My Week in Review to the 18th February

We had a great weekend in Valencia with Dave's daughters. Our Airbnb apartment was nice with fun decor and lovely tiled floors. The sun flooded in through large windows during the day although it did get pretty cold after dark. We stayed very close to the Torres de Quart so were ideally located for lots of sightseeing as well as near to lots of good restaurants. I think we walked over twenty miles during the weekend which was useful because we ate a lot of delicious food too! All the photos on this post show Valenciano street art and sculpture of which there is something new to see around every corner!

As I didn't really have my travel blogger head on, I completely forgot to make a note of the names of any of the restaurants and cafes we loved. Oops! We managed to go through the whole stay without having a bad meal so I am tempted to state that Valenciano food is just great all round. I'm sure someone would contradict me though!

Since we returned to our campsite we did have a day's rest! We've also had several walks including a good excursion through the Albufera woods and wetlands - up to a point where the path was closed for resurfacing with no alternative route anyway! We followed other people's footprints in the sand for a while but ended up needing to turn back instead of completing our planned loop. It was still a good walk though.

 

Valentine's Day didn't get celebrated in our usual style this year despite it being our 15th together. 15!! We were kind of dined out after Valencia so I think we'll treat ourselves some time in the next few weeks instead. Our caravan water pump had packed up the night before so we spent Valentine's morning visiting a local caravan spares shop. Romance is not dead folks! The shop, of course, didn't have an exact Whale replacement for our Premium submersible pump, but the Spanish equivalent turns out to be just as good, much quieter and was considerably cheaper!

A purchase we made on Friday was a stovetop coffee maker. I've wanted one of these for absolutely ages, but wasn't really sure how they worked or which to buy. Fortunately there was one in the Valencia apartment which Gemma kindly taught me how to use. It's very simple when you know how! And now we have our own. It makes delicious coffee although stronger than I am used to so I need to be careful not to drink too much. A splitting caffeine headache is not so much fun!

In blogging news, I curated two Top Ten posts this week. First up is my regular monthly Top Ten Etsy Finds - this edition focuses on Bees and there's some really beautiful items for your perusal. Then I was invited by Etsy to create a Mother's Day Gift Guide post. I chose to select from Artisan Rainbow-featured items which was fun and I might make up more Gift Guides in this way in the future.

I've started a new feature too - a monthly Giveaway Linkup. If you're hosting any Giveaways on your own blogs, feel welcome to add their links and try your luck on everyone else's!

Giveaway listed @ Stephanie Jane!

Here's what you might have missed on my other blogs this week. Click the images to visit the pages ...

	Artisan Rainbow	Literary Flits
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Currently reading

Waiting for the Barbarians

by J.M. Coetzee

tagged: currently-reading, fiction-africa, and charity-shop-find

My Week in Review to the 11th February

A slightly belated Week in Review post because we spent a busy weekend in Valencia with Dave's daughters. We all had a great time, walking a ridiculously long way and eating delicious food, but I'll blog properly about the visit later this week. In the post I want to catch you up with our current campsite and its local area.

We are pitched up at Camping Valencia in El Saler which is a tiny seaside town just outside Valencia. It's in the Albufera national park so there is good beach and woodland walking straight from the campsite. There is also the number 25 bus route right outside that goes straight into Valencia and a nice cycle route to the city as well. On our first evening here, we wandered over a road bridge to gaze out across the rice fields - and I spotted the flamingo street art too.

Camping Valencia is €15 per night with our ACSI card. This price includes a reasonably large pitch with electricity. The shower room is actually heated which is particularly nice as the weather is much colder up here than it was at Isla Plana! It's quiet here because there aren't many touring pitches and the 'shanty town' of permanent pitches isn't occupied at all (I don't think) at this time of year.

In the opposite direction to Valencia is El Palmar, a town of canals and paella restaurants right in the heart of the Albufera. It is easily reached by car, bicycle or that same number 25 bus route and we spent a nice sunny afternoon walking out in a large circuit from El Palmar around wide expanses of paddy fields. There are dozens of outlets in El Palmar offering boat trips too, but our being there mid-week and off-season meant most looked closed so we decided to walk. We saw dozens of herons and a few cormorants, otherwise surprisingly little in the way of wildlife.

Here's what you might have missed on my other blogs this week. Click the images to visit the pages ... and don't forget to enter all my Current Giveaways!

