On the road (3) A (hopefully) sunny September road trip to Spain COMPLETED About This Page:

[DrDolphin]

Just got all caught up - your time in Madrid sounded wonderful. With as much as you stay at Hiltons, are you an Hhonors gold or Diamond member yet? If so - you should be getting automatic upgrades to the executive level with club access (if rooms are available).

Mark looked like he was having a ball on his Segway!!

[chezp]

Originally Posted by DrDolphin

Just got all caught up - your time in Madrid sounded wonderful. With as much as you stay at Hiltons, are you an Hhonors gold or Diamond member yet? If so - you should be getting automatic upgrades to the executive level with club access (if rooms are available).

I took your advice on that one and we are now HHonors members, but I think we're silver, so not quite there yet.... but soon!

[chezp]

Wednesday 8 September – part two: not more roadworks...

We did go through a short section of roadworks, again similar to what we’d experienced between Burgos and Madrid. Fortunately, that didn’t last long. Some of it seemed to be for creating new road, but some of it was also down to the creation of a high speed rail line down to Murcia, so the signs I kept telling us said anyway.


I thought the sky looked beautiful

A goat herder with his herd

Work on the high speed rail line

As well as wind turbines, solar panels are also in use here


Soon, we were finally getting towards Alicante and finally the temperatures, which had been stuck around the low 70s for much of the day so far, suddenly disintegrated and were replaced with much hotter weather. I had doubted the forecast I’d read this morning, which had said 91 degrees, but it seemed it would be right, as the car told us that the temperatures were now, indeed, heading that way.



The landscape from Alicante onwards is particularly beautiful. I think there’s something very special about this stretch of coastline and I can see what attracted Mark’s parents to this area.


Orange trees, all covered up and protected from the elements

The sea!


As we were driving along, I saw signs warning of the danger of fires and that danger became all too real, when we saw the emergency services fighting one such fire on the other side of the carriageway:



Soon we were starting to see the familiar horrific sight of the skyscrapers in Benidorm and, as I always feel whenever we approach this town, I wonder what on earth holidaymakers from the UK did to this place, as that’s what it all developed from. It’s such a shame, as the rest of the coast is so beautiful and relatively natural and then you have this monstrosity here.



Next: I guess we’d better buy some food now...

[Kenny]

The pictures still remind me of the American West... well, except for the castles!

[chezp]

Originally Posted by Kenny

The pictures still remind me of the American West... well, except for the castles!

I see where you're coming from but not too many castles out that way, at least as far as I know!

[KMB733]

Great pictures of the landscape!!

[Colexis Mom]

You're almost there!

[sc507]

That building does look rather odd!

[chezp]

Wednesday 8 September – part three: I guess we’d better buy some food now...

We pulled up to Carrefour to go and get some shopping, but the first stop for both of us needed to be the restrooms. We need that there had to be some, but where? We couldn’t see them, so I asked in my best Spanish and had them pointed out to me. Once relieved, we were in a fit state to head back outside to get a trolley and then it was into the store.

I think it would be fair to say that we went a bit nuts in there – Ok, so maybe it was more me... I found a couple of tops that I really liked, so bought those, as well as chocolate for work and then a selection of sugarless chocolate that my dad likes for his Christmas present (pray it doesn’t melt on the way home... ) and then we hit the alcohol section. Nothing was safe! : We knew we wanted some more apple liquor and some more hazelnut liquor, so we got some of both and then spotted some blackberry liquor. Oh well, we’d better try that then.... It was right next door to the limoncello section (lemon aperitif from Italy) and as two work colleagues were going to Italy, we’d been talking about it before we left and I remembered how much I liked the stuff, so that was a bottle sold!

Then it was on to the sangria. Here, we carefully checked the best before dates, as we had learnt from our mistakes last time. Trust me, you only want to drink this stuff when it’s hot and when you buy it and it’s only valid until the following spring, it does tend to go to waste. Having established, it would be good until November 2011 (seems like such a long way away, but of course it’s not! : ) we grabbed 12 bottles of that as well.

I guess we’d better buy some food now... we explored the various aisles, grabbed some fruit, salad items, cheese for me and meat for Mark, along with prawns and some basics, such as margarine, bread and milk. Then finally we were done. I won’t tell you how much it cost, but it wasn’t a million miles off three figures in Euros....

Ok, that should do us for a while... we paid up, with the kid behind us really annoying us by butting in every now and again to try and find out how much a football cost. For goodness sake, can’t you find a shop assistant to ask? Then it was out to the car. I have to say here that they charge 1 cent for every plastic carrier bag, so we got five and then decided to just put the alcohol loose into the car. Mark wasn’t very pleased with the packing he did and wasn’t too chuffed with me taking a photo of it, but here’s how it all looked when it was done:



You get the idea. It was a lot of stuff! It was back on the motorway and we were finally on the very last leg of our drive to the villa. It took us longer than we’d expected, mainly because Tim took us the long route to the villa. While it was very scenic and I was able to get a few photos, it was a nightmare to drive and was very twisty and turning, which wasn’t fun. Lesson learned, next time we’ll work from memory and take the back road that we know...


