A SPANISH FLAVOUR

 

Hello everyone, just back from the last of my travels for January anyway..lol.

My travels wouldn't be the same without some problem(Sigh) when I arrived at the Coach Station on Wednesday horror of horrors there would be a delay as the Coach had broken down, and there would be a delay of one hour, as you can imagine the sense of foreboding was well huge, luckily several others were there and we all neede to be at Stanstead airport by 10am, with a bit of gentle persuasion they ordered a Taxi for us, so we arrived safe and sound with plenty of time to spare "Whew".

On going through security I bumped into a family who were on the plane comming back from Carcasonne the week before, it just goes to show what a small world we live in.

Arriving in Valencia a lovely sunny day and of course I was over dressed because it was cold in back in Blighty but no matter we had a pleasant fifteen minute drive to the town of Cheste, not much to see just the mountains in the distance.

I was visiting old friends well in fact they trained me over twenty years ago when I was in the Pub buisness, so we spent the afternoon on the veranda catching up and drinking wine..lol

Its a lovely villa set in large grounds with a pool and big garden area, its nice to see Orange and Lemon trees as you don't see those in Britan, and a glorious ctrus smell, in the summer they have Muscatel grapes, but say they're a bit too sweet to eat but are nice in salads etc, (I did suggest wine making).

On Friday we had a drive into Cheste, and then into Chiva a neighbouring town which was also very pretty with the most amazing villas with mostly mountain views which are surrounded by Orange and Lemon Groves which is the main produce along with rice as Valencia is home to Paella, we had this for lunch on Friday which consisted of rabbit and chicken, which I've never had before but was delicious cooked in the traditional manner. Paella a saffron based short grain rice cooked in a shallow pan large in diameter once all the ingredients are added it is not to be stirred then cooked on a charcol fire.

Friday evening found us in a family run restaurant, my friends both had Squid and I had Suckling pig all of which was yummy and of cours washed down with Rioja, I'm not really a red wine drinker but managed on this occasion..lol finished with a Sherry liqueur. This is a raison based liquer and when they get almost to the end of the barrel they use that to start the next batch, and so on.

Saturday was spent in the town of Cheste, just ambling around and of course deciding what to have for lunch, this was the hottest day so far although all the days were warm but it turned very cold at night, and we sat around the open fire we even had hot water bottles just to be extra toastie.

All a very enjoyable four days,and the next visit will be a longer one.

Thats it for now.

 

 

Tags: saValencia Cheste Chiva sazzy creations

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