My three month diary of working out whether I want to live in Spain.
Just random ramblings for the most part; some about the food, some about the places or walks I've done, places I've visited. I'm not committing to it every day, far from it, but I hope someone finds it interesting, particularly if they are thinking of leaving the UK for Europe
That’s more like it
I briefly visited Oliva on the way from Torrevieja to Torrent and wasn’t that enamoured, the next town is Gandia and it seemed nicer somehow. So rather than plan to drive straight back from Torrent to Frigiliana, I decided to go to Gandia for a couple of nights.
My kind of town, Valencia is
Valencia is a large conurbation with several suburbs which are in fact separate towns. They’re broadly thought of as suburbs is the metro goes there. I chose Torrent at random, sort of.
I read this post on mappingspain.com about a couple who moved from Almenucar (which I visited on the first leg of this trip and didn’t really like) to Torrent and they were happy so I chose there.
The Bognor Blanca
The picture doesn't do the sunset justice
My planning was pretty rubbish. A direct route on the Motorway from Frigiliana to Valencia is about six hours. Yesterday I took about three to get to Almeria (90 minutes on the motorway). Today I really underestimated driving from there to Torrevieja along the coast road. It took about an hour just to get through Alicante.
I am standing in front of an orchestra blowing a kazoo because I think they need the help.
This is a multi-part blog of a week travelling up the east coast of Spain to Valencia (or Balencia; it’s complicated). Part one was to avoid the motorway completely and drive on the coast road from Frigiliana to Almeria.
In my hilarious little car. Brilliant!
Bloody cheek! That’s not a castle!
There was a Roman fort, then a Moorish castle above Frigiliana. Or so they say. There’s not much evidence. There are, however, breathtkaing views of this beautiful place.
Nowhere near as flashy/pious as Pinto
My walk to La Cruz de Pinto was lovely, even if I do still have small pieces of the forest stuck in my hand.
Arse over apex
If you’ve seen any of my pictures of Frigiliana, many of which have been taken from my terrace, you’ll have seen a benign-looking roundish hill behind the village to the east (my left as I look out towards the sea). What you can’t see is the drop to the river gorge between the village and the hill.
Well, that went well
I decided, after a bit of a stretch, to go for a walk. Frigiliana is a good place for that. The tourist board has a handy site that describes how to get to some places. I decided on one that was meant to be about 5k and a couple of hours.
but they bloody hurt!
And my knees are wankers.
I came by bus...well, that was the plan
Nerja is nice. There aren’t the high-rises you find in a lot of towns on this coast and it feels a bit more laid back than Malaga.
Well, I didn't expect that!
I may never do it, but I like the idea of moving to another part of Europe. This is not a criticism of the UK or a political blog. This will be the last time I mention the mind-numbing, piss-boiling self-immolation of Brexit and the right wing cabal of horribles in the Tory party that orchestrated it for their own narrow interests. If I mention Brexit again it’ll be in the context of a Brit navigating a post-Brexit Europe.