BARCELONA

Bon Dia,

Another place, another language not to understand. Catalan is about as incomprehensible as East End Glaswegian. Still in Barcelona people will understand Spanish and often English. (not sure about Glaswegian, though.) This is a 2 part post as there are so many photos following our 3 days in the City.
This is Barcelona's Gothic Cathedral, inside and out.

And then on to the impressive Port building:

other weird and wonderful Gaudi creations,

recycled lamp posts,

most of which pictures we took from the open topped tourist bus. It was nearly impossible, without queuing for literally hours, to get inside many of these attractions and we had to be content to admire from the outside, including the La Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's masterpiece.

It is almost 50 years to the day that I was last in Barcelona with Mum and Dad and I will be eager to compare my black and white Brownie camera photos taken then to what we can see now. It has certainly progressed and is expected to be finished in the next 10 years eventually having 18 towers.

The other thing I remember from all that time ago is a visit to the bullring, but I can't remember if it was this one, below, since converted to an arena. More to check in the old photo album.

Barcelona is incredibly busy with a huge amount to do. Practically everything costs upwards of 10 euros each to get in and sometimes more than 20 euros. We don't know how lucky we are with our free entrance to many museums in UK. 

More on Barcelona and Mataro, where are based at the weekend. 

Thanks to everybody who have e-mailed and texted me outside the blog following Crystal Palace's epic victory.

Adeu

J&P

BENICASSIM

Hola,

So we bid farewell to our site near Crevillent. On reflection, despite its' good facilities, the nearby towns are not nearby enough and is probably not what we are looking for in a one month stay.

So we move further north to the seaside resort of Benicassim. It is a very laid back, even genteel resort town and was once the scene of Spanish society who owned villas such as those below and threw massive parties for the rich and famous. It is according to our research an 80% Spanish resort which would probably be unbearable in mid-summer but right now is just about perfect. The campsite has all we need, tennis, indoor and outdoor pool, gym, bar and restaurant and a supermarket right outside. It is a short walk to the town and there are proper marked walking and cycling routes along the coast and into the city of Castellon. It is about as far north as you would want it out of season but right now the temps are in the high teens/low twenties which is fine as it is a particularly cold spring in Spain this year. 

There are some top restaurants along the prom, at least one serving probably our favourite Spanish dish, Arroz Negro. The restaurant we tried gave us almost certainly the best Arroz Negro we have eaten (and we've eaten a few!)

Last year, we remarked on the large number of Germans we encountered almost everywhere we went. This year is the year of the Dutch. Holland must surely be empty; nearly every van has the familiar orange number plates and the bars and restaurants full of Steve McClaren impersonators.

The university city of Castellon is a 45 minute bike ride away and was well worth the effort.

A very fine square flanked by a large indoor food market, cathedral, town hall and university there was plenty to see and do.

It was only a question of where to go for lunch?

Even the post office, below, was mightily impressive. So this might be our main resting place next spring if we decide to repeat this year's experiment. But in the last day or so we have moved north again to Mataro, a large, prosperous town about 25km from Barcelona.

We have so far had just one day in Barcelona (free bus from the campsite) and just enough time to confirm that Columbus is a Barca fan. And on the subject of football,

tomorrow is a huge day for CPFC. It will be the first play-off final I've missed and I'm unlikely to find it on the TVs over here. But for all fans out there, my one and only beer I've had in Barcelona so far is the locally brewed Moritz! So Moritz first goalscorer, 2-1 to Palace = 50/1 at your friendly bookies. I'd have been happier to find a beer called Zaha but we can't have it always.

Thank you Jude and Andy for last week's comments, the building materials might come in handy for completing Gaudi's cathedral.

Adios

J&P

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LORCA AND MOVING NORTH

Hola,

We took a local bus ride to the rather refined town of Lorca. We have seen very little poverty on our travels through southern Spain which is surprising given the dire economic situation being reported. Our guidebook, albeit 13 years old, gave four recommendations for things to see. The Casa de los Guevara, housing the Tourist Office, had green netting round it in 2000 and was subject of a lengthy restoration. As you can see below the green netting has gone but so has the tourist office. In fact it is still being restored inside and all we could see were pictures of the restoration.

Two free museums housing elaborate costumes of the two blue and white factions for Semana Santa are no longer free and one was only half open due to restoration. (The other was shut due to lunch.) At least, tgere was a short film of the celebrations which looked very spectacular. Most impressive, we were told was the Collegiate church below - Colegiata de San Patricio. Although this side looks pretty well preserved, the rest and all the interior was being restored and was closed.

Below is a relief from the Courthouse.

And finally a very impressive bullring - shut! At least we had a good lunch.

We are now moving on north, first to a huge campsite (1000 places) near Crevillent which is a bit isolated and on first viewing seems a bit soulless. 

