The columns divide at the top to look like canopies of trees and also to support the roof.
One of the few statues inside the cathedral this one is of Mary.

October 29, 2018 Mataro SP

Well we are starting to run into some bad weather.  We woke up to temperatures in the low 40’s scattered showers and heavy wind.  All together a miserable day.  We hung around François for the morning, finally getting cabin fever we decided to head into town to the mall, because that’s what you do when the weather sucks.

Our thought was to catch a movie, but they do not appear to have matinees in Spain, or at least in Mataro.  So we poked around the mall for a couple of hours, and then headed to the campground.  We attended a class on how to make Sangria, which was fun, and we got a pitcher of Sangria to taste at the end.  Some days are better than others.

Another Gaudi facade from yesterday.

October 28, 2018 Barcelona SP

While we are staying in Mataro, the purpose of the visit is to see Barcelona.  The campground we are staying at is about 40 minutes outside of Barcelona, but offers free shuttles into the city which is nice.  It is one of the huge campgrounds in Spain that cater to European snowbirds, there are over 300 spots here, with a bar, restaurant, pool, beach club, and tourist activities.  It is quite a place.

The weather was a little better than yesterday but cold.  The place we visited two days ago had snow overnight, and it was still raining when we set off.  We intended today to be a bit of a reconnaissance of Barcelona so we did not have any firm plans but just wanted to get a feel for the city.  

When we got there it was raining pretty hard so we decided to duck into a coffee shop to plan the day.  After nursing our coffee and chocolate as long as possible we decided to head towards the medieval cathedral.  Barcelona has two cathedrals, one is world famous, and the other is the medieval one.  We will talk about the famous one later.

On our way to the cathedral we bumped into a “free” walking tour of Barcelona.  We had done these “free” tours in Chile and enjoyed them so we joined it.  It was a good decision as it gave us some good background on Catalonia, Barcelona, and the history of Wilfred the Hairy which is Ron’s favorite medieval name, (Richard the Lionhearted, Charles the Brave, and Wilfred the Hairy were all contemporaries more or less, apparently Wilfred was exceptionally hairy).

The door of the Gothic Cathedral in Barcelona.
Wilfred the Hairy depicted slaying a dragon (that looks suspiciously like a giant parrot) on the side of the cathedral.

We stopped in a little cafe on the tour that was run entirely by Americans, but they had a good vermouth that Ton and I enjoyed.  After the tour was over they were offering a non-free Gaudi and modernisme tour.  We decided to join that tour also.

The modernisme movement flourished in Barcelona in the early 1900’s and is led by a guy named Gaudi.  We looked at several interesting versions of modernisme buildings ending with a tour of the La Sagarda Familia.  It is an extremely interesting building.  Gaudi was a Catalan who is considered the leader of the modernisme movement.  The university he received his architecture degree from said they were giving a degree to either a genius or a madman.  

The facade of a building Gaudi re-modelled in the early 1900’s.
Another Gaudi building from the early 1900’s he hated straight lines and symetry as he believed they were not natural.

The Sagarda was commissioned by the city during the 1880’s and Gaudi took over the building a year after it was started.  In the end he did descend into madness, and it became his obsession.  It is still under construction 140 years later, and looks like it has another 20 or 30 years to go, though the official completion date is supposed to be in 8 years.  One interesting fact is that for the first 130 years it was under construction it did not have a building permit.  They recently resolved that and the commission that owns it paid a €30 million fine.  We will tour the interior on Tuesday so more to come on Gaudi and the Sagarda.

The door of the Sagarda, contrast it with the Gothic Cathedral above.  All of the figures around the door were plaster casts of real people in Barcelona.

October 27, 2018 Mataro SP

There is nothing much to write about today.  The weather forecast was for rain all day, and they were right.  We shifted about 90 KM’s to a campground north of Barcelona where we plan to spend a few days exploring Barcelona once the rain stops.

After the drive we settled in for a maintenance day, did some laundry, bought some groceries, and listened to the rain pound on François.  Tomorrow will be more interesting.

Some pretty flowers, since the rain helps make the beautiful flowers.

October 26, 2018 Sant Cugat Sesgarrigues SP

Tonight we are parked at a winery called Cellar Battl Artcava.  We are little bit southwest of Barcelona.  This area is known for a sparkling wine called Cava.  

