Smurfy Semana Seis: Spain

Valencia and Catalonia, Spain

The next stop on our East coast of Spain whirlwind tour was to Valencia. We knew very little about Valencia except for the fact that it hosted the America's cup in 2007 and it is also where Paella originates from.

We Smurfed up to a nice sounding campsite 12k out from the city center, near the beach. Upon arrival we were greeted by the owner who after a glance of the rear of Smurf gave us a lecture about being quiet and not disturbing the other campers and that us Kiwi's were renowned for playing up. At first I thought he was joking. He wasn't. Then I thought he must have confused us with Aussies. He hadn't. So we quietly set up our spot and sat back quietly enjoying a wine in the lasting sun. That night, the temperature didn't fall below 30 so we decided to open the boot up for a little air circulation only to be kept awake by the noisy campsite bar music until the early hours.

As it turns out, we were here at the time of La Tomatina, the week long festival at a neighbouring town - Bunol. The campsite was full of Aussies and Kiwis all on their "van tour" which La Tomatina is one of the highlights. The first time on our trip we'd actually bumped into like minded Antipideans. I guess we'd been off the beaten festival route until now.

Having two nights in Valencia, and only one full day, we were up and on our bikes by mid morning. The bike ride into the center was a cruisy well marked cycle path which followed the beach past a few more beaches, a nudist beach, and finally into town to our first tourist destination - City of Arts and Sciences. This place was amazing. Very recently built, it was great to see so much thought and time put into creating something modern and yet beautiful. We wandered around the area for an hour or so before deciding to escape from the heat and check out the "must see" aquarium. The aquarium, as aquariums go, was very impressive. It had all the fishies you would want to see including tang (which we want an aquarium of our own for!) and numerous sun fish. The sun fish were very spooky and odd looking - kind of like the moon, flattened, with eyes and a few tiny fins added for comic affect. There were also numerous penguins (some only found in NZ), ducks, porpoises, seals and even walruses.

After our touristy piece was done, we were hungry. Paella, the one pan rice dish is originally from Valencia so we just had to try it. Along the waterfront overlooking the beach were numerous restaurants touting the best paella in town, so we picked one that was busy with a beach side table for two and sat down. First up - a jug of much needed sangria! I have to say that this was the best sangria I have tasted. The waiter carefully picked the perfect amount of fruit and ice cubes for each glass and it was divine. Refreshingly good. Next course - the paella. We decided on a seafood paella and were not disappointed. The large paella pan for two came out and we tucked in to prawns, muscles, squid and perfectly cooked rice in a tomato type sauce. It was fantastic.

Unfortunately what happened next was the first mishap of the trip. We stood up to leave only to discover that my manbag was no longer with us. We assume it was stolen by a disfigured lady who passed by and distracted us while her young son reached under the tablecloth and took off with the goods. After a panicked look around the area including all the rubbish bins, we cut our losses. Luckly, all that was in the bag was a dirty singlet, a spare camera battery and my keys. Crap. The keys to Smurfy and to the bike lock were gone! All was not lost though, as we had spare keys for both back in Smurfy - and by a stroke of luck, we left the boot unlocked on the off chance of this happening. So we caught a taxi back to the campsite, retrieved the spare keys and then decided to punish ourselves for being so silly by running / walking the 12k back to town to retrieve the bikes. We made it in to town in time for a much needed dip in sea and a slow bike ride home to Smurfy to drown our sorrows.

Apparently this area of Spain is renowned for petty theft. The kiwi van next to us had been broken into the day before with a few things stolen, and we heard stories of other similar incidents along this stretch of coastline.

The next day we popped back into Valencia on our way north and walked to Mercado Central, where we bought supplies for the day, purchased a cheap paella pan, and hit the road again - north bound, in search of Tarragona. Tarragona was a pretty little town on a nice pebbly beach where we relaxed for a night in a nice quiet campsite to break up the journey to our next destination, Barcelona.

Having been to Barcelona on a weekend away from London, we mostly knew what to expect from the city. Being our favourite city in Spain we had no qualms in returning - especially as Don, my closest London friend had recently relocated here. We stayed at his apartment for two nights.

We were pretty cautious about parking up in Barcelona after our recent events but weren't able to be too picky with our location - we grabbed the first park that came available after a circling for 5 minutes, packed up our valuables and took off on foot to Don's flat, in a great location in the old town.

After catching up with Don over a few beers at his funky little apartment, and a much needed shower, we were taken on a short walking tour of his area on our way to Mosquito, a dumpling-slash-beer-brewery-pub where we met Cellina, Don's Spanish girlfriend. Mosquito was fantastic. It had a large menu of ales and other beers - some of which were brewed on the premises and all of which were served in their specific glasses. The dumplings were also great - the first Asian meal of our holiday. We drank and chatted the evening away before slowly walking our way back to Don's flat via a delicious strawberry daiquiri at a funky glowing red bar which I can't remember the name of.

The following day, Don took the day off work so we decided to do a Smurfy day trip out to Montserrat, a crazy monastery built into a hill. First off though - breakfast. Don snaked us to the main market off La Rumbla where we feasted on fruit smoothies, quiches and fried seafood from the vendors. Yum. With full tummies, we walked to where we parked Smurfy, made brief introductions between Smurfy and Don and hit the road, destination Montserrat!

