COASTAL SPAIN TO BARCELONA

When I ended my last post, we were leaving Tarifa and heading along the coast of Spain toward Barcelona.  As most of you know, Spain is roughly shaped like a square so we first headed east along the rest of the south coast and then turned north along the east coast.  All of it was spectacularly beautiful.

We got a late start on our first day as Bob still had a bad cold and was feeling pretty worn out from our trip to Tangiers the day before.  Also we had a couple of errands to do in Tarifa before we left.  I had made a reservation at The Hotel and Spa Benalmadena Palace in Benalmadena Costa, just a couple of hours up the coast.  The hotel looked really good on the internet and was only 63 Euros for the night so I was a little afraid that it might not be as good as advertised.  When we got to the town we found a bustling little beach town with lots of hotels, restaurants and stores.  Our hotel was lovely and just what we needed.  Because Bob was feeling pretty bad, we didn't explore the town but did take advantage of lying by the beautiful outdoor pool and used the spa and indoor swimming pool as well.  There also were several bars and a restaurant on the property.  The restaurant had a buffet which normally we avoid like the plague, but in this case, we decided to try it and it was excellent.  Our room had a little balcony and the views were beautiful.

Friday and Saturday were coming up and we were a little worried about finding an available hotel or B&B on the coast on the weekend.  We had seen how the beaches really fill up on Saturday and Sunday.  We did a little research online and found a B&B that was a few miles away from the coast in a town called San Miguel de Salinas.  What attracted us to this B&B were the incredibly good reviews (all "excellent") with no negative comments at all.  The price was great too - only 60 Euros a night; and even though they only had 4 rooms, 2 with private baths and 2 with a shared bath, we were able to get a room with a private bath for both nights.  

On Saturday morning we left for the 5 hour trip up the coast on the N-134 which reminded us somewhat of Highway 1 in California.  It wound its way along the coastline, climbing to high cliffs and then descending to sea level.  We stopped frequently to take pictures of the incredible views.

We arrived at our B&B, Casa Laranjon, about 2:30 and were warmly greeted by the owners, Mags and Lawrie.  They were from Scotland so spoke English (sort of) and they made us feel at home right away.  The B&B was located in a residential area but was only a short walk from some neighborhood bars and restaurants.  The place was beautifully set up with very modern bathrooms, spotlessly clean and a comfortable sitting room with kitchen area for the guests to share.  There was also a large patio with shaded table for eating and a beautiful swimming pool, also with shaded tables around it.

Mags and Lawrie -- our hosts at Casa Lanjaron:

We thoroughly enjoyed our two night stay at Casa Lanjaron as we got to know our hosts and the other guests -- two Belgian couples and an Englishman.  When we went to one of the bars downtown in the evenings, we found that there was a large British ex-pat population in the town and nearly everyone spoke English.  We spent a long time talking to a very nice, interesting couple from England at one of the pubs.  She was his 3rd wife and he said "my first wife died and the second one wouldn't".  

While staying in San Miguel de Salinas, we visited the local beach, a large shopping center and just explored the neighborhood.  Bob was also able to watch World Cup games with the other guys staying at the B and B.  Lastly, I must mention the incredible breakfasts that were served there:  fresh squeezed OJ, a plate of assorted local fruits, eggs and meats cooked to order, toast with delicious marmalade -- by the time we finished breakfast, we weren't hungry again until dinner time.  The local bars all served great tapas and that's what we had for dinner each night.  Sunday morning we said goodbye to Mags and Lawrie and headed north again.

For Sunday night, I had made a reservation at a hotel that was located inside a walled city in a town called Peniscola.  After reading the reviews, we knew this was the place for us and we weren't disappointed.  It was more like a hostal than a hotel with "bare bones" rooms, but it did have a bathroom and the corner room had two small balconies which, because the hotel was near the top of the walled city, offered spectacular views.  It was warm and you could leave the doors open all the time (no bugs).  We had to leave our car outside the walls and walk up (it reminded us of walking from Justin's dock up to our room at his house - 8 flights!) so we left our suitcases in the car and just took a change of clothes and put it in our backpacks.

the building in the front in this picture is our hotel:

The view of our balcony by day and night:

There was a festival going on in the town when we arrived and there were street vendors set up everywhere.  They were selling everything from handmade soaps to camel rides!

