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!
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