Casa Bliss - Week 1

Our arrival at Casa Bliss

Rosie, our lovely host, welcomed us with a big hug, bottle of wine & chocolates  on our arrival late Sunday afternoon (18th Oct).

Our first night in our cosy cottage

We moved from our Camper into one of her three cottages - Daffodil Cottage, the larger of the 3 cottages. The plan is to help Rosie (an English expat) get the cottages and property ready for the next summer season. The grounds are mostly established, just some pruning, thinning and cut back required, which we will work through. The cottages need painting through out to freshen the white wash, and a few maintenance jobs. One of the cottages needs a new kitchen, perfect for Bill. Except it will be in the rustic style of the other two kitchens,

Bill starting painting in
"Blue Bell"cottage

built in bricks & tiles. He is looking forward to the challenge of something different.
Rosie had clients staying in Rose Cottage till the Tuesday, so we spent Monday out and about with her, visiting the two local towns (Alora & Pizarra) getting some gear so we could get straight into renovation work the next morning.

Cleaning & preparing for Bill
to start painting  "Rose Cottage"

We started in Blue Bell Cottage, removing furnishings off the walls and covering furniture for Bill to get into painting. The painting will be easy in that all three cottages are painted white (Spanish White of course!)
Once Bill got underway painting, I got into the garden. The gardens are laid out beautifully, full of different palm trees and yucca plants/trees with gravel (small pebbles) as ground cover. The only grass is a small section by the pool, as you can imagine, it is just too hot here for grass to survive. Rosie was wanting more trenches

Preparing for painting
 of "Rose Cottage"

dug around the plants on one side of the property, so when it rains ( over summer it's non existent) the water will slow down for the plants to benefit. There is also an area where the water rushes out and over onto the road below, so try to divert it's path.
 We are in quite a rural area between the two small towns about 10km either side of us (Alora & Pizarra) -
Aora being closer.

  

The morning sun across the hills
looking into Olive Groves 

Lots of olive and citrus groves covering the hills. There is a small village about 40 minute walk away with a little supermarket, where they make fresh baguettes daily. Yum!

Walking up a street in Alora
Not really wheelchair friendly!

On the Wednesday another couple turned up (also through the HelpX web site like us) but there was a bit of confusion over what they wanted to do, I think they were hoping for payment for their work, which isn't how HelpX works). Anyway they only stayed a few days, but long enough to replace some stone paths around the pool that had collapsed. Bill picked up a few tips from Peter, so is keen once we return to our home back in Nelson to cover all the concrete out the back with lovely stone!

Having a lovely swim after a hot day of gardening.

Although the days have less light this time of year, we don't get up before 8 as it's too dark (although daylight saving finished the weekend just gone) and was getting dark about 7.30pm, but the days are still warm. The light looks like autumn, but temperatures are still hot enough to go swimming in the lovely large pool Rosie has.
So our first week has gone, and we have both settled in very happily here. Rosie has supplied us with some delicious meals from her kitchen, which has been lovely at the end of our days. The only blight on the horizon is the RWC coverage. We did try a local bar last weekend to watch the All Blacks play South Africa, but their "little box" wasn't working. So we came home and tried to stream it live, but couldn't! We had a bit more success Sunday with the Aussies playing Argentina, but still not that great. So we are on the lookout for another Bar that may be showing live coverage for this Saturday. Will confirm in the next blog!

Casa Bliss (18th October)

We are off today to our new residence here in Spain for winter. All going well with Casa Bliss's owner and ourselves, we hope to work with Rosie on her property and enjoy visiting some of the surrounding areas here in southern Spain.
Update to come :)

Spains Riviera - Costa Brava - Costa Dorada - Costa Del Sol

Benicessim

The Spanish Riviera is equal to the Italian  & French stretches of lovely coast, and equally as busy but being the shoulder season was good for us. The resort town of

A lovely morning stroll

Benicessim where we were happy to spend 2 nights is a lovely beach and promenade, indeed where Ernst Hemingway, amongst illustrious others, was known to spend much time no doubt researching his classic, For Whom the Bell Tolls. The classic villas along the promenade  were a social beehive and would've continued but for the Spanish Civil War.

