We’ve arrived in La Mancha, where Cervantes created Don Quixote’s adventures. There are several known episodes of the Don’s imagined chivalry but the most well known must be his tilting at windmills episode. Francine’s research had shown two main locations…

Our ultimate goal on this road trip of four days is to go tilting at Don Quixote’s windmills in La Mancha. Given our relative locations, the town of Cuenca made a logical intermediate stopping point. There is a reason, of…

We’re on the road exploring for a few days, splashing out on some hotels. Francine has come up with a 4-day itinerary and our first overnight stop is Cuenca, where there are some famous so-called “hanging houses”. Before checking in…

Elche lies a spit south-west of Alicante. In fact, the airport there is known as the Alicante-Elche Airport. Touristically, much is made of the Palmeral de Elche, the Elche Palm Grove. We fancied being tourists and going to investigate. Elche…

We have a couple of friends in the valley who enjoy going out to lunch. Lunches in Spain tend to be significant affairs with the local fondness of Menu del Día, consisting of at least two courses, and often running to…

Butterflies, some species at least, indulge in hill-topping; individuals tend to aggregate at the tops of hills. It is apparently a mate location behaviour. A couple of kilometres down our Spanish valley is the village of Senija overlooking which is…

Having suffered from swarming humanity yesterday, but having previously had a relatively calm and successful visit to the marjal de Pego-Oliva, today we thought we’d try another one of our wildlife haunts, another marsh, the marjal de Gandia. It’s up…

Saturday, sandwiched between shop closures caused by Easter. First duty, hit a food shop to lay in supplies for three days.  Since neither of us could face an early start and since Jalón on Saturday gets heaving with visitors to…

Yesterday, Thursday, was our first full day back in Jalón and was largely a day for getting straight. With Easter approaching, a little forward planning would be required. We managed to get straight with food supplies but both the Correos…

The normal price for a return sailing between Portsmouth and Bilbao runs to ~£750 and takes 24 hours. However, Brittany Ferries offer an “economy” service at certain times. When I investigated, I was happy to save ~$180. The downside is…