We had booked a visit to the largest producer of Cava in Spain called Codorniu, it has been in business since 1541, and is still owned by the 18th generation of the original family.  We both woke up early and even though it was only a couple of hours to the winery we left pretty early, and sure enough arrived very early for our 330 pm tour.  After looking at our options we decided to head into one of the larger towns nearby to see if we could knock out some laundry.  That did not happen, but we did find a Lidl which is Ton’s favorite grocery store here.

After spending some money in Lidl we headed back to the winery and still had some time to kill so, so we settled in and did some reading.  Finally we went in and had the light lunch we had scheduled, we met a couple from Austin who were touring Italy and Spain by car.  We swapped stories about  wine regions before beginning the tour.  

In the foreground is a very large vessel used for olive oil production in the 16th century, in the background is a wine press from the 19th century.

We have been on a lot of wine tours but this one was unique.  This is an industrial sized winery and they have the capacity to produce one million bottles in a year, though last year they “only” made 600,000 bottles.  Around 1911 they focused exclusively on Cava which is a sparkling wine.  The tour focused on their storage caves which are about 90 feet underground and according to the guide cover 13.5 km’s of tunnels.  To prove the extent of the tunnels at one point they loaded us all onto a train and drove us around the tunnels for about 10 minutes.  They are really vast.  The wine was good, but we still are not great fans of sparkling wines.

Part of the extensive cellars used to store Cava while it ages 2 to 10 years.

After the tour we moved over to Cellar Battl Artcava which is supposed to be located 5 minutes from the source of the original vineyards in Catalan, so it is the Cava (winery) closest to the origin of wine here.  

We have been in Catalan for a few days now and are beginning to get even more confused with romance languages.  The signs here are in Catalan and Spanish. Catalan unlike Basque is a romance language, but it is as different from Spanish as French or Portuguese is.  As an example wine in French is Vin, in Spanish is Vino, and in Catalan is Vi.  There has been a bit of a political uproar as the Catalan parliament voted to leave Spain last year, but driving around there is no sign that anything is happening to move that forward or to stymie it, but of course we cannot read the signs in Spanish or Catalan!

This vineyard is 2 minutes from the location of the original vineyard in Catalan.

April 18, 2018 Rose SP

Well we thought we were going to head east towards Provence, but instead we found ourselves in Spain. We realized we were really close to Spain this morning, and decided why not.  So tonight we are parked up on a ocean front spot in a campground with at least 400 other campers.

François and Ron enjoying the beach before the mosquitos drove him inside.

From our site you can see the town of Rose about 400 yards away.  We decided we were going to have a nice Catalan dinner there.  About 3pm we decided to walk down to town to scout for a dinner choice and discovered there is a river between us and the town that you cannot see from the campsite.  Usually these rivers are pretty shallow where they meet the sea so Ron thought we could cross over, but then we watched a pretty tall fellow wade up to his chest crossing over.  Well there must be a bridge, so off to the office to find out how far.  From here it is two kilometers up the road, and then two kilometers back to the town, so the round trip to town would be five miles.  We had a nice dinner sitting outside François, and will have a nice Catalan lunch tomorrow.

Entering Spain.  Much like crossing a state line at home, except there were three police  doing random checks of vehicles, we were not selected.

The contrast between the two border towns could not have been more different.  The French town had incredibly tight roads with everyone trying to squeeze by each other at 5km, probably the most stressful 1km of road Ron has driven, in Spain a wide four lane road thru town, our first impression of Spain was really positive.

The unfordable river, that is only in place a few weeks a year, that kept us from our Catalan dinner.

Ton has come up with a name for our trip, France Backcountry avec François.  So far on this trip about 90% of our travel has been on what the French call D roads, these are roughly a cross between state highways and county roads in the US.  Some of the roads have been one lane tracks where when you come across another car someone looks for a place to pull over and let the other car pass.  The French handle this really well.  Ron is still playing with the preferences on the GPS to try to avoid these roads, but since the speed limits are the same on a D road whether it is a one lane track, or a good two lane road with shoulders, our GPS has sent us into some interesting places, and often insists on sending us thru the center of small villages when there is a perfectly good by-pass that is 200 or 300 yards longer.  Ron is going to have another go at the settings tonight to see if we can still stay on D roads without some of the really small roads we have been down.

