The drive to La Santa

Oh what a drive! We left our charming Delta Hotel after a lovely breakfast of Iberian ham, cheeses, fruit, yogurt and delicious bread. As with last night, we had the dining room to ourselves and they turned on the English adult pop when we walked in! Another cloudless day, about 17 C; a good day to drive.

Our 5 hour drive to Tortana was pretty uneventful. Good roads, only one toll for a tunnel, through rugged, rolling hills. The main agricultural products seemed to be oranges and fruit trees, just starting to bloom. Our first sign of trouble was that the GPS did not recognize the address we had, the name of the hotel, or any other information that we had. The tourist office in Tortana closed just before we got there so our only option was to ask various residents for directions to La Jardine De la Santa. No one spoke much English but we all used hand-signals. We did finally find the hotel after asking a woman walking on the street, a bar tender and a patron in a bar, a group of 10 high school students, and a man cleaning the tombs in a cemetery!

The hotel, a renovated nunnery was very high on a hill near a town called Aledo. Tortana was only the mailing address (like trying to find Streetsville with only Mississauga as the location). We finally found it by trying every choice on the last traffic circle.

But it was worth it! The convent is a beautiful old building set in a garden in a valley. Tory and I walked 1 km uphill to see a statue of Jesus and a beautiful view of the surrounding countryside. The path was lined with the stations of the cross and the bells in the tower rang at regular intervals. Just lovely.

Tomorrow, we do our final leg of driving to get to our timeshare on the Costa Del Sol.Read more