10-7 Novelda

 Today we went to visit a town called Novelda.  It is in the province of Alicante.  There are a couple of wine regions in Alicante - and we passed a few vineyards on our way.  The city is about 40 minutes from El Campello.  We first drove into the old town area.  There were no parking places any where.  All of the municipal parking lots were around the outskirts of town - which would have meant hiking in about an hour - that was not going to happen.  This is our first experience since we arrived in El Campello with tiny one way streets in an old town driving.  It was not to bad considering - we did not end up in a dead end road with a foot or so leeway on either side where we had to back up many blocks!  So all was good.

At the visitor center in El Campello we had been told about a Guidi like church that was located here.  So we ended up plugging that into our GPS and headed out of the town and towards a building on the side of a hill.  You could see that this visit was going to include some uphill walking.  The road was narrow - but was only one way up and actually had some small barriers to prevent you from driving off the mountain.  

From the parking lot we looked at this view.  There are fields of grapevines and in the distance proof of quarrying.  They were most likely extracting marble - as that is also what this region is known for.

We walked up the road passing this angel.  This is not the original statue of an angel, but a replacement.

The story starts with a couple of hikers who found a source of water and later built a fountain.  They fell in love with the landscape and purchased the land.  They built the fountain and put up a statue of an angel.  Later they donated the land to the municipality to develop.  

another view of the vineyard.  

This was originally the site of a castle - the Castello de la Molo.  There was not much left here.  Again, as so many other areas near by, the Moors and the Christians battled for this area.  It was hard to tell if the Moors or Christians had left more of themselves here.  A couple of buildings, a couple of signs and that was all.  But also no entrance fee.

There was not a whole lot of information on the castle.

There was even less information about why this church was built on the same property.  The only other building here was a cafe that had a tiny display of photos and descriptions of the castle - all in Spanish so not helpful to me.  I would have translated the information if we would have had more time.  But Michael just realized that he had many meetings tonight and we needed to get home.

This is the St Mary Magdalene's Sanctuary.

There were 3 frescos on the front of the church building.

Inside the church are paintings by famous artists.

This is the one the church is know for - Mary Magdalene anointing Jesus' feet.

The front of the church.

The back of the church.  There is an organ made out of marble that has never been finished.

Back outside - this fresco of the last supper with Mary Magdalene anointing Jesus' feet.

This is know as the Guidi like church.  

Most of the mosaics on the outside of the sanctuary are similar to these.

We stopped at the cafe for refreshments before heading home.  This is a view of the ramp up to the castle and the cafe and back at the church.  

The sign behind this car says something like - you can only park here for 10 minutes while you are dropping off handicap people.  But that car stayed there the whole time we visited the castle and the cafe.

Back home - we had a big salad for our lunch/supper, finished washing and hanging up the towels, and I want for a walk.  I did have some issues with the steep inclines going to the castle and church today, but figured walking flat on the board walk would be OK.  But it did tire me out.  I told Michael today we needed to leave the car unwashed - as it made it easy to find in a parking lot of black cars!

10-5 Sunday Market Mud!

 El Campello has two markets - one on Sunday and one on Wednesday.  They are at different locations - very close to each other.  And both use the same two dirt parking lots.  I had bought some great salted mixed nuts at one of the markets last October - so I wanted to go today - Sunday to see if the "nut guy" was there.  

You can walk from our apartment to go to the markets - but it is all up this very steep long hill, so we drove.  I remembered the entrance to the dirt parking lot that is the closest.  The pavement of the road just drops off into the dirt of the parking lot - and every year the drop gets deeper.  Our rental car is a BMW which is very low to the ground.  Of-course we bottomed out - but were able to keep going.  Michael, knowing that the parking lot is covered in uneven pebbles, stopped to let me out and went to park the car.  As I waited for him to park the car and walk back to me - it seemed like every other car scrapped the bottom of their cars on that drop off.  

As I waited and time went on and on and no Michael appeared, I noticed a crowd of people gathered a ways off in the parking lot.  I could not see what they were doing, but they were all standing around and watching something.  Finally I called Michael, and low and behold it was him!  He was stuck in the mud.  All the people gathered around were trying to help him get out of the mud.  I  wish I would have had the presence of mind to take a video!  There was one person trying to communicate with Michael using poor English.  Every one else spoke Spanish.  There was much discussion - he should back up - no he should go forward - put the piece of metal behind his front tire, no put it back.  I could guess this all from their gestures.  Finally someone showed up with a hoe like implement and dug out behind his two front tires.  Then the instructions were to gun the motor and go backwards - and that finally got him out.  Everyone clapped and high-fived and went off to their cars.  Except the man with the hoe who kept giving Michael more instructions in Spanish.  I have to add that a lot of the men who had been trying to help with directions or to push had mud on their clothes.  Michael's car had clumps of mud all along the edges plus spots all over the front of the car.

