A trip to Valencia

We set off early from the motorway stop and head for Montpellier. It is only a staging post on the way to Valencia, but the few hours we spend there are enough to put a return trip on the list, to see the city and its surroundings properly.

We leave early in the morning for Barcelona, the second stage. By early afternoon we are parked and ready to walk the city. Despite previous visits, Barcelona keeps producing something new to fall in love with.

We allow ourselves a longer rest in the morning, then set off for Valencia with a short break for lunch. Before reaching the campsite we stop at the Sant Josep caves, the longest navigable underground river in Europe. We reach the stopover after dinner.

We split the first full day in Valencia between the city and the City of Arts and Sciences, with the Oceanogràfic, which takes half a day on its own.

A second day in the city, with no tight plan: Valencia is big enough to fill a day just by walking.

Time to head back towards Italy, but the holiday is not over. The first stage of the return is Tarragona, where we stay two days. The first goes to the city and its Roman side, with the amphitheatre looking out over the sea.

The second day in Tarragona is all for Port Aventura World, the theme park a few kilometres from the stopover.

Today it is about five hundred kilometres to Nîmes. We leave early and arrive in the afternoon. The arena, the temple and the old centre take us back in time: here, as in Tarragona, you recognise the mark of the Roman Empire, the continuity that tied the Mediterranean basin under a single civilisation. Two cities, two countries, one shared inheritance.

It is time to go home. The last six hundred kilometres pass quickly, but our thoughts stay on the roads behind us: Montpellier and Barcelona, the underground wonders of Sant Josep, the energy of Valencia, the grandeur of Tarragona and Nîmes. And above all that invisible thread tying the whole Mediterranean together, built two thousand years ago.