We cruised for about an hour before we reached the cable car - a thrilling ride to get to the top. Montserrat is a small town on the hill comprising largely of a monastery and a few tourist geared shops and restaurants. The highlight of any trip to Montserrat is the walk through the the monastery to see and kiss the "black virgin", a black stone carved statue of a young woman. We waited in a long and slow moving queue which Gini bailed on half way to wait in the church, but finally Don and I managed to see and kiss the black virgin. Although neither of us are religious, it was an interesting adventure non-the-less.

That afternoon, after returning to Barcelona, we had a few beers and freshened up at Don's flat before heading out again - to what has to be one of my favourite restaurants of all time. We met Cellina there and it would have been a little difficult to order otherwise. Basically, as soon as you get in the door (the queue was out the door!) you are presented with a market of seafood - numerous different types of fish on ice, crabs (which were still wriggling) and other seafoods. You place your order, delicatessen style saying "two of these, four of these, 300 grams of this" etc and the seafood is weighed, bagged and priced before going into a tub bound for the kitchen. Cellina and Don selected numerous different types of crab, two whole calamari's (which ended up as crumbed calamari rings), some odd square clams (very yum), mussels and other tasty treats. After placing your order you sit and wait for your number to be called as each dish is prepared and then collected from the kitchen staff. We were munching and cracking our way through crabs and rings and clams trying to keep pace with the kitchen staff. It was a losing battle! A wonderful experience and only 60 euro for the four of us including two bottles of wine.

With tummies full and sleepy heads, we returned to Don's flat for another nights sleep.

The next morning we said our goodbyes and thanks to Don for a great couple of days and lugged our goods back to Smurfy.

Unfortunately, this is when the scariest moment of our trip (so far) occurred. Smurfy was no longer there. Not believing it, I assumed we were in the wrong place, but no, we were not, and all that remained of Smurfy was a pile of broken glass on the sidewalk. We immediately thought the worst - that someone had stolen Smurfy and taken him on a painfully slow joy ride, stripped him of all our stuff and dumped him. We phoned the police (after getting the emergency number off Don) and sat on the curb, feeling and looking like lost souls. The police arrived within 15 minutes and we explained to them the situation. I was flicking through photos of Smurfy on my iPhone to show them what he looked like (here is Smurfy at the beach, in France, one in Ireland!). They didn't speak much English but seemed to understand and were back and forth on their radios for what seemed like eternity before one of the two officers said "we think we have your car". A glimmer of hope! Another eternity passed when the policeman passed his cellphone to me with a translator on the other end - who said something along the lines of: "Your car is in the impound lot. You must go inspect the van to see what condition it is in. You probably wont get it back today as it may need to be scanned for fingerprints."

With the glimmer of hope starting to glow a nervous blue, we were told to head to the impound lot on foot to inspect Smurfy before heading to the police station to make a report. We reached the impound lot a hot and sticky mess. Carrying our laptops and other bags in the morning heat was taking its toll, but we made it. We could see Smurfy out back and after a very quick inspection, the exterior looked ok except for one small broken front window. I had to fill in the paper work while Gini went to work inside the van to see what was missing. Amazingly - nothing was missing! In fact, we had gained a bag of random stuff. After piecing together the bits and pieces of broken information, we think what happened is this: A drunkard broke the window, put his bag onto the front seat possibly with the intent of staying the night, but was scared off before he could gain entry to the van. A policeman then wandered past the van, saw the broken window, and had it towed to the impound to prevent further issues. The amazing thing is that all of this happened during daylight and within a couple of hours. We parked up Smurfy about 6pm and it reached the impound at 8.30pm.

Total loss: 3 hours - most of which was writing up the police report at a busy Barcelona police station - feeling a little silly being there with nothing stolen while other tourists were filling in forms after losing wallets, passports and handbags the night before. The worst possible situation with the best possible outcome. With the scare over, we thanked our lucky stars and hit the road once again.

We had only allowed one night to cover the north coast of Spain above Barcelona, and with half a day already gone, we could only afford to stop at two places: Tossa de Mar and Cadeques. Tossa de Mar is a pretty little town with an impressive hill top castle overlooking a pretty, small, sandy beach. We stopped for a quick dip and a few groceries before heading off to Cadeques - where we found a pretty little campsite among olive trees with one small Smurfy sized spot left to stay the night. The main reason we went to Cadeques was for it's amazing Dali museum, so we arose early, checked out of the campsite into a car park and ventured on foot to the museum. Unfortunately the museum is very popular and they only allow a certain number of people through each day - which pretty much means you have to book well in advance, which we didn't. So we bought a Dali calendar from the shop and took off into town, beach towels in hand, for one last Spanish, sorry, Catalonian swim before we returned to Smurfy once again and took off north in search of France.

With so little time spent in Catalan, we definitely didn't do it the justice it deserves, and promise to return one day to continue where we left off - except perhaps this time without the nasty incidents!

Adios Spain, we will wear the tan coating you have given us for as long as we can!

T