The hours we keep in Spain are a lot more erratic than when we lived in the UK, for the simple reason that we no longer have to get up at a fixed time to go to work. Once a week, for example, we go to our local bar to listen to live music – outside in the courtyard during the summer of course – which doesn’t finish until after midnight and when we go out to dinner with friends, it is just as likely to be a weekday evening and we won’t get home until the early hours. We’ve been wanting for some time, however, to watch the sunrise from the top of the mountains and this week we finally got round to setting the alarm early enough – 0500!
We drove up through the deserted streets of the villages in the Vall de Leguart, up beyond Benimaurell to a point – over 700m above sea level – that commands a view of the whole of our valley, down to the coast and out to sea. We saw a wild boar and a fox, having almost run over an owl sitting in the road very close to our villa. The temperatures during the day at the moment are over 35C and it is very humid. As a result, when it began to get light, we could see the mist lying in the valley and out at sea, there was a thin layer of low cloud. It was therefore nearly 0645 before the first spot of the red disc of the sun began to peep through the cloud and it was then over in a matter of minutes.
The experience was wonderful and we hope the photos below do it justice. On our way back down, the baker had just opened his shop in the village of Campell, so we stopped and bought a crusty loaf that had just come out of the oven. It was still warm when we got home and we sat on our terrace with a large pot of tea and some jam, and enjoyed breakfast like never before.
