By going to Cuenca and thence Madrid I headed west and skipped all of the Mediterranean coast of Spain from Valencia southwards. In fact I would not see Spain's fabled coasts such as the Costa Blanca and Costa del Sol. Though Malvarossa in Valencia was part of the Costa del Azahar (Orange Blossom Coast) so I did see a bit. So here's a short digression written in the future (2013) about my itinerary.
In those days the Internet was in its infancy; most people had not heard of it and even if they had, did not have access to it. It was used mostly by academics, researchers, and some commercial firms, mostly in IT. Travel information came from guides such as Lonely Planet, Insight Guides, and Rough Guides. These focused on travelers rather than holiday makers. The towns of south east Spain were dismissed with warnings that they catered mostly for hedonistic sun and sand package tourists. Not your scene if you prefer culture, and certainly not if you want to avoid lager louts. Even today guides tend to be more high-brow compared to online travel forums. There is no current LP guide to Ibiza for example, only a chapter in a broader guide.
In truth there is lovely coastal scenery to view even the package holiday towns are not to your taste. And underneath the tourism, locals go about their lives as usual. Today I would probably rent a car and drive down those coasts. In fact I want to do that someday.
Another reason is I was a more timid traveler then. The mechanics of arranging car hire etc. would have filled me with trepidation. So I stuck to well-trod travel routes. But now with forums you can read somebody else's experience and think, that wasn't so hard, I could do that too, and maybe add a variation of my own.
In those days the Internet was in its infancy; most people had not heard of it and even if they had, did not have access to it. It was used mostly by academics, researchers, and some commercial firms, mostly in IT. Travel information came from guides such as Lonely Planet, Insight Guides, and Rough Guides. These focused on travelers rather than holiday makers. The towns of south east Spain were dismissed with warnings that they catered mostly for hedonistic sun and sand package tourists. Not your scene if you prefer culture, and certainly not if you want to avoid lager louts. Even today guides tend to be more high-brow compared to online travel forums. There is no current LP guide to Ibiza for example, only a chapter in a broader guide.
In truth there is lovely coastal scenery to view even the package holiday towns are not to your taste. And underneath the tourism, locals go about their lives as usual. Today I would probably rent a car and drive down those coasts. In fact I want to do that someday.
Another reason is I was a more timid traveler then. The mechanics of arranging car hire etc. would have filled me with trepidation. So I stuck to well-trod travel routes. But now with forums you can read somebody else's experience and think, that wasn't so hard, I could do that too, and maybe add a variation of my own.
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