2025 10-27 Torrevieja

 Negotiations have been hot and heavy the last few days over where we should go for the two day trips with the granddaughters.  The granddaughters set the criteria.  They like old as in old towns.  They didn't want to concentrate on architecture or churches.  And no museums!  They loved the story of Grandpa getting his car stuck in the mud in a parking lot in El Campello.  Which led to stories of us going the wrong way down one way streets down tiny old town streets and having to back up two blocks to get out.  They like the waterfront and walking along the beach. So that led to the choice on one coastal town and one mountain town.

Torrevieja won the coastal town spot - mainly on its nearness to a pink lake - we will go there first as it is further away and will be a more tiring day.  We would need to get up earlier and get on the road by 9am.  We made it out the parking gate by 9:32am.  A record early departure for us in Spain!  

The girls were well occupied with their devices on the drive to Torrevieja.  Michael had found a parking area near the pink lake which would be our first stop.  I thought it would be nice beach setting where we could walk around and take photos.  But no - it was much more rustic!  This is the start of the trail.  It has been destroyed because of rain.  It was slightly muddy at the start.  There were many mosquitos and other bugs.

But then we came to a huge water puddle.  We finally found a trail that was barely passible.  People were taking off their sandals and walking barefoot.

The lake has a pink hue to it.  But does not look at all like the tourist information brochures!  The lake looks really pink on those.

It is hard to see - but way across the water are piles of salt.  More about that later.

Not so much to do here.  After the girls declared it not very pink - we decided to head to the Old Town.  By the way the pink color is caused by the algae living in the lake.

This is the first city I have seen that has multiple methods of making sure you see the "do not walk" info.  This is one example of something on the ground.  It is hard to see, but the figure on the right is a person standing and it is in red.  When you can cross the street the walking figure turns green.

There is a protest in the main square - it looks to be senior citizens protesting the threat of pensions being downsized.

Several of us needed the WC so we stopped at the closest cafe which turned out to be a Valor cafe - Remember hot chocolate and churros from the other morning?  Nobody ordered hot chocolate which confused the waiter no end - Are you sure you don't want hot chocolate?  We did get churros.

We walk back to the main square.

You are here!

A view down to the water front.

Parish of the Immaculate Conception.

The silver color on this organ is so different than all the ones we have seen so far - they are almost always gold.

Back on the streets - Christmas decorations hang over the streets - this is a pretty modern city.

Some very unusual street lights.

There was another square with a church to see.  This one looked very modern.  Church of the Sacred heart of Jesus.

Doors were locked.

Husband noticed these almost artistic antennas on the rooftops.

We noticed this interesting fountain.

I especially like this shot.

A long bench.

A quartet.  There was a fifth person - the conductor.

A covering for the sun. It was a very warm day.

The Marina.

The ancient salt depot.  No one else was interested in walking to the other side of this to see if there was anything else to see as they were to hot.

I really liked this building.  It was on a square.  There was a playground where the girls played on the swings.  At the other end of this square was:

The theatre.

A restaurant you could go to waiting for your show to start.  There were a lot seats like the ones in the lower left.  I could imagine people dressed up for the theatre wandering around this square getting something to eat and all looking beautiful.

Would you go to a bakery/cafe called Mudpan?

We decided to head back to El Campello for lunch instead of eating here.  Michael wanted to be sure he was alert for the drive home.  For some reason our GPS sent us back via N332 instead of on the A70 which is a much bigger road.  Since we don't speak Spanish we will probably never find out if the reason was a big crash or construction on the A70.  At any rate it took much longer, as the N332 is a two lane road.

But we did pass some interesting scenes involving the salt industry.  I missed taking photos of the large salt ponds where they move the water filled with salt around until the salt is totally distilled out.

We saw so many large piles of salt along the way - this shows a small pond next to the piles of salt.

Back in El Campello we went up to our apartment to drop off some stuff and use the bathroom.  Then because it was close to 3:30 we rushed to the beach front restaurant to find one that was still open - most close at 4pm.  Lia found one that said it didn't close until late. It was rated pretty highly.  We got 3 burgers and a couple of small plates.  The small plates were pretty good - but the hamburgers?  Yuk!  We concluded we must have messed up and ordered vege burgers.