Thread by @PeterLatimer6

I’ve not tweeted much whilst being on holiday for the last week, but with a long delay for our flight back worth taking you through my experience last Sunday. Might be a very long thread.
#LatsOnTour

2am finally make it to bed after finishing the last bit of work that was preying on my mind, and also last minute holiday preparations.
3.44am my wife taps me to ask when he alarm was due to go off
3.45am seconds later the alarm rings (how does she do that??!)

4.40am set off, 10 mins behind schedule, but that’s ok, there’s contingency built in.
6am walk to the departure desks at Mcr T1 after parking the car. The longest queue I’ve ever seen for EasyJet baggage (we’ve already checked in online).

Briefly join the wrong one as even the priority one is long. Our standard class must be a couple of hundred long and snakes up and down the check-in hall. Apparently there was some computer error earlier so all the numerous EasyJet flights affected, all between 6-8am.

The staff are checking if anyone are on the 7am flights to prioritise them, ours is 7.30am so no panic for us.
A family of 3 ahead of us has about 10 pieces of large luggage, including flat pack furniture from John Lewis, how much will that be costing them with EasyJet???

6.50am our bags checked in, although mine was 16kg but luckily both girls were well under the 15kg limit, so in total we passed and no excess baggage to pay. Although it might mean limited presents to bring home due to weight, well that’s my excuse anyway!

7.10am make it through security, where I was frisked and had my trainers separately scanned and all 3 of our hand luggage had to be manually checked. Not sure why, whether our portable chargers and various wires look dodgy perhaps or airport security just being extra vigilant?

7.30am Scheduled departure time, so no time for the planned sit down breakfast, instead the girls snatch a sausage muffin from a baguette outlet and I decide to wait and chance my luck on the plane.

Look at the EasyJet food choices and quite fancy the filled croissant which features on two of the three menus. Inevitably the other menu is in operation so a limp ham & cheese toastie it is, but at least I can have my caffeine fix for the day. Otherwise flight uneventful.

11am CEST arrived at Alicante airport, usual time waiting for security and bags but a large modern airport so feel relaxed.
12pm until I see the multitude around the Centauro hire car desk. I understand the system and show my booking barcode and pick up a ticket to wait.

12.05pm my number is called, as I had the foresight of paying for the priority (or the standard price really, rather than the unrealistic bargain prices quoted), after queuing for over an hour in the sun at Palma a few years ago.
12.10pm collect the keys and the SatNav tablet.

12.30pm (conformed by a photo I took of the fuel gauge, which was nearer 65% full than the 75% they’d marked it down for. Ready to drive out, after complaining that the Renault Clio they’d given me didn’t have 5 doors like I’d ordered, it did, I just didn’t look closely enough.

Turn the tablet on that has the Sat Nav, only to discover that it’s out of battery. Plug into the car, but find out that the cable is dodgy, so we have to rely on a small map I had and my daughter to navigate. We know to follow signs to Valencia and also Benidorm so manage.

We didn’t anticipate a toll station, but it just gives us a ticket. What do we do with it? Do we pay after our journey? Do they track our registration if we don’t pay?
We find out an hour later when we leave the motorway another toll booth, show the ticket and pay €7.

1.40pm now off the motorway we’re using a combination of my pre-prepared Google map route and the written instructions from the villa agency, with me having to help my daughter with reading it out to me in a sensible fashion.
“What does it say next”, “how many km does it say”, ..

1.50pm we manage to navigate to the outskirts of Moraira which is where the villa is somewhere (we don’t have the exact address). The villa agency office is closed on a Sunday but I’ve been in email contact in advance, they’ve taken my money, all I need to do is pick up the keys

They said they’d be in a safe box outside the office with a combination code. What could go wrong?
Actually nothing, the code worked and there was an envelope with my name on with the key and directions inside. There was another envelope in the box so not just us with the code.

Now this is the point I was worried whether we could actually drive to our villa.
I’d only booked it a couple of weeks before, fairly randomly, after deciding on the Alicante region.
I also know that La Vuelta (Spain’s 3 week equivalent to the Tour de France) starts end of Aug.