One of the many Villas
along the promenade

                                                         
Today it has a great bike trail on the  old railway line round to the next town, even though S did happen to incur another puncture returning and walked the last 3kms.This made her beer with lunch doubly delicious.
We strolled the Promenade that evening and were only minutes into it when we were treated to one the most stunning fireworks displays we've ever witnessed, it went on and on and to all

Just before Bill climbed up to
this tower on the cycle trail

intents and purposes for us only! (must've heard we were in town)
Afterwards as we continued our stroll we did pass a few dozens of people walking back but certainly not as many as we might have imagined to warrant such a spectacle.
Onward to Javea (Xavia), this place you pop over a headland and drop into it, it being another old Med Port predating the Romans
but nonetheless enjoyed as a good place to visit and pillage over the course of history.

Actually waiting on a coffee here - but wasn't a good one!

History is now involving the Moors from North Africa, they went forth and converted Spain to Islam in the 7 century and then as a result of many twists and turns including the Spanish Inquisition and the Crusades  were turfed out and reverted to Catholicism in the 14 th C.(Yes the greedy popes once more grabbing land and people)

There is much evidence of their occupation

which we are yet to investigate. It is interesting to note that many place names are now appearing in Arabic writing no doubt as a hangover from the once dominant Arabic/Islamic population
From here we got onto the Motorway and weaved in and out of the coast, passing through desolate arid country at times.

Much of the countryside we passed through

Arriving at Pillar Del Horadada at a large resort town that was mostly deserted. Arrived in time for a quick bike ride down to the local beach for a swim just after 5.00pm. It was reasonably busy with it being one of Spain's National holidays

Not a lot of people around

The next day we biked in the other direction of the bay, very desolate with the villas all locked up for winter. Hardly any sign of life along the streets. Lots of high rise development over the last 10 years, with a lot of new ones under construction. So the desire to own an apartment near the sea is still popular here.

Onto San Jose in the Cabo de Gata Natural Park, which they say is the jewel in Spain's natural attractions, with a large area of desert like coast turned into a nature reserve. But so different to anything called a reserve back at home.  The countryside is very arid and stony. Lots of cacti, very rocky hills in the background, reminding us of central Otago. 

A very common sight

The beaches are largely deserted as no services are provided in their natural reserves but very nice to be there. Its villages, previously dedicated to fishing, have become tourism spots for those interested in nature.  We had passed many km's of greenhouses with crops grown year-round in massive invernaderos – plastic-covered "greenhouses" – for intensive vegetable production. We have never seen such intensive use of land, an absolute eyesore but business is business! Hope it never gets like this in NZ.

When you Google this area it shows all the
"Greenhouses" - the white is all the plastic covered land.

Arrived at camp Los Escuollos mid afternoon in time for a swim down at the beach, before returning to camp for a fresh water swim. Lovely and refreshing.The camp was bit different with permanent caravans & awnings set up for all year by the owners to use when required. After seeing how people live in all the high rise apartment blocks, it must be great to get away at the weekends to beaches such as this one.

Looking out to more plastic white
"greenhouses" on the any bit of available land

Had the next day on our bikes over to the next bay, fairly quiet. A few scuba divers were training some tourists & a lone fisherman entertained half a dozen locals while loading the nets back onto his boat, filling in their morning. Had a nice cold beer looking out over the bay, while a group of cyclists from Belgium staying at Malaga, arrived and drunk coffee and coke! Poor beggars!

Los Escuollos Beach

Spent the afternoon on the beach, which was lovely in the autumn light, but still summer temperatures. From San Jose we headed over a gravel road to a couple of local beaches, which could be anywhere in NZ except ten degrees warmer. We then continued onto Almyate, just out of Malaga, Spains 6th largest City on Costa Del Sol (Coast of Sun) - only 130 kms north of AFRICA!

They say Malaga is one of the oldest cities in the world, it's history spans 2,800 years. It was ruled by the Islamic Moors for 700 years before the Christians ruled once again. Soooooo much history in these places.

