Blog 1.24: Days 28, 29, and 30. Heading North Again

October 19, 20, 21

Everything comes to an end (except my crappy cough) it seems, and yesterday, the 20th of October saw us finally moving on from our slightly enforced stay in Javea. It really was nice to kick back in 28-30 degree temperatures, swimming daily, and generally being lazy.

However, we have to remind ourselves that the purpose of this trip was to actually drive around France and Spain, and briefly, Andorra, so after a council of war - well, a sort of loose planning session, we came up with a, er, plan.

And it was absolutely nowt like what I mooted in my previous blog.

That was the musings of a fevered mind I think. For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to carry on around the Spanish Med coast, and maybe the Atlantic coast west of Gibraltar, and then add Portugal to the hit list, before heading towards the western Pyrenees and thence Spain.

Nice idea...

However, and I won't bore you any further with too much detail, that would have added around 1000km to our total, and more pertinently,  would have meant driving quite hard virtually every day if we were to return home to rudderless Britain in mid-November at the latest.

I didn’t want to do that.

It's not as if I'm not enjoying the driving though. Indeed, I've quite surprised myself with just how much I am actually enjoying it.

The roads are either quite quiet, or virtually devoid of traffic (with the obvious exception of peak times around the bigger cities) and the van is proving to be a delight. It just purrs along with barely a murmur of engine noise, and has proved to be quite the most relaxing vehicle I've ever driven, with the obvious exception of a few big Jags I was lucky enough to temporarily purloin during my time there.

The obvious fly in this lovely ointment, though, is the time we've lost through illness on the trip, and the late start of it, due to other fairly obvious and unavoidable reasons.

With all that in mind, and with some trepidation, I therefore tentatively suggested, wimp that I am, that we start to head north, forthwith.

I knew I didn’t have to worry though, as, and as anyone who knows her will bear witness, M is the most supportive and understanding woman in the world. Aren't I lucky?

So it was that we packed the van with everything that we'd unpacked from it over the preceding six days, and sallied forth on the Autopista del Mediterráneo towards Valencia once again. This time though, the city was completely bypassed and at Sagunto we struck west and north on the Autovia Mudèjar (A23) towards Teruel. It's another easy road, but with its issues surface wise, and indeed was being attended to and caused us to 'enjoy' contraflow for the first time on the trip.

I wouldn't mind that, but, when we reached the point where we were funnelled back onto the right-hand carriageway, to our great dismay it had put us literally 20 metres past our turn-off for our target stopover in Alcalà de la Selva high in the mountains east of Teruel. Bugger.

That meant quite a few extra kms before we could eventually turn off and head for 'home for the night'.

On the Road to Alcalà

All was not lost though as we experienced some of the best scenery of the trip as we climbed, and climbed, and climbed to our goal.

It really was so worth it.

On arriving in Alcalà, the parkup was mildly disappointing in some respects, being just a scruffy car park. However, the fact that it afforded views of the small town clinging to the valley side above us, higgledy piggledy and rather lovely.

We walked around town for about an hour, and it turned out to be rather fine, and had everything one could need... had anything been open. Our fault.  Never expect much to be open between 2pm and 5 or 6pm, and you can't go too far wrong in Spain. Ignore that rule and prepare to be frustrated.

And, crucially,  the car park was exceptionally quiet. You can't put a price on that.

We found a friend. Well, he liked our Serrano Ham anyway...

The next morning was colder than it had been since our first night in France, unsurprisingly given that Alcalà lies at an altitude of over 1400 metres - somewhat higher than Ben Nevis. It started at about 11 degrees, rising to 13 before we set off at 11am.

The route back down off the mountain is perhaps even more impressive than on the way up, given that one can see for miles, and miles, and miles. Fabulous.

Soon enough we regained the A23, turning right and heading for Teruel and thence north to Zaragoza before heading slightly more west for our destination of Calahorra.

Calahorra by Day

Calahorra is another gem, and has an equally good Aire with free services, and even cheap 220v for those that require it.

Calahorra by Night

On arriving we were the only van there. By the time we'd walked up to town, had coffee, done a little shopping, and walked back, there were four more of the eight spaces taken up, with Dutch, German, and Spanish-registered vans settled in.

We assumed that would be it as darkness fell, but no, one more then turned up, arrogantly parking outside the designated area on an access roadway, even though there were three spare spaces, and trailing an electric hook-up lead 25 metres across the car park (when one of the spare pitches is literally adjacent to the power point). Some people. This is what causes problems, and even closures of these facilities, but seldom if ever do they see that they are actually part of the problem.

Grrr.

Mileage so far: 2023