Meandering through Spain 2024

With just a few days left in Spain, before the long journey up through France (and probably rubbish weather), we started to make our way up north stopping at a couple of places on route. Thanks once again to Sawdays, our first stop was at the beautiful hilltop village of Vilafamés in Castellón, checking into El Jardin Vertical, a lovely hotel built into the rock at the top of the ancient village. Again, an area we are unfamiliar with, but reading about the village and the surrounding region did draw us in. A magnificent castle and huge cathedral dominate the top of the old town, all built into the sedimentary rock. A huge piece of this red sedimentary rock, found in one of the small narrow streets is known as “rodeno” and is associated with an historical tale that people of this area were afraid that this precariously positioned rock might fall and kill them - so they tied ropes around it to try to shift it, but the ropes snapped and they ended up falling on their bottoms, covering the...

Having failed to get in at a couple of campsites on the Alicante coast, we decided to head inland instead. Surprisingly the same thing happened there - the 2 places we identified were both full too! Yet again we were shocked at just how popular this area is as an all year round tourist destination 😊 Anyway, as luck would have it, the owner of the second failed campsite, Maria, messaged us and said she had a friend in a neighbouring village with a campervan aire, that he had space, and if we liked she would speak to him and book it for us as his English was quite limited - and that’s how we ended up at the old finca in Alcalalí, within the Vall de Pop 😊 What an absolutely great find it was too!  In former times the old old finca had been used to breed and train bulls, and has retained the original bull ring in the centre within which horses are now kept. The area has been developed with loads of tropical plants and flowers, horse carriage paraphernalia, and vans park freely around...