	Artisan Rainbow	Literary Flits
M O N D A Y
T U E S D A Y
W E D N E S D A Y
T H U R S D A Y
F R I D A Y
S A T U R D A Y
S U N D A Y

Currently reading

Waiting for the Barbarians

by J.M. Coetzee

tagged: currently-reading, fiction-africa, and charity-shop-find

#ThrowbackThursday - where we were on this day in Octobers past

I can go back through four years of blog posts for October's ThrowbackThursday because I know that about this date in 2012 we went to see a French film, Les femmes du 6e etage, at Hailsham Pavilion. I don't actually remember much about the film other than it was a light comedy. I haven't found a similar art house cinema in Torquay yet, our nearest being at Dartington which is a bit of a hassle to get too. There is a monthly film club at St Matthias church though. It's only about a ten minute walk away. I had to miss last month's screening due to illness, but am hoping to make it to The Butler on the 3rd November.

At the end of October 2013 we were just about to set out on our First Big Caravan Adventure! We had a ferry booked to Bilbao to arrive on the 30th and were excited and a little nervous too. It looks like I was using up whatever we had left in the kitchen for meals because I blogged a Jambalaya recipe which is a great one for utilising oddments and leftovers! It was the last time we were going to see our lovely Whittard's dining plates for six months too. They're still going strong now.

On the 27th of October 2014 we were in Valencia, Spain, and our Second Big Caravan Adventure was well and truly underway! This journey would end up being nearly two wonderful years of caravan living. I blogged two posts about being in Valencia and I still love this gargoyle statue which overlooked on of the bridges. Highlights including discovering the incredible City Of Arts And Sciences and watching a film in the iMAX cinema there. We tasted our very first Horchata from a street seller outside and marvelled at the stunningly bonkers architecture.

By this time in October 2015 we were in Lyon, France, and I loved their street art. There are a few examples shown in this post from there. We also admired this dramatic fountain sculpted by Bartholdi - of Statue Of Liberty fame - in the 1880s and originally intended for Bordeaux. Lyon is a perfect city for just wandering around. Its centre is compact enough to be manageable on foot and there are fascinating details around every corner. Dismal concrete is everywhere, but then we saw a Roman amphitheatre and the Lyon Opera House too. I especially liked the old silk weaving district.

This year we are, of course, in Torquay, but with only about three weeks left now until we are on the road again. Having been reminiscing here, I can hardly wait!

Days out in Cullera and Valencia

It has been a busy few days around here! We braved fairly high winds on

From Cullera castle to
the Sanctuary 

Wednesday for a walk into Cullera town and up to both the Sanctuary and the Islamic Castle. Believe it or not, there is a footpath up this rock cliff and we managed to climb it, although with a couple of nervy moments on my part. Several of the historic observation towers below the castle have been restored including one which I think I remember is the only octagonal example in Spain. The views from the castle across the surrounding countryside and also out to sea are fantastic. Entry is only 3 euros (or 1 euro for Jubilados (Poor Old Pensioners!)) and the next-door Sanctuary is free to visit. A few castle rooms have cases of interesting artifacts unearthed within Cullera. These include some delicate jewellery, pots, arrowheads, decorated glass fragments and the like. There is also a short film of the history of Cullera. It is in Spanish but spoken slowly and with clear enough visuals that we could work out pretty much what was going on during each era.

Spot the footpath? 

Restored Islamic tower, Cullera 

A train journey on Thursday took us back to Valencia to meet up with our friends Andy and Barbara. They have rented a gorgeous little apartment for a few nights before moving on to Granada and Seville. We wandered the streets of Valencia for an afternoon after having visited the Silk Exchange which is an elegant building but with a distinct lack of informative placards.

Sculpture on a Valencian balcony 

Ornate door in Valencia 

Yesterday Andy and Barbara returned the visit by getting the train from Valencia to Cullera. We walked the Sendero PR CV 336 from the aforementioned castle along the hill ridge out above the distinctive CULLERA hill sign - it's painted in huge white letters on the cliffs and is even lit at night - towards the Faro (lighthouse) where we descended to beach level and our fist Menu Del Dia meal of the trip. Lots of food so we were glad to have got the energetic walking out of the way first leaving only a gentle stroll back along the beach.

Asphodel flowers, no Wendel! 

Asphodel flower on hills above Cullera by Stephanie_Jane