SPAIN PART ONE

SPAIN!! A kalaidascope of scenery, colours, buildings, Tapas, beaches and happy people.


We left France and travelled through the Pyrenees over the mountain tops in Andorra to Spain. Been to see Gaudi in Barcelona; Oranges in Valencia (orange trees as far as the eye could see); millions of empty apartments along the Mediteranean ( thanks to the economy; Beaches in San Jose, brown pants on the road to Cabo de Gata lighthouse; Stayed with friends in their lovely spanish house in the mountains;Through the Sierra Nevada Mountains to see The Alhambra in Granada; Drove through millions of Olive trees to Malaga; Along the Costa Del Sol checking out the Tapas Bars; Enjoyed the Andelusian Horse Show in Torremolinos; Danced the Flamenco in Cadiz: Cathederals in Seville. Wild West in El Rocio. We are enjoying very welcome sunshine. The roads in Spain are the best we have seen anywhere we have been. Harry is behaving even though we have had him running up mountains nearly everyday.

TRAVELLING SOUTH EAST
We crossed the Spanish border into a land of rocky hills and pine trees.

TRAVELLING SOUTH

LANGUAGE

Spanish, a language which to us sounds like gobblegook spoken by happy people. This is the first time for years we have been surrounded by people speaking and we have no idea what they are saying!! HOWEVER we are fast learners and can now drop a few Hola, Per Favor  and Gracias along with lots of pointing and nice smiles when we have no idea of their answers.

SHOPPING

We have succeeded in feeding ourselves.

Shopping involves madly reading the labels looking for pictures ( they even have pictures of what animal has provided the meat we eat). Sometimes it is harder without pictures, is it shampoo or conditioner? Is the milk full cream or skimmed. Of course buying beer, wine, chorizo, cheese and olives along with a hunk of bread is international so we manage that OK.

FOOD

What can we say about TAPAS!! Wonderful!!  We managed our first experience at this bar

looking at the menu and wondering what the hell to order  

Then we stayed with Maureen and Bob,  friends living in Spain who introduced us to a lot more Tapas bars so now we eat like the locals, at the table or the bar.

They also introduced us to the delights of a Churreria

A very yummy sort of long doughnut is how I could describe them called Churros. You should not go past one of these for morning tea. Have one with coffee and order the melted chocolate to dip it in.

By the time we reached the Costa Del Sol we were looking for a little something different so along with all the British holidaymakers we enjoyed a good roast dinner with Yorkshire pudding in Benemoldena.

Of course McDonalds is on the menu because we want to use their internet and we like their coffee.

ALONG THE MEDITERRANEAN COAST
After Barcelona we made our south calling into different towns on the coast. Some still have a fishing industry hanging on sharing the port and the Mediterranean with tourists.

As we travel we are amazed how the houses cling to the hills along the coast and how many have been built awaiting holiday bookings or the owners are not in Spain yet.

 

Inland the towns are also built on the sides of hills often with castles or old forts on top of a rocky hill.

 We sight the Bull every now and then.

SCENES FROM THE MEDITERRANEAN

AGRICULTURE

Spain must feed half of Europe, the food grown is so varied and  produced on what seems to be very dry unfertile soils.  We drove south through huge almond orchards.You tend to forget there is a big orchard somewhere that grows all the almonds we eat.

Then through millions of hectares of orange and lemon groves. Can the world consume so much orange juice?

Inland we drove through olive groves as far as the eye could see. Some were very old trees and others freshly planted.

Some time before Almeira we drove over the hill to see white fields as far as the eye could see. The white turned out to be a sea of white plastic covered greenhouses. I think most of Europes vegetables or salad comes from these areas, they went for over 100 kilometres, when the flat areas ran out they started cleaing flat areas on the hills.

Other things we saw along the way

Lots of Cactus

Fantastic roads

An old Olive grove isolated when new roads built

No one should run into  bicycle with a bike path like this.

A handy laundromat at the service station

 

Traffic lights giving a countdown

As we passed through this town we could confirm it was Confirmation Day

Elche, a town full of Date Palms

Rugged ranges

SOUTH EAST ALONG THE STRAIT OF GIBRALTAR

We visited Gibraltar in 2002 to see the gun emplacements which were the same as the guns on Rottnest and as we were passing by we decided to visit again.

Gibraltar from Spain

We joined the long queue to go through passport and custom control.

 After customs to get into Gibralter we have to cross the airport runway and into town.

We had a quick look around, got duty free fuel and joined the queue back into Spain.

Next stop Tarifa on the Atlantic side of the Strait

ATLANTIC OCEAN

TARIFA

We arrived in Tarifa looking for a good caravan park as we wanted to leave Harry somewhere safe while we went to Morocco.

Tarifa is known as the windiest place in Europe as the wind funnels from the Mediterranean through the Strait of Gibraltar to the Atlantic Ocean. There are a lot of camping parks here as wind and kite Surfers come from all over Europe. We found Camping Tarifa the best place to stay and it was really nice nestled in under the pine trees.

The town is very old and interesting to walk around near the harbour.

 

The hills in the background are in Africa across the Straits.

We caught the ferry to Morocco for another adventure. But that’s another story.

Harry enjoyed a good wash when we got back then we were on our way again and North West along the Atlantic

Kevin has only had 2 little Australian holidays where he went the wrong way up a street when I wasn't looking and another when he went the half the wrong way around the roundabout. We are travelling well and enjoying ourselves.

CADIZ AND SEVILLE

After Tarifa we continued along the Atlantic to Cadiz, the home of Flamenco. Cadiz is at the end of a peninsula and we really loved the feel of the city.

The Flamenco Man pops up around here

and the Bull

Then we are on our way up to Seville to see the huge Cathedral.

Well after here I think Cathedrals are out of the list. Been there and done that. 

When we were nearing Huelva we saw a lot of wetlands and lakes and it was here we saw the Flamingoes

It is time to carry on again.