They havent quite embraced the concept of "tourism-friendly", inland

---

Today we thought we would head inland again and check out some of the prehistoric cave paintings that we had read about in many of the tourist brochures. We took a different route south of the one we took yesterday and headed for a village called Ares del Mastre.

The day was shaping up to be another hot one and by late morning the car thermometer was registering an outdoor temp of 28 degrees.

The road to Ares del Mastre was pretty windy in places and it took us through some interesting country side which varied from olive and orange groves to almost desert like landscapes then to dramatic cliffs. Again we saw nothing but dry river beds. On the way up the steep winding road to the village we came across a lady shepherd leading her flock of sheep and a couple of dogs heading for the main road - not sure how that went but hopefully they avoided the huge truck carrying the base of a massive windmill that we passed.

At the little village perched impressively on top of the hill we found that there was very little to see (apart from the view), no tourist info, and no info about caves. In fact, there was nothing and no one. Kinda odd for a supposed tourist town.

Hmmm - ok, well after another look in the brochures we found some other information about another town Tirig, which apparently had 21 different caves containing prehistoric paintings and has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage site.

We arrived in Tirig about 40 minutes later and again found no information about the caves, and pretty much no life, but as we were heading out of the village on our way to find a picnic area we saw a sign pointing to a museum and a camping ground. Gabor went into the museum to see if they could tell us where to find the caves and the only one around was s security guard who didn’t speak English, or even understand Gabor's Sesame Street Spanish. It turns out that the tours start from the museum but…you guessed it… we were too late. Again the siesta was about to start in half an hour and the tours would restart at 5pm.

We found a deserted picnic spot to have lunch, where the aroma of cows seemed to get stronger had stronger, and then decided to head back home, pick up the beach umbrella and some towels and spend the rest of the afternoon on the beach. The beach was hot, despite being quite overcast, and the water was warmer than at Calpe.

So it wasn’t a complete waste of a day in the car. Later in the evening we heard and saw a lot of fireworks (the Spanish seem to use any excuse to let off fire works! Most unnerving when it catches you completely off guard in the middle of the street), and we realised that Barcelona had just beaten Arsenal in the European Champions League final. We are hoping that the victory parade won’t be on Friday afternoon as we attempt to navigate Barcelona’s inner city in an attempt to find our apartment in La Rambla!

---