La Granja d’Escarp.

Friday 5th January 2024.

Last nights aire was at 1,000m above sea level, the night stayed relatively mild but we did have a few drops of rain, today we had a few light showers as we drove along, but now this evening where we are only 80 m above sea level it is raining heavily. Now, we aren’t used to this, we haven’t seen any rain for over 3 weeks, will we cope😂 we are aware that most of the rest of Europe has experienced lots of rain.

We drove this morning firstly to a town called Alcaniz where we topped up with LPG and shopped at Lidl, the sat nav directed us on our onwards journey but sadly it didn’t know the road we needed to take was closed, every redirection it suggested took us back to the closed road so I drove off into the distance until it decided it had a new route for us. Alcaniz was very busy, we would have liked to have stopped as it looked quite interesting, Michelle took a few shots as we zig zagged around the town.

Again today the roads we drove on were often virtually empty, the scenery was rugged as we drove over numerous ranges of hills, there is very little mixed farming we have only seen the odd flock of sheep and a few cows, the agriculture is based on fruit growing.

We looked for ages for somewhere to pull over to have lunch, there were numerous places where the views were fantastic but nowhere to stop. Eventually I saw a space at the side of the road overlooking the Rio Ebro a huge river flowing beneath us.

Whilst Michelle was putting away our shopping and getting out the lunch I took Layla for a walk up the hill behind Homer, I couldn’t get too high as there was a railway line traversing the hill. As I walked back I was amused to see that Alison and Peter had pulled up behind us.

We drove on towards our destination and a view of the river and a bridge we had to cross opened up in front of us.

A few miles further on we pulled onto the aire where we staying the night, it is provided free by the town with a small fee of 1 euro to fill with water and 2 euros if you want electricity.

The town isn’t at all touristy it is a normal every day country town. I was amused to find on the narrow street we walked in on, a tractor parked outside someone’s house and a few feet away a garage for servicing tractors.

In the town square near the church someone was setting up a sound system as tonight is a festival night and tomorrow a national holiday, I hope the heavy rain and now strong wind doesn’t spoil it for everyone.