The Pyrennees mountains.

Aragon

We took a one day trip out to Aragon.  We hope we can fit in another trip to cover more of central Spain as Aragon was really beautiful.

October 25, 2018 L’Ampolla SP

We finally did some serious back country driving today.  Rather than take the freeways back to the coast we decided to cut across the mountains of Aragon to the coast.  The drive was up and down and for about 35 km’s on a pretty rough one and a half lane road.  The good news was that the roads were not busy at all and most of the time we could take our time traversing the many switch backs and curves.  While it was a lot of work we were rewarded with some incredible views and the most remote terrain we have seen anywhere in Europe.  We saw a great town right out of the movies called Morella which had an immense hilltop castle with a walled town under it.  The castle was originally built by the Knights Templar to defend against the Moslem kingdom in Andalusia.  While it was beautiful and remote it was obviously poorer than the areas we have been traveling in with none of the modern homes and apartments we have seen everywhere else.

We are not sure of the name of this town, but we eventually passed thru it on the road near the top left of the photo.  Miles and miles of the hills also had the terraces you see on the lower left side. We are not sure what crop they grow there.
We also saw our first fall colors in Spain.  The mountains were full of cottonwoods.

Tonight we are parked in the town of Ampolla which is adjacent to one of the largest estuaries in Spain.  After the long drive we took some time to rest before going out to explore the local area.  Adjacent to the campsite is the estuary which is one of the major rice producing areas for Spain.  It is also a wildlife sanctuary hosting a wide variety of birds including flamingos even though we did not see any.

After dinner we walked along the boardwalk into town.  It is a pleasant little seaside resort, which was largely abandoned during off season.  We continue to be very impressed with how the Spanish set their towns up to make walking a pleasure with wide sidewalks.

Sunset on the Mediterranean.

October 24, 2018 Tereul SP

After a string of big cities we decided to head a little more into the back country.  Teruel is in the mountains west of Valencia and is famous for it’s Mudejar style towers.  Mudejar architecture is a style developed by the Moslem residents of Spain in the 13th and 14th century.  

We arrived at Tereul and found a place to park across from the Guardia Civil Barracks in a free parking place.  The Guardia Civil are a national police force that are associated with the army.  In addition to doing police work in the country, they often serve as the Spanish representation on UN peacekeeping operations.  They also have one of the most distinctive hats of any military organization in the world, a patent leather tri-corner thing with an extension that comes off the back, completely impractical but cool.   I think we are pretty safe for tonight.

After a quick shop in the Mercadado Grocery across the street to stock up our depleted supplies, we headed into town.  The old town is quite nice, but it was a little dead as we arrived right at the beginning of the siesta from 2 to 5 pm.  As a result we had the town pretty much to ourselves.

The Mudejar style Cathedral of Teruel.

The town did have some very nice Mudejar towers, and a really unique staircase that led into one of the towers.  The towers mark where the gates were when the town was fortified during the middle ages.  

Our favorite of the Mudejar towers of Teruel.
The stairway to the main entranceway to the town.

Teruel is also famous for a Romeo and Juliet type love story.  Isabel and Diego were lovers who intended to marry after Diego returned from 5 years in the army.  Isabel waited the 5 years but Diego did not return and was reported dead, so she became engaged with another fellow.  On the day of her marriage Diego returned and asked for a kiss, but she refused.  Diego died of a broken heart.  Isabelle went to his funeral and gave him the kiss she refused when he was alive, and promptly died.  They are now buried together in the Cathedral of Teruel.

Diego and Isabel, the star crossed lovers of Teruel.

Valencia

Another city we really enjoyed for its mixture of old and extremely modern architecture.  Valencia is a place you can spend several days exploring.

October 26, 2025 Denia SP

October 26, 2025 No Comments

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

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October 23, 2018 Valencia SP

Today we wanted to see the new part of Valencia.  At some point recently the residents of the city rerouted the river that used to run thru the center of the city to prevent flooding.  This opened up the old river bed for development which they turned into a giant park thru the city center.

