BMW R1250 GS Adventure On Spain's Best Coastal Road -The Ultimate Spanish Road Trip!

We're about an hour north of Malaga and we're heading on the east coast of Spain. We're heading in the direction of Valencia and we're going to cling the coast road for as long as we can before heading a little bit inland to find some of Spain's best motorcycle roads. I think Em's ready to leave. We've just been stopped here for a little break, for a little drink here. And we're about ready to hit the road again. Are you ready Em? Yes, I'm ready. I'm excited. I'm excited for the coast road but mostly excited for when we go inland because I've seen the Google Maps of this snake road that we're going to hit. So let's get on the road and let's get some serious kilometres under our wheels. Well, that's an enthusiastic pillion so I best do as I'm told. Let's go! We just pulled briefly off the N340 just to get a little bit closer to the sea. We're next to a little village called Cartuna and it's a wonderful little spot. You're right next to the sea. You can actually probably get a stone in there from now. It's a nice place to stop Em. It's a great place to stop and I think we've got a little bit more of this road to ride down. Maybe we can even pop the bike on the beach. We'll try, yep. That would be lovely but it's quite peaceful here. You can't actually see any resorts which is a rare thing in Spain. You can only really see houses and farms in this region. So that's quite nice and the scenery behind the camera, I'll swap you guys over so you can see. It's not exactly picturesque is it on the other side. We've got farms but we do have some nice hills up in the distance but let's go get that engine started. Yeah, okie dokie. I don't normally rev that hard when I pull off but it's just for the benefit of the viewers. This is a really cool little drive though to be that close to the water. Yeah and be that close to the water without a big barrier in between you or a fence. That's really nice. That's something we've been looking for for quite a while on this trip. Oh apparently there's a there's a castello on our left somewhere. Can't see it myself. Can't see the castello. Oh there we go, a little tiny one. Oh is it, missed it. Plenty of farms though. I don't know what they're growing, possibly tomatoes. I think this is also the first bit of beach that we've seen that's not had like parasols or a beach club or anything. It's just a beach. Maybe it's Spain's east coast hack. As long as you point that way you don't have to look at the fruit farms. There we are, it is tomatoes isn't it? There they are. Are they peppers? Bell peppers I think. Or are they those those long plum tomatoes? No they're the um you know the pepechino bell peppers. Ah yeah. The long and thin ones. I like them. They're actually very popular in Spain aren't they when they're pickled. They put them in the water brine and they sell them in tapas. Not so twisty a coast road but it is as coast roads as you can get. It sure is. Seems to be less and less farms as we're heading more north and more rocks and more raw. That's a good place. That's a good spot. I don't think I can get on it though. No it's quite is that right Sean? Only for about a kilometre I think. I think we're just skirting around this town and then it should turn into a nice coast road again. There's the sort of roads we're after. It's awesome. It's got that lovely red tinge to it. Actually it looks a really nice village from up here. Want to pull in here? Yeah I think so. Just for a little quick look. Oh yeah. Look at that. All the little white houses properly just perched on that beach. Just nice isn't it? And then behind is the farms. I do love it though when the road is kind of carved through the mountain. Absolutely. It's a very interesting landscape. We're not getting very far on this coast road. Every couple of turns you get a new view of this really rocky, really rugged, really beautiful coast. Look at how turquoise that water is. Really pretty isn't it Sean? It looks like it yeah. Are you eating sweets? Caught on camera. I've got a fruit pastel. You always do that. You give me a fruit pastel and then you record me. Barely open my mouth. Isn't that water just perfectly turquoise in that middle spot? Oh yeah just that little bit. Oh he's going off road. Nice. Oh there's another road that doesn't go through the tunnel. No it's closed. Oh they've blocked it off. Blockhead. Oh what a crying shame. Spoiled spots. Blocked both sides too. That was the old road there wasn't it? These all look like the old roads. And again there that's that's the old road that's closed off. Trust asian apparently. Is it one of those petrol stations that you actually have to drive five kilometers off the road? Not so convenient. Convenient stops. Wow look at this. Wow. Oh it's windy. Really windy. This is the coast road we were talking about. Fantastic. Entering another little town now. It's a big abandoned building over there. It sure is. And it looks like a lot of farm industry as well in this village. Like a few of the other ones we've passed through. More tomatoes. Bell peppers feeding us vegans. Is it sending us inland now i think? Let's check on the sat nav. Yeah it is just around these big rocks. Just for a little bit. Windy day today here on the coast but i imagine most days are windy. Probably. This N3, what is it? The N340 towards um Alicante and Valencia is pretty epic. It's it's got, you do have to kind of maybe jump on and off the motorway a little bit