We resisted the buying but roamed the streets of the old town, enjoying the sights and the people.  Here most everyone was Spanish and we got to try out our skills with speaking the language.   We went up to our rooms and put on bathing suits and went down to the beach and walked along it for a while.  In true Spanish style, the festival seemed to wind down in the late afternoon but when we went back down about 7:00, it was in full swing again and the streets were crowded with vendors and revelers.  We had a drink at a bar and then went to a restaurant for a true Spanish meal.  Appetizers of fried small fish and steamed mussels and, for our main course, a seafood paella.  Everything was delicious.  We strolled around the streets until bedtime.

That night the US soccer team played Portugal at midnight our time and Bob woke up and watched the game (with the sound off).  I slept through it and didn't wake up until I heard the drunken revelers coming through the streets outside our windows in the wee hours of the morning.

The next day, we sadly packed up and left Peniscola, knowing this was our last night in the Spanish countryside.  We would have two nights in Barcelona, then fly to London and home from there the next day.  We both wished we had at least one more night in Peniscola.  

Here are a couple more pictures from Peniscola:

Even though we had contracted to keep our rental car through our stay in Barcelona, Bob didn't want to drive in traffic in a city we knew nothing about and we knew parking would be an issue as the hostel we were staying at did not have parking, so we decided to turn in our rental car at the airport on our way into Barcelona.  An old friend of ours who is also a Facebook friend, got me in touch with a friend of hers that lives in Barcelona and owns a taxi business.  Anna Kalme is originally from the area of upstate New York where we used to live but has been in Barcelona for 23 years.  She and I started communicating on FB messenger and she gave me lots of tips before we even got there.  So on Anna's advice, after dropping off our rental car, we took an Aerobus from the airport to the center of town and then got a cab to our hostel.  The Hostel Felipe II was also Anna's suggestion and was a great and economical place to stay, right in the center of town.

This is the view of the street from the front room of our hostel:

 

After we got to our hostel, I called Anna and she offered to come and give us a tour of the city in her cab.  Anna loves her adopted city and she took us to see lots of sights we never would have seen on our own in the two short days we had there.  The architecture of Barcelona is absolutely beautiful and Anna knew all the best buildings to see, including several by Gaudi, the most famed architect in Barcelona.  His style is called "modernist" and is really unique.  We also went up to Montjuic Mountain for incredible views of the city.  Bob especially loved all the ironwork on the balconies of the buildings -- just lovely.

After a couple of hours of touring, we were dragging a little (last night's soccer match contributed to that. and we went back to the hostel to rest.  Later, Bob and I walked around the neighborhood for a while and went to a local restaurant for wine, beer and tapas.  Then we headed home to bed, in spite of the fact that Tuesday is a holiday in Spain, the festival of San Juan and starting about 11 PM, there would be fireworks and lots of firecrackers.  We heard them but didn't go out to see.

The next day, we went on an adventure and took the Metro a few blocks from our hostel to go and see the Parc Guell, a beautiful park in another part of the city that was mainly designed by Gaudi, and containing several of his distinctive buildings.  From the metro, we still had about a 3/4 mile walk uphill to get to the park but it was well worth it.  What a beautiful place!  They only let so many people in every 30 minutes and we were lucky to be able to go right in when we got there.  

Bob and his buddy, Gaudi.

We went back to the hotel in the early afternoon and Bob rested a while as I caught up on email and Facebook.  Then we went to meet Anna and her two lovely daughters, Sabrina and Natalya, for "lunch".  We still haven't really figured out the Spanish eating pattern -- we ate this lunch about 3:00 in the afternoon, and since it was a pretty big meal, that was it for us for the day.  However, the Spanish eat dinner sometime between 8:00 and 10:00 at night and then stay up late (I guess).  We still were ready for bed at 10:00 so we rarely had a big meal in the evening in Spain.

After lunch, I went for a long walk with Anna and her daughters through the Grassia area -- a really interesting, very international area with narrow streets and lots of small shops.  I really enjoyed the walk and hearing about the culture of Barcelona and the conflict between Spain and Catalonya, which I had not been aware of.

