Spain - Sunday to Tuesday

On Sunday we headed down to the port in the afternoon to watch the final America's Cup race that we would be able to see. We settled down in the wool-shed, and waited and waited....and eventually the race was post-poned due to light winds. This was disappointing, so to fill in the afternoon we went shopping. In July in Spain all the shops have big sales, which was handy timing for us (perhaps more for me than Shaun). After shopping, we picked up some food to cook dinner and headed back to Steph's flat. Shaun cooked dinner for Steph, a friend of Steph's flatmate (Nick), and myself. The four of us had a lovely evening, including a bottle of Spanish red.



On Monday morning we headed off to hire a car, which Shaun had the pleasure of driving. It had a tendency to stall, which combined with the Spanish drivers following close behind led to one car hitting us - luckily no damage done. Five of us (Steph, Shaun, Nick, another of Steph's flatmates, and myself) headed south out of Valencia, down the coast to a beach called Calpe. This was a beautiful white sand beach, with a huge amazing rock at one end. We walked along the beach, and although we thought this was as good as a beach could get, Steph insisted we drive further round the coast - where we found an even more beautiful beach, tucked into a cove with crystal clear blue water, complete with houses on the hillside overlooking the water and a friendly octopus swimming around our feet. We spent the afternoon here, alternating between the water and sweltering on the sand (temp of 44 degrees). We then headed back towards Valencia, after having our last swim at 5.30, and stopped at another beach for dinner and a walk. This beach (called Gardia) was much bigger and although we arrived at 7.30, it was still very full of sunbathers and swimmers.

On Tuesday we said a sad farewell to Steph and Valencia, and hopped on a train to Girona airport, an hour north of Barcelona. We arrived at our amazing accomodation for the night - Girona airport. We were fortunate to secure seats to sleep on as the airport was full to the rafters with people with the same idea. It was a different night, which included loud Germans, flies, bright lights and rock-hard seats. We woke up at 4am in the morning to check into our flight, and waved goodbye to Spain, and although we didn't know it at the time, to the sun and warm weather.