Hi, reader
Although Salou was a lovely place to relax and do nothing, I decided to progress further south towards my ultimate goal of Valencia.
This evening I've arrived at Benicàssim, a municipality and beach resort located in the province of Castelló, on the Costa del Azahar.
Before I left Salou I found a lively little vegetarian restaurant called Sama Sama Veggie. They had lots of vegan options on the menu and I ordered their 'croquettes assortment'.
They included pumpkin, millet, curry, escalivida and sweet potato and trumpets of death with romesco sauce. Trumpets of death! I was excited to find out what they were. Do you know? They're a kind of mushroom. Hats off to the first brave caveman who decided to eat a handful of these.
From Salou I drove about 30 or 40 minutes south along the coast and stopped at L'Ampolla. My first choice of stopping place was a short walk from a lovely beach, but I didn't feel too good about the car park itself. It was more of a gravel waste ground and I was the only vehicle parked on it. In the end I relocated to a spot more central to L'Ampolla.
This morning I had a Whatsapp call with my son, Hugo. He's in good spirits as today is the first day of his Christmas holiday. Three weeks without school and he had glowing reports from his teachers. We played some online chess for an hour. If you enjoy chess, I recommend this website ... it's free to sign up and a very slick platform. We enjoy playing their various chess variants including Crazy House, King of the Hill and Three Checks.
It really feels like we're living in the future when I can sit in the back of a van on the east coast of Spain and play chess with my son in Phuket, Thailand.
I tidied up the van and found to my dismay that I've misplaced a valuable piece of equipment - my spoon! As the van is so compact, it's necessary for me to have the absolute minimum of everything when I travel. My cutlery set consists of one teaspoon, one tablespoon, one fork, one butter knife and one cutting knife.
No tablespoon means no porridge and no pasta. I searched everywhere for it. I know I had it last night, because I made pasta for dinner. Hugo suggested I fashion a new spoon from a piece of wood (?!?) or modify the fork into a spoon by wrapping tape around it (!???).
Before setting off south, I took a walk around L'Ampolla. No sunshine today. Grey clouds across a grey sky. It all felt a bit bleak and there were only a few random people out and about; I saw more seabirds than people. The shops and restaurants were mostly closed. Here's a selection of pics I took.
A couple of people fishing.
A pair of ducks. I wonder if, like me, they were in Scotland a few months back?
Here are the boats in the marina.
My next stop was the city of Vinaròs. I didn't get a good feeling about it. It seemed very rundown and grotty, at least in the part I was driving around. I stopped here long enough to use the public toilet and take some pictures of urban art.
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