That evening, Bob and I took a walk down one of the wide avenues with a grassy mall in the middle.  The mall has lots of playgrounds for kids and benches along the sides and we sat and watched as families brought their children there to play and (we imagined) to burn off some energy before going home to bed. It was very pleasant.  I haven't mentioned it before but the weather was absolutely beautiful for this whole section of the trip.  Never overbearingly hot but warm and sunny, with a nice breeze in the evenings.

On Wednesday morning, we got up an packed up our bags but our flight wasn't until the late afternoon and we didn't have to check out until 11:00 AM, so we left and went out to get some breakfast and then walked the 4 or 5 blocks to the Sagrada Familia.  This is the most famous tourist attraction in Barcelona -- a huge basilica (it's not considered a cathedral because a Bishop isn't housed there)  being built in the town center.  It was started in 1882 and the work was taken over by Gaudi in 1883,  who redesigned it totally and continued to work on it until his death from being run over by a trolley in 1926.  Construction still continues today on the cathedral and they hope to have it finished by 2026 to 2028!  In spite of cranes and scaffolding on much of it, the cathedral is an incredible sight to see and you have to walk around it to see it all because it has different styles on each side.

We went back to the hotel and got our bags and headed for the airport.  Goodbye Barcelona, goodbye Spain, goodbye Euroventure!

TARIFA

Along with booking our narrowboat trip, booking our week in Tarifa was one of the earliest things we did in planning our European adventure.  We decided on Spain, then decided we would like to stay in one place for a week, preferably in an apartment, then started looking for towns along the coast.  When we looked at the map, Tarifa stood out because it was the southernmost point on the Spanish coast, and when we researched it and found there was an old walled city there, I was immediately sold.  I love the "old walled city" and Europe is full of them!

On June 12th, we flew from London to Seville where we picked up a rental car and traveled the two plus hours down to Tarifa.  I had been worried about finding the place because when I put the address into my map programs, it showed the location in a totally different place than the map on Trip Adviser showed it.  I was communicating with the owner "Antuan" who spoke no English so I was using Google Translator to translate her replies to my emails and to compose my emails to her.  When I expressed concern about the location of the apartment, she told me not to worry -- "just call me".  I wondered how that was going to work since she spoke no English and I spoke no Spanish.

We found the apartment with little difficulty and I was somewhat surprised when Antuan turned out not to be the woman I was expecting, but a nice looking young man who greeted us with open arms and kissed me on both cheeks.  His son, Christian, spoke a little English and we managed to get the information we needed about the apartment with no trouble.

The apartment was small but well laid out and had a private courtyard with lounge chairs and an eating area, a nice little kitchen, living room with flat screen TV, bedroom and bath (with a great shower). 

The location was the best part about it as it was just a couple of blocks from an absolutely beautiful beach.  There is a tiled walk that runs along the beach from where we were all the way into town but we preferred to walk down by the water.  

This picture is looking over towards town and the lighthouse with the mountains of Africa in the background.

A mile or two down the beach was an area where kite surfing was the thing to do.  Tarifa is right on the Straits of Gibraltar and it is really windy, making it a kite surfing capital.  There are kite surfing schools everywhere and we also saw lots of wind surfing and paddle boarding.  We walked the beach almost every day.

The other thing we loved about Tarifa was going to the old town.  We went there the first day and went to the Visitors Info office where we got a map of the walled city and spent lots of time exploring the narrow streets of the city.  There were lots of restaurants and cafes where you could sit down and have a glass of wine or a beer and a plate of delicious olives. 

One morning we toured the castle at the entrance to the walled city.  Different parts of the castle were built anywhere from 400 AD to 1400 AD.

A view of the old town from the tower of the castle:

Outside the walled city, you could walk down a causeway, past another castle and arrive at the southernmost point in Europe, with the Mediterrenean Sea to your left and the Atlantic Ocean to your right.

One of the many reasons we picked Tarifa is that there is a "fast ferry" from there to Tangiers, Morocco.  We planned to go over for a day to see a little of the city.  Unfortunately, Bob came down with a bad cold while we were there and didn't feel up to doing a whole day excursion so it was our last full day when we finally made the trip. Several businesses in Tarifa booked tours of Tangiers and, even though it was cheaper to take the ferry over and back and do the group tour than to just take the ferry without the tour, we decided against it.  We had read in Rick Steves' website that the tour was really hokey with snake charmers and camel rides and that it was better to just tour the city on your own so that's what we decided to do. 

