Oh no, more castles!

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Hi Dot

OK you have guessed it, another blog so the weather must be bad, actually its 21 degrees outside but a howling gale so here we are back in the caravan for an afternoon and so time for a blog.

So where were we, just left Calpe and onto Daimus, Camping L’Aventura, near Gandia. Now this site has deciduous trees which they claim to provide the best of both worlds, plenty of sun in the winter and shade in the summer, what they fail to say is what happens in the spring or autumn, gloomy in the spring and probably knee deep in leaves in the autumn. Actually it seemed to be an excuse for not cutting the trees back to a reasonable size, obviously in the past they had been well kept, but not for the last decade which was the same for the rest of the upkeep of the site. Our pitch was like waking up on a dull UK winter’s day with no sunlight anywhere to be seen. Whereas once we went onto the road it was glorious sunshine and very warm. The upside of this was that we could leave Pippin in the cool of the caravan, enabling us to spend a few hours on the beach most afternoons to top up our vitamin D. Then, it being Easter, the Spanish arrived and their reputation for being the second noisiest race was confirmed, not unpleasant folk, just very noisy, remind me not to go to a Japanese campsite during a national holiday.

Damius is a modern Spanish coastal resort with not a lot to recommend itself; I assume that historically in many areas of Spain nobody lived next to the sea, unless they had to for fishing, trade routes etc., as they were vulnerable to various hostile predators from around the Mediterranean and North Africa. Then of course came tourism which changed the dangerous coastal areas into goldmines with little thought given to what was built where and thus you get the Daimus of today. In fairness there is an small inland village which is where the site is and if you took a roundabout route down on unmapped rural roads to the coast you can find a fair selection of old fincas which are still being worked.

OK Dot, so not impressed by the site or the resort but the smell was amazing, and there was no avoiding it, orange blossom everywhere! The local horticulture is on a small scale, some hardly more than allotments and most probably less than ten backbreaking acres and while they grew all sorts, they all had oranges, mostly in blossom, not a spectacular sight like the almonds further south in January, but the scent is just incredible. We also finally managed to work out what the giant thistle looking plants were, seen them about the place but no idea what they were until we saw them with the artichokes on, mind you, still little idea on how to cook them, suggestions in the usual way please.

What Daimus lacked in history, Gandia, a couple of miles inland, made up for. A great old town with a palace. Some Spanish palaces are just big, still private, old houses, but this is a real 15^th century palace. Called Palau Ducal Dels Borja, you could be excused for thinking it was built by the Borgias, actually build for the local royal family and bought by the Borgias, and then later taken on by the Jesuits. A great place to visit, although we think we missed so much as the tours are in Spanish and take far longer than our visit with the English language literature.

Another trip out was to Xativa via some very sporting mountain roads. Xativa is a very old and quite spectacular old walled town. Within an half hour walk you can see 20 plus historic building and monuments, churches, convents, palaces, statues etc but the jewel in the crown is the castle. With the town walls stretching all the way up to it, the castle is located on the top of two hills and encompasses the saddle between them. While quite a climb or an entertaining pink road train ride up to the entrance, leave you to guess which we did, you enter via the saddle between the two hills and explore one castle on a hill while admiring the view of the other from a distance and then reverse the process. Like so many Spanish castles it was in use until relatively recent times and so shows off century after century of history.

And so, on Wednesday 19^th April, we left the gloom the Damius site and onto Peniscola, about mid way between Valencia and Barcelona at Camping El Eden. What a bright, sunny site, with the best showers so far this trip, right in the resort but backed by a nature reserve marsh land, mind you did get quite a few bites and could be worse in the summer. Peniscola was the last castle occupied by the Knights Templar, they nearly finished building it before they were arrested/disbanded etc. The castle is on a land crop surrounded on three sides by the sea and the old town grew up around the castle. While the old town is now mostly tourist shops it is still interesting while the castle is a must, there is so much of it that we went back the next day, on the same ticket, to do the ramparts. After the Knights Templar were evicted the next tenant of note was the Avignon pope, Benedict XIII (Papa Luna) and then jump forward 500 plus years and it has been used as a film set for El Cid and Game of Thrones.

Another trip was to Morella, which is about 30 miles inland and up the mountains. The drive could have been in northern Europe, very green with cows, sheep and goats on view. Morella is another great old walled hill town grown up around a castle. While the town and castle are not as big Xativa, they are no less impressive, with the castle on multiple tiers and still occupied during the Civil war when the whole of the top layer was refashioned.

We also visited the L’Ebre delta and the paddy fields. Now I must admit I did not know Spain grew rice, although I suppose it makes sense as they invented paella. On the way there we compared notes and agreed that neither of us had any idea what a paddy field looks like so we were on the lookout for oriental chaps with square hats knee deep in water, but didn’t see any! We did find some very flat rotivated fields with banked irrigation ditches and then a lot of flooded fields which we thought could be paddy fields, no rice growing but could be too early in the year? We also found a huge beach where the delta finally met the sea, sand in every direction as far as we could see which as it backed onto wetland and then the paddy fields, was a bird watcher paradise, the whole place was twitching.

So here we are, now at Roses, about 40 miles from France and our last, for this trip, stop in Spain. And would you believe it Roses has a castle, but only open at weekends and we missed it! Dot I can actually hear your sigh of relief, but don’t worry it does have a citadel. This citadel has been occupied on and off since 4000 BC, it appears for much of the time it was just too dangerous to live here. Mind you the Greeks were here, so were the Romans, Carthaginians, Moors and so the list goes on. In 1916 it was sold with a condition that the walls be pulled down and the land developed, fortunately that was ignored and has had a steady process of archaeological investigation. Visitors are first treated to a museum which give you about a six millennium trip through its history, then you explore; one moment you’re looking at a 3000 BC wall, next a Roman salting house and then a 18^th century cavalry stable etc., simply brilliant.

Bordering Roses on the north is the Nature Reserve Park Cap de Creus, it does have a few roads but most without tarmac! A popular way to visit the area is on a road train, which is really a tractor with two trailers made to look like a train and this thing seems to get everywhere, revelling in steep narrow tracks which we would not probably have found or considered except on foot. Two hour trip along the coast and up into the Park with stunning views all the way. I took loads of photos on the bumpy ride so most of them are rubbish. While the land is either scrub or has few cows grazing most of it shows signs of having been terraced, apparently for the 12^th and 13^th century when it was an important agricultural area. Gradually over the centuries it changed from food to wine production, I assume because there was more profit in getting people drunk than feeding them. Then in the late 1700s there was a plague of bugs which destroyed the vines and within a few years it was deserted. Now they are starting to grow some vines again so I assume the itinerate bugs have moved on elsewhere.

Finally we visited Cadaques and Portlligat, made famous by Salvador Dali living there for the greater part of his working life, we did see the outside of his house but would have needed advance tickets to do the tour, but both villages have terrific bays and would be worth a visit just for that.

And so we leave Spain on Thursday to head for Carcassonne and then up through mid France to Caen for the ferry on 11^th May.

So, until next time, take care Dot

Terry and Jane (long suffering editor)

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Comments

[Linda Stavordale]

If I could send you a photo I would
Hi not as jealous this week. Been to Pisa, San Gimignano, Livorno and Siena. Loads of anecdotes but I will save them until we meet up. Take care Love Linda