Vernon and Celia in Spain

After returning from Christmas and New Year in the UK, life in sunny Spain continues with the Careline panto, which this year is Jack and the Beanstalk. Instead of being part of the chorus, we are helping out as ‘front of house’ staff as we didn’t want the stress of 3 months of rehearsals this year, when we were busy with our own production ‘Aspects of Musicals’. It was also great to be able to see the panto from the auditorium for the first time.

The weather has been unusually warm and sunny this winter, so we have been enjoying our gardening and have resumed our trips into the mountains. We tackled the climb up to the castle at Castell de Castells at the head of the Vall del Pop, although we cheated somewhat by driving up to 900m and only walking the last 200m. The view from the peak down onto Guadalest in the next valley was awesome and well worth the effort getting there.

     

This year’s Moors & Christians parade at El Verger was the best we have seen so far and we have added the photos to our gallery

We decided this year to combine a number of holidays and trips into one, thus saving time and fuel.

We set off on our 4,500k, 3-week marathon at the end of May for a short holiday in La Rioja region of N. Spain, before catching the ferry from Bilbao to Portsmouth, spending 10 days visiting family and friends in the UK and finally returning home via France, where we stayed with 2 friends en route.

La Rioja is an area renowned for probably the best red wine in Spain and whilst we were there, we visited the Bodega Fabulista in the catacombs beneath the medieval, walled town of Laguardia, where we were treated to a tour and a wine tasting.

 

 

 

 

 

The town of Laguardia is a medieval, walled town, built on top of a hill and laid out with a grid of narrow, cobbled streets, with storks nesting on some of the tallest buildings.

We also visited several beautiful monasteries, including the Monasterio de San Millan dela Cogalla, where we toured the magnificent cloisters, sacristy and church.

 

 

 

 

 

We visited another monastery 100m up on the side of a mountain at Valvanera and the cathedral at Santa Domingo de la Calzada, where we spent our last night in the Santo Domingo Bernardo Fresnada, one of Spain’s many paradors and an old Francisan monastery.

 

 

The countryside of La Rioja is one of great contrast and on our final day we visited the winter ski-resort of Ezcaray, only a 15 minute drive from the rolling countryside planted with 60,ooo hectares of vineyards. Here we drove 1,600m up into the mountains to the deserted winter station of ski lifts, passing herds of grazing cattle and enjoying awesome scenery that made us think we were in Switzerland or Austria.

 

 

 

 

Enjoy the photos of La Rioja in full at the gallery and watch a slideshow of the photos on youtube.

We travelled aboard Brittany Ferries’ Cap Finistere to the UK, arriving in Portsmouth on the morning of 1st June. Vernon had by sheer chance arranged the UK leg of the tour to coincide with the Alton Beer Festival, which he attended with son Chris on Saturday morning, reminding himself how much he misses real ale in Spain! During the 10-day stay in the UK, we were able to visit our families and meet up with old friends, some of whom we hadn’t seen since leaving UK nearly 4 years ago. Celia also met her cousin Sandy, who was visiting the UK and whom she hadn’t seen in over 35 years!

 

 

 

 

 

Our journey back to Spain was via Eurotunnel and a long drive through France, stopping off firstly with friend Sharon, who lives near the village of Moncoutant, between Nantes and Poitiers. After another long drive down through France, we stopped overnight with Mike and Susie in the Aude region in the foothills of the Pyrenees, south of Carcassone. The third and final 8-hour leg brought us back home to Orba and long-awaited temperatures of +30C!