Sunny Spain?

Just got back from a few days in Spain.  We were hoping for a few days of warm sunshine to relax and lie by the pool or on the beach, but to be honest the weather wasn’t that good!  It was warm, and we did sit by the pool and on the beach, but it was either windy or cloudy or both!  Then at the end of our holiday it rained!  Big black clouds came rolling in from the sea bringing torrential rain.  You may have seen it on the news, if not have a look here.  We were not that far south, but still experienced torrential rain, especially on our drive back to Valencia airport yesterday.

We stayed in our friend’s villa on Cumbre del Sol between Javea and Moraira on the Costa Blanca.  Here’s an aerial view. 

 

There is a spectacular view from the Cumbre, and we really enjoy sitting on the terrace just looking at the view.

As I said we did spend some time at the beach, here’s Maurice and Lucy at the Arenal at Javea.  It’s a gorgeous sandy beach, with a promenade with shops, restaurants and bars right there on the beach.  You can see that the sun is behind cloud, however, this is my favourite place.

Here’s another favourite beach, El Portet, just to the north east of Moraira.  We really enjoyed watching a couple of families with little toddlers playing in the sea!  It was lovely when we first arrived, but you can see how the wind got up late morning, and made the sea much rougher.

We ate really well!  When we arrived at the villa all the supermarkets were shut as it was Sunday.  We were really thankful that the previous occupants of the villa had left some fresh food, plenty enough for lunch!  Spain always seems to have much fresher, bigger fruit and vegetables than the UK, you can really taste the sunshine!

We ate in restaurants most nights, and had breakfast at the Arenal Beach on the first morning, YUM!

We loved sitting in the sunshine sipping cold beers or lemonade (it was really windy the day we sat here, but lovely and sunny)

I was intending to swim every day.  Here I am in the pool on the Cumbre just 5 minutes walk from the villa.  It is a lovely pool, but this was another windy day and it was freeeeeezing!  I was trying to swim for 30 mins but just had to get out after just 15!  I can usually stand cold water, but the wind was just cooling me down too much.  Bit of showing off here, with photos of me in my swimming costume, yes, the Boot Camp really has helped!

There’s usually a lovely sunset over the mountains:

Sadly on our last full day the weather had really turned, so we decided to motor down to Benidorm, about 1 hour’s drive away.  We had never visited Benidorm before, but knew of it’s reputation!  We were quite amazed at how high the buildings are!  and how 1970s it looks, although I think quite a few of the taller buildings are much newer than that.  The sand is absolutely golden and it is a beautiful beach.  So we walked along, found a restaurant and sat for a couple of hours people watching and looking out over a rather rainswept beach!  Apart from the fact that we were eating grilled sardines and mussels, and it was still quite warm, it could have been the UK!

Although we were a bit disappointed with the weather, and I was disappointed not to meet with my blogging friend Alison after all, (she had to make an emergency dash back to the UK), it was a lovely late summer break.  And it was really lovely to spend so much time with Lucy!

Back to normal with a bump – just been grocery shopping and the shelves are full of Christmas goodies already!