May 16 Alcoi

 Today we did our first tourist trip by car.  We drove to a city called Alcoi.  It was less than an hour away.  We were on major roads for all except a tiny portion of tiny zig-zag roads that lead into the town.  And the parking garage was not too bad.  After our experience in the grocery store parking garage we were a little worried.

The parking garage was very close to the main square - Plaza de Espana and the Santa Maria Church.  Our first stop was to the tourist info where the women who helped was very excited we wanted to go on a walking tour.  What I didn't realize is that the walking tour highlights were all modernistic buildings.  I was bored at the first building!  

Now, in my defense, I have been dealing with a severe kink in my neck which has caused much pain.  I think the problem is caused by my very small computer screen and my poor posture trying to see it.  It is exasperated by the pillows here that are quite hard lumps.  Michael, bless him, is trying very hard to message the problem away every morning.  

Michael was having a blast in finding the buildings on the map we got from the tourist office and taking photos of them.  We had a little tiff about it, but decided to keep on going.  

First, an aside.  The following two photos are from last nights walk.  The "boardwalk that goes along the ocean leads from just a little ways to the north of us and then to the south.  It ends at a bridge which you can walk across and then continues on the other side.  The total per our host is about 16 km.  Right before the bridge is the dog park and another - I think - park area.  It is fenced off - but their are pathways in it.  Monday, one of the fences was broken so I walked through it and did a little exploring.  It was very rocky, and the clouds were very vivid.

Here you can see one of the wind "breaks" that keep the waves from destroying the beach.

Now back to our Tuesday adventure.  I took some photos with my phone to try to show a bit of the landscape.  It reminds me a lot of New Mexico - at least the part close to El Campello.  But as we got closer to Alcoi there were a lot more trees.  But the mountains were mostly bare.

My phone photos show up first.  This was at the end of our time in Alcoi.  We had lunch at a Spanish restaurant, but not a tapas restaurant.  We got the menu of the day which seemed to be all they were serving.  There were three choices for the first course.  I choose the pasta with cheese sauce.  I was full about half way through.  Thankfully Michael helped me finish it.

Michael got the Salad Russo - or Russian salad.  We have seen this on so many menus, but have not tried it before.  It is basically a potato salad with mayonnaise and usually has fish like tuna in it.  It also often includes peas.  This one was very finely chopped and had tuna but not peas.  Michael loved it - but I am not so fond of tuna.  I some how skipped taking pictures of the main dishes.  I had baked chicken.  In Europe being served chicken is almost always dark meat.  It was very nicely flavored with herbs in olive oil.  The two boiled potatoes with it were in the same sauce and also wonderful.  Michael had cod served with french fries.  The sauce on the fish was tomato with olive flavored.  Neither of those do I like - But Michael does enjoy them.  the fries were cooked, but quite limp.  I would have been very unhappy with them.  Michael is much more tolerant of that kind of thing.

Our waitress gave us the choices of deserts in Spanish - she had a hard time translating them.  But I heard "cholate"  and said, yes - that.  It was quite good.

Michael got the "Grandma's cake", another thing you see on the menu a lot.  After tasting it - I will not be tempted to order it ever!  It was like a very bland flan with cream on the side.

And now back to the Plaza de Espana and the Santa Maria church.  Do you see the medieval like building in front of it?  They are just now taking down this temporary building which was in place for the Festival of the Muslims and Christians that takes place in April.  Our agent at the tourist office was quite excited that we should come back to Alcoi for this event.  And if we end up coming back to this area a lot we definitely would attend this event and also another event in September which is similar and some festival of the wise men on January 5 when the wisemen's helpers give out gifts to the children.  

A government building on the Plaza de Espana.

One of the modernistic buildings.

A church.

A gazebo in a park.

This was  suggested as a "romantic" garden by design.  I think this photo does that justice.

We saw this bright orange on the sides of many buildings.  We suspected that the building next to it had been demolished and this protective layer in orange was added.  It is quite garish.

The next thing we were trying to find were some converted factory buildings.  It turns out they are now part of the university!

Alcoi is know as the city of many bridges.  We drove across the Puenta de San Jorge which is the most famous bridge.  We walked across another bridge - don't know the name and saw San Jorge which is below.

And this one - don't know the name.

A converted manufacturing plant.

This building was listed as being in the eclectic style.

Another famous building.

 

And we walked back to the original street with all the modernistic buildings.

After our wonder full lunch I wanted to walk behind the Church of Saint Maria to see the medieval part of town.  We never found it.  It is very interesting in Europe - some times cities chose to preserve the old and other times they chose to go totally modern.  I suspect Alcoi chose modern - as we never found anything even vaguely medieval. 

A view of Saint Maria from the back.

This is the museum of the Moors and the Christians.  You can see a lot of mannequins with costumes of the time here.

A young Spanish boy on a motorized scooter kept trying to engage in conversation with me.  Sadly I know no Spanish.  I suspect I totally frustrated him as he was trying to be helpful.