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.
Read moreEast From Madrid #2: Pious Rice Fields
Summer had finally had finally rid itself of the long trousers and jackets and had hauled itself over the Valencian Community; Spain’s eighth largest region. The air had taken on that spongy tangibility only really present in celestially warmed coastal zones; and the decision was taken to finally drive roofless. Exuberance at its finest.
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