Spanish Roadtrip pt. 1 · Honeymoon Part 6
Our seven day roadtrip down the east coast of Spain was one of the things I was most looking forward to in our honeymoon.
My dreams were filled with beaches and music and tapas and sangria and sunshine and warmth, and Spain did NOT let me down ♥
The days were sooo warm, it was (and still is) so odd to think that only three weeks ago we had been freezing our fingers off in Scotland.
The long daylight hours also helped us so much, we were so exhausted that we weren't really getting on the road or arriving at our next location until midday, which was totally okay because we then still had ten hours (almost a full day) of daylight left to explore our next location.
If I could do it again, I would probably add on an extra week to our honeymoon, so that we could have stayed in each location for two days instead of one and properly explore each town.
THE HIGHLIGHT REEL
Being so relaxed that I fell asleep on the beach for the very first time in my life (serial non-napper here)
Lighting fireworks!
Finally getting the chance to swim ♥
Paddle-boarding for the first time
The fire festival in Alicante.
TAPAS!!!!
THE NOT SO FUN STUFF
Hmm not sure I can remember! We were both pretty exhausted in general but that's about it!
ROADTRIP SUMMARY
I spent a lot of time on Google while planning our honeymoon - I didn't know the first thing about Spain or have the foggiest about where we should stop! Thankfully I found a few blog posts from people who had done similar road trips, and I used their posts as guides when planning. Google Maps is the best invention ever, I actually am a total lame-o and spent quite a bit of time in the real-view part, zooming around roads looking at views lol!
This is a summary of the places we stopped at in Spain - Barcelona > Tarragona > Peniscola > Valencia > Alicante > Granada > Nerja > Madrid.
This post will cover Tarragona to Alicante.
Tarragona
Our first pit-stop was Tarragona. We actually spent two night here, and I'm so glad we did. The first thing we did was check into our AirBNB, look at the view out the window and do an immediate 180 and head straight to the beach.
It was so peaceful, and so relaxing that I even managed to have a nap on the beach (naps, let alone naps on the beach, are an elusive mystery to me). I think this was one of my favourite days in our whole honeymoon, purely for that reason!
This little coastal town is really beautiful, and friendly to fireworks.
We headed down to the beach on our first night and lit them all up. Dan did most of them but I managed to light one as well and not catch myself on fire (woohoo).
Peniscola
This place is very cool - an episode of Game of Thrones was even filmed here!
One of the things I was really adamant about was booking accommodation that was in the heart of the town. In this case, it was at the top of this hill, and really, really hard to get too in a car. The whole hill has a one way road, that starts at one side and ends at the other side, but due to roadworks and google maps being all confused it took us aaaages to get to our BNB. We eventually had to park in a parking lot, walk up the hill to find our BNB and ask for directions to drive up there with our luggage. Then drive the car back down to the parking lot for the night. Then walk down the hill with our luggage the next day....fun!
But it was all worth it, it was in the heart of the old town and soo pretty. Part of it is an old fort/castle (where GoT was filmed) which was really awesome to explore.
Valencia
The next day we headed off to Valencia, but we were so pooped we hardly explored. We didn't get there until late afternoon, and only had time for a little wander around the city centre before crashing at the accommodation.
Fun fact: Dan put my shoes into the freezer (because they stank) without telling me, and well, because I didn't know they were there - that's where they stayed! So ummmm, so sorry to our host, or the hosts cleaner who eventually found them........!!! LOL!
Alicante
This was such a fun day!! I had no idea that there was a festival, let alone that it was a fire festival, on at the time of our holiday until we arrived, and we had the best time celebrating in Alicante.
They had all these weird and wacky sculptures around town, which went up in flames later that night to celebrate.
There were firemen hosing people down (in fun), markets, marching street bands, fireworks, drinks and food. Pretty good night overall!! ♥
This session still holds a special place in my heart, it’s where I captured some of my all time ever favourite photos ♥