Find out it actually starts south of Alicante on the day before, but the first proper stage is Benidorm into the hills and back to Calpe on the coast.
And through Moraira before the finish in Calpe.
Not only that but snaking into the hills behind Moraira where our villa is.

In fact the final climb of the day, so likely to be packed with fans, is just where I think our villa is, from the Google pictures I reckon the race goes right past the villa!
I’d asked the agency and they thought roads may close at 1pm but the police may let us through.

So it’s well past 1pm and we’re about to drive on the exact La Vuelta route used in 3 hours time (remembering that there’s always the publicity caravan an hour or more ahead).
We join it and see all the signs on the side of the road and a few scattered cyclists, so far so good.

We have to turn at a roundabout, and bear in mind that I’m still coming to grips with driving on the opposite side of the road and changing gears with my right hand, I pull out a little too quickly ahead of another car that’s already on the roundabout. But it’s a police car 😰

As we turn corners and roundabouts it follows us! We start noticing signs on the route with a ⛔️ symbol and then notice that it says 14.00 so clearly the road was being shut at 2pm. Look at the clock and it’s 13.57 so we’re just ok although they police car is still following us

We’re now driving up a very steep hill, Alto Puig Llorenca, 10% average gradient, 20% at times (according to La Vuelta stats). The little Renault Clio is struggling even in 2nd gear it’s so steep, god knows how you’re supposed to cycle up it. We pass Columbian corner.

We reach a false flat and as the directions are very sketchy at this point, we turn off the road and let the police car go on ahead of us.
I think I know the way based on my Google street viewing and it’s a side street that goes to the top of a small hill to the main road/route.

I see the villa, or at least what was in the photos on the website, but it has an electronic gate, that refuses to open when pressing the various buttons on the key ring, and I have to get out of the car and press it in random directions before finally it opens, and we drive in.

Unlock, unpack and investigate the villa. Bedrooms are picked and we settle in. What’s the WiFi code? There’s 2 WiFi connections appearing, we check all our villa instructions, code not mentioned, so we start to look around for the router.

[thread suspended as the flight is finally about to depart 4.5 hours late, hopefully finish the story of last Sunday later tonight]

[time to restart this thread and finish the story of my Sunday 25th, apologies for the delay for anyone on tenterhooks about whether we managed to turn the WiFI on]

2.30pm find an extender plugged in on thee balcony, try the random password on the back, but to no avail :(
Unlock the downstairs utility room, find a cupboard with some beer and water, so useful in an emergency, but no router.

There’s an upstairs set of rooms, off the upstairs balcony, but locked with a different key, so my suspicion is that the router and password must be in there.
So I ring the emergency out of hours number for the villa office. They say they’ll ring me back.

It’s about this time that I’m checking the cricket score, bearing in mind I was at Headingley for Day 2 when we were all out for 67, and find we’re making a real fight of an implausible win, only 4 wickets down and not much more than 100 to win.

We switch on the TV and it has Sky Sports channels! I could watch the cricket. But inevitably every channel I try has no signal, or not subscribed to receive. I can’t even find any Vuelta coverage on a Spanish channel. Pah, wasn’t impressed.

Instead tune into TMS on the BBC Sounds app using my 4G, but coverage comes and goes with my dodgy phone reception.
Before I know it we’ve lost 3 more wickets and about 100 to win, looking increasingly unlikely.

3.30pm the villa agency rings back, “you need to look for the router”, no shit Sherlock! “Have you looked near the TV”, er yes. I point out that try upstairs is locked so could be up there. “Yes but can’t do anything till tomorrow”.

Tomorrow, ahhhhhhh
I’ve got a nearly 16yr old and 20yr old, they can’t live without WiFi for that long!
Bad news is that the younger one can’t access her 4G but the elder one can, and mine’s intermittent.

And just as the agency rang, the Vuelta sponsor caravan was crawling up the hill and behind the villa, so most annoyingly I missed it. Having said that there only seemed to be as little as 10 publicity vehicles and no sign of any freebies, unlike the Tour de France.

4.15pm England have lost 2 more wickets, 9 down, just Jack Leach between Australia retaining the Ashes. I’m not so upset when my connection goes down.
We watch from our villa balcony as odd cars and motorbikes come along the Vuelta route, not long before it will be with us.

