Welcome to Xátiva

We decided to break our homeward journey in Xátiva again, since we didn't get much chance to appreciate it last time. But we chose a hotel on the main drag, with a garage, so we wouldn't have to leave a luggage-filled car in the street all night again.

Arriving was much more efficient than last time. We decided to push on and not have lunch till we got there. Nipped into a convenient parking space yards from the hotel, and as it was after three decided to find lunch first. Walked about fifty metres and into the first restaurant we saw, which was advertising its menu del día for 6.60! Unbeatable (except, we later saw, by the restaurant two doors down, at 6.50).

This place looked surprisingly swanky, and the food belied the price tag. I had a bowl of delicious creamy carrot soup followed by ravioli with ceps and truffles, and S had a beautifully presented salad and perfectly cooked solomillo. Then we both had the classic Spanish dessert of flan (crème caramel) -- which was overcooked, but this is sadly a very common features in Spanish restaurants. The 6.60 didn't include drinks, bread, or coffee but even with those the total was only 22 euros. Fantastic value!

After checking into the hotel we decided to visit Xátiva's castle. This is where things went a little pear-shaped. The lady in the tourist office gave us a map and indicated the pedestrian route to the top of the very steep hill after we rejected the tourist bus. It closed at 6, so we reckoned we just had time. However what the tourist office lady didn't tell us was that the "path" existed only as a figment of the town hall planners' imagination. We were wearing totally unsuitable shoes for our scrabble up steep, scree-covered paths (hands required in places) with no signs to indicate whether we had gone totally off-piste. In places there were steps but they were about 40 cm high, scrambling required for the short-legged among us. Still, we got there, thoroughly cross and out of breath. Then we discovered the second thing she hadn't told us: the gates close half an hour before the official closing time, and it was twenty-five to. Grrr!

Still, this is Spain: there was a bar! So we sat down for a drink to justify the trip. After about three sips of my glass of wine, loudspeakers started blaring out a repeating loop in four languages telling us the castle would be closed in ten minutes. It got so annoying we downed our drinks in a few gulps and stumped off down the hill (the long way, down the road, this time). What a crock!

Later we recovered enough to go out for tapas. At least this time a number of the bars in the square were open. We had some undercooked patatas bravas in one of them (how bad a cook do you have to be to undercook potatoes?). Then we returned to the restaurant we'd had lunch in for a shared tapa of a miniature coca (Catalan pizza) with burrata, pesto, and tomatoes. It was lovely! The bar was unfortunately deserted when we arrived, but after a few minutes a man came in and was joined by two young women. They sat down at the next table and ordered dinner. We weren't paying much attention, but they chatted away in Spanish and Catalan, apparently quite amicably. Then suddenly the two women got up and among hurled comments about being badly brought up, marched out of the bar -- just as the waiter arrived with their bowls of soup. He gave the poor chap a consoling pat on the shoulder and took them away again, leaving him to eat his dinner alone. Who knows what that was about!

It's ages since I've done Derelict Sunday; I don't even know who's hosting it any more! But here's one for my door collection.