Utiel

30 April

For the second night in succession, I pull up with a sinking feeling for the night ahead after 200 miles of deserted, perfect roads. Not exactly challenging you understand, but ones you barrel down at the speed limit plus 25%. If any of the very few cars you chance upon is Civil Guardia, they probably wouldn’t be terribly interested as it may mean having to stop admiring one another’s uniforms and taking their sunglasses off. No, the sinking feeling is because the hotel is part of a Repsol filling station complex, plonked by the side of a dual carriageway. It’s 15:45 and the restaurant closes at 16:00.

Utiel looks almost war-torn. Cheaply constructed, rectilinear buildings with various bits missing. Some are rendered and painted, others just breeze-block. There are crumbling pavements, rubble-strewn roads and not a soul in sight. I’m looking for the only restaurant Tripadvisor says is ‘Open Now’ only to find it isn’t, and doesn’t look like it has for the last decade.

I find a bar and ask if there is anywhere that does food. After a brief consultation with some regulars, the barman says ‘El Vegano’ should open shortly. For the only place open on a Sunday in rural Spain to be a vegan restaurant is a preposterous notion and turns out to be only half true. It is open but not remotely vegan so I have a  tortilla (here, more like an omelette) followed by juicy Iberian pork fillet, cooked pink as only Spanish pork can be.

Wine bottles are plonked down with an indication to help myself. I decline dessert so a bottle of Cardenal Mendoza Solera Gran Reserva - a brandy from Jerez - is brought with the same self-serve instruction. It’s wonderful: fiery yet smooth with an intense whiff of sherry cask. I ask for the bill. The bottle is inspected and thunked down again, the implication being I haven’t drunk enough. Anxious not to offend, I refill. Eventually, the bill is presented. €27 all in.