It’s been a while since I posted – almost a month and now
it’s officially spring. Having had a hit and miss January and February due to
personal circumstances we seem to have
hit the ground running in March.
We’ve
been so busy doing nothing that I haven’t had time to give any thought to the
blog.
My last post said that we were hiring a car so I’d better
rack my brains and think back to where that month has gone – it’s all going
soooo fast. So to avoid boring you too
much I’ll try to break this month down into smaller chunks.
We hired a car at the beginning of the month and so we had a
few days out. Having shared the car with
Nick and Joy it meant that we oldies didn’t have to pack day after day into
travelling around but could do alternate days.
So the car – promised a Fiat Panda (or similar) and got a Fiat 500 – a
very cute car but not big enough to get four adults and two dogs in so we did
alternate days rather than travel around together. To be quite honest though 3 days was enough,
we got to see everything that we wanted to see and if we want to go further
afield then we will do that when we leave here and take the van. The problem
with Spain is that you can’t take dogs on buses or trains unless they can be
carried – and by that I think they mean carried in a dog carrier – well Connie
is just a bit big for that but we did think of turning her buggy into a sedan
chair to see if we could get away with that. So we’re a bit tied to how long we
can be out if we can’t take the dog with us.
So our first day out was to Villajoyosa, a seaside town
about 5 miles south of Benidorm. While
looking for the way to the beach we overshot the town and ended up in some
pretty dodgy area. The trouble is that a
lot of new apartments are built under speculation and sometimes the resorts
just don’t take off and they end up unsold and empty which makes the places end
up looking like ghost towns, and this was just one of those areas. We headed back to Villajoyosa with a view
that we might not be staying long.
Well I’ve got to say that if I had booked a two week holiday
and ended up in Villajoyosa then I’d have been more than happy.
A lovely sandy beach stretching for miles with views to Alicante. Lots of seaside bars and a nice little
harbour to keep the interest. A steep
hilly walk up to the town but it all looked ok.
Very pretty.
We stopped for the necessary refreshments at a bar on the
seafront and were amazed at the tour busses that travelled along the seafront
narrow road. One wriggled around the corner
and as it passed us and I said “Look, that tour guide is Lisa from
Wyndham’s.” It’s a small world.
 |
| Villajoyosa |
We had a drive through leggo land. Which was horrendous. The roads are so busy and the streets all
look the same with the towerblocks shielding the sun from the side roads. Yuk Yuk Yuk, don’t like Benidorm.
We drove back via Carrefour (yes that’s a well-known resort
just outside Benidorm) to pick up some bulk shopping and then we went off to Calpe
to satisfy our curiosity.
Calpe is across the bay from Albir and has a rock
like Gibraltar sticking out at the end (but a lot smaller) so we wanted to see
this a bit closer up. Funnily enough
once you get close to it, it looks a lot smaller than it does from a distance.
We had a walk around the harbour area which was surrounded by fish restaurants and was very pleasant, but
we thought expensive so we walked around a little but generally were very
disappointed at Calpe and don’t plan to go back there again. However if you are thinking about going to Calpe,
apparently the beaches the other side of the bay are much more
interesting. So that was our first day
out sightseeing in the car.
Next day busy doing nothing.
The following day we planned to go to Guadalest which is a
town literally built on the side of the mountain and the castle (no longer
there) dating back to the 12th century. This is one of the main tourist areas in
Costa Blanca and well worth the visit.
You park up and walk up some steps into the entrance to the old town. You can only get into the old town by a
tunnel through the rock and then you find exactly what I said, the old town. It
must have been well protected in past times in the town because any invaders
would not have seen it as they approached.
Below Guadalest is the main reserviour for the whole area. This was pretty impressive and apparently we
could have gone down to see it but we didn’t realise until after we returned.
 |
| Views from Guadalest towards the coast |
 |
| Entrance to the old town (actually we were coming out at this point) |
 |
| Main street into Guadalest old town |
 |
| Reservoir from the top |
 |
| The entrance to the old town is near the bell tower and you can just see some of the old town and the peak of the rock - it must have been very well hidden and protected |
I only visited one museum which was the Minature and Gigantic museum and that was
pretty unusual. In it were miniature carvings
like a self-portrait carved out of a grain of sand and a bull ring on a pin
head. I haven’t got a clue how they were
done. And then beside it you would see
the same thing in a large size. A lot of
erotica though with some of the minatures!!!!
 |
| Connie enjoying her day out in the back of the car |
Iain’s not one for the mountain roads so we came back via
the lovely Benidorm which is the road the buses use. What I would say though is
that the mountain roads around here are used by the professional cyclists as
training grounds so the roads are pretty scary, not only have you the obstacle
of overtaking the bikes on the way up but when you are coming down the mountain
you have the bikes overtaking you, sometimes both sides of the car at once so
they sandwich you and you can’t move either left or right. These guys seem to have no fear at all.
After Guadalest we thought it would be a good idea to park
up in Benidorm and have a look around – NOT! There’s absolutely nowhere to park
that seemed reasonable, there are hundreds of traffic lights so it’s stop start
all the way through. We thought – we may
not be celebrities but get us out of here – fast, so we didn’t get to see any
of Benidorm except the commercial streets between the high-rise concrete lego
tourist hotels. So we did just that and
made haste back to Albir, where I had a very stiff drink with Nick and Joy when
we got back as I was absolutely knackered by the stress of the driving. In fact that stiff drink turned into one of
those impromptu parties, where we were joined by Sheila and Mick, Hannah and
Thomas then Jo and later James who had woken up from a well needed rest after a
very liquid lunch. Nick is a bit of a social hand-grenade and people just kept
joining us. It was one of those warmer
evenings and we were all able to sit outside until well after dark. This then
turned into one of those short days that we had experienced just a week before
on the day of the paella party.
