(written 11/4/06 13:30 Greek time, in Náfplio, Greece)
Waking up, we tried to make the best of the high price of the hotel by using the wireless internet area - but didn't have any more blog written to upload. Having too much fun holidaying instead!
We drove out around edge of the Mar Menor, but weren't all that impressed with what we found. Nothing resembling a beach could be found, but there were plenty of places for tourists or expats to pretend they weren't actually in España.
So, we jumped on the road and headed north to Valencia. This is interesting because other than Paris it is the first time this trip took us to somewhere we
made it to last time. One of our best Spanish memories was paella on the beach in Valencia, and were keen to repeat it.
A few lucky guesses later found us at roughly the right part on the outskirts of town where we wanted to be, and a wrong turn turned out to be gold as we found ourselves in a parking lot behind the paella restaurants! At Restaurante Tropica we stocked up on a great lunch of paella (of course!), salad and coffees, enjoying the amazingly well cooked food just as much as the previous time. Getting back out of town as easily as we had made it in (much to our relief after Granada and other big cities), Liz piloted us north up the coast on ever smaller roads gradually leaving more and more traffic behind us. The target was Morella, a town where
on our last trip our friends Penny and Jono were visiting while we sat on the coast at Castello waiting all day for a bus that never turned up. No such hassles this time, as Schnee Three the trusty Citroën powered us through gorgeous hilly countryside, up and down mountain passes towards the ancient hill town.
We parked outside the intact town walls and wandered into town to try and find somewhere to stay. The tourist office had long closed, but a little shop was open where we bought a book for a few euros about the history town which helpfully contained a map. Using this and Lonely Planet, we located
Hotel El Cid. Here the not at all helpful receptionist took almost ten minutes to finish her obviously personal phone call before bothering to acknowledge us. Still, the room was new and good enough, plus it had fantastic views across the valley out of town so we went with it.
I was still not feeling all that well, so Liz went down to the nearby supermarket for supplies as I watched both her and the car below us while crazy locals parked around it to visit the pub below us.
We had dinner in our room watching the sunset over the valley in front of us before retiring to bed.