Had the day in Malaga, with another pass on a sightseeing top Decker bus but not up to the standard of Barcelona. Still it gave us the chance to look around the city, including an hours walk around the old historic parts of the city centre and an hours show with a Flamingo dancer / singer & guitarist. Sadly the weather packed up and made Malaga appear a bit gloomy, not that great. Returned to camp a bit damp and tried to watch the RWC NZ vs France game. The camp owner tried his best to tune in the game but no such luck, so we enjoyed watching a game of football with our wine before returning to the van and getting updates online of the rugby game. Didn't we do well!

In the morning we headed off to our assignation at Casa Bliss

Barcelona (6th - 8th October)

Just inside entrance into Antoni Gaudi's Guell Park

After passing through the French-Spanish Border, we stayed on a main road (not a toll road) to cut through another cape section of country to pop back out on the coast once again. We found our camp 40mins before Barcelona, where we thought we would stay at least our first night and then work out how best to get in and see Spain's second largest city. Three nights later, this had proved to be the best option, which worked really well for us.

The "block of discord" - the diverse styles of
architecture - Gaudi's the 3rd one from left

We normally try and avoid big city's but we were encouraged here by Shannon's accounts and encouragement from her visit 2 years ago and my brother G. We were not disappointed. This city has wooed more tourist dollars out of us than anywhere else on our travels so far, in fact may need to start calling in favours as this place is captivating.
Although we were in a seaside camp, the actual beach wasn't that desirable, but they did run frequent mini buses to a lovely beach just up the road. The camp also ran a free twice daily return bus to the city centre which made it all very easy, tho this first

Another Gaudi creation
I'd love one of these apartments

trip we booked on our arrival at 4ish and were only able to get standing there and back. It was a full sized bus, and they certainly crammed us in.
The camp staff were very helpful in planning our days in the city. We had on our list to do Gaudi's Park Guell and the Sagrada Familia. As it turns out, you can't just rock up to these attractions, buy a ticket and enter! You have to buy a time slot to go in! And in our case, they were all booked out the day after our arrival, so the camp booked us for the next day.

One of the many boulevards

So now, on our first day in the City, what should we do! Well, we bought a day pass on the double decker Tourist bus that did narrated tours covering the city in 3 separate sections. We thought if we did that first, then we would know what to follow up with. Well, we only managed two of the tours broken up by lunch at a lovely little back street where the food and beer was very cheap. Then finished our day off with a lovely walk down a Plane tree lined

Didn't see the "no photo"
sign till after Bill took photo!

boulevard to the revamped Port area. Although we are in the shoulder season, it was still pretty busy. Barcelona stays busy with tourists all year round.
The bus was perfect for looking out over the stunning busy city and urban areas that had been revitalised for the Olympic games back in 1992, and earlier. The City was going through a massive growth period back in the early 1900's, and they had the foresight to plan the city well. There are many parks and gardens throughout the city, many having car parks under them. Lovely wide

Revamped Port Area

tree lined avenues. A very cycle friendly city, although we didn't experience this ourselves. The octagonal blocks of the revitalised part of the city linking all the separate towns (now suburbs), have chamfered corners to improve vision on the streets and opening the intersections up for sunlight. This gave such a spacious feel to this densely populated city. Hope Christchurch is aware of such a feature with their current rebuilding of
                                                       the city!

All the light is natural

The next day we headed back into the city, extending our day by an extra 2 hours to catch the last return camp bus, to give us more time. Just as well as the day went surprisingly fast. Thankfully the day before, we realised we should have bought the 2 day pass for the bus tours, and had exchanged our one day tickets for the discounted price, as we needed these bus routes to get to our two destinations today - Gaudi's Park Guell and the Sagrada Familia.

Even having purchased our tickets for these attractions 2 days earlier, we still had to queue in our time slots. You can see with the huge numbers visiting these attractions, it does need to be controlled and they do it well. Would hate to be there in July & August though for the peak season.

