10-7 Calpe

 Calpe has been on my list of cities in Spain to see for a while now.  It is about a 45 minute drive from El Campello.  We headed for a underground parking garage right next to the Plaza Mayor.  The old town is just a block or two away.

There is a swimming pool right in the middle of this circle of arches.  The pool was empty and quite unattractive - so no photo.

We went through many plaza's filled with tables and chairs for the patrons of restaurants, cafe's and bars.

There is always an ice cream store.  The ice cream here is very good.

The usual narrow streets.

Not unusual to find some Spanish steps - painted the colors of the Spanish flag.

Paintings on walls.

A neighborhood with an underground ocean theme.

Hanging "waves" with various sea animals under them.

The local association of the Moors and Christians.  I think every city and town in this area has a Festival of the Moors and Christians.  In El Campello, the festival takes place this weekend.  They do the entire enactment on the beach not to far from our apartment.  On Friday night the Moors arrive by boat (as they did in about 711AD) to fight the Christians on the land.  Everyone dresses in typical costumes.  It apparently takes several hours.  Stands were set up on the beach earlier this week.  Some time during the evening there is a parade.  The parade is repeated on Saturday and Sunday nights.

The Spanish stairs looking down.

This is actually a painting - no actual door here.

I think Calpe may be having their festival soon - there was lots of this kind of activity going on.

Iglesia Pavoquial Virgen De Las Nieves - this church was built in the 1970's

The inside is very different from all the Baroque churches we have been seeing.  There is suppose to be a very old church somewhere close to here - we will keep looking.

So many restaurants

As always there are water fountains all around the old town.  The wall behind the bench has an interesting design.  The tree is painted - Is this a family tree with actual photos of members of the same family?

Street decorations for the Festival?

And then we wandered back to the big modern church - still looking for the old one.  And found a sign that said the Iglesia Antigua was actually included within the walls of the modern church - just off to one side.

The ancient church was built in the 15th century and was used both as a fortification and for religious reasons.

A side street had these decorations along one wall.  It looks like a school art project.

Torreo De La Peca - watch tower.  The old town was walled to protect the people from the Muslims and pirates who kept attacking them.

The street is named after Pastor Tomas - who seems to be sternly lecturing these poor children.

And strangely enough, there is an escalator from the ground street up to the old town.  This is the only one we saw in all of our wandering around.

El Forat de la Mar.  The explanation give is that during a war an explosion caused this crack in the wall and now it is used to go from the old town to the new.

From here we drove down to the waterfront.  This is as close as we got to Penon de Ifach Rock.  Very iconic to the city of Calpe.

Michael is way in the back next to the our red rental car.

Now - how did that boat get in here?

This building houses the Calp Fishermen's Guild.  They celebrated their 100th anniversary this year.

I am guessing this is a list of the original members.

Fishing boats.

The access to this harbor is just behind the lighthouse.  This has to be one of the smallest lighthouses I have seen!

A view of the city.