Power stations; this way to Algeria; monocultures; where can we put all these dead people; science and charity; mas castillos; owners look like their dogs.
Next to a motorway junction in the dry high lands between Murcia and Valencia I saw a solar farm that looked as though it had troughs concentrating the sun’s heat onto pipes running over them. Well, mobile internet access is Spain is excellent and a bit of clicky clicky established that it was the Enerstar Villena Planta Termosolar, and some more clicky clicky found this video about it. Ha ha I know you are SOOO tempted! Sadly it is in Spanish but you can see the troughs etc as well as the appropriate facial expressions for Spanish grandees to use when opening power stations (think: death of a close relative).
We saw a car with a DK plate on a day or so ago, and when we got to Valencia we saw the sign to the ferry to Algeria. Oh, didn’t you know that DK was the car code for Algeria? I thought everyone knew that. Don’t worry, the Spanish can’t spell Algeria properly anyway. Mind you, they can’t spell Spain properly either.
Monocultures. As we came down into Murcia we transitioned from the Land Of Olives to the Land Of Tree Fruit. Some close examination of the map shows that the little symbols for trees had changed. Of course with orchards there is no such thing as crop rotation, you just plant the trees and wait, which does render the countryside rather unchanging. Due to Hermann’s height and the height of the armco being identical it proved to be very very difficult to get pictures of this, but if you look over the top of the armco you can see some unharvested bits.
As we came into Barcelona we saw an extraordinary graveyard built into the hillside. It is Montjuic cemetery, a rather unnervingly efficient way of storing over one million dead people so far. It led to a beer-fuelled late night conversation on How I Want To Be Buried Or Not which I might tell you about some other time.
Science and Charity. Do you remember that we had the theme #kindnessandingenuity on Hermann’s last European tour? Well, our Barcelona hotel used to have Picasso’s studio in the attic and they display this picture in the public sitting area which he painted here. It’s called Science and Charity, depicting a doctor and a nun.
Mas Castillos. We have been using motorways and motorway-grade roads for the last few days, but the roads are not over-engineered and we still feel very much in touch with the countryside – to the extent that it really doesn’t feel worthwhile switching to the local roads for the dubious benefits of sitting at lots of local traffic lights. So Hermann swoops through the countryside and looking back through the collection of 
pictures, at least once an hour we go past a castle on a hill. To Doris’s wipe-clean memory every castle at the time is special and interesting but I somehow feel that showing you lots of slightly blurry pictures taken through tinted windows isn’t really going to do it for you. So trust me, there are a lot of castles in Spain and we have driven close to lots of them because the main roads follow the obvious invasion routes. The museum of Catalan History in Barcelona gave us a better understanding of the many many wars that came through here to justify this investment.
Finally, I was reminded of the saying that owners get to look like their dogs. Bad luck sir. Oh, and terribly bad luck madam? or sir? or just er well yes I had better get going now.
