Excursions!

 This past week saw us put on a kilometre or two!  We saw a significant amount of the Mediterranean coast line from Valencia to Gibraltar.   We can now check off Costa Del Valencia, Costa Blanca (Santa Pola), Costa Calida (Murcia Province), Costa Almeria, Costa Tropical and the Costa Del Sol!  Each of these costal areas boast something to distinguish their namesakes.  Fun fact, according to some sources, the Costa Blanca got it's name from a British Airlines slogan from the 1950s!

Before our mini road trip we had another beach day!  However as you can see, the girls are getting acclimatised and even though the thermometer was in the high 20s, the cloud cover and wind created an inhospitable environment for the poor dears!  

I also have evidence of a closet klepto in our company!  Yes that is our Patricia helping herself to a couple of pomegranates!  In her defence, it appeared to be an orchard that was no longer being tended and so Pat was putting into action the saying "waste not, want not"!

Start the car!!

On October 13 we took a drive up to Valencia.  It is a city of around 800,000 with a metro population of about 2.5 million.  It is definitely a city where old meets new, with it's old cathedrals Valencia Cathedral and modern art museums.  Again lots to see and take in.  I really liked the modern buildings housing the museums of modern art and the oceanographic museum, a stark contrast to all the ancient construction we have been seeing throughout the country.  

These museums are all built on the old river (Turia) that has been transformed into 9 kilometres of green space and walking park.  It was quite amazing in the heart of an urban centre.  

It was a great spot for Munchie and I to celebrate our 43rd anniversary!

We found a great little restaurant in the heart of the old city and the four of us sat at a table set up on the cobblestone street (a very common thing here in Spain!) and enjoyed a very good anniversary dinner!

Two other things of note during our Valencia excursion; 

We witnessed a bear roaming the cathedral square and I'm pretty sure he was the subject of a police investigation!

And we were almost stranded in Valencia!  We had parked our car in the parking garage for the Oceanographic museum and by the time we returned the place was shut down and everything was closed, including the pedestrian entrance to the parkade!  After a few minutes of some minor concern and wondering how and who to contact to get our car out, we ended up walking in to the garage through the vehicle exit and discovered we were not the only ones facing this same dilemma.  There were 2 other cars still there as well!  Once we paid up at the automated ticket booth, we were able to vacate the garage and make our way back to Santa Pola.  I must say there were a few anxious moments at first!

On Saturday, October 15 we started our 5 day 4 night jaunt to Gibraltar.  

The first leg of the journey took us to Almeria, with a stop at another castle along the way, Lorca.  This castle actually had a hotel on one end!

Castle Lorca

We pulled into Almeria and checked into our accommodations for the night, the La Perla Hotel.  The place was great and the desk staff were outstanding!  And since a number of the "spaghetti westerns" with Clint Eastwood were filmed in this area, I'm pretty sure our room was the one Clint stayed in.  Dave and Pat had Eli Wallach's room!

Once settled in we walked up to the Almeria Alcazaba  .  This is apparently one of the last strongholds of the Moors (or if you are a Seinfeld fan, Moops) before the Christians ousted them completely from Spain. 

We are still getting used to adjusting our evening meal time to after 8pm after siesta is over.  So we walked out into the old streets of Almeria and found a quaint little spot for our supper.  After we also found an icecream shop open for dessert!

The next leg in our journey was to Gibraltar by way of Malaga.  We stopped at the marina in Malaga, which is about the half-way point to Gibraltar from Almeria. There was a rather large market set up along the marina and that was as far as the girls were able to venture!  Dave and I could see the Malaga Alcazab up above us so we opted to do the walk/climb for some photo ops of the old city below.  The market and the walk up to the scenic lookouts was a tad busy as there were 2 cruise ships in port!  

We saw a couple of buskers on the way up, a violinist and then a fellow playing the sax.  Walking along the treed paths, the buskers were playing popular and recognizable tunes that augmented the ambience of the setting!  

Another quaint feature of the Malaga marina area were the horse drawn carriages.  There were a number of them and they were going steady!

The girls struck gold as well, finding some "awesome" deals on some unique crockery that just could not be left behind!  (careful packing will be required for the flight home!).

We arrived at the Guadacorte Park Hotel which is about 20 minutes from the "Rock".  We chose it for both location and economics!  It was a very good price and easy access to the highway to Gibraltar.  The hotel was awesome and the front desk gal that checked us in, Patricia, let us know about a limited time promotion that upgraded our rooms for a very nominal fee.  We jumped at the deal!  

