Barcelona Bound

I mentioned that as much as I would have loved to, I couldn't linger any longer in Guadalest because we had much to do and little time to do it.

One of those must dos was that afternoon outside of Barcelona, in cava country.

For those who don't know me well enough (clearly not at all), I love champagne in all it's forms but I have a particular passion for the Spanish version of it – cava. The passion extends to a brand that I buy from the one shop in Sydney that sells it - Segura Viudas. I love it. It's comparatively cheap, dry, punchy and full of flavour.

I wanted to visit the caves (cellar), the home of Segura Viudas. I wanted to make a pilgrimage.

So we made haste, northwards.

The vineyard driveway was long and impressive.

But the man at the gate stopped us.

"Lo siento" is what he said. "Manyana".

It was a cruel blow. "Sorry. Tomorrow". But tomorrow was not to be. We had to keep moving. My heart was heavy.

We headed along the road, back to the hugely popular Freixenet. I like Freixenet, just not as much as Segura, and I am never too keen on visiting the big wineries (I hadn't realised that Segura was also fairly large).

There were tourist buses, and shiny displays inside. Buy your ticket for the next tour. I guessed it would have to do.

But by that stage, I didn't care. I just wanted to go to a cava maker.

Fortune turned and after a call from the woman renting the apartment to us in Barcelona we were on our way to Caves Felix Massana, a low key production by comaprison with the yummiest cava.