On Friday evening we left Alcobendas at 5pm after another dental check up. Our destination: Alaquas, Valencia. Our route, the one with the most twists and turns. Having been so fed up of Spanish Motorways of late, I decided we were going to reach Valencia avoiding motorways.

We completed the whole trip on nice roads with no inconsiderate Madrileños winding me up and managed to avoid traffic jams completely. We took the N320 via Cuenca as recommended by Philippe over a year ago. We missed our intended turn after Cuenca and found ourselves in the hills again with yet more fantastic roads.

A small car is great for these sort of roads (read, really chuckable), especially after putting some air in the front tyres, but I can’t quite help but fantasize about what it would like to do these roads in an Integrale, 911 or Elise. Talking of Elises, I must speak with Niki, as he’s just returned from his second consecutive Stelvio not Bust.

We spent Saturday in Valencia at Espe’s parents place, and very uncharacteristically it rained all day (a throw back from Hurricane Gordon apparently). In the morning we went to watch David (Espe’s nephew) play football, followed by Espe’s parent’s superb Paella. I had a nice lazy afternoon, taking a siesta, reading and writing this, only to be interrupted by countless bangers going off. These Valencianos really do love their fireworks.