2025 10-22 Orihuela part 2

The next two churches were close together so we walked along old town streets.  

A fountain with signs that say the water is not drinkable.

The entrance to the Parochial Church of Saint James.

The original building was Gothic.  Additions and renovations done between the 16th and 18th centuries changed the feel of the church.

There must be something gold and glittery.  

Moving on to Sanctuary of Our Lady of Monserrate. 

We found this picture of Jesus in all of the churches.  I teased Michael there were pictures of Jesus in a dress.  Later he looked it up and said - hey those are rays of light not a dress.  I still think it looks like a dress.

Some details of the gold and glittery.

We saw several groups of school children walking the streets of the Old Town.  Never did see what they were going to see.

We in a hurry to see all the churches before 12:30 when they closed.  So we by-passed the Museum of the Reconquista - the gold/orange building on the left.

Street scenes

This building is the town hall.  The tourist office entrance is below the flag.

We saw many streets with birds like the ones above strung across the street.  Sometimes they were grouped on street lanterns.  

We have one more church - the Cathedral of the Savior and St Mary - that we wanted to see.  It doesn't close until 2pm so we stopped for drinks and a snack at a cafe/bar.  I got a chocolate filled pastry and soda; Michael got a coffee and piece of Tortilla (like a quiche) .The bill was under 8 euros, which is about $10.  My healing foot is not happy with me today.  I have been doing lots of walking on hills and on uneven ground recently, which is causing it to hurt.

2025 10-22 Orihuela Part 1

 Today was another photo day.  We drove to a city of about 84,000 people so they have many honest to god parking lots.  A Michael choice size of city!  

We exited the parking lot to this view.  

The river Segura runs through Orihuela, but looks like a canal here.  There were a lot of happy ducks in the river.  There were a lot of walking bridges over the river.

Well I wouldn't call this a clock tower - it was a structure with a clock.

There are many beautiful flowers still blooming in October in this part of Spain.

From the parking garage we walked towards the old town center and the tourist center.  Later I will have a photo of the tourist center which is in the Town Hall building.  The steps to the tourist center were very old and there was no railing.  I still find steps challenging with my still healing left foot.  There was a sign on the door to the tourist center that said there was wheel chair access around the corner.  However - that access was actually to the town hall - where they told us to go back to the tourist center and climb the steps!  We thought it was closed because I couldn't get the door open - but it was just very sticky.  A women came over and opened the door and invited us in.  She gave us many maps and other information.

She introduced us to the cities most famous poet - Miguel Hernandezand gave us a small booklet on him.  We saw posters and flags to him everywhere we walked.  This poet is a big deal here.  The poetry translated to English is not so good.  I think to really appreciate it you have to be a Spanish speaker.

They have "powerball" type games here as well.  Usually you see people in specific outfits with rolls of tickets walking the streets to sell them to you.  

I should really be taking photos of the outsides of the churches before we go in - but that doesn't always happen.  This church - the Parochial Church of Saints Justa and Rufina was very close to the visitor center.

And then you are outside.  Most of the time these churches are on narrow streets inside the Old Town.  So it is very difficult to get good photos of the outside.  

The central area of the town had many churches.  We visited three churches and a cathedral.  There were several museums along our route, but the churches all closed at 12:30 and the cathedral closed at 2pm so we focused on them first.  Everything closes at 2pm for lunch and then reopen at 4pm.  We love historical museums, but out experience has been that unless it is a very famous museum all the information will be in Spanish and whatever the local language is.

2025 10-20 Tabarca Island

 We took a day trip on October 20 heading for Santa Paulo, a city along the coast.  Nearby is an Island called Tabarca which is the smallest inhabited island in Spain.  Michael had programed out GPS to head for a parking lot close the the ferry departure area.  After we parked he told me to go check out the options to get to the island - so I did. Booths like the ones below lined the waterfront.  There were two very vocal ladies in this booth - calling out to people who were standing nearby in loud voices.  They recognized we spoke English very quickly and urged us to get on the orange boat which would be leaving soon.  The price was 10 E each which was lower than a lot of prices I had seen online.  So I thought - hey we should do this.

After we got on the ferry, Michael realized that the ride time to Tabarca was 35 minutes. This is his reaction when he realized we could only spend about 2 hours on the island.

Leaving Santa Paulo

Everyone had to go around this tiny lighthouse.  It looked like there was just a 100 watt bulb at the top of it.

One of the things to see in Santa Paulo was the Torre.  You can see the tower on the top of the hill in the middle of the photo.

An orange boat just like ours.

Approaching the island.

The larger building is the church of St Peter and St Paul.

About this far out our boat stopped -

So that everyone could look down to see the fish.  At first I could not make them out.

There were a lot of them.  I don't know what kind of fish they are.  The boat we are on has a glass bottom so you could see what lives in the sea as we went along.   The ladder down was very narrow and we opted to go up a deck to see the views instead. 

To optimize our time on the island, I got us down to  the main level where the door was so we could be one of the first ones off.  I took photos as we headed to the main town area.

Everyone headed for this gate into the town.  It was a walled town, with 3 fairly intact gates still visible.  The three remaining gates were named Puerto San Gabriel, Puerto de San Miguel and Puerto de San Rafael.

None of the gates had signs that identified them by name.

The island is very small - only 500 meters across.

So we just wandered along the streets and paths along the outskirts of the island taking photos.

One part of the island has a more natural look.  There are paths where you can view nature.

I don't know what that says - but it was cute.

There are about 50-65  people who live on the island.  Most of the buildings seemed to be restaurants.

More scenes around the island.

I think there are places you can rent here for the night - I didn't see any hotels.  There were a couple of small coves with beaches where people were sunning or swimming.  There was this one stairway access to one of them.

Sea Gulls everywhere.

Another Gate.

Church of St Peter and St Paul.  We stayed on ground level and could not find an entrance into the church.  There also was a path along the top of the wall you could walk on that might have led to an entrance.

Michael thought these might be dates - I have no idea.

There was a door here on the other side of the church - the ruined side.  But not open at all.

I found these beaded curtains interesting.  You could keep your door open to get air in, but still have an illusion of privacy.

There are no cars on the island.  You have to get around via bicycle or a golf cart type of vehicle.

A small grocery store.  I got a soda and chips for a snack as we did not have time for a meal at a restaurant on the island.

But there were a lot of restaurants.

And then we are back to the gate where we first entered the town.

As we walked back to the ferry port we passed this "monument" or maybe a sundial?  It seemed like the trip back was faster.  

We headed home planning to stop at the Carrefour in San Juan.  Very surprisingly they did not have several items we needed.  So we stopped at the Consum on the way home.  This is always a challenge as Supermarkets in towns usually have there own parking lots that are very narrow and challenging to park in.  The Consum only had one of the items needed.  So we drove to our apartment and unloaded all the groceries.  Michael walked to the Mercardo where he found everything we needed.  We have two more guests coming - granddaughters from Sweden will be here on Friday.  We are nearing the end of our trip and are trying to not buy too much food.  Tuesday will be a rest day and then another adventure on Wednesday.