4.45pm Stokes is starting to hit out, they taarget’s less than 50, I need to listen to ball by ball commentary. The elder daughter generously turns her phone into a WiFi hotspot.

5pm there’s a couple of helicopters in the skies above us and many more vehicles, the race is coming up the hill, not far away.
I can’t leave the villa as need the WiFi hotspot, and now it’s less than 20 runs to win, on a knife edge.

5.05pm the small band of race leaders appear and go past, I’m not close enough to recognise who they are, shame I’m not on the side of the road,
But elsewhere the target is down to single figures, there’s a dropped catch, a review that’s turned down. Tense!

5.10pm I’m watching the cyclists roll through, the peloton’s in pieces, but my mind is in Leeds.
Leach is going to be run out, 2 runs from victory, noooo. Yes, Lyon’s somehow fumbled it, the dream is still alive.

5.15pm Leach runs for a single, we’ve tied, already it feels like a victory.
Then Stokes whacks a 4 and we’ve won, I whoop out aloud, and try and explain to the kids how rare and important it is, but seem fairly unimpressed.
Still some tired cyclists dribbling past.

[another pause in the day’s story, sorry lots of politics to watch tonight, should be able to finish off tomorrow night, I’m stubborn and determined now I’ve started!]

[right, let’s restart and finish this damn thread, a week after I started and 2 weeks after the day I’m describing]

5.30pm the excitement of the cricket and the cycling has pasted, but the three of us are all quite hungry. Our breakfasts were 8-9 hour ago, and we’ve been trapped in our villa with no shops or cafes in walking distance, and we’ve finished our travel packs of crisps.

6pm the road is reopening with the barriers being removed. Need to find a supermarket that’s open, but it’s a Sunday in Catholic Spain after 6pm. The nearest and largest Mercadona is shut, but luckily for us the Lidl we’d seen on our way was open to 10pm every day.

6.30 we wander round Lidl picking up the holiday essentials:
croissants
Nutella
coffee
crisps
water
toilet paper

7pm rather than going back to the villa and unloading we search for a nearby restaurant as we’re so hungry, and it’s tea time for us Brits, even though early for the Spanish

We drove down the road to Moraira, keeping an eye out for restaurants by the road, any signs for them, and also what Google suggests. Bearing in mind that our collective tastes are quite picky (not me it has to be said) so never easy agreeing.

The girls see a sign for Monroe’s Carvery, which sounds promising, and we’re quite happy to go safe on this first night of the holiday. I miss the turning and have to double back at a roundabout, but find the restaurant up a small hill.

7.30pm we check the menu to ensure it covers our needs and looks very suitable, has the staples of burgers and pizzas, and lots of other choices too, including a carvery option. Looks typically British but that’s fine for this evening meal.

I didn’t really fancy a carvery so order spaghetti bolognese with sweet chilli pork skewers to start.
The girls both order garlic bread followed by burgers, chicken and beef with bacon.

The garlic bread arrives and looks like a supermarket baguette with 4 small slices each, on a plate with some limp lettuce and a token piece of tomato and cucumber. They don’t taste much better. My pork skewers are cubes of chewy meat deep fried, not good.

We wonder whether our main courses will be any better.
No.
My spaghetti bolognese is bland with no taste, but they provide me with a Parmesan shaker and the girls are highly amused that I keep showering my plate in Parmesan just so I have something to taste.

The girls burgers were a single slab of round meat in a plain burger bun. Very unappetising and no sign of any bacon, and although my daughter insists her burger tastes of beef, I do wonder if the description bacon burger actually meant a burger made from bacon.

9pm we decide to cut our losses and leave before the dessert menu, and all agree not to go back, the food was so shockingly bad.
We return to the villa, and spend the rest of the evening on the balcony in the warm night air, catching up with our favourite social media sites.

Video of La Vuelta going past the villa, apologies for the quality and for me switching to landscape halfway through.

And when we got home we spotted our villa on the TV coverage, with the blob in the upper archway being me (honest).

THE END of my 25th August 2019