So we have landed in Castellon de la plana (Comunidad Valenciana), found an apartment (with AC), and been melting in the heat for 8 weeks now. Thankfully this region has not been hit with the crazy temps in the 40’s that the rest of Spain has been living with. It’s just very, very humid and in the low to mid 30’s.
The view from our balcony (very small balcony) is not as picturesque as our last one but we love living in the centre of the city so far.

We have a beautiful large park that is just a 5 min walk from our apartment.

We have traded vineyards in everyone’s backyard to orange trees everywhere we go outside the city. We have discovered that iced drinks (like slushies) as well as the typical Valencian drink Horchata, are very popular here and most bars and cafes serve them. There is always a limón one on offer but our favourite is the café or café con leche.

It stays light here until 10-1030 pm, so we have found a shady peaceful Plaça that comes with a bar, so we can spend our evenings there when the day is a bit cooler. Hoping to discover more.

The city is very quiet at the moment as many people take holidays in August and businesses take some time out. Many go to the holiday home on the beach – 15 minutes away!
We are now in the first week of September and schools and uni’s return next week and so we are expecting the city to be much busier.

The city is an unusual mish mash of buildings from different eras. The centro historico has many modern (as in the last 40 years or so) apartment buildings in amongst it’s older ones.

The street signs are all in ceramica, which is common in many parts of Spain, and here where Valencian is the main langauge the signs are always in both Valencian and Castilian (Spanish). And of course whereever we go there is nearly always a Jimenez. In this case the X version.