They say lifes a beach....

...and if it were Spanish then there would be occasional areas of nudity dotted along the route!

Monday 2 April 2007
The morning was spent waiting around the house for some local delivery guys to bring along a new sofa and some cabinets. Vero and I went for a walk to downtown Ciudad Quesada winding through the quiet roads looking at all the expensive villas. The town is low rise, well established and very floral and with some warm sunshine bursting through the walk was very pleasant.

The delivery guys turned up just before lunch and set to work on installing the goods. We asked them if they could take the old clapped out sofa bed away and they said they had no space in the lorry. So where did they put a huge sofa and 3 sizable cabinets then? Duhhhh.

Anyway with some hasty rearranging the living room looked much more homely than it did (not saying it wasn't nice in the first place).

After a nice cooked lunch (Vero's first attempt at a kind of paella), we decided to head for a drive inland, taking in some of the rural scenery which is only a short journey away. Then you get a real feel for how many citrus groves there are in this area - it is mind blowing. They grow really well because of the low humidity and all the salt in the air from the several large salt lakes dotted along the coast.

We drove through Benijofar, San Miguel (no beer though) and then onto Embalsera de la Pedrera, the local reservoir which although man-made was quite stunning, nestling in the hills above. Here it was so quiet and the colour of the lake was wonderful. We then drove over the 3 dams that hold all the water in taking in the spectacular views before descending down a very rural road past almond and olive groves towards Orihuela. now according to the guide this was a nice place to visit however after half an hour of trying to work our way around the one way system and find somewhere to park we decided it was nothing better than a dump and escaped. It was a typical Spanish town where the streets are so narrow but the buildings a 4 or 5 storeys high meaning the pavements and those poor people who live above the shops never see the sun! We certainly didn't see anything picturesque.

We cruised back through some more typical Spanish villages and via a quick drink stop by Quesada's golf course, we returned home. That evening was spent in the local Italian restaurant eating yummy pizza and yet more nice local wine.

Tuesday 3 April 2007
Today the sun shone all day and we spent our last day at the beach. We went to Playa La Marina which was an excellent long golden sandy beach with nothing but dunes and hammock surrounding it. La Marina itself was nearly a km away and there was no cranes or concrete in sight. We left the old fogeys to sunbathe by the dunes and went for a very long walk south to the inlet that separates this stretch of beach and the Guardamar/Torrelamata stretch.

The waves were crashing in and the sand was so soft to walk bare foot on. Then we saw the signs - 'Playa Naturista'. Many people were walking along like us along the shore and we did occasionally encounter a couple of fat Germans waving their bratwursts in the sea breeze. Yeukk.

After our two hour trek we spent the rest of the afternoon lying on the sand and eating yet more loaded meat and cheese baguettes. That evening, back at the ranch it was (kind of) barbecue time on the terrace as we wound down our stay on the Costa Blanca.