At one end they have constructed some very monumental buildings with a very modern design.  This area of development is the largest in Europe of it’s type.  The main buildings are an opera house, a science museum, an Imax theater, and an aquarium. They are tied together with large walkways and fountains.  It is an immense development and quite striking.  The opera house in particular impressed us with it’s design.

The opera house in the background and the Imax theatre in the foreground.
It is an impressive complex, reflecting pond in front of the Science Museum.

It was quite a walk there, and eventually we tried to take a bus, Ron spent quite a while trying to sort out how the bus system worked.  We did eventually work it out, but had an issue when we found out that the bus drivers would not make change for €20 note.  We emptied our pockets but were about 40 cents of the €3 we need.  Luckily a lady in one of the seats saw this ordeal and handed us 2 10’s for our 20, everyone was happy.  Another good person doing a good deed for complete strangers, we find this happens far more often than the opposite.

Having walked quite a distance we headed back to our campsite.  We met Pat and Jessie for another couple of drinks.  We are hoping we meet them again in a few years in the US so we can repay some of their kindness to us.

October 22, 2018 Valencia SP

Our campsite is located outside of Valencia about 40 minutes by train.  Ton has been looking forward to Valencia for a couple of days particularly the market which is the largest in Europe.  The downtown has a new and old feel simultaneously that we liked.  Once again the old town is great for walking with very few cars in it.  

A gargoyle on one of the old churches.

We started at the market which is immense.  It is an old iron building which seems to have been popular for markets in Spain and France during the late 1800’s.  We spent quite a bit of time just walking from stall to stall enjoying the sights and smells of the different foods. We ended up buying some spices at one of the stalls.  

A whole piglet for sale in one of the meat shops.
Some of the spices Ton bought.

After shopping was done we decided to have a Spanish specialty that we had been seeing, Churro’s and Chocolate.  We found a street food stall that was highly recommended by the spice lady in the market.  It was an interesting variation of the churro’s we have in the US and Mexico. The churros are designed to be dipped in the chocolate, and the chocolate is quite a bit thicker than we serve it at home.  They were delicious.

We then walked around the old town and took some pictures of the usual suspects.  Valencia has a nice large cathedral, but they were charging an admission fee so we passed.  We also looked at a couple of nice churches and some remnants of the old fortifications.  

The symbol of Valencia is a bat.  This is from the city hall.

Having walked around a bit we decided it was time to have some Paella.  Valencia has its own version of Paella that includes chicken, rabbit and chick peas. We wandered past 15 or 20 restaurants before settling on a place. We did good in picking the restaurant, there was some confusion as we understood that we would get to pick a first course each from a list of 3 first courses, and one of the main courses.  We had decided to go with a seafood paella and a Valencia paella for the main course, but when Ron went to pick the 1st courses  the guy explained in his best English that we did not get to pick.  We were a little confused until he brought out all three 1st courses, we did not get to pick because we got them all.  By the time we were done we were completely stuffed.

On the way to Valencia we had met an English couple Patrick and Jessie.  They had given us some good tips.  We happened to meet them walking back to the campground, and ended up joining them for drinks at the campground bar.  One thing led to another and we ended up in their RV where they filled our brains with information about Spain, and Ron tried to convince them to come to the US for a vacation.  It was a great way to end a good day.

October 21, 2018 Valencia SP

After a night of sleeping in howling winds and a couple of showers we began to feel for the first time that time was against us.  Since the weather was supposed to be similar to yesterday we decided to spend the day driving.  We want to visit Valencia and Barcelona before we leave Spain so we decided to make the leap to Valencia.  Today we covered nearly 450 km’s which is the longest drive we have ever taken in Europe.

Even though we were on the equivalent of an interstate, there were interesting forts periodically along the way.

The roads were good so we made the drive in a little over 5 hours.  Since it was Sunday we did not have many options for going out, so we just hunkered down.  While taking an evening walk we ran into another British guy who was full timing.  We had a nice talk with him, and received some tips for the next trip.

When we left it felt like we had more than enough time to see all of Spain.  Now we are in the position of having to make hard choices about what to see and we feel like we are  missing out on some good places.

Valencia is famous for it’s Oranges, and we passed miles of orange trees along the way.