6 July from quiet peaceful country side to big cities

Not a lot of activity today because most of the day was spent inside panda, although there was a lot to see along the way as we travelled through various different regions and terrains. From the beautiful mountains through fertile valleys, through dry country, industrial towns and then more densely populated areas. Finally arriving in busy Valencia at the end of the day.

We again changed our itinerary and decided to travel further north in one day than originally planned, unfortunately missing out Alicante and the Costa Blanca. We wanted to make sure we got into Barcelona in good time as the car is due to be returned.  

No photos at the start of the journey as I felt too sick as we wound our way down out of the mountains.

We could see large patches of white in the distance that we originally thought were water but as we got closer we could see that they were structures like hot houses.

The further we travelled the more we saw. The countryside was covered in them. We couldn’t see inside them so didn’t know what was growing in them but we presumed that it was produce.

Some of the country we travelled through was quite rugged and reminded us of Australia

We travelled a lot of the way along the Autovia Mediterraneo

and we did get to see the sea at one point early in the journey as we travelled near the coast down near Almeria, which was very industrial.

The road system here is pretty incredible with huge highways travelling through, what appears to be the middle of nowhere, tunnelling through mountains and over high viaducts

And we could see evidence of even more being built.

We passed through pretty towns

And of course lots of orange groves as we were heading for Valencia

As we arrived in Valencia we could see the modern city of the Arts and Sciences, as the place we had booked into, the Confortel Aqua 3 was close by there

In fact the hotel was in a huge modern shopping complex, very different to most of the other places we have been - staying in, but fine for just spending the night and passing through.

Because we were also close to the port and the beach we decided to walk down to the beach via the port for dinner. Everywhere along near the port were buildings dedicated to the 32^nd Americas cup, must have been a big thing here then, a lot of the buildings are looking a bit sad and neglected now.

The beach was much like most of the other beaches we have seen, a vast expanse of dirty sand and a seething mass of people, although because it was so late in the day there weren’t as many as there probably had been here.

Anyway we found a pleasant restaurant overlooking the beach and had the traditional Paella.

Whilst we were sitting there two police came along patrolling the beach on quad bikes with huge tyres. I tried to get a photo to post but they were going by too fast!!!