Travel with Kevin and Ruth: Back into the mountains

Saturday, December 17, 2022

Back into the mountains

Because it's a little warmer, most people stick to the coast in the southern area of Spain. And that's totally logical. But boy, we sure do enjoy the interior more. We find the coast very busy and industrial, and really not that scenic. And if you want free motorhome parking, it's not that easy to come by, and you likely won't be alone.

Yes, there are also a lot of campgrounds along the coast. But they're not cheap, and we remember from past experience when we were here doing a motorhome exchange in 2017 that they can be very crowded, with not much space between sites.

So when we left Valencia yesterday morning, we headed inland. Fortunately, we don't have to go very far inland to find what we're looking for.

We stopped in the town of Algamesi to do some grocery shopping. Found a Consum grocery store. They are a chain here in Spain, and we hadn't used one yet. It was fine, but we think we like Mercadona or Carrefour better.

Scenery along the way.

We are headed up into the mountains.

But the weather forecast is quite nice for the next week. It will be two or three degrees cooler up in the interior, but with sunshine it will still be great for doing some hiking. If it gets too cold, we'll head back to the coast.

We stopped at a gas station and put some fuel in. Diesel prices have been dropping the last couple of weeks, and the government of Spain still has a €0.20 a liter discount in place at the pump. So we filled up at €1.36 a liter which is the cheapest we've paid since we were in Hungary in May.

That should be enough to get us to Morocco where prices are even cheaper.

Heading higher.

We arrived at the mountain town of Bocairent. I say "mountain", but we've only gone from sea level up to 600 meters (2,000') or so.

I had read about parking at the town cemetery and that there is a nice view of the town from behind the cemetery. Sure enough, a trail around the back leads us to this view...