Sagrada Familia
Showing only 3 of the 4 cranes

Visiting the Sagrada Familia, I really had little expectation, Bill was far more aware of what we were about to visit. I cringe to say I thought Barcelona was more about Antoni Gaudi's park than his church! WOW! I was really blown away with the visual impact and incredible vision Gaudi himself had at that time. And to think it will be sometime before it will be completed too. I would think certainly not our life time. On our travels so far Bill goes into soooooooooooo many churches, I was starting to be over them, but this one is something else. Worthy of the thousand pictures Bill took. We had an audio guide as we walked around the church, which was invaluable. It was really incredible that it is such a construction site with so many tourists! I would hate to be their Health & Safety Officer. Four huge cranes operating above everyone! Freaky!

Look at the detail put into this scene

After a late lunch back at the same little cafe as the day before (yep! we are considered locals now) we went onto Park Guell. This was originally planned to be a residential garden city estate, the dream of wealthy architect Eusebi Guell, but didn't get the response he was hoping from his clients. Guell & Gaudi both lived here while Gaudi worked on the creation of their two houses, plus the porters houses at the entrance and a massive square as a centre piece.  Once Gaudi's patron Eusebi Guell passed on, the City of Barcelona benefited by purchasing the property and opening it up as a park.  Gaudi's work is amazing, the park was another visual delight.

Looking down onto the two Porter's cottages

We jumped back on the tour bus and got off at Placa d'Espanya, a huge square with many historic monuments, museums and fountains. Built on a hillside back in the early 1900's overlooking the city and out to sea. A huge dark cloud was approaching and we just had time for another 100 photo's, before jumping on another bus and it started to rain. As I said earlier, these are double decker buses, and this particular one had no roof. As we started the return back to the central square (nearly an hours ride in peak traffic) we had our own

The 86 pillars supporting
the square above

waterfall as the water cascaded down the stairs to the bottom deck and out the doors. The temperature dropped with this cloud burst & as nightfall approached, it was fortunate we only had an hour to wait till we caught our bus back to camp. No wine to watch the sunsetting tonight.

Bill standing where Shannon stood 2 years earlier!
The majestic Palau Nacional

Barcelona was a wonderful experience for both of us, which we really enjoyed. The varied & striking architecture that fills this city, the beautiful gardens and fountains and monuments. One city we would highly recommend to you to visit if you get the opportunity to, if you haven't already.

A chap I met on the street

Across the Border into Spain (5th October)

The Bluff that forces the coastal road to go inland to pass over this
headland, where the line divides the two countries.  

We had to leave the coast and head inland to cross the lonely border from France into Spain along quite a windy road, due to a large bluff that would have been too

No one to meet us!
Crossing from France into Spain

difficult to have the road go around.
No Border Personal were there to greet us, it looked like no one had been there for a while. We suspect the most recent visitors to leave their mark were the Taggers. Obviously there isn't a problem with refugees coming through here.
Nice new bit of road though :)

The Riviera's End

Challenging surf on the Mediterranean

Friday 2nd October, rose early to make some distance, sadly only 39K's passed under us this day, however saw some pink flamingos from a distance and they were Pink, in fact when they flew, they were positively red under their wings.

Exposed Med. Beach

The beachs and shoreline leading into the large port & town of Sete are rather exposed, but once in the town sheltered & scenic. We mounted our bikes and looked around, moving south round the waters edge, where the beaches are nice and some use was being made of them, but not busy.

One of the canals into Sete

Sete is set on the coast with substantial canals and big fishing boats moored very conveniently to the restaurants are all along the canal, very picturesque,  not doing big trade this time of year, actively touting for your custom, however still costly to eat, in our weak dollar terms, mains 18- 24E entrees13E etc.
Harbours have crystal clean clear waters, the fish swimming around the piers etc can be large, I'm guessing over 2 K's and some look like salmon. We do see fishing like at Port Nelson, but haven't seen one of these big ones landed yet.

The look of Autumn in
Sete's Square

The fish markets we encounter are stunning in their selection. Anything from the sea can be eaten it appears. I think if we were served us up some of these oddities I fear we would be grossed out. (I know, we are food woosies, but there you are!! Our apologies to Gman and Rico). Guess the secret is if it's mixed in with other ingredients and not discernible. Must confess we are not overly adventurous.