Once settled in we went on a mission to find a spot to watch the premiere match up of the pro Spainish soccer league, Real Madrid vs Barcelona currently 1 and 2 respectively in the standings, with only a couple of points separating them.  It was a bit of a challenge to find a place to watch as not only was it during siesta, but any of the places open were packed with futbol enthusiasts!  We were able to find a table and although it was pretty apparent Madrid was the crowd favourite, there were a few Barcelona jersey in the mix!  The atmosphere of the little restaurant patio for the game made it a great experience!  (Madrid won!)

Dave's street by our car park!

The next morning we headed over to Gibraltar (passports required since Brexit!).  We located a car park near the centre of the old town and walked over to the cable car with the intent of riding up to the top of the Rock.  As it turned out, it was too windy for the cable cars, but there were a number of mini bus tour guides all about and we ended up hopping in with "Sandra".  So we were 7 in the 9 passenger van.  Not at all uncomfortable. 

Sandra had been doing this for some time and it was obvious as she navigated the narrow winding roads up to the top of the rock.  Sandra said her family has lived in Gibraltar for 130 years!  She was proud of this fact and explained that her nationality was officially British and the residents of Gibraltar were not dual citizens with Spain.  Sandra was able to provide additional local knowledge of the Rock's history that was enjoyable to discover. 

Our first stop was at the southern lookout area (Pillars of Hercules) and although a bit hazy, we could easily make out northern Africa just 15 km away across the straight!

Our next stop was the St Michael's Cave.  These are a truly impressive display of natural beauty!

We continued on and experienced the highlight of the tour, The Apes of Gibraltar!  Actually Barbary Macaques.  They are obviously accustomed to tourists and were actually on the most part indifferent to us being there.  I did get some videos of a couple of the younger ones checking out a couple of the ladies in our group!

Kate (Steve) from Colorado had a passenger for a bit.  When he was leaving he actually gave Kate a little nip farewell!

Another gal from our little group also had a monkey jump aboard!Video

One more video of our furry friends, this is of a little one with papa!Video

You can see Pat having a bit of a stare-down with this one!

We had spectacular 360 views from the top of the Rock.  Our resident photographer, Dave, was snapping shots left and right!  

After our tour we met up with Munchkin, who, as you probably noticed, was missing from the Rock photos, stayed in town to explore the shops!  She does not do well with heights and narrow roads!

We arrived back in town a bit ahead of when we had planned our rendezvous with Brenda, so I went for a walk to see if I could locate her. 

Zoom in on the cafe name!

Although I did not find Munchie on my first pass, I did find a little cafe that was fitting!  

I was getting ready to call for help when Dave caught up to let me know Munchie and Pat were waiting for us back up the street.  

We stopped at the Angry Friar's for some fish and chips and a beverage!

I've been getting post cards for the Peanut along our travels and was able to get one here and we posted it right there.  

An interesting note regarding accessing Gibraltar by vehicle, you have to cross the runway of the airport.  So when planes are landing / taking off, the road is blocked and you wait for the plane to clear!

We took a drive into the port city across the bay from Gibraltar, Algeciras.  It is the busiest port in Spain.  Algeciras was definitely a commercially dominated place with an obvious focus on the shipping trade.  

Our next stop was Granada.  We stopped for some refreshments at a little hotel/bar along the way, the Restaurante Venta Las Delicias.  We met Pedro, the owner.  He told us his family was celebrating 50 years in business! 

He also explained that the whole valley was devoted to olives!  This was very obvious as we had been seeing orchards everywhere!  Apparently, the harvest for the eating olives was underway and in another couple of weeks, the harvest for oil olives would begin.  Pedro warned us not to try eating any of the olives from the trees!  They are extremely bitter until they are soaked and prepared for consumption.  

Shandys at Las Delicias!

After a nice rest and refreshment at Pedro's we continued on to Granada.

We booked rooms at the Hotel Alixares just a couple of minutes walk to the Alhambra.  Another impressive piece of history.  

We returned to Santa Pola the next.  On the drive we found some pretty cool cave dwellings.  It was near Guadix, a town of about 17,000.  We saw the caves from the highway and decided to take a closer look.  We found a hotel built into the mountain side!  The Casas Cuevas Almagruz y Habitat Troglodita is a quaint rural hotel with 6 suites built in caves.  Incarni gave us a tour of a couple of the suites and provided a bit of info on them.  She said suites pretty much stay at a constant temperature of 19C year round.  Incarni said she lives in near by Guadix and cave dwelling in the town has increased to about 25% of the population. 

We arrived back in Santa Pola in the late afternoon.  The Elche FC were hosting the top team in the Spainish league, Real Madrid.  Dave had acquired tickets to the game!  So we went down to the marina for a pizza before the game.  The girls went for a walk to check out some more shops and Dave and I did the 20 minute drive to the stadium in Elche.

The fans outside the stadium were showing their support for the Elche team, even though they firmly hold last place in the league.  They have no wins, 7 losses and 3 draws!  Madrid has no losses!

The stadium holds 31,000 and it was a sellout!

