Autumn in Spain

We’re back in Spain for a too short week of catching up on the ‘after summer chores’ around the villa, gardening and hopefully soaking up some late autumn sun.

It was raining heavily when we crept out of the house at the  ghastly time of 2.30am for our early morning flight from Gatwick. With all the changes at the airport, access to the North Terminal is more difficult than ever. Gone are the days of being dropped off outside Departures with an easy walk to the check in desks – now, it’s a marathon sprint in all weathers.

And inside the airport, it’s another long walk to across the Gatwick airbridge if your flight departs from the Pier 6 satellite building , which most easyJet flights to Alicante do! Apparently, the 198m air passenger bridge is the largest in the world to span a taxiway and the only one of its kind outside the US.

Two-hours into the flight we were over a cloudless Spain, with views so clear that it was possible to see the long line of the Villanueva wind turbines in the Valencia province from 39 thousand feet. The plane headed out into the Med for its final approach to Alicante airport, affording great views of the city’s 7-km San Juan beach.

What a perfect day to arrive – cloudless blue skies and temperatures up in the mid 20s. We used the fantastic new self-service laundry beside the Repsol garage in Javea to wash duvets, mattress covers, rugs and towels then aired the duvets off in the sunshine.  We also tidied up in the garden; the purple bougainvillea around the naya had blown down. It needed a  fairly drastic (and prickly prune)  before being retied against the wall with stronger supports. Our Washington and Canary palms also needed fronds taken off – also  prickly and potentially hazardous jobs. I ended up having emergency  medical treatment a year or so ago when a spike from a Canary palm punctured my hand making it swell up alarmingly.  Fortunately, there were no such incidents this time.

The rains came on Friday and Saturday – not gentle showers but torrential and spectacular cloudbursts that immediately turned the nearly road junctions into lakes. The rains were preceded by the kind of skies that artists love to paint – a kaleidoscope of  black, grey, white, blue and pink colours.

On Sunday, we ate breakfast outside at Scallops watching the surf, then set off for a drive to the Los Hervideros thermal spa near Cofrentes. It was an interesting 120 km drive on the excellent non-toll roads of the Valencia and Albecete provinces – marred only by  persistent drizzle. We drove through pretty hilltop towns like Ayora with its impressive castle, passed the cooling towers and entrance to a small nuclear power station and savoured fine views of the wide and green Jucar river and the ruined castle overlooking the town of Cofrentes. Even on a dull overcast day, the views were pretty spectacular.

The Hervideros de Cofrentes thermal baths are just a short drive from the town and use therapeutic  waters heated by a 2 million year old volcano. The health resort is built in a pretty valley and incorporates many sporting activities like golf, tennis, walking trails and swimming. Accommodation – self catering and in the hotel – is reasonably priced. We were surprised that the resort was so busy on a cool autumn day at the end of October.  Most of the guests seemed to be older people – a few in wheelchairs and others taking exercise on bikes and walks through the surrounding countryside. I always find it uplifting to see how natural resources like spa waters are used to benefit all ages groups.

The signs to the hotel were confusing. We wandered into what looked like an entrance only to find ourselves in a busy dining room. A rather harassed waiter pointed out a door at the end of the room. This opened out into a corridor equipped with rest rooms and the reception at the end. The pleasant receptionist spoke no English and the few leaflets he offered us did not include a map of the resort and were only in Spanish; understandable, as the spa caters for Spanish guests and is a long way from the popular tourist areas on the coast.

The resort’s various buildings and self-catering accommodation are situated in extensive wooded grounds on several levels and accessed from the main hotel by wide wooden steps. There is also a lift. We walked up the steps through the attractive gardens and onto a road where we noticed the words ‘Centro Termal’  above the entrance to one of the buildings. The door was open, so we had a quick peep inside and discovered a small unoccupied hydrotherapy pool. This was obviously not the pool pictured on the leaflet we’d picked up at the reception, which showed a much larger pool on different levels with showers and water jets.

No staff were around to ask and we were unable to find the larger pool. We’d bought our swimming togs, anticipating a warming soak in therapeutic water before we returned home, like we’ve enjoyed in Fortuna in Murcia.

But it wasn’t to be – and as it was now beginning to rain, we walked back to the car disappointed and a little frustrated.  At least, it had been a pleasant day out in a part of Spain we’d never visited before.