My Week in Review to 31st Dec 2017

Christmas in Denia 

We've had a good Christmas week here in Denia. Last Sunday, Christmas Eve, we hiked to the Cova de l'Aigua to see the Roman inscription and the fabulous views. Then on Christmas Day we went into Denia for a sunny stroll around the marina followed by a mojito (for Dave) and a small beer (for me) in this pretty plaza. I had spotted the cocktail-serving bars here on an earlier expedition and we were delighted they were open for Christmas morning. Dave's last sunny Christmas Day mojito was three years ago in Torrevieja!

Friday saw us on rather more of a hike than we had planned. We wanted to walk from Denia to Xabia for lunch and then back, with a stop at the Unfinished Village en route. We succeeded on all counts and I will blog photos from the Village in a few days. It's a bizarre place! We were shattered by the time we got back to Bailey at the end of the day though. Our proposed four-ish hour hike actually ended up being six hours of walking!

We don't have anything in particular planned for tonight, especially as we need clear-ish heads tomorrow for taking town our awning and generally getting packed away. We're back on the road on Tuesday heading further south to Mazarron. So in the meantime, here are a trio of art and sculpture photos from around Denia:

Happy New Year!

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Roman inscription at the Cova de l'Aigua

View from outside the
Cova de l'Aigua 

We had a good hike on Christmas Eve, climbing part way up the Montgo mountain to a cave where Roman soldiers were garrisoned hundreds of years ago. When I say climbed, of course, I don't mean in a mountaineering sense! The track got pretty steep in places though and there are leg-achingly big steps towards the end. There's also a dizzyingly long drop from a short section of footpath so if heights aren't your favourite thing, maybe don't do this walk!

We parked in the street opposite the Ermita Pare Pere which is a pretty shrine and worth a brief diversion to look around. If all the parking is taken here, follow the road upwards and there is more space just past where the walking route leaves the road. For full walk instructions, Click This Link. It describes a circular walk of 5.4k which we intended to do, but didn't due to the rocky footpaths after the cave detour being very slippery. We reckoned we would probably manage to climb up to Raco del Bou, but I didn't fancy potential accidents on the slide back down!

The initial ascent however is toddler friendly. It's continuously uphill but not especially strenuous and was a popular family walk on Christmas Eve. Part way along this gravelled road, clear signs indicate the footpath up to the Cova de l'Aigua. A later fork in this footpath is also clearly signed. We were high above Denia at this point and there are spectacular views across the town and out to sea. The winding path admittedly doesn't scream 'Romans were here' in the same way their distinctive straight roads do. It gets steeper the nearer we got to the cave and in several places large steps have helpfully been cut into the rock. Once we turned off the track to the footpath we had it completely to ourselves which was great as I didn't feel as though I needed to rush. I could imagine that it could be tricky trying to get up here and back at the same time as lots of other people - on a summer weekend for example.

The Roman evidence - an inscription in the rock dating from 238AD - is now protected by a metal cage although it had already been partly graffitied before the grille was put into place. It's not actually in the cave itself, but just before the last few steps. You can see the edge of the cage in the bottom left of this photograph. For an idea of scale, Dave can just be seen climbing up mid-picture.

And the inscription itself is here:
(You might need to squint!)

The cave itself is believed to have been in use for thousands of years before the Roman visitation and for hundreds of years after they left as well. We could walk into the large first chamber and along a dark passage - you'll want to take a torch - from which we could peer into a flooded second chamber. Clay pipe remnants buried in the floor show where this mountain water used to be piped out to a now vanished hillside village. By medieval standards, this was valuable fresh drinking water - we didn't taste it!

Dave in a Cave!

My Week in Review to 24th Dec 2017

We're on a beautiful campsite in Denia, Spain at the moment. It's called Camping Los Pinos. There are large pitches under loads or mature trees - pines obviously, as well as palm trees and (possibly) beech trees. A pair of red squirrels run around most days showing off how good they are at flinging themselves from branch to branch! We can see the sea from our pitch and walk along the promenade most days. The other campers are almost entirely non-Spanish which is a bit odd. We are a mix of mostly Brits, Dutch, Germans and French. The facilities are good and the staff friendly and, after 7 nights, the price has dropped to just €12.50 a night including electricity.

On the downside, our mobile wifi gadget doesn't work here - presumably because the Montgo mountain that towers over the campsite is blocking its signal - and the campsite wifi, while free, is pretty useless for most of the day. Consequently I've been concentrating on keeping Artisan Rainbow and Literary Flits going and rather neglecting posting over here. Oops! Fortunately we've not been doing much to tell you all about anyway!

We have been cycling and had a walk up over the hill towards Xabia. We reckon we could walk all the way there, have ourselves a lunch and walk back so we're looking forward to doing that between Christmas and New Year. In fact, having driven the winding road to Xabia on Wednesday, it might almost be quicker to walk! We camped in Xabia three winters ago so it was fun to walk around again and reminisce. The excellent Indian grocer is still in the Arenal part of town so we stocked up on spices. Then we walked to the beachfront and treated ourselves to coffee und kuchen at the Austrian Cafe. It was almost nothing like being back in Vienna but very good all the same!

