Not So Enterprising

---

Today we’ve booked a car with the plan of driving north to the town of Peniscola and then on to the village of Morella. As we might have expected from previous experience, Spaniards aren’t really into 9am on Saturday mornings, and the streets are deserted as we make our way to the main Valencia train station.

We’ve booked an automatic car with the Enterprise rental company. Their office nearest to the train station is empty, so we’re directed to an alternative “office“ (shoe box might have been a better description) which is about half a kilometre away at the opposite end of the very large car park. It’s a few minutes past the scheduled pick up time, but there’s no one else inside, just a line of people outside on the footpath waiting for a bus, so we’re sure we’ll be in our car and heading off into the Spanish countryside in no time. “There’s a line” says a terse American voice behind us. Hmmm. It seems that bus people aren’t bus people after all; they’re all waiting for hire cars. We ask terse American, who isn’t yet at the front of the queue, how long he’s been waiting for - “half an hour” he grunts. Hmmm. About an hour later and it’s finally his turn. He spends several long minutes surveying every square millimetre of his vehicle and taking seemingly endless pictures. Meanwhile the queue is expanding by the minute, and so is unrest, including ours. Finally satisfied, terse American jumps in and we all breathe a sigh of relief. But hang on, why is he getting out again. It seems he doesn’t like his car. So he’s shown another one and the whole exercise starts again. No, that one’s no good either. Several repetitions of the same exercise later and he’s finally on his way.

Eventually it’s our turn. We‘re shown to our slightly beaten up looking automatic, fill in the paperwork and drive off. We’ve been given a bar code to use to exit the car park, but it doesn’t seem to be working. We press the assistance button, but no one answers. In the meantime we’ve noticed a slightly worrying red light flashing on the dashboard. We head back to the office/shoe box. It seems that the red light is a problem with the hand brake. “We’ll find you another vehicle” says Enterprise lady, but we just need to wait a few minutes while she finishes serving another customer. Half an hour later, she returns with the news that our defective car is the only automatic they have left in the lot. This is not going well. I think I drove a manual car once, about forty years ago, but that was on the left hand side of the road, with the gear stick on the left hand side of the steering wheel. Enterprise lady summons a young man in orange overalls to look at the handbrake, and he seems to be able to make the red light go away, well temporarily at least. We decide to chance it, but make a mental note to only park on really flat surfaces.

But the other problem remains; how do we get out of the car park. “I’ll drive to the gate with you“ says Enterprise lady. Hmmmm. She can’t get the barrier to open either. We wonder how terse American got through; there’s no obvious evidence of twisted metal lying on the road. Enterprise lady calls for help, and a man in yellow overalls appears. He says he can open the barrier manually, but not this one, we have to go to another one. We got here at 9.30 and it’s nearly midday by the time we finally drive off. Hopefully our collective blood pressures will have returned to normal in a few days.

Peniscola (schoolboys must have had fun with that name) is beautiful; a spectacular medieval castle on top of a steep rocky hill overlooking a long sandy beach. We read that the Templar Knights built the castle between 1294 and 1307 on the site of the earlier Arab citadel. It seems that it was the seat of a pope, Pope Luna, although it sounds like he spent most of his time here arguing with half the rest of the world about whether or not he was actually the legitimate pope. That all happened in the early fifteenth century. …..and apparently the castle has appeared in a lot of movies; I’ve heard of El CID (1961), and it was also in one of the recent ridiculous Indian Jones rehashes, but I can’t say any of the others on the list ring too many bells.

We set off for Morella, which is up in the hills about fifty kilometres inland from Peniscola. It seems we should have come tomorrow - that looks like about when a spectacular looking new four lane road with tunnels through the mountainside and massive arch bridges over ravines will open; we’re still stuck with the current version - narrow, with endless hairpin bends and one lane bridges.

The first view of Morella is stunning. It’s built on the side of a steep rocky hill, with a massive castle on top, and medieval looking walls all around. We read that the site’s been continuously inhabited since the third millenium BC and the castle is generally regarded as “one of the most imposing fortresses in the Mediterranean“. No surprise there. I set off to climb up to it. Hmmmm, it seems they’ve got it fenced off, but it’s OK, I find the one and only entrance. I stride up the ramp towards it. Was that a door I heard slamming two seconds before I reach it. The church bells ring out seven o’clock, which it seems is closing time for the day. I knock, but no one answers. Thanks again Enterprise Car Hire….

---