A laugh is a smile that has burst.
How many steep, winding, twisting, turning roads are there in the world? On Tuesday we found yet another one. We gladly packed up and left Camping Costa Blanca after one night, it was not a great site and I was sick of watching commuter trains passing twenty metres from our windows. We drove up the coast towards Villajoyosa and then before we reached Benidorm, we turned inland and steeply uphill on the CV770. It’s another wiggly white road on our map, so we knew it would be ‘fun’. It was a very scenic rocky valley, most of it lined with endless terracing; most of which was no longer in use and dotted here and there were numerous derelict buildings. After we passed through Sella, there were more orange, nispero and almond trees heavily laden with fruit. And when we reached the top of the valley at Port de Tudons (1,027 metres), the scenery became more like a meadow with pink, red, blue and yellow flowers.
Below us were hillsides of silvery green olive trees and coming down the twists and turns on the other side had Eileen in low gear and both of us watching the brake light and the temperature gauge. This was one helluva route to avoid Benidorm!!! At the village of Alcoleja, the road, complete with ninety-degree bends and market stalls, had narrowed to just a little more than the width of Eileen; but we made it through. I also spent a fair bit of time keeping an eye out for rock falls; there were darn big boulders hanging off craggy tops on both sides of our expedition across the Sierra de Altana. It was a mighty impressive landscape.
Apart from the occasional half a minute stops, to let a car pass, or photo moments, whenever possible on the narrow road, we didn’t really stop until we reached Guadalest. The village is popular with day-trippers from Bendidorm, so we were expecting crowds, but we could see spaces in the car park. When I tried to pay the young man, he apologised and said that we had to park in the caravan car park and pointed down the hill. We couldn’t see where he meant, but after a big U turn and looking down to the left we could see where he was pointing to. We got a good bit of exercise walking back up from that car park !!!!
But it was worth the walk, Guadalest was a very pretty and slightly whacky place. There are lots of tourist shops, all selling much the same things, but there’s lots of nice cafés, some with stunning views across different angles of the Guadalest Valley. For such a little place there are also rather a lot of museums, perhaps to make the trip up the mountain worthwhile for the Benidorm Beachgoers. To name a few of the zany ones, there was the Museum of Torture Instruments (we passed on that one), the Museum of Nativity Scenes, the Museum of Salt and Pepper Shakers, the Museum of Miniatures; so many choices, it was hard to make a decision.
Firstly we meandered up through the village, then through a tunnel carved through the rock into an upper section of the village, all part of what was once a fortified castle. We popped in to the Museum of Ordinary People, which was a tiny three-storey house showing how villagers lived and how they produced olive oil. Charisma, it looks like you need a donkey. Dotted around the village there are numerous balconies and terraces with fabulous views of the reservoir and surrounding valley. The old distinctive belfry is strangely balanced on a tiny outcrop of rock; goodness knows how the bell-ringer got out there to ring it.
By paying to visit the Orduña House (Grand House), you could also access what remains of the Castle of San José, right at the very top of the crag. The house, which was built after a huge earthquake in 1644 which destroyed most of the castle, was a lovely place. Not too big, not too small, not too ornate and lovely views, I could have moved in there. Not so the castle, there are pathways, only a few bits of walls and a cemetery right in the middle, but what a lovely spot to be buried.
Before leaving Guadalest we popped in to the Museo Microgigante, after all we had to do one of the quirky ones. The gigantic bit was just a rather weird sculpture of horses and a ‘tree of life’ spreading through two floors. But the micro bits were amazing. You could see something small in a glass box and then when you looked through the magnifying glass at the front you could see teeny tiny creations. There was a flea, dressed in clothes riding a bicycle, an ant playing a violin sitting on a crystal, a model of a woman sitting in a wasps nest, one of tiny people climbing up the leg of a cricket, a self-portrait carved on a grain of sand, a painting by El Greco on a grain of rice and a bullring created on a pinhead, plus lots more. It was twenty minutes of “Look at this one!!!”
When we arrived back on the coast, we checked in to Camping Calpemar which is right in the town and only a five-minute walk to the beach; a very good position. The weather is perfect, the layout of the campsite is good, the bathrooms are fabulous, the swimming pool has plenty of sunbeds, there’s a nice laundry and we have views of the top of the Peñón de Ifach. So we booked four nights and then decided to stay for five. We’ve never stayed anywhere that long!!
So on our first night, after cooking up a tasty dinner, we watched a blood red sunset, before Rodney headed over to the bar to watch a Real Madrid v Juventas soccer match. All in all, a delightful day. Shame we missed Benidorm………
