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Published: April 15th 2008
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Marina at Cartagena
More wealth in the water! Ola Bo & Dud,
I forgot to tell you about something strange that I spotted en route to Fortuna. We left the motorway just after Murcia and immediately the scenery changed from being urbanized to rural countryside. Standing in the middle of nowhere was a young woman - low top and short skirt revealing more than enough of her body, and with knee high, black high heeled boots. As I was supposed to be helping look for camp site signs, I only caught a glimpse, but it struck me as being rather unusual. I suggested to Howard that this might be a working girl, but he dismissed this because of where she was and we began to speculate why she would be there. Well!! the following week when we had an outing we overshot our turn off and had to travel some distance to turn around. All I can say is that it was an education - more girls, all strategically placed along the road, full slap, clothes that didn’t leave much to the imagination and incredible foot wear, but they all had a bottle of water and a plastic garden chair to sit on; how organised is that. We
soon realised that we were on a main artery from Murcia to somewhere being developed as the number of lorries on this route was astounding - a constant flow of business.
Anyway, back to a more uncomplicated description of our day out. We were keen to visit Cartagena so took the ring road around Murcia (eventually!) and headed south. We didn’t want to spend too much time on the motorway so we decided to pootle to the coast via the ‘E’ roads. As usual life gets more interesting when we do this - our first encounter driving through the town of La Aljorra was a Peacock; he was strolling down the middle of the road towards us. Talk about ‘chicken’ this bird was not going to budge - he stood his ground and we had to drive around him. We also discovered the land of the lettuce. I shall never be able to pick another bag of mixed leaves off the shelves of Sainsbury’s again without thinking about this area - every field was covered with acres and acres of various assorted varieties.
Cartagena developed from being a Roman Port - unfortunately we got there at lunchtime so
Sailing Ship "Circe"
Registered in Rouen. apart from the restaurants and cafe’s everywhere was closed. One of the attractions to the town is the well preserved Amphitheatre which would have seated 6,000 people at a time. The architecture reflects the history of the port; the grand homes of the merchants are wonderfully preserved. After walking around the modern marina and seeing what is claimed to be the oldest submarine we decided to follow the coastal road towards Torrevieja.
This whole coastline is being developed to encourage second home owners - what a mess they are making of it. Los Nietos is being built in such a way to encourage the German and Dutch to buy and by the time we reached Torreveija we knew we were approaching the English enclave. We understand that Torreveija used to be a fishing village with brightly painted cottages along the coastline. It is now a huge building site which has been developed over the last 20 years. We couldn’t find our way down to the sea front as they are in the process of creating more chaos by up-grading the road which runs through the town. Huge amounts of road building machinery (you know the stuff, we’ve all seen
Submarino de Isaac Peral
Built in Cadiz around 1888 - powered by electricity. it enough times on the motorway); but there were people with shopping, pushing babies in prams, stuff for the beach, all trying to get across the road - chaos!
We headed for home through first through the ugly salt pans and then the glorious orange and lemon groves. We’ve only ever had an apple tree so perhaps we don’t fully understand the development of the fruit but we both thought that there was a process - first leaves and blossom, then the buds of fruit and then finally the oranges or lemons. It doesn’t seem to happen like that here, everything is on the tree at once - the smell of the sun on the trees is divine.
Our favourite day out from here has been to the Sierra de Espuna. The lunar landscape that surrounds us at Banos de Fortuna disappeared as we drove from Pliego to Alhama de Murcia - all became very green and lush. As usual the Spanish have developed the area extremely well; this is a managed Parque Natural. Everyone is catered for, walkers, bikers, hikers and campers and for those who just want a day out areas for picnics and BBQ’s. So
many people enjoying a day out but in so much space - it makes the Peak District look very overcrowded. We were able to drive to the top of the mountain which tops off at 1585 metres. The view was a little hazy on the day we made our visit but we think that you must be able to see the sea on a clear day. There is so much space, greenery and natural beauty as you head inland - Howard has described the vast majority of population in Spain as ‘clinging to the edge’.
This last couple of days we’ve had the maps out and the laptop has been put to good use as we’ve been decided ‘where to next?’. We’ve enjoyed it here at Banos de Fortuna but we are missing being able to walk or use public transport rather than having to take the car everywhere. We’ve also been fending and proving about seeing all aspects of Spain, good and bad. So for these reasons and the fact that we’ve been told about draft bitter and fish & chips we’re off to Benidorm for a few nights!
Ay viva Espana!!
love & hugs & kisses
H & H x
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lumpy larkin
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benidorm
I know what you mean about Benidorm been really good. Mavis cruit says hi. See you soon and tell me when your in Germany