8. Northwards through Spain

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 themselves with the red sediment. Since then the inhabitants have been known as “redbutts” 🤣

Vilafames and the castle 

Our hotel room private patio

Getting ideas for our garden makeover at home 😃

Ruby soon settled in

El Jardin Vertical

Late afternoon sun in Vilafames

The rodeno 🤣

Vilafames at night

After a grey start to our time there the weather picked up and the sun came out, so off we went on a lovely walk through the surrounding countryside and blossom groves, once again feeling very lucky to have this opportunity 😂 Arrived back in the town for a late lunch (late for us, normal for Spaniards 😊). Think we both agreed that this meal was our number one favourite - the best we’d had in Spain - so definitely clocked this restaurant as somewhere to return when passing through again 🤞Having told the waitress this, she ran into the kitchen and brought out the chef - a lovely woman, extremely humble, but obviously very proud of her cooking 😊 As usual we shared a number of small plates - all absolutely divine, but I particularly loved the cheese stuffed baked aubergines and the burrata ❤️ 

Walking around Vilafames

More blossom trees 

Our delicious lunch

Burrata

Got chatting with a couple of young women from Valencia - as so often is the case it is Ruby that attracts people to us! Apparently they are wanting to get a Golden Retriever puppy - they fell in love with Rubes 🤣 We ended up having drinks with them in a local bar, and then dinner later as we were all staying at the same hotel. A lively and engaging couple, probably late 20s, and interesting to chat with them and hear their priorities and approach to life - mainly around how to live their best lives, living according to their values, engaging in things with meaning and fulfilment - so travelling, working in other parts of Europe (with the intended pup 😃), cooking and eating fabulous food (both were in the hospitality trade), experiencing different and more varied climates - rather than staying in Valencia, buying a property and having a mortgage. Both were fluent in English, having worked hard to learn this as adults, in order to help increase travel and employment opportunities in the future. Also great chatting and hearing about things authentically Spanish - like never mixing meat and fish in paella 🤣 They also encouraged us to try a very typical coffee from the Castellon region - a cremat - consisting of coffee, rum, spices, sugar and lemon peel, served hot. An interesting experience- probably not likely to have one again 🤣 

The cremat

Vilafames has quite an arty vibe to it, and also hosts a sizeable museum of contemporary art, so off we went to visit. Quite a lot seemed to go right over my head, but there were a few exhibits which I enjoyed and found quite inspiring 😃

A portrait of the UK

The development of Valencia over the years

Head

Moving on from Vilafames, and heading a little further north, we briefly called in at the Ebro Delta, a huge wetland area of rice growing fields and loads of lagoons - complete with huge flocks of flamingos. Again, the weather wasn’t great, so we drove around the area, watching all the birds and had a lovely blustery walk along the beach. Although a flying visit, think it’s somewhere we’ll return to in the future to explore more, but in the meantime bought some of their locally grown paella rice - will put this to good use when back home 🤞

Flamingos in the lagoon

Flamingos

Beautiful flowers along the beach

We spent the night just inland from the delta at a lovely olive farm - a German family opening up their grounds for people travelling in vans to stay the night. Not only were they producing olive oil, but also diversifying with a project cultivating and selling a range of heritage vegetable seeds, “Secret Seeds”  - particularly tomatoes, peppers and chillis - of course we had to buy a range, as well as the delicious olive oil 🤣 Looking forward to seeing how these seeds perform when back home🤞

Olive farm where we parked for the night

Relaxing 😎 

Secret seeds 🤣

Our final stop in Spain was at El Moli de Siurana, close to Figueres. Again, a fantastic find through Sawdays - an old organic family farm with a particular focus now of growing fruit and vegetables. The fabulous Dali museum is close by, but having previously visited we were happy to just chill out and enjoy our final day in Spain. The weather wasn’t great again (obviously preparing us for return to the UK), but we did manage a walk around the area, followed by the most fabulous dinner cooked by the owner. As dinner isn’t served every evening there, and given that we were the only guests, we felt very lucky to be cooked for! A delicious Spanish tortilla made with eggs from the farm hens and a beautiful organic salad to start, followed by roast chicken (theirs chickens 😒) cooked with potatoes and prunes, followed by apple tart tatin, free flowing delicious organic wine throughout, and all for the grand price of €50 for both of us 😃 Breakfast the following morning was another feasting delight - so definitely a place to return to when passing through Spain again in the future 🤞But for now our visit was very brief. The morning we were leaving Ruby was booked in at a vet in Figueres for her pre travel tapeworm treatment - a bargain at €5.50 , as they only charged us for the tablet and not a consultation fee - unlike in France where they often charge around 40 - 50 euros. 

Free roaming geese in the grounds

Delicious dinner

So onwards now into France and the final leg of our journey.

Hasta luego 😃