This is the ferry we took:

The day we went was cloudy and somewhat overcast so the views from the boat weren't too great.  Still it was an easy trip and when we got off and cleared in to Morocco, we went looking for a map of the city.  

We were approached by a man in a robe, saying his name was Larry and he was from the Moroccan Tourist board and asking if he could help us.  We asked for a map and he took us over to the window and showed us the city, explaining about the new and old parts and what there was to see.  We could see it would be a huge amount of walking, especially with Bob not feeling that well.   Larry told us he would take us on a private tour of the city (listing all the things he would show us) for a total of 70 Euros.  We debated but felt like we had been looking forward to seeing Tangiers for so long and this would be a way to see a lot in a short amount of time with commentary so we went ahead and made a deal with Larry.

You are probably thinking right now, "oh, no, this doesn't sound good" but actually most of the day went really well.  Larry rushed us off into a cab -- and "rushed" is the operative word of the day.  Larry looked to be about our age but I started calling him "Hurricane Larry" as he tore around the city with us trying to keep up with his long stride.  In any case, the first part of the tour was in a cab and we drove through the streets of new Tangiers which looks like a relatively modern city.  We saw the palaces maintained by the kings of Saudi Arabia and of Dubai as well as the gates to the palace of the current King of Morocco, who, according to Larry, is well liked and doing a great job.  Larry was a native Moroccan and knew a lot about the history of the country as well as the current government and the politics.  He would call for the cab to stop on a busy street, drag us out and tell us where to stand, grab our camera and take a picture.  He even told us how to pose.  He also encouraged us to take pictures with him.  Larry was big on doors and posed us in front of countless big church doors as well as smaller doors on old houses.

After we had seen the new city, Larry had the cab driver drop us off on the back side of the "old" city, otherwise knows as the Kasbah.  This was my kind of place with narrow alleys and old buildings everywhere.  It would be easy to get lost in the short narrow streets without a guide.  Larry mentioned several times how ecumenical Tangiers is and took great pride in pointing out mosques, synagogues and churches with their congregations living together in peace.  We had lots of questions and Larry answered them all.  

From the Kasbah, we moved on to Medina, the shopping area of town.  The streets were lined with vendors selling spices, fish, fruits and vegetables, plants and souvenirs.

The picture below shows one of many booths that sold dried fruits -- lots of figs.

Herbs.... They had saffron really cheap but wasn't sure I could bring it back with me.

 We wanted to stop and look for some presents but Larry urged us on, saying he was taking us to a better shopping place where everything would be together in one place.  This is when things turned ugly.  Larry told us the buildings in Medina that were above the stores on street level were "government run art schools" where local people were taught to make the local crafts that were sold on the street.  He said he was taking us to meet one of the respected teachers of one of these art schools and we should be sure to say "Salom" when we met him.  We went into a beautiful shop with gorgeous pottery and jewelry and were introduced to the teacher who took us upstairs for a private tour of the school.  What we actually got was an incredibly hard sell of Moroccan carpets.  We were given mint tea while a young man unrolled rug after rug in front of us.  We kept saying we didn't want to buy a carpet but they wouldn't give up and really wouldn't let us go.  We finally bought a wall hanging for too much money (and later regretted it).  

After we left there, Larry took us to several other stores run (obviously) by friends of his but we resisted buying anything else.  The whole thing was incredibly uncomfortable and kind of soured the day for us.  At 2:00 Moroccan time (which was 3:00 Tarifa time) Larry took us to a restaurant for a Moroccan lunch.  We did ask ahead about the cost and it was 17 Euros each for a multi-course lunch.  We decided to go for it and the food was very good but we couldn't eat half of what they gave us.  After lunch, we had to rush back to the boat to get the 3:30 ferry so we never got time to look at the street stalls of Medina to see if we could find any souvenirs.  

We headed back to Tarifa totally exhausted -- we were glad we had the experience of seeing Tangiers but wouldn't want to do it again. 

The next day we packed up our stuff, said good-bye to Antuan and to Tarifa and headed east along the coast.  We had five days to get to Barcelona (about 13 hours away) and planned to drive along the coast, just stopping when we felt like it.