Day 25. Tuesday 1 April.

Initial plan was to head into the Parque National y Natural de Sierra Nevada but were a bit spooked by the snow covered mountains on a cloudy (is it misty?) morning, so opted to head to Almeria on the coast instead, about 100 km (more if you take into account our wrestling with GPS instructions). Landscape changed from almond orchards to arid, orange hills & canyons as we came down from the plateau to coast level. 

Took a real plunge and entered an underground car park in central Almeria, wondering if there was some sort of different process. No, just like home: get a ticket, pay, get out. And there were lots of spaces!

Walked from port area, through old town until we found a coffee shop that appealed: again coffee good, but pastries not so. And 20 metres further on, a little patisserie that had very appealing offerings. Of course. Central Almeria: upmarket shopping streets.

Started a search for a charity shop, and struggled a bit with the map, (back, forward, left back, right, back) but lo and behold – there it was. Shut. But as we dejectedly trudged away T spotted a rather large second hand clothing store so spent several hours (according to D…but really it was half an hour) looking at rack after rack of ‘crushed seconds’ and then coming away with nothing….fabrics don’t appeal, being all synthetics, but interesting to browse.

Wandered back to port & came across the Alcazaba, the huge Moorish fortress overlooking the city, another amazing construction & below a vast newish Mediterranean terraced garden.  The fortress has obviously had a very serious makeover.

How about a waterfront  picnic?… but in  passing a little restaurant, T spotted some customers with grilled octopus. However, that choice or calamari wasn’t available for some reason, possibly related to it being well after 3 PM and closing time was imminent, but did have grilled fish (no chips!) with a couple of non-alcoholic beers.

Then a walk onto the beach – very Gold Coast but with coarse grey sand, no wave action & stiff breeze. (Almeria, with an airport, attracts many  Brits escaping for winter).

So home again to plan the Easter break & remove any stress around being ‘homeless’. Successful – we  have accommodation booked outside Tavira on the Algarve coastline in Portugal. Tavira hosts traditional Easter rituals but (we hope) without the crowds. We now have a roof somewhere until 21 April.

Dinner. Chicken stew…T has been surprised at the absence of fresh herbs, especially the daily chili, coriander & parsley…we now have a supply of dried & tonight’s pot has definitely got a fiery taste!