The Elche team gave a tremendous effort, however they were clearly out matched.  Real Madrid scored 6 times!  (3 goals were disallowed, offsides).  All in all, it was a great evening.  I enjoyed the experience and watching the fans was as enjoyable as watching the game!

Well, that's it for this week!  I'll be posting again next week.

Cheers to all.

 

October, wk 2!

 

This week we made a trip to Alicante.  Pat got to see castle number 420!  The Santa Barbara castle overlooking Alicante is pretty impressive.  Santa Barbara Castle It is a massive place.  We did get a sprinkle and took  shelter in the gift shop for a bit.  This afforded Munchie an opportunity to practice her favourite sport, shopping!  Once the showers stopped we continued on.  Munchie opted to sit out the climb to the summit of the castle, not because of the required effort, but due to the height's phobia!  Pat, Dave and I went up to the top of the castle, it was a tremendous 360 view of Alicante and the surrounding area.  Again, the ancients who constructed these places also choose locations for obvious strategic reasons.  It is still mind boggling that these places were built without modern machinery and on precarious sites!  

After the castle we went down into Alicante and took a stroll along the "Wavy Walkway" (Esplanade de Espana)  Walkway  A another delightful spot.  We also walked through the oldest neighbourhood of the city,  Santa Cruz .  

We stopped at the El Mos for a refreshment and met a very nice young man, Angel, our server.  He was quick witted and had a great personality!  Chance encounters and meeting new people is always a highlight for me!

We spent the weekend in Santa Pola, with a couple of beach days, the Market on Saturday and Pat, Dave and I got in a bike ride!  One of the beach days ended up being short as the clouds rolled in and the girls said it was too cold to sit out there!  Amazing at how quickly we get acclimatized to the temperature.  It 24C and without the sun, the girls said it was too cold!  Our pool at the complex is solar heated, and lately the sea is warmer than the pool!  Dave and I have created the first chapter of Santa Pola Polar Bear club!

At the market, Pat scored for the grandkids picking up some Barcelona soccer jerseys.   She had her subject matter expert (Dave) with her to make sure the appropriate apparel was purchased!  We also stocked up fresh produce and fruit, although both the red and green grapes we got were not seedless.   This is a bit of an inside joke, seeded grapes, one time my darling bride picked up seeded grapes by mistake and so when she put them in my lunch, she first removed the seeds.  My coworkers at the time (Shannon, Cindy, Sue) gave me quite a hard time about it, suggesting I was a tad spoiled! 

So happy!

Pat wasn't the only one to score at the market, my darling bride was quite excited about some "deals" she was able to find!  The highlight being a scarf with "The Woman in Gold" on it.  Munchie has been looking for this for quite some time!  I'm very pleased she was able to find it (happy wife, happy life!). 

Woman in Gold

This week was Canadian Thanksgiving.  So Sunday we had our feast.  Couldn't locate a turkey (no Dave and I are not!) so a large chicken had to be the main course.  Munchie whipped up 6 dozen perogies and the menu also included string beans and ginger glazed carrots.  Munchie had to use her adaptive cooking abilities to make the stuffing as we could not find sage!  I'm not a big fan of stuffing, but the stuff she made was pretty darn good!  I kinda preferred it to her back home stuff!

Happy Thanksgiving!

    After our great Thanksgiving dinner, nature treated us to a spectacular          full moon!

Nature had more in store for us other than a gorgeous full moon.  2 days later we watched a spectacular lighting display light up the skies all around us.  It was very impressive, with the bolts flashing and rolls of thunder clapping!  Then the rain came, and boy did it rain.  Alicante was hit much harder than here in Santa Pola with flooded streets and cars floating away!

We took a trip to the City of Murcia, a easy hours drive inland.  Murcia is the capital city of the Province of the same name, with a metro population of over 600,000.  The river Segura runs through it.  We drove into the old part of the city and lucked out with a free parking spot right near the place we wanted to be.  We walked into the Plaza Del Cardenal Belluga, where the Catedral de Murcia is located.  As we approached the plaza, we noticed barricades and police doing crowd control.  We had but luck and good fortune arrived just as the local Guardia Civil (the oldest of Spains national police forces) were completing a military parade (complete with a marching band!)  October 11th, just happens to be the Guardia's patron saint day.  What a great way to start our "walking tour" of old Murcia!  There was one small hick-up on our walk, my Munchkin found a shoe shop that was open and just had to go in!  Well, my darling bride struck again, but this time the footwear were for me (whether I wanted or needed them at all!).  I now have to retire an old pair of sandals Munchie never really liked anyway!  

We walked all about and even took a tour through the Caterdral and it's museum.  And of course we found an awesome outdoor cafe to sit and review our days activities with a beverage and snacks.  All in all, another great day!