Spain - Day 16

This is the view from just outside our front door. Guadalest is famous for its castle at the top of a rock, that you can only get to by going through a tunnel.

We walked straight from the apartment, first steeply downhill to the dam on the Guadalest reservoir.

Then along a road to the north of the reservoir for about 3km, with views back to Guadalest.

We came across some fruit trees we didn't recognise. We later found out they were nísperos, also known as loquats, and are very commonly grown in this area.

As we turned uphill, we got to a section of road that had collapsed, presumably in some recent storm with flash floods.

We started to climb steeply uphill, still on a road. At various points there was more evidence of recent mudslides.

At the top we found the route to a ruined castellet, which was further up a road followed by a rocky climb up to the peak at 1051m. The views from there were stunning and it made a great lunch stop.

On descending and looking back towards the peak, you can only just make out where the castellet is.

We came across a terrace with olive, fig and almond trees in it. Pity it wasn't harvest season!

After descending we decided to continue round the circumference of the reservoir, crossing a few streams which entered it.

We spotted a squirrel in a pine tree.

The walk was over 23km. Once back in Guadalest we had a welcome drink and tapas in a bar. The olives were great, flavoured with garlic and herbs.

For dinner we had turkey and spinach burgers with fried onions and chips. The burgers were very green in colour before we cooked them, but they tasted very good.