Spain has 3 main costs and 18 Costas. That doesn’t include the coffee shops. Though we haven’t seen that many “obvious” chains, barring Decathlon, Spar (francise?) and AleHop’s distinctive cow.
The concrete factory we passed leaving this morning will have a secure future if the amount of housing along the coast is anything to go by. Inland it’s pretty and old villages. Coastal it’s a large development. Pretty quiet today – if everyone was in it’d be chaotic. Maybe someone has shares in the concrete business.
The old service road we went on was lovely. Fields of oranges, olives, pomegranates, almonds. All in various states of ripeness. The fella knocking the almonds off has a good technique: he needs it to reach that high for a long time. A lived in face – maybe he modelled for the mural we saw.
The land is a lot drier than we’ve seen for a while, offset by stone walls with a great earthen texture. Who built them? Pre concrete days.
The way into Castello de la Plana is on a great rail-trail route. It must have been a lovely wee line. The main line is very active – the goods train carrying 3 decks of cars was 2 or 3 days long.
The clue we’ve left Catalonia is we head to Valencia tomorrow and into a rest day.
Travelling reflections 