We are visiting with an eye to a future longer winter stay and it does have an indoor and outdoor pool, free wi-fi, tennis courts, padel courts, gym and spa and a decent bar and restaurant. We are exploring the surrounding area on our bikes and there is a nature reserve with well-signposted (hooray!) cycle tracks:

but we could not linger in the hides as all round there were mosquitoes the size of small rodents which did their very worst even as we were cycling along. The nearby towns, both about 10kms away seem pretty good so who knows, we may return. In the meantime we shall continue heading north. Anybody who happens to be in the Barcelona area in the next couple of weeks and fancies meeting up, please let us know - we are due to arrive around 23rd and stay for about 10 days.

Buenos Tardes,

J&P

PS. Thanks for comments Jude and Andy. All comments very much appreciated. Hope you had a great time messing around on the river.

BOLNUEVO

Hola,

Just woken up from my siesta following large lunch of croquetas, fish stuffed red peppers and a mixed meat (easy on the snails) and fish paella washed down with a decent bottle of house rosado (very reasonable 5 euros) and a cafe solo to conclude.
We are now in Bolnuevo, a small but lively seaside resort about 6 km from Puerto Mazzaron. Its' main claim to fame are the 'erosions' below: otherwise there are a few bars and restaurants and a couple of small supermarkets.

About 6 km cycle ride is the port of Mazarron. This is a bigger town and resort and has some good restaurants but not much else to see.

So we took a bus ride into the regional centre of Murcia. The cathedral below was its main highlight, in fact its only highlight and if you tried to leave,

these two dudes would make sure you didn't get past the doors.

Below is the casino which had a spectacular inside although many of the rooms were only open to members. Murcia is trying to sell itself as a tourist destination but it trails in below Cadiz as far as we are concerned. Of the 40 odd listed attractions, about 30 are churches none of which, cathedral aside were open. The art gallery was mediocre, only in Spanish but at least free. The other museums closed between 1 and 5 so if you were on public transport they might as well have been shut. If you want people to visit your city you've got to try harder.

Our campsites we have stayed on have varied enormously. This has smaller pitches and is noisier (campsite speak says it is a 'sociable' site) but they keep it spotless and have very well maintained and original flower beds including many topiaries;

and a resident terrapin. Although the site is right in the town and right next to the beach it also has a very nice temperature controlled (24 c) swimming pool and tennis court.

We're spending a couple of weeks here before moving north for our last month. Temps will probably drop a bit. It was 33c in Murcia which is hot enough and a few degrees cooler on the coast. But we're not complaining!!! Thanks for your continued reading (166 visits in the last month) and another post next week.

Adios

J&P

WATCHING THE FLAMINGOES

Hola,

We heard from other travellers that there had been snow in Spain and a snow plough was needed in the Sierra Nevada near Granada. No such problems in Cabo de Gata. A couple of hours of heavy rain and quite high winds. Temperatures have been lower than normal, mid 60s - mid 70s but these have been just right for a lot of cycling and walking. We are in a large national park and there is great birdlife but sadly our camera cannot do it justice. Please use your imagination in the first photo to identify avocets and black-winged stilt. (The former may have flown away before I got in the shot!)

The area is pretty isolated. Below is a hermitage, with hermit on the steps, standing lonely at the end of one of our walks.

You can see we did not have to fight to get a place on this site.

The nearest village was about 45 minutes walk if you took the rough trail. Not the liveliest place in the world. It is really a summer resort and apart from market day, almost deserted.

A typical landscape, rugged terrain and sierra in the background waiting for Lee Van Cleef to ride on through.

More imagination please! These are a flock of migrating flamingoes. Next purchase when we get home is a good digital camera.

You could cycle for miles from our campsite all along the coast road. We stopped at the end - the end being when the road started going uphill!

A church in the middle of nowhere.

The two sites we have bee so far are totally different from each other. Cabo de Gata had a swimming pool that was open but absolutely freezing and a well maintained tennis court which we used a couple of times. Conil advertised a swimming pool (not open till mid-June) and a tennis court, which was in fact a Padle court. This, for those who don't know, is a hugely popular game in southern Spain; a mix of tennis, squash and real tennis. It is skilful and fast (I know tennis is too, just not the way we play) and I was made aware of the game a few years back at my tennis club. A young Spaniard was trying to introduce the game to England and was trying to build the first court in Huddersfield! I heard no more and I'm not sure whether Huddersfield was ready.

No unusual food to report this week but in the unlikely event of any of you finding yourselves in Conil, we can thoroughly recommend the El Palmero restaurant on Playa de Fontanilla. It looked nothing out of the ordinary from the menu outside but the food was very classy. The other two restaurants on the beach were mobbed with locals (probably 400 in 2 sittings on Sunday lunch) whereas El Palmeral had 3 or 4 tables taken and was the best of the lot.

Our next stop will be Bolnuevo on the Costa Calida. A bit more touristy than the last two places.

Buenos tardes,

J&P