In my century-old Baedecker’s Spain and Portugal guide 496 pages are given to Spain and 82 are dedicated to neighbouring Portugal. This may seem a touch unfair, but given that the population of Spain in 1900 was around 18.5 million and Portugal 5.5 million, and given that Spain is 5.5 times bigger than Portugal, one could argue on the fairness of this distribution. The simple fact is that, despite its brilliance and culinary delights, Portugal is smaller and has less to see.
Read moreEast From Madrid #3: Castles from the Sea
The sea would remain our companion for the morning. The big aquamarine slab of glitter that was Valencia’s languid coast. The heat, palpable and clingy, met with the breeze on the hill at the first stop of interest through Valencia’s ugly northern outskirts. The monastery of El Puig - one of the region’s great houses - sat, bursting out of the titular village around it. A rosy pink crenellated slab of old stones surrounded by boxy hodgepodge houses that didn’t hint at luxury. Then rice fields. Then the line of holidays high rises and then the sea.
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