I watched Michael's face as he kept telling the man "si, si", but I knew he didn't understand a word the guy was saying.  Michael and the car were on a small patch of hard dirt.  There was a parked car to one side.  Two other sides had very large deep mud puddles.  We managed to do about an 8 point turn and got the car turned around to a very narrow spit of dry dirt right next to the parked car.

After we got the car turned around - the guy in the parked car across from us decided to leave his parking spot - and immediately got stuck in the large deep puddle between our two cars.  Now the entrance lane was completely blocked.  The people trying to get into the parking lot were not happy.  The one in front tried to pull between the stuck car and us - right into the puddle Michael had just gotten out of.  I put my hand out and yelled No, No!  the driver shrugged at me - "Well where am I supposed to go!"  He did stop though.  I can't imagine how long it would have taken to get everyone out if he had gone forward and gotten stuck in that same puddle.  Because then none of us could have moved forward.

We finally got out of the parking lot - I thought we would just go home, but Michael pulled into the second parking lot - It was completely dry and level - not even one pot hole.  We walked back to the market and made a quick circuit of what was on offer.  No nut guy available.  So we went home.

Back in our apartment parking lot I finally remembered to take some photos.  Tomorrow we will have to find a car wash!

10-1-4 A Couple of Things we Like About El Campello!

 There are a lot of things that keep bringing us back to this area of Spain.  Today I will share a couple of things that we have been able to count on.  The sunsets are almost always grand.  

They are a deep pink orange in color.  Our building faces the water.  We have two windows that face backwards - towards the sunset.  

Which means the sun rises over the water.  This time of year the mornings are overcast and it takes some time for the sun to come through.  The small dot in the patch of light is a fishing boat heading out for a days work.  

And the last thing I want to show you is the great idea of "Menu de Dia" This is a bargain of a meal that includes  3 different courses for a fixed price.  We paid about $30 for the two of us to have - in this case - actually 4 courses.  The first was a cold tomato soup - no photo.  Then a starter followed by the main and then a coffee or desert.  It also included a drink - that could be wine, beer or soda.

My starter - a chicken salad made with oranges, chicken vegetables such as carrots and celery and lots of mayo.

Michael's starter - mussels

One of the choices for the main - was this lasagna which was delicious.

Michael got orange chicken.  A nice piece of white meat chicken served with fries.

I had a cola, Michael had red wine and bottled water.  The  desert was called flan - I am not a fan of any of those kinds of deserts - so Michael got his expresso and had my desert!  I was so full I didn't mind at all.  That is why we don't order this meal very often!

10 1-5 On to El Campello

 Wednesday, Oct 1st was busy.  We packed up all of our stuff after breakfast, and then Michael and Alexis headed off to get the car.  Still no empty parking spots in our cul-de-sac.  So they double parked and Alexis and I brought everything down from our 8th story apartment.  We wrangled it all into the car and headed to the airport to drop off Alexis.

After the hugs and goodbyes at the airport, Michael and I headed to El Campello.  

I tried to capture the feel of this area of Spain.

This looks like a repeat - I was trying to show the speed limit sign - but they are tiny.  The speed limit is 120.

There were so many wind turbines on the top of hills - I had to try a video.  I shortened this video via ClipChamp and saved it as a gif.  But blogger does not seem to recognize the format.  So sorry about the weird ending.

Our 20th story apartment was just as we remembered it from our last trip here about a year ago.  We settled in quickly.  Michael headed to the local Mercadona for groceries.  We had a store roasted chicken which made it fast.  We were both too tired to head out for a walk on the waterfront.  Maybe tomorrow!

9 28-30 A Sojourn in Madrid

 Our original plan was to spend the last three days of September in Toledo.  It - like Bilbao is a hilly city and our Airbnb was not close to the historical areas.  So we bailed on that because of my broken toes and decided to visit family in Madrid.  It turned out to be a very good thing.  For some reason unknown the chair in the kitchen in our Airbnb in Bilbao declared war on my right foot toes.  Most of the time when it attacked me I was wearing shoes - so it lost.  But - the last day we were there I let my guard down and was in my stockings only.  That battle was brutal and I lost badly.  So now both my feet hurt.

