Another trip to Spain yaaaay! The first stop was Zaragoza.  Here me and Maite mostly spent our time wandering from terrace to terrace drinking beer after beer, enjoying the sun and catching up with her friends including her friend Jing who she hadn’t seen for around 5 years since she moved back to China.  We did also manage to squeeze in a bit of tourism when Maite surprised me with a trip up the tower of El Pilar.

The next part of our holiday was in Alcaniz where we were catching up with Maite’s family and we got to meet her nephew Young Ian for the first time!  Also, this weekend the Moto GP was been held at Motor Land which is a racetrack just a few miles outside of Alcaniz.  There were soooo many bikes all over the town and there was a great party atmosphere at night.  All over the town there were stages playing music, pop up bars and bikers burning rubber.  It was also really cool to just be out into the early hours wearing nothing but shorts and t-shirt.  We went out on both Friday and Saturday and met up with Maria, Jose and the twins and had a great time.  After the party nights we cured our hangover going to Bar Doble As with Maite’s brother Fernando which was a really cool bar with lots of interesting beer.

Now it was time for a wee road trip. We headed to Vinaros on the coast where Maite’s parents had a flat.  The roads there were super bendy but offered me (the passenger) nice mountain views.  On the first night in Vinaros we walked around the beach front and got some amazing ice cream from Heladeria Milano. Nearly every one of the ice creams in the photo is vegan!

The next day we took a trip to Peniscola to visit the old town and castle (AKA Mereen in Game of Thrones).  The inside of the old town was really beautiful with lots of pretty narrow streets even if rest of Peniscola.  We also made our obligatory visit to the local craft beer bar which was called Cerveza Artesana Badum 🙂

On our way back to Alcaniz the following day we stopped at various beautiful old towns and villages.  The first was Morella which sat on a steep hill with a castle perched on top.  Again the narrow twisty streets were really cool and castle was awesome too.  It was a fair bit more run down than the one in Peniscola but I guess that one has a bit more funding when it’s used for so many film and TV sets.  Next village was Valderrobres which again was really beautiful and there we enjoyed more beers in the sun and this time mountain views from the castle.  The last beautiful old village to visit today was Calaceite where we also met up with Maite’s friend Anna.

After getting in late last night we got ourselves up early to visit the Monasterio de Piedra which was 2.5 hours from Alcaniz.  The park here was sooo beautiful with so many amazing waterfalls.  I don’t think I have ever seen so many waterfalls in such a close proximity.  We spent hours wandering around here with paths that also took you down through the rocks right next to a huge waterfall.

The very last part of our trip would be spent in the picturesque village of Rafales.  When there, Maite’s dad gave us a tour of the church and village hall.  He also gave us a tour of the surrounding area and visited El Salt where “sometimes” there is a waterfall.  Not today through. 😛  The area around Rafales, known as Matarrana, is lovely with lots of hike-able mountains which I will need to do some day.  We also made one last stop to one more picturesque village called La Fresneda.  When back in Rafales, we had a great family barbeque where I also met Dani and Lidia’s friends, Ruben and Espe.

We had a really great time in Spain and had a bit of everything including catching up with family and friends, road trips, sun and beers.  What more could we ask for?