Wednesday evening saw us eating out again - twice in one day and we were out after dark! The Indian Palace restaurant was almost deserted apart from us, but the food was absolutely delicious. If you're ever in Denia, I am happy to recommend it to you.

Merry Christmas!

	Artisan Rainbow	Literary Flits
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Currently reading

Waiting for the Barbarians

by J.M. Coetzee

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Beautiful walking from Navajas

Revisiting our previous haunts again, we drove over to Navajas this week to hike in the hills there. Navajas was a little further away from Moncofa than we thought - about an hour's drive. We pitched up in the town's campsite, Camping Altomira, during our first European caravanning winter five years ago. That campsite is on a steep hill which our car at the time struggled to tow the caravan up!

It was fun to see sights we remembered such as the Fountains Walk which takes in a number of fresh water springs along the riverside. The waterfall, Salto de la Novia, has a 30 metre drop and, we thought, had more water tumbling this time around than back in March 2014.

Dave plotted us a figure 8-shaped walk starting at the Manuel Rodriguez Vasquez statue pictured above. It's a romantic interpretation of the Salto de la Novia fable of young lovers throwing themselves to their deaths over the waterfall (I think). We walked for about four hours with a picnic midway. We walked to the waterfall then up the side of the gorge into scented pine woods. The uphill slog was longer than we remembered! Instead of orange groves as around Moncofa, Navajas agriculture seems to be mostly almond orchards - all looking very bare at this time of year.

Revisitant notre endroits précédentes, cette semaine nous avons allé en voiture à Navajas pour faire un ballade dans les collines. Navajas de Moncofa était un peu plus loin que nous avons pensé - environ une heure. Nous avons resté dans le camping municipal, Camping Altomira, pendant notre premier hiver Européen en caravane. Il y a cinq ans. Cet camping est sur une colline escarpée. Notre voiture à ce moment-là eu du mal à tracter la caravane là-haut!

C'était amusant de voir les spectacles que nous nous rappelons. Il y a un sentier des sources au bord de la rivière. La chute d'eau qui s'appelle Salto de la Novia se mesure 30 mètres haut. Nous pensons qu'il y avait plus d'eau maintenant qu'en mars 2014.

Dave nous a comploté un route en forme d'un chiffre 8. Nous avons marché pendant quatre heures avec un pique-nique au milieu. Nous commençons près de la statue au haut de cet post. C'est une interprétation romantique de la fable Salto de la Novia. Deux jeunes amants se jettent eux-mêmes au morts en la chute de l'eau (je pense).

Nous avons marché jusqu'à la chute de l'eau, puis avons monté la gorge et entré dans un bois des pines parfumés. Nous avons fait un grand effort et le chemin était plus long que nous avons rappelé. Au lieu de les orangeraies, comme en Moncofa, le plupart d'agriculture pres de Navajas est les amandes. Tout les arbres sont dénudés en décembre.

A 20 mile cycle ride back to Malvarrosa and Xilxes

We spent October and November in Camping Malvarrosa back in 2014 and I didn't immediately realise how close Moncofa is to Malvarrosa. It's only about 10 miles distant and practically flat countryside all the way! We cycled there this week to take a look and remember our previous visit. Surprisingly that campsite is almost full. Admittedly it is much smaller than Camping Moncofa, but I think we only saw one spare pitch. We cycled along the offroad Via Verde I used to use for jogging and then returned along the beach boardwalks and promenades. It really is perfect for easy cycling aound here!

On the way back we swooped again along Xilxes seafront. We had walked there a couple of days previously. I took all these photos then. I love the little beachfront villas and summer houses. Xilxes promenade is very pretty although their Mediteraneo campsite looks somewhat the worse for wear!

Nous avons passé d'octobre et novembre en 2014 dans Camping Malvarrosa et je ne savais pas qu'immédiatement comment proche est Moncofa de Malvarrosa. C'est seulement environ 16km de là et pratiquement plat pendant tout le chemin. Nous avons roulé là cette semaine pour jeter un coup d'oeil et aussi pour rappeler notre visite précédente. Étonnamment cet camping est presque complet. Il est vrai que c'est beaucoup plus petite que Camping Moncofa mais je pense que nous avons vu seulement une emplacement libre. Nous avons roulé sur la Voie Verte, j'avais l'habitude d'utiliser pour faire du jogging. Puis nous sommes retournées le long les trottoirs du bois et les promenades. C'est vraiment parfait ici pour les rounlades faciles!

Sur le chemin du retour nous s’abattit à nouveau le long du front de mer de Xilxes. Nous avions parcouru il y quelques jours auparavant. J’ai pris toutes ces photos ensuite. J’adore les petites villas en bord de mer et les maisons d’été. Xilxes promenade est très jolie, bien que leur Camping Mediteraneo ressemble un peu le pire à porter!