Housesitting in Spain, Life of adventure, Road Trips, Spain., Travel

Roadtrip – Madrid to Alicante

Suzanne

Firstly, before we arrived in Madrid, we spent two days in Dubai.  The reason is that we really thought we should break up another of our long-haul trips.

Dubai is a shopper’s paradise, very visually stimulating. At times, I found it too intense and artificial, with the lack of proper infrastructure in the form of many green outdoor areas to enjoy in the cooler months or evenings.  The experience was not regretted. It just won’t be repeated.

So, let’s just head on to Spain, where our road trip was to begin.

As we entered Madrid, we only realised how massive this airport is; it is enormous, over 10 km long.  It took us at least 1/2 hour from exiting the plane to pick up our baggage!.  While driving to our overnight accommodation, the street lights looked like stars twinkling in the dark.  I fell in love with this city straight away.  Unfortunately, we had no time to explore Madrid [though hopefully in the future this can be recified] as we were to leave the next day after picking up our hire car from Europcar.  This is one car hire place that we can’t fault for excellent value and service.  This is the first time we have dealt with a Spanish franchise.  We will have the car for the whole 3 months we are based in Spain.  It will give us far more freedom to explore than relying on public transport, which is not an option or available where we have a few housesits, so a car is compulsory.

Leaving Madrid airport the next day and heading towards Toledo was a straightforward, nondescript drive, with the road signage readable within an hour; we arrived at our hotel [Hotel Cigarral el Bosque] just out of the old city of Toledo.

Wow, what a vista! We loved our exceptionally cheap hotel room with a view.

UNTIL we realised we had no hot water.  Mutterings of a few unprintable words later, we negotiated free breakfasts and a room change.  With that dealt, too, we decided to check out a tiny part of Toledo, as it looked awe-inspiring from our room.  Of course, we were not disappointed, though we were exhausted and did not last long before heading back to our new room with the same view to catch up on some much-needed sleep.

Head to City of Three Cultures- Toledo to read up on our first full day in Toledo.

We were looking forward to heading onto our first house in Alicante and heading out of Toledo bright and early with another glorious sunrise to feed our souls and a reasonable breakfast to feed our mortal bodies.

Firstly, we had approximately 5 hours of driving to do and a few stopovers before we settled for one night by the beach at a local hotel.

Now comes the exciting part: I got to drive YES. Amazingly, we both survived this experience, and it was no bother at all to drive on what really, for us, was the wrong side of the road.  The roads in Spain are meant for long road trips; they are incredibly smooth, and with a top allowable speed of 120 km an hour, a driver can chew up a fair distance in no time.

When not driving, I snapped a few photographs of the passing countryside.  Highlights were seeing the windmills tilted towards the skies in the historic region of La Mancha, southeast of Toledo.  To the large shapes of bulls standing erect on hills by the highways.

As far as the eye, we could see fields of vineyards displaying beautiful autumn colours, olive trees weighed down with juicy fat olives, and the odd dust willy amongst the recently ploughed dirt fields.

A stop to indulge in the local coffee and pastry is non-negotiable.  We decided to have a walk around and enjoy refreshments in La Roda, a large town in the Province of Albacete in the autonomous community of Castile-La Mancha. The coffee was very reasonably priced, and the church view was lovely.

There are numerous places to stop and enjoy a meal or just a caffeine fix while travelling along.  Try not to be put off by the appearance of many of these cafes, as most we have visited have been enjoyable, with quality and quantity in abundance, without the price tag of the many restaurants in the more tourist-friendly areas.

Before long, we were nearing our final destination for the tour, our first Spanish housesit. To be precise, it was an apartment with one gorgeous cat called Lottie, A room with a view – Alicante Style.

The words “Are we nearly there on the tip of my tongue, and I was silenced by the sight of a humongous mountain of rock and a sneak preview of the sea.

Published by Suzanne

Travel and Life Musings from New Zealand and Beyond. . . . . . .

40 thoughts on “Roadtrip – Madrid to Alicante”

    1. Hope you get to do a road trip in Spain Fran, it is a country with amazingly great surfaced main roads that are well signposted. Long spaces of dry arid areas, then you get the lovely towns or countryside to visit and stretch your legs!

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  2. You’re driving my car 😉 (though mine is a remnant of my British past and has his steering wheel on what you define as the right side whilst sporting French number-plates …. I love confusing the locals when out and about in ‘Franck’). You really do tempt me to think about a Spanish road trip next year and as always your pictures and your tips remind that you are no common tourist but rather true travelers with a purposes 😊

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      1. If you get the chance, give me a wave! I’m not entirely sure where I’ll be after March but this morning I feel SO much more positive and back to feeling the adventure of it all again. The power of getting things out and onto paper …. ✍️

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          1. I generally don’t write about ME per se so this was a little out of my comfort zone – now that it’s down, I can’t imagine what I was making such an internal fuss about and my ‘bouchon’ as the French call a blockage is a memory (which may bring forth groans as it does mean I will be a bit more active in the blogging arena 😉)

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            1. Love it when you French/English sentences 🙂 Hey, sorry for not reading your latest until now, not sure why it didn’t appear in my reader!!

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              1. Un bouchon is actually a cork but the word is used in all sorts of contexts including blockages on the road – the worst though are called les noirs which of course means ‘the blacks’ – interesting etimology 🙂

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    1. To be honest I don’t find the long haul flights too bad, as I think I snooze a fair bit of the time. It is when we do a daylight departure is the hardest one, leaving at night seems to have better results. If you are into shopping and nightlife, it is a wonderful oasis in the desert.

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    1. Thanks Brigid, I hope you do too. Would you believe Spain is feeling rather chilly as a Northerly has just blown in. Good excuse for a fire 🙂

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    1. Absolutely April. So much to see and do. Though at the moment we are quite relaxed at our housesit in the hills. Nothing more strenuous than walking the dogs and wandering around the nearby countryside.

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  10. I could see why Dubai didn’t strike your fancy. Very different from a road trip in Spain! Is that bull on the hill real, or a cut-out? Beautiful blue sky and surroundings, Suz. And, I’m glad you had another first: driving on the wrong side of the road. You seemed to have picked a good country for that.

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    1. Hiya Liesbet, the bull is a cut-out. There are a few situated around the countryside, not sure where the real bulls are 🙂 I think the roads hear would be very much like California, or around the desert areas. Oh yes, I shared your post you did on Housesitting on FB!

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  11. That first view is fabulous. 🙂 🙂 I’m sure that many of the small towns in Spain are as attractive as their more famous neighbours. And it’s nice to feel you’ve discovered your own bit of Spain. 🙂 On with the adventure!

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    1. Thanks, Jo, and, you are right the smaller towns not so famous are just as interesting and a wee bit more ‘real’.
      Definitely on with the adventure 🙂

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    2. Forgot to say, that Spain is very much like driving in the outback and country areas of Australia. You would feel quite at home here!!

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    1. Yes the tourism was the only downfall of Toledo we ignored them 🙂 We will be doing a longer road trip in January. Thanks we will enjoy our next housesit as we have previously housesat for them.

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