Since the last blog we've made our way down the Mediterranean coast, stopping for a visit to Cadaques and a day in Barcelona. We've been passing through a lot of places we visited before, and it's odd how even after just a year it can seem like a nostalgic return! It's been sad to revisit beaches and forests without Scooby hurtling around us.
In Cadeques we went to the Dali museum that we'd missed last time around. This was Dali and Gala's house for decades, gradually built up by knocking together a series of fishermen's houses. It's surprisingly tidy, with strangely conventional touches, plus of course some of the outrageous flamboyant decoration that you'd expect from Dali.
In Barcelona we got caught up in the Bank Holiday crowds (Constitution Day) whilst revisiting some familiar sights, and pushed our way through several Christmas markets before settling down for some delicious tapas.
We also got to witness the typically Catalan spectacle of children hitting a huge 'Caga Tio' with sticks so that it will poo presents.
We've now reached a beautiful free camping spot in Horta de Soriano, near the little town of Carcaixent in the Valencia province. It's an old farm in the hills that's been turned into a picnic site, nature reserve and recreational area for the town. We think it's also probably protecting their water supply.
They are happy for motorhomes to stay for a couple of nights, so we're settled in amongst the orange groves next to the old whitewashed farmhouse in a beautiful peaceful spot. We stayed here in December last year as well, just a couple of weeks later when the oranges were noticeably more orange than they are now. This morning some people were having their photos taken in traditional Valencian costume outside the farmhouse and they looked fabulous.
Last night we turned on the telly to see the news – Chanel Nou Noticias has a red and white design and a spinning globe just like BBC Wales News. It took us a while to realise we were watching the Valencian language channel, but we understood enough to realise that there are terrible storms in Britain, that every other country in the EU wants to do something (we don't know what) and Britain won't let them, and that someone in Valencia has bought a new machine for sorting oranges according to size and ripeness. We prefer the Valencian news to the British news!
This afternoon we went to Xàtiva and clambered around their spectacular castle. The fortifications run along a high ridge occupying a strategic position between the plains of Castille and the coast. It's been a fortified site since before the Romans came, and has been expanded and improved by the Romans, Cartheginians, Visigoths, Moors, Valencians, Castillians, British (during the War of the Spanish Succession), the Spanish and most recently by the European Regional Development Fund.
Only 2.40 euros to get in – the sort of bargain that used to be routine in Spain.
The Wine Blog Bit
Just south of Barcelona we diverted inland a little way into the Penedes wine region and spotted signs for the Torres winery and visitors centre. This is the company that is probably best known in Britain for making Sangre de Torro, and also makes our favourite brandy.
It's a huge family run business. The visitors' centre at Mas de la Plana is next to the house where the current head of the family lives, and next to the winery which makes all their Spanish wines (they also have vineyards in Chile and California). We were given a tour in a little train around the vast winery – hundreds of towering stainless steel tanks, thousands of oak barrels in racks in cool concrete cellars, maybe millions of bottles in wire cages. Supporting this, they have cooling equipment, water purification plant, laboratories, a huge bottling plant, a field of solar panels …. clearly no expense spared, and plenty of courage to try out new things.
As well as the familiar mass market wines, the Torres family make a wide selection of high end estate wines. Their 'Mas de la Plana' wine, made entirely from Cabernet Sauvignon grapes grown around their home, has won many awards and is priced well above our range.
After the tour we had a taste of 'Gran Sangre de Toro' and were quite pleased to find we preferred the younger, cheaper wine for once!
The Patisserie Blog Bit
When we were previously in Catalonia I tried to summarise their distinctive national characteristics, but there's one extra that I forgot; they like their baked goods very long and flat.
The Catalan 'Coca' comes in a wide variety of sweet and savoury versions. The savoury ones have a thin flat base, like a pizza, but about ten centimetres wide and as long as they can make them.
The sweet ones sometimes have a similar flat base, sometimes a puff pastry and sometimes they are stuffed with a sweet filling. The coca above is a 'Coca De Llardons' topped with sugar, aniseed and pine nuts. In the Christmas market infront of the old cathedral in Barcelona we saw 'Coca de Vidra' (a flat crisp coca with a hard sugar glaze, pine nuts and aniseed) that must have been at least a metre long.
NEW! The Meat Blog Bit
Spain has a surprisingly distinctive butchery tradition. Often, this seems to mean cutting up meat with a mallet instead of with a knife – their chicken pieces always seem to be full of bone splinters and there are never two pieces the same size.
However, there are some things they do superbly that we've not found anywhere else. Last night we fried some pieces of Iberian Pork (Cerdo Iberico). These were ugly tatty looking cuts of fatty fibrous meat from traditional Spanish pig breeds. When fried they give off masses of smoke and pork fat, and spatter it all over the room, but the result is delicious, richly flavoured, with crisp edges and a sweet juicy interior. Maybe some of the old traditional British breeds might produce something similar, but we've not found it anywhere else.
We have almost reached Calpe, where Richard's parents are staying in a flat overlooking the bay. We've paused here as we've been warned that Mum has a bad cold and would rather not have visitors for a few days, but we'll see them soon. After that, we'll press on south and west along the coast heading for Algeciras and lands beyond.
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