Making ourselves at home

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Top tip for people travelling from the north west of Madrid to Valencia at 8am on Monday morning - considering waiting a while, or add another hour to your scheduled travel time.

We had no problems navigating our way out of Madrid, it was just that we chose to do so through the or so 5.7 million Madrilenos going to work, school, university, the airport etc.

The drive itself towards Oliva, south of Valencia, was quite pleasant through yet more of the massive sprawling Spanish countryside. It was again surprisingly verdant, but it was easy to picture the same territory as an arid brown dessert in the height of summer. The countryside was smattered with large bull silhouettes and roadside signs warning of bulls on the road but we’ve yet to see any live ones. I’m not sure if we’re supposed to or if its more of a legend? The countryside is also littered with wind farms…we drove right through the largest one, with its hundred or so giant windmills turning with mesmerising grace…it felt like we were in the middle of a bad sci-fi movie about to be sucked into the windmill itself.

We stopped for an hour to stretch the legs in a fairly nondescript town called Requena. It turned out to be a little gem with a quirky ancient town that looked completely deserted yet completed lived in at the same time. The old town is built on a series of wine cellars that are now linked together in a maze. The 3 large gothic churches we stumbled across were in various states - one was completed abandoned, overgrown, and locked down, one was superbly restored and now used as an art gallery, and one was seemingly somewhere in between.

For a change we didn’t saddle up with cameras so we have no pics of this town.

Back on the road and we got painfully close to Oliva before the road disappeared on us and we ended up driving a truck route through the middle of the never ending orange groves that region is so famous for. Some rather helpful locals and police officers ensured us we were heading in the right direction so we soldiered on and found our way to our Spanish villa, home for the next week.

The villa is quintessential Spain - with a fab 70’s twist! White plaster arched arcades and staircases outside, precisely tiled floors throughout, large lived-in leather furniture around a rocky fireplace, tiled ceilings, palm trees and coiffured gardens, private swimming pool and outdoor kitchen with overfed and overexcited Boxer, hazy views out to the jagged hills. Did I mention the glittered wall around the fireplace? Nice! We have so much room here and it feels like we are already settled (Kaspar is sooooooooo relaxed he christened the bath here with number two’s. Fotunately we didnt have the camera handy for that one either) and we’re looking forward to exploring the region and spending a few lazy days at the beach over the next week.

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