After the roadside repairs, we made it to Valencia. The Hotel Palacio Santa Clara https://www.marriott.com/es/hotels/vlcak-palacio-santa-clara-autograph-collection/overview/ has the most beautiful rooftop pool and bar - just perfect after a long, hot drive. MoneyPenny was happily taken care of by the valet parking guy - they always love her :) We had a delicious meal of grilled octopus followed by the best-ever paella. What a great stopover!
With our mission to reach Andalusia we drove on to our next stop - Alicante. Here we stayed in a beautiful apartment right in the town centre called the Palacio Salvetti Suites https://www.palaciosalvettisuites.com/ . It is a converted manor house and we had loft apartment on the third floor. Just 100 metres away, MoneyPenny went via car-lift to a secure parking lot owned by the hotel. That was a first for her and us!
One of the big advantages of having our car was being able to drive to beaches that were less busy than the main town beaches. We had a delicious lunch (perfectly grilled squid for me) and a refreshing swim at a beach just a few kms south of Alicante. There were no crowds and plenty of free parking. Just take a look at happy MoneyPenny in the photo below and you'll get the idea.
By contrast, the main town beaches were packed with sunburnt holidaymakers, sun-beds, umbrellas and an endless motorcade of electric buggies on the seaside promenades. I can see why some Spanish citizens are protesting about the tourists taking over their towns.
We got adventurous ordering tapas dishes at the popular Bar Manero https://barmanero.es/ and prepared to drive to Granada the next day to really begin our Andalusian Adventure!
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