Our drive from Bilbao to Madrid was uneventful.  It was stressful in the fact that Michael had not slept well the night before and it kept raining off and on.  Just a couple of shots taken as we were driving along the highway.  I don't know if the signs seem different than in the U.S. You can see some of the landscape.  I am so used to seeing signs that say the speed is 120 - but that is in kph not mph.

Once in Madrid, our first task was to pick up daughter, Alexis from the Madrid airport.  We were a little early and so pulled into the express parking lot.  Only to discover that it was actually the uber drop off/pick up lot!  But they did take our credit card and it was great because it was so close to the arrivals area.  

After a successful pickup of daughter we needed to find our Airbnb.  We already knew there was no parking available near our apartment.  We finally made it down the long lane to the cul-de-sac in front of the apartment building at 1pm - every spot was full.  We unloaded all of our luggage and I waited with it while Alexis and M went in search of parking.  We were told we could drop our luggage off at 2pm and have access of the apt at 3pm.  As I waited and watched cars come in to the cul-de-sac and then turn around and leave - not a single car parked there when I arrived had moved!  About an hour later they returned they had found a parking garage where they could leave the car the whole time - and come and go as they pleased.  Michael's first comment was - the car is staying here the whole time - we'll just take Ubers!

My niece, Rene Michelle has lived in Madrid for a few years.  She has an apartment in a nice suburb with easy public transport to downtown or any where she needs to go.  But sometimes it can take an hour+ to get anywhere.  She came to our Airbnb and we just hung out here.  My granddaughter, Jojo, just started University in Madrid about a month ago.  She informed us that she had some kind of virus, but was feeling ok at the moment and wanted to see us.  She uses her parents uber account and was able to make her way to us.  We found a pizza place close enough to walk to.  The pizza looked great, but was pretty mediocre - but it was something RM could eat as a vegetarian.  Later we went to a bar - actually next door to the pizza place for drinks. and called it an early evening.

Monday was more of the same - family hanging out eating and drinks.  This time Alexis, Michael and I took an uber to RM's apartment and enjoyed time talking and then she served us a great Spanish meal.  I did not take photos - but it was delicious.  From there we all took an uber to Jojo's apartment.

First order of things was to take a selfie of us all!  After a tour of her room and apartment we all walked to a nearby bar.  

We found a bar across from the Opera House.  The neighborhood was quiet, but a bit more expensive.

Look at Alexis in the first photo and RM in the second.

Jojo - still not feeling so well, but wanting to spend time with us.

The Opera house is the one with the orange roof in the background.

We decided to order some tapa's with our drinks.  And ordered too much as usual.  But that didn't stop us from eating it all.  First up - above - Teriyaki chicken with popcorn dust.

Spanish Tortilla with 1/2 loaf of French bread.

Croquettes.

The translation of this dish was called "broken eggs" - It was anything but.  The fried eggs were dipped in batter and fried.  the dip was a cream with herbs and truffles and some ham.  Interestingly the eggs were still very runny when cut into.

We thought we had also ordered grilled vegetables - when we didn't get them we asked and it seemed the order never went in.  But they came out in record time and were a great counter to all the fried food.  RM left to take the public transit home.  Jojo walked back to her apartment.  And the rest of us got an uber (a Chinese car - don't know the make - but the entire roof was a sun roof) back to our Airbnb.  I took photos out the window of the car.

I believe this is Peurto de Alicla.

On the highway underground in our Uber.  Many of the main highways are underground in Madrid.  

Tuesday, our last day in Madrid is a chill day.  RM arrived at our apartment a little after noon.  We found a restaurant that had vegetarian options.  Spain is awful at offering up anything but meat dishes.  Of all places it was an Irish pub called The Irish Temple!  They had a ton of options on hamburgers, a few other sandwiches thrown in for good measure and a section for vegetarians.  The burgers were all so big - I opted for the children's choice and got 40 grams less of meat!  Three of us had burgers, one vege and Alexis had a salad.  We all enjoyed our choices.  Service was slow - seemed to be only one server doing everything.  RM had to leave before we got the check as she needed to get to her Spanish language class.  

The evening was chill with some pre-packing and organizing.  Tomorrow we drop off Alexis at the Madrid airport for her flight home to Malmo Sweden.  Michael and I will point our car in the direction of El Campello and a four hour drive.  Can't wait to get there to relax.  Oops - we have family coming to visit us there every weekend.  Hopefully it will be warmer weather than we have had so far!