Meandering through Spain 2024

The next place we were keen to visit was the Cabo de Gata Natural Park in Almeria province - probably as far south as we planned to travel. Heading down there the weather forecast wasn’t great, so decided now was the time for a little rest from the van. Yet again, Sawdays came up trumps, and before we knew it we were checking in at the lovely Casona Granado in the beautiful Almerian village of El Pillar. Run by Clay (short for Clayton) and Rachel, who moved from the UK to Spain over 20 years ago, they have developed a small award winning boutique hotel with an award winning restaurant, Albar, with Clay being a professionally trained chef. Also extremely dog friendly, so absolutely perfect for us 🤣 Albar - a restaurant with rooms  Casona Granado We were definitely ready for some tasty food, and Clay didn’t disappoint. The central feature of the restaurant is a huge wood fired oven - a real feature. The first night we dined extremely well on oven baked mushrooms with melted Camember...

Our next adventure was to explore the Valencia region. We’d always read about the hills above Valencia city, and we were keen to explore. It was helpful having a campsite identified at Navajas as this then gave us an address to which the contact lenses from home could be delivered 🤣 So well in advance of our arrival, Claire very kindly sent them off via registered Royal Mail. More on this story to come 😃 Probably fair to say that the campsite we’d chosen wasn’t really our cup of tea. Although not horrendously busy it was full of UK vans, and felt quite congested - particularly after the tranquility we’d experienced at Els Ports. Anyway, embracing the experience, we made friends with our neighbours Jill and Malcolm from Cornwall, and a really interesting NZ couple, now living in the UK, and pottering around Spain on their electric tandem 🤣 Ideal for me, the Ojos Negros Via Verde ran alongside the campsite, so we set out on our bikes to explore. Headed north and arrived at Jerica, a t...