Archive for December, 2006
Tuesday, December 26th, 2006
70km Valencia – Xeraco
With plenty of Christmas indulgence under our belts, we headed out from Valencia just before noon. We were in no hurry to leave our friends or a fantastic city, full of beautiful architecture, parks and a beach. The ride out of Valencia was fairly straight forward – out to the beach then to the right to follow various roads along the coast. There was plenty of construction for the Americas Cup being held in the city so we did have to weave a bit but it wasn’t long before we were in the beautiful Albufera Park, a protected area of natural beauty. Plenty of lakes, fishing nets and birds. Because of our late start, we passed the time when most supermarkets close for their siesta and were a bit stuck for lunch. The wonders of the internet came in handy though as Julian who has been reading our journal, and himself a fellow cyclist, had emailed us with a recommendation for a paella restaurant, which was right in our path. The chicken and rabbit paella in Hostal Blayet did just the trick for our rumbling tummies – a bit of an extravagance for us especially after our stay in Valencia, but it wouldn’t have been right to leave the area without trying the local specialty. The flat terrain meant we rolled along at a good speed but we didn’t make much headway, as we got lost a few times trying to find the right road. After one detour to the beach and another through orange groves we finally landed in Xeraco near dusk, where we grabbed the first campsite we saw, right on the beach for only 11 euros.
1 Comment » - Posted in Cycling Trips, Journal Entries, Spain by andrew
Friday, December 22nd, 2006
100km Benicassim - Valencia
We hadn’t planned for such a long day but once again we had trouble finding a campground, just when we thought we were maybe far enough south to avoid that annoyance, so since we had plenty of energy we carried on to Valencia. Our luck was in because the hostel we had already planned to spend the next few days in had a room left for the night. Merry Christmas to us — four days in a bed, with a big kitchen to cook in and a city to explore. Heaven!
The night before we finally managed to finish our latest radio show, which you can listen to below. Recorded while we were taking shelter from a rainstorm, it includes an interview with one of our WWOOF hosts Patricia and a fellow WWOOFer Kali and also an interview with Yves, of the lovely couple Yves and Ingrid who hosted us for a couple days at their home south of Millau. They are keen cycling tourers too and Yves told us about their trips and gave some tips for touring.
All about WWOOF and stories from Yves, a fellow cycle tourer [25:09m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadNo Comments » - Posted in Cycling Trips, Journal Entries, Radio Shows, Spain by friedel
Thursday, December 21st, 2006
66km Peniscola to Benicassim
Our decision to quit early yesterday paid off as a much warmer, sunnier day dawned. What we hoped for on the Spanish coast! We headed into the town and took a road that led right along the coast, which made for some stunning scenery as the winds and unsettled weather of the day before created huge waves as far as we could see. Soon we were in a regional park, centred around the Cap d’Irta, and followed what was marked as a bicycle trail for quite some time, still along the coast. The rugged cliffs, crashing waves and even a wild boar running across our path made for a fantastic morning, even if it was slightly hard work on the rocky dirt road. Around noon we surfaced again in the seaside resorts and continued to follow the coastal path for some kilometers, until finally we were forced to rejoin the busy highway. There are more road choices here than further north though and it wasn’t long before we could come back to the sea, where we found a campsite nearly on the beach for just 10 euros. Tomorrow we will continue, with hopes of stopping just outside Valencia for our last night of camping before we take a hostel over Christmas.
While we were in the Cap d’Irta area we took a little video which you can see below:Â
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1 Comment » - Posted in Cycling Trips, Journal Entries, Spain, Video by andrew
Wednesday, December 20th, 2006
44km St Carles de la Rapita – Peniscola
Campgrounds are like buses, first you can’t find any and then three come along at once, or in our case at least half a dozen. Around noon, having tired once again of the busy highway, we decided to go into the seaside town of Peniscola for lunch. On our way in, all we saw were signs for year-round campgrounds. Why here and not a little up the coast we don’t know, but having just put in a long day we felt we were due a short one so we picked out a site and pitched up, ready for an afternoon of reading. We are trying to slow our progress a little bit so we arrive in Valencia on Saturday morning, only about 120km away from here, and truth be told it is cold at the moment so we are hoping for warmer breezes tomorrow. A bottle of wine seemed the right accompaniment to the hours ahead so we stopped into a supermarket – who knew you could get wine from just 0.75 euros a bottle. We put a little more investment than that into our afternoon treat but it is amazing how cheap it can be. Surely the glass, cork, labelling and other costs add up to nearly that alone, not even thinking about the wine that goes in the bottle? Apparently this area is where all the big British supermarkets come when they want to commission a cheap own-label wine and from the prices on the shelves here it’s clear why.
No Comments » - Posted in Cycling Trips, Journal Entries, Spain by andrew
Tuesday, December 19th, 2006
100km Cambrils – St Carles de la Rapita
A bit of overenthusiasm to see the rice fields of Spain led us to one of our longest days in quite a while. After an enjoyable morning winding our way through olive groves on a quiet road with hardly any traffic (we finally found an alternative to the busy highway we’ve been following lately), we decided to meandre further onto the Delta de L’Ebre. Rice growing is the main pursuit here and for miles around all you can see are the flooded fields. We enjoyed seeing how they grow the rice, the irrigation systems they use, fields full of birds, so much so that we got a bit further out on the Delta than we’d realised and were then stuck for a place to camp with the light fading quickly on us. We decided to make for the nearest town, hoping to see a camping spot en route, but with every field waterlogged it was nearly as impossible to find a place to pitch our tent as on the developed beaches elsewhere on the coast. And despite finding campsites open further north, we have not seen much the last few days. We should have stopped at a beach we saw earlier in the afternoon but chose to carry on instead. The local youth hostel was also closed. By the time we got to St Carles de la Rapita it was really dark – the perils of cycling in the winter! You don’t have the option to carry on later into the evening. By 6pm your time is pretty much up. We once again took advantage of the local two star hotel, which in its favour gave us a room with a large balcony so we could fire up our stove and cook our own supper. Staying in hotels really blows the budget quickly and we don’t like to do it too often but whether it’s a lack of experience or just bad luck in not finding camping spots, we have found the winter tough for that.
