Monday 2nd March

I mentioned my trip to Spain to our friends Judith & Nigel a while back and invited them to join me for a weekend, excitingly, they did just that – awesome!

Their plan is to fly out to Barcelona for the weekend and then travel out by train to me on the Monday afternoon. They have an apartment booked on the same site as me. Great.

My first job is to hire a car and collect Judith & Nigel from the station 25 minutes drive away. The trouble with being on a long holiday is that you forget what day it is and ‘to do’ lists are sketchy to say the least. When I finally went to reception to hire the car it turned out I should’ve ordered it earlier and, although their car company had plenty of cars, they didn’t have a driver to bring one to the site until late afternoon on the Monday – too late! I asked if I could cycle to the depot – no, too far. A quandary. Much scratching of heads. Then the depot realised a driver (who turned out to be the owner) was bringing a car to the site on that Monday morning at 9.30 a.m. for another motorhomer. He could drive me back to the depot in Castellón de la Plana and I could drive the hire car back past the site and on to Benicarló-Peñiscola station. Problem solved!

Whilst waiting for the driver/owner – a rainbow.

The driver/owner was really nice; he spoke excellent English and I really enjoyed and learned from our 40 minute drive to Castellón de la Plana.

All admin done I got into the car and plugged in my SatNav ………… nope! The cigarette lighter wasn’t working and I definitely needed that SatNav to work! One of the hire car team jumped in the driver’s seat, signalled for me to get in and drove at break-neck speed around the block to a tiny garage. A bit of back and forth in Spanish and a guy steps forward leans into the car for 2 minutes, leans back and indicates all is well. Amazing service. The first guy then gets back in the driver’s seat and drives crazily again the 20 yards back to his car depot – so funny but very efficient.

I then make a mistake and drive the wrong way towards the centre of Castellón de la Plana before finding a roundabout where I can slingshot out on to the right route – phew! This car is so small after the motorhome.

I get to the station an hour and a half before the train was due and had a coffee at the café inside – what a lovely/typical station building.

Then I filled in the time with a quick visit to Vinaròs – it was OK for a few minutes but probably not somewhere I need to return to!

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Judith & Nigel’s train approaches!

We set off to Peñíscola (pronounced pen-isss-co-ler) to visit the famous castle.

https://castillodepeniscola.dipcas.es/en/

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Much hilarity ensures when Judith and I follow Nigel into, what appears to be, an interesting historical room. Turns out to be the, very modern, gents loos!! 🤣

The streets around Peńiscola Castle:-

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Then back to the site to get checked-in and settled. I’ve gathered together a food goodie bag for them with milk, butter etc. etc. Later, drinks at the motorhome followed by dinner in the site restaurant. Lovely day.