Another ornate roundabout

Benidorm

Nearly there!


Finally we made it and we were stunned to see the difference in the villa. Since we were last there, there’s been a huge amount of work done to it, including a new pavement outside it....




... a much bigger parking area (no wonder Mark’s parents said there would be no problem fitting two big cars on here! )...



... and then the entrance has moved to the middle and there’s a new conservatory on the old entrance....




That’s also led to changes inside...



All in all, it looked very impressive and we could see why they’d had the work done. It had made a big difference.

For the next half hour or so, we did all the things you need to do when you arrive, like turning on the water and the hot water boiler and unpacking everything and getting the shopping into the fridge. Finally, we were done and we could sit down and enjoy a snack from some of the stuff we’d bought earlier. See, I knew it wouldn’t go to waste....

We couldn’t find the electronic control for the automatic gates, so after some frantic texting to Mark’s sister, who was the last one out here, and his parents, who correctly identified where it was, we were all sorted.

We spent the next hour or so keeping out of the unbearable heat. It was far, far too hot outside and I was just glad that the forecast reckoned it would be another 10 degrees cooler tomorrow. Thank goodness for that!

Eventually, when it cooled down enough, I went outside and did some swimming, although I was careful not to over-do it, not having been swimming for the last couple of months.

After that, we sat around reading, watching TV or listening to the radio. We were pleased to at least find that we could listen to our favourite radio station at home, even if the amount of TV channels on offer was minimal at best. We did chat about what we might do the next couple of nights, but came to no decision about what we would actually do.

Eventually, we started to get hungry, but not hungry enough for a full dinner. We had talked about going into the town for dinner, but having spent that much in Carrefour, I figured we’d probably better eat here instead. We ended up just having the prawns and that was a bit of drama in itself. They were shell on prawns and I started to shell mine in the kitchen. With the first movement I made, I got sprayed in prawn juice, all over my dress that I’d only put on after swimming an hour or so earlier.

It was quickly hand washed in the bathroom sink to get everything out and then I hung it outside. We then retreated back to the dining room table, managing between us, to redecorate the tablecloth we’d only laid on it earlier. Ok, so when we do a wash in the next couple of days, we’ll be adding the tablecloth in then.

After dinner, we settled down to watch one of the films we’d bought with us. We’d recorded a few in the few days leading up to us going, as we knew that there wouldn’t be much of a choice of TV channels. To be honest, they also had a fairly decent selection of DVDs here as well, with the first two Pirates of the Caribbean, Four Weddings and Love Actually striking me as ones we could happily watch. Having said that, we decided to start with the ones that had come with us and I opted for Jurassic Park III. When we saw it was showing at home, I commented that I didn’t think I’d seen it since it first came out, but I remembered it being good. We didn’t get more than an hour through it before tiredness hit me, but it was just as good as I remembered.

We headed to bed, but the drama was only just beginning. We turned on the fan and my goodness, that thing made a racket! We had it on for a while, but I realised that there was just no way that I was going to be able to sleep with that noise, so eventually I told Mark it was going to have to go off and we’d have to be hot. I swear it’s a money saving initiative from Mark’s dad, if you make the fan loud in the bedroom, then people won’t have it on all night....

Even worse was to come, when I heard a buzzing noise right by my ear. Great, we have a mosquito or something like it in our room. Not what we need. : I remembered that I had some insect repellent wipes, so I went and found those and covered myself in the stuff as much as I could. I did not want to end up bitten to pieces in the morning. We’d have to see if it worked tomorrow....

Finally, we were both able to get to sleep, not knowing what the mozzy was up to....

Today we drove 318 miles.
That means the total journey down, from home to the villa, using the route we took, was 1,432 miles.
The weather today was hot and sunny with temperatures in the mid 90s.
The best thing today was getting to the villa.
The worst thing today was how hot it was.
Today we tried driving down from Madrid to the villa
And the result was it was a nice drive, but a bit dull in places.
The most magical moment today was getting into the pool and enjoying a swim for the first time in weeks.

[b]Next: one’s not a bad score...

[scrappyjae]

Place looks awesome. Glad you were able to get some swimming in.

[honeybee723]

What a nice little villa. I wouldn't have been able to sleep until I knew that mosquito was dead! Hope you don't end up with a bunch of bites in the morning.

[Colexis Mom]

That was quite the shopping trip! Great pictures of the villa!

[Kenny]

The villa looks beautiful!
Yeah, well, it wouldn't have been so expensive of a shop... if you take away the boo... ah... alc... ah, beverages... ( oh, perish the thought!)
jk jk jk!!!

[cubfancolleen]

Now that was my kind of shopping trip!! I lost track - was the final count 17 bottles (or boxes, as it were)?

[KMB733]

Lovely pictures of the villa!!!