Fishing boats of Sete

This is also true of some vegetables and roots we see. Gosh they can be ugly. Its sometimes nice to come back to our van, open the fridge and just prepare a meal of grilled peppers, onions, and zucchini,  leaving them ugly roots & tubers for the locals. But this is usually with a local wine so we do indulge and support local produce in another form at least.
We rode round the foreshore passing small beachs to find a small quiet pizzeria amongst the boat moorings, that served us up lasagna. Sheryl had poulet and I aubergine, they were freshly made huge and fabulous. Sheryl groaned all after noon, not needing an evening meal.

Cycleway around waterfront
along Sete's beaches

The waiter, possibly the owner, was obviously on his new pills (or a drop too much of the local wine), losing the plot several times, and we were the only ones there! After ordering a beer which never turned up after 10 mins I went in to see him, he looked startled at me and says incredulously," you want another one?? oh laa la".
Side note. Listening into conversations here in France you do hear these little expressions often IE  ooh lala and so in Italy the MamaMia was oft heard.

One of Sete's many beaches

Interestingly as we move south the camper vans are getting more numerous and they appear to be keeping the tourism ticking over.
This is due to the southern drift of grey nomads all slowly wending our way down the coast to Spain, and am sure the same thing is happening across on the Atlantic sea board, down to Portugal. In north Italy talking to other campers it was "you lucky things heading south", now halfway there and you mention this and  the reply is," aren't we all"

Track to Collioure
looking back to the camp

Many, like ourselves, do not venture out at night if the only camping you find is out away from town, or not easily accessible. The sea side town we're in now, much like Waihi Beach, has a large motorhome park with space for 200 or so vans, over half full, no electric or toilets but fresh water and dump facilities, significantly though only 5 mins walk to the town centre and all its bars and restaurants, a very new area and we think clever in keeping its motorhomers in town for the evenings especially now a lot of other tourists have gone home for winter.The normal camps where we seem to end up always have a well provisioned store and good restaurant/ bar.

The charming village of Collioure

Saw some good end of season beach clothing being special ed out of a shop here and was tempted by  a nice salmon shirt,( like yours Graeme), but pink is pink and even at only 5E well....... Nuh!!
French sticks, Baguettes, are still a way of life, not just a romantic idealisation of French life that we came over with. People are seen every where with them protruding from every where, and of course the little lady with the little wicker basket on her bike is oft seen taking the baguette home to her hungry husband.The Italian breads are often hard, often eaten during meals, and often dunked in wine. It has been hard to identify nice soft eating breads. Cheeses, also often hard as well, little in the way of soft Bries in the markets, possibly traditional as few fridges to keep them fresh etc. Hard cheeses and breads are still nice but sometimes its nice to find soft cheeses and bread, this is easy in France.

Market stall with seafood pizza's

The wine in Italy and now in France (we have our fingers crossed for Spain) is so nice, easy and economical, supermarkets sell wine from 2E up to whatever you want to pay. At the 4 E range which is about $8 dollars it is nice, haven't had a dud yet We are doing our best not to fall into a alcoholic stupor but it's not always easy,  Wine is still predominately sold with corked bottles, not sure if I have  mentioned this, in a small french town on about day 3 in Europe we discerned this "cork issue" & picked up from a curio shop an old well used corkscrew knife at a knocked down price of 5E, inscribed with a local Chateau advocating their Champagne.  Its been a life saver, corked bottles are hard work compared to screw caps but best not mention that here. We're enjoying the wine, it is hard work but enough said.

The lovely streets of Collioure

We have spent the last two nights in a motorcamp on some low cliffs on the coast with the very scenic village of Collioure a 30 minute walk over the hills. We came into the bustle of a growers market and the finishing stages of a sport multievent on an otherwise lazy Sunday morn. Still it was charming and we could have stayed but it was a dull day and could feel Autumn, the prospect of more rain pushing us once more south to the border.

Looking south into Spain

A little time out in Fabregues (Southern France) -1st October

We are probably only a couple of days from crossing into Spain and took the opportunity of relaxing at the lovely little rural camp of "Camping Le Botanic".

Will it ever all go back together!

It's been a nice day to catch up on chores - including Bill working on a little issue with our radio. Pleased to report, he did get it all back together once again!
Not too cool today, managed a swim in the pool that is heated to 28 degrees. Just manageable. And note - not too crowded!