The ferry to Spain - finally

After the "fun" of the two aborted Thames trips, we wondered if the replanned use of the ferry crossing that we had booked back in 2019 and moved many times would actually happen. The crossing from Portsmouth to Santander was planned as the start of a road trip through Spain, to the Camargue and then a couple of weeks on a hire boat there. It had morphed into a pure driving holiday in Spain with Tina, down to the med coast. Somehow, getting on board the ferry Salamanca and sitting in the rather lovely club lounge with a view over the delights of Portsmouth docks still did not convince us that it was finally going to happen:

Another ferry docked to spoil our view a bit:

and the wave forecast for the trip to and across the bay of Biscay made the crew a little worried:

(9.2 metre waves forecast off the Fastnet area but our route actually turned out to be fine, just a bit rolly and she needed none of the stash of Kwells she had taken along.)

Tina adopted a pensive "I will believe this is going to happen once we leave the berth" look:

and then the "wow this is really happening" look for a phone call:

After two very pleasant nights on board, we were disgorged in Santander and began a leisurely drive towards the Mediterranean coast. En route, we stopped in Haro to meet up with Norman and Julie who were in their enormous and rather wonderful motorhome on a campsite there. Indie looked as regal as ever:

whilst Stanley decided that Norman's neck needed cleaning up as only a Jack Russel tongue can do:

You can see just how much Norman enjoyed that. 

The first night was arranged as a stopover in Alfaro. Some serious buildings there:

We were impressed with how economical  a car itself weighing nearly 2.5 tons, loaded with three people and and a massive amount of luggage managed to be crossing the hills on the way:

We had another overnight stop near Valencia airport then headed to Altea to take over a rather wonderful apartment for a week. Altea really impressed us:

even if some of the shops had a strange window display. The syringe to inject some form of facial filler seemed "unusual" to our UK eyes:

Wandering around Altea we had great fun, testing the cafes and restaurants. In the yacht club, we managed to have a drink with Alf Garnett:

For the folks who are not old enough to remember Warren Mitchell and "'Til death us do part" here is a link to the details Wikipedia link. Also an image from the program to help you decide if we were rubbing shoulders with the ghost of a famous actor or not:

The Altea boating area also proved to have a  sense of humour:

We, rather wildly, decided to take the local tram system and visit Benidorm. Why? Well, not because we wanted to be part of that "scene" but because it was kind of a must see once before we die place. A mix of lovely old town, nice bay area and horrid over-development for the tourists. Here is how it plays out when that lot are put together:

Way too many high rise places, way too many people:

The things that really struck us were how we didn't see a single "English / Irish pub" in Altea or any two seat mobility scooters. Funnily enough, Benidorm has them in spades together with tourists wearing "Benidorm 2024" T shirts like a rock band tour offering.

We happily got the tram back to the apartment and civilisation after a very good lunch.

Back in Altea, Tina had a day on the large terrace soaking up the sun - basically, getting Ronsealed. We walked into the old town area and up to the magnificent church, situated at the highest point of the town. Proper old Spain stuff:

With lovely views out to sea as well:

The church domes have the distinctive blue tiles:

The interior was beautiful:

and as we were planning to leave, a wedding party arrived, well turned out and accompanied by drummers to the door. Quite a place to tie the knot and we felt quite privileged to witness it as annoying tourist types at the back of the church.

So far, the Spain trip was going very well.