Our last day in Spain and a rather long and tiring drive 450 km to Barcelona. Considering the tolls and night in a hotel when we arrived I am not sure it was worth the 'free' Airmiles flight compared with paying for a cheap flight to Alicante except for the fact that we stopped off on the way back to visit Pensicola 200km south of Barcelona.
It has an imposing walled old fortified town with castle, picturesque narrow streets and stunning views of the turquoise Med. I have decided that the colour of the Med is one of my top ten endorphin releasers. So far wasabi and 99% dark chocolate are the only other ones i can recall, but it is a list in progress.
This seems to be a holiday resort popular with the Spanish and has a beautiful long silky golden sand beach and we could happily have stayed longer. As it is we spent most of our time there in a lovely restaurant called El Penyon which is in the Michelin green guide and made the Routard Guide for each of the last 10 or more years and was therefore full of French, usually a good sign where food is concerned. Sat in a cool courtyard shaded by vines which was perfect on a hot day particularly as we had remembered the insect repellent.
The motorway was almost empty so not a bad drive but the usual hassle trying to return the rental car with a full tank as we always leave it to the last minute and the petrol station at the airport always seems to be at the centre of a labyrinth with an impossible one way system made worse when you didnt check which terminal you were flying from and picked heads instead of tails.
Heathrow is a nightmare. 15 minutes on the ground after landing waiting for someone to switch on the guidance system for the pilot to move 10metres on to the stand, a queue for passport control but at least the bags had arrived by the time we got to the belt, altho the first bus for the business car park decided to sail past without stopping and the second let us on then tried to do a circuit of the car park in record time without stopping to let us off. Got the car in the end and despite the M25 nearly home. It took 1h 45mins to fly from Barcelona to Heathrow and 2 hrs to get home from there.
Need to eat as BA cutbacks mean only small bag of crackers on the flight, but no work tomorrow so no worries! Many thanks to Denise and John for the generous loan of their wonderful house and a really relaxing break.