Mediterranean blue, orange blossoms and the ladies of the plastic chairs.


Xilxes blue
We began the day going to Barcelona. Entering the chaos of the city we were immediately swallowed up by crowds. Traffic dictated which direction we could go. At each traffic circle our intended path was redirected. Our windshield is now dirty. An old homeless looking man tried to wash it at a stop light. Luis told him not to but he was persistent. Finally we resorted to turning on the window wipers to make him go away. We drove along the Avigunda Diagonal passing the Sagrada Familia, the port, the statue of Christopher Columbus, a Gaudi building and Las Ramblas. At Las Ramblas we were almost run off the road by an angry local in a road rage because we were not driving to his liking. Turning to each other we both laughed and knew what the other was thinking. "Let's get out of here!"  We decided we could always come back to Barcelona and we took the fork in the road south to Valencia.
A lady in her plastic chair

 Within about 15 minutes the traffic cleared and we could see the deep blue Mediterranean Sea. We were a little disappointed that taking the back roads we saw mostly resort towns and industrial ports along the ocean’s edge. The unspoiled ocean views were few and far between. The drive was still worth doing and we saved ourselves from paying any tolls. The tolls can get expensive, as we had witnessed driving around Barcelona. Not knowing where we were headed, withing 90 minutes, we had paid around 10 euro - or $14 US dollars. At that rate, who could afford to drive the rest of the country. Nearing Valencia we were surrounded by olive groves and forests of orange trees. The air was fragrant with orange blossoms. Today is a good day. On a side note, we started to notice women sitting in plastic chairs along the roadside about every 1/2 mile. This was in the middle of nowhere. We assumed they were waiting for a bus until we noticed their outfits or lack thereof. When Luis tried taking pictures of them from our moving car, the few who noticed got up and starting waving. The women sitting in their underwear in plastic chairs were hookers! In the middle of nowhere.
The empty town of Xilxes


Luis swimming
We drove on until we were just north of Valencia, before we had to turn inland. Luis and I have never set foot in the Mediterranean, and decided to take this opportunity to scratch that off our list of things to do. We pulled off into the small Oceanside town of Xilxes and found what was apparently a vacation town. The town of Xilxes was completely empty. It was almost eerie as we drove through abandoned streets to the playa. We saw a couple of people and not more than two or three cars in this entire town. We parked in an empty lot and walked out to the water. The water was warm and we enjoyed the most incredible blue we have ever seen.

After sitting on the beach for a while we set off for Cuesta in Castille y la Mancha, the land of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.

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