yeah when you're connecting through. You might have to pick up the A7 at times but get back on the uh this 340 road as soon as you can because it's it's really special. Like the water's so close it feels like on a rough day the road would get wet. Yeah you might get a salt on your bike. Get the AC50 on that. And you pass through a few little towns along the way so if you do want to stop have a moment on the beach. It's definitely the best. Plenty of camping spots isn't there? Yeah. So you're gonna pull out you just don't know. You just don't know. Do you know how far this road goes? How does it like go all the way to um Barcelona? The N340 isn't it? I've no idea. I guess so. I guess it was the old the old coast road that would connect them so probably would do. Well the uh the tide's quite in tonight. So far I think it's the best coast road we've encountered on the uh on the tour. This is the sort of road we were looking for wasn't it in Portugal but we No not quite. such uh busy places. There are so many resorts and so many shops and then only 20-30 kilometers later would you say Sean? Yeah that is not far off. You're in a place that has definitely seen better days. It's like there's been a mass exodus of people and there's like empty abandoned apartment blocks. It's very strange when they're building so much in other places. But you can still see people. People are living here and working here but it's just not seen the way other villages are seen. Obviously by the tourist industry and thusly it suffered a bit. It's not had the money poured into it to repair things or doesn't have the right industry to keep it going but this port here is lovely. The beach was lovely. It's a very strange phenomenon that seems to be happening here in Europe. It's absolutely incredible the scale of the operation here to grow in fruit and vegetables here. We've been driving around this for about five kilometers and it's just been farm after farm after farm and like all of the hills and all the way down to the beach area. I don't know what there is about the soil here that must be really good for growing or maybe it's the slightly cooler climate from the wind from the sea. I'm not sure but didn't expect to see this here. Okay we've just driven through all the farmlands and tomato plantations and things like that. The area has started to become a bit like a desert now so it's, what is it now, it's nine o'clock. We're gonna find a place to stay. This is about as far as we're gonna get today. We're gonna head to a little town called Riage I think. I'm pretty sure there's a wine that comes from there. I don't know if I'm thinking of something else but anyway we're gonna stay there tonight and tomorrow we're gonna go to a place that's either gonna be super cool and a really good experience or extremely tacky but we'll let you know how it gets on and we get on there tomorrow. But for now we're gonna head off and it looks like another one of those Grand Canyon areas, desert-like, so we're gonna go try and find a hotel now. It's really giving Israel vibes isn't it? Absolutely, look over there, like the outline of the mountains on the horizon. I think tomorrow is going to be awesome. It will be, absolutely. I wasn't expecting another desert on this trip. We're just gonna head inland. We'll take it. We'll take a desert, yeah. Like a bit of variation. I think we've decided to go to this place and check it out before we book anything, before we reserve anything. We are 149 kilometers away from Granada which is a very well-known place but where we're going tomorrow is not too well-known. Are we holding out some hope for this place, Em? I'm holding out hope. I'm always holding out hope. I'm the optimistic one of the two of us. Okay, hold on. I just find it funny how we have no idea if there's any form of hotel in this village that we've decided to stay in. Well I'm not driving back, that's for sure. I'll keep going forward. There's a Supremo. A Supremo? Is that like a Supermarkedo? Yeah. Okay, we don't see much signs of life at the moment. We don't need life, we just need a bed. That's true. This is a cute little place though. It is, isn't it? Right, there we are in the center. I don't see anywhere. I don't see any hotels, no. Should we pull out the phone? Yeah, we might have to consult the phone. All right. So it turns out the village of Rioja actually doesn't have any hotels or anywhere to stay actually. No. The closest one was about 10 kilometers away, I think. And here we are at San Nicolas Hotel. It actually looks... It's three stars. It's a three-star hotel and it looks really nice. So I just booked it online on booking.com. Hotels.com let us down on this one. There wasn't any options but we'll see. It's booked. It looks open. We're gonna have a bed and a good rest. And some charge. The funny thing about riding here is the left and right side of the road was literally no lights to be seen whatsoever. It was pitch black. I could have done with the LED headlights to be honest. Yeah, it's not even that there's like no light pollution out here either because the villages are quite small and spread out so it's like you can't even think that there's gonna be a hotel or there's gonna be another town because you can't see anything. There's no cat's eyes, there's no one on the road, it's just you and you feel like you're in the middle of the desert and we've not even like got to the desert yet. So anyway, I'm tired so let's get in. Let's get in and we'll catch you again in the morning.