The following day we recovered from the impromptu party
while Nick and Joy went off for the day in the car.
So now we were into Saturday and we decided to go and see
Xavier and Denia. As we’d taken in Calpe
a few days before we thought we would go
a bit further afield up to Oliva. We
headed along the N322 which is the original main coast road and drove through Gata
de Gorges. This was pretty spectacular scenery, the gorge is still being mined
and the road goes through the middle of the mining. A bit further along the N322 just outside
Oliva we saw a woman sat at the side of the road doing her knitting, sitting on
a very comfy looking chair – strange we thought and thought no more of it. Onto Oliva.
Well we followed the signs to the beach and down some very nice looking
roads and came across a very modern looking area full of villas overlooking a
wonderful sandy beach. We thought how nice
we had come to a really nice town and let the dog out of the car and took a
walk along the promenade. The beach
stretched for miles and was of a very light fine sand backed with some low
dunes – absolutely ideal for holidays.
However on closer inspection there was only a few people on the beach (I
know it’s out of season – but) and then looking at these fine villas we
realised that most of them were empty.
This was a ghost town. It seemed
that someone had had a very bright idea of building a new town along these
wonderful beaches only they hadn’t brought any life to it. It was really weird and we went very quickly
from “How nice” to this is horrible let’s get out of here. Not only that but as
in all of Spain, dogs are not allowed on the beach – this we have respected,
but here, at every entrance to the beach, dogs had been allowed to foul the
entrances and it was pretty disgusting, it really did need to be cleaned up.
There are a lot of
campsites in Oliva and I could see a harbour to the north of the beach where we
were so being the eternal optimist I thought we must have missed something. We decided that we’d check out some of the
campsites and followed the signs to “The Campings” – this took us along a
narrow road out into the sticks and it wasn’t a very pleasant place at all, a
gypsy pony and trap with entourage were travelling in the opposite direction so
we didn’t know where we were heading. At
the first opportunity we abandoned the idea of checking out the campsites and
drove back towards the town. After a bit
of driving around the town we decided that we had made yet another mistake and
it was time to put Oliva behind us, as far as possible. We found our way back
to the N322 and headed south without even getting out for another stroll or
seeing one of the famous campsites.
Along the N322 we saw the same woman still sitting at the
side of the road and laughed at what she might be waiting for, then we saw
another, all dressed up and the penny finally dropped – these were prostitutes
plying their trade along the main dual carriageway, waiting for the lorry
drivers. Bye Bye Oliva I don’t think we
will ever go there again.
So by now it was nearly lunchtime so we headed off to Denia
to find something to eat. Denia is the
town where you can get a ferry across to Ibiza. Nick and Joy had been there the
day before and said that they didn’t like it very much so we weren’t expecting a
lot but at least hoped it would be better than Oliva. Just north of Denia it seemed that the same
thing had happened, build a resort and hope that people would use it. There were a lot of hotels and apartments and along the main road there
were a few bars, but no life or soul. If
I’d landed here on holiday I would not have been too pleased.
However by the time we got actually into
Denia we found it was a much nicer place.
Along the seafront near the harbour we found Jamaica Inn which is the
oldest inn at Denia. Tapas and a couple
of drinks (not for me the driver) later
and the world was a much better place.
 |
| Jamaica Inn |
The
inn itself was stunning, inside the building were beautiful wood carvings in
the beams and pillars and the internal doors must have been a couple of hundred
years old. I would be happy to stay in Denia for a few
days if I was travelling through there again.
So on from Denia to Xavier.
We took the main road between the two and as with a lot of journeys here
if you’re not on the N322 you might just find some challenging roads. As we had a car and not a 7.2 tonne motorhome
we thought this would be no problem. We
it wasn’t a problem for me but as I’ve already said Iain is not much of a one
for mountain roads, especially when Mr In Charge (yes his initials are IC) is
not very much in control, let alone in charge. I thought it was a lot of fun but I must admit that I’d had
enough by the time we got to Xavier.
 |
| A kinder bit of road when it wasn't too scary to take pics |
It’s a shame that we went up to Oliva because we’d done
quite a lot of driving that day and so were feeling a bit tired by the time we
got to Xavier and didn’t really want to bother to get out for a walk so we just
drove through the place. Basically it has
a long sea-front road to the town but the beaches left a lot to be
desired. They weren’t even pebbly like
in Altea but were positively rocky. It’s
really not a place for a beach holiday, but I suppose if you’re a rinkly and
don’t want to sit on the beach all day with kids then it’s a pretty good place
to go to. Along the coast you can take a
narrow road up the peninsula to Cap Negra where the views are apparently
spectacular and you can see all the way across to Ibiza. I say apparently as we had already had enough
of small scary roads for one day and declined to make the trip just to look out
to sea. So we boringly headed off
inland again to the safety of the N322 and headed back to Albir. We’re not being very adventurous are we.
So returning once again to the campsite, this time we
managed to avoid a "welcome home safely" (any excuse for a drink) impromptu party. Nick and Joy had been to El Cisne market and
I think Nick was resting before taking Joy out to Kaktus Hotel later that
evening for some flamenco dancing.
Sunday – rest and housework.
Yes in all this we have to remember that we are living this life and not
on holiday so you don’t just stack up your washing to take it home, it actually
has to be done on site.
By Monday we’d all had enough of travelling around and no
one had any real desire to use the car so I just took Joy off shopping for a
few hours.
Another week gone by but at least we’d been off the campsite
for a bit and seen something else of Costa Blanca.
Next instalment – Day out to Benidorm, El Cisne Market and
some other stuff.
