Sun and sightseeing in Spain COMPLETE About This Page:

[mcc0313]

What an amazing aquarium...I loved all the pictures especially the whales and the dolphins. For missing show time you definitely had quite the show...you can see that the animals are cared for and happy...

Your shopping morning sounded lovely....I just love the quaint looking towns, they are so beautiful (but I have always loved pictures of towns once you got to Europe, they all carry that old time flavor or atmosphere....perfectly untouched yet modern in their own ways.

The beach looks great...again wonderful pictures, you just get such great shots.

Can't wait for more...

[chezp]

Originally Posted by Kenny

So,... I guess what you're saying is, that wasn't one of those 'special' Europeanbeaches we've heard so much about?

Nope, it certainly wasn't a "special" European beach... we would call that a topless beach over here. It was an ordinary family beach, which is why I think Mark was so shocked to see what he'd caught on camera. Not what you expect. :

[disneybecky]

Looks like a very nice beach!

[pamcarey]

What a gorgeous beach!! How funny what Mark caught on camera... LOL!!

[Minnie Lor]

All the photos make me **sigh**. The water lapping at the beach, the trees, the.... an unexpected view. Did Mark notice that she was in the picture or did he discover her when you had the pic's developed?

[chezp]

Originally Posted by Minnie Lor

All the photos make me **sigh**. The water lapping at the beach, the trees, the.... an unexpected view. Did Mark notice that she was in the picture or did he discover her when you had the pic's developed?

He noticed just as it flashed (scuse the pun!) on the screen on the digital camera - by that point, he'd taken the photo.

[chezp]

Thursday 18 September – part two: me no speak English

We found a restaurant to have lunch at along the seafront – Sacrement – and the food was very pleasant, although basic, so there was little they could get wrong. We’re talking burgers here and I had the nachos. My goodness, we did have a sultry server though. Considering the names of every item on the menu was named in English, you’d expect the serving staff to speak English, but ours certainly didn’t. She spoke Spanish whenever possible and was very sulky. The service wasn’t exactly quick either, we had to wait about half an hour for our food. At least it wasn’t pricey, 31 Euros (about £25) for the four of us.

I did look at the dessert menu, but it was pretty pricey, so I decided not to bother and, just as well, as we walked a little further along the front and came across a place that just did ice creams, so I had a tiramisu ice cream and Dave got one as well, although I have no recollection of which flavour. We walked back to the car and parted ways to head back to the villa.

On the way, we stopped off at a bank to get a bit more money out and then we took a lovely route back to the villa.




Once we got into Moraira, we stopped at one of the coves to take some photos of the waves crashing into the shore:



It was pretty cloudy when we got back, but I still went for a swim and did my 20 lengths, before sitting outside for a while. The sun did come out and was baking, but then it hid behind a cloud about half an hour later and there was no sign of it returning, so I gave up with sunbathing for the day. Still, I did appear to be gaining something of a suntan by the end of the day, which is no mean feat for me. I always find it easier to burn than go brown!

We headed out for a meal on the seafront at Moraira. Having been told by one of Mark’s sisters that the restaurant next door to Cap D’Or was better, we opted to try that one – El Lloc del Poble and they were right. It was excellent. The servers were so helpful and even took a shot of the four of us:



Mark and I both had starters – he went for the calamari and I had the crepes with wild asparagus, but before we even got those, we were presented with bread and aioli, a garlic mayonnaise and had probably too much of that. We were starting to get full by the time our appetisers arrived – and they weren’t exactly small!



I ate as much of mine as I could, but it was hard going, there was so much of it. It all tasted wonderful though. For main course, Barb and I both had the salmon, although I ordered the version with prawn sauce and she went for the one without. I think Mark had the lamb and Dave had the pork, although I may be getting that muddled up!



Once again, the main courses were very good and no-one could even contemplate a dessert, we were so full. The bill came to 85 Euros (about £70), which we paid as a thank you to Mark’s parents for having us out here and ferrying us around. We’d driven as well that night to give Dave a night off driving, as he’d done so much over the last few days.

Then it was back to the villa and off to bed before long.

Today we walked 2.49 miles.
The weather today was cloudy for much of the day, with some sunny intervals and temperatures in the mid 80’s.
The best thing today was dinner.
The worst thing today was how cloudy it was when I was trying to sunbathe.
Today we tried going to Xavea beach
And the result was it’s very much a place for the “beautiful” people.
The most magical moment today was going through the national park on the way to Xavea.

Next: driving to Barcelona

[emtpej]

Now, I am not sure if I want to see Spain first, or California! It gets even more beautiful every day!

[lauren-roxy]

Your dinner looked delicious!!! More gorgeous photos!!

[Kenny]

Great update, more great pictures!

[Colexis Mom]

Boy, you had some great eats today!! Great pictures too!!

[Artzkathy]

I loved the pictures of the waves crashing on the shore! Your dinner looked delicious!!! Sounds like you had another great day in Spain!

Kathy

[chezp]

Friday 19 September – part one: driving to Barcelona

It was such a good start to the day – up at our usual time and then breakfast, but this time we were heading out and off to Barcelona for the last two days of our holiday. We left the villa at around 9am, which is when I’d been hoping to head out. We quickly found our way to the main motorway and then we were off. We knew that it would take about five hours to get to Barcelona and we had a very good run there.

We watched the signs to the city go down in kilometres, from just under 500, until finally we were there. I don’t know why, but the first 100 kilometres or so seemed to go really slowly, then things speeded up and the distance just seemed to fly by. Soon we were into Catalonia, the province that’s home to Barcelona, and then we were into the city itself.

The landscape as we drove was very dramatic and gradually got more and more green, with less mountains than when we first set out. We saw occasional glimpses of the sea as we drove and the odd town and village. It was fascinating and – no offence to anyone – nowhere near as dull as we’ve found driving in the States, where you just don’t seem to see anything to break up the monotony of either trees or dessert.








One of the many tunnels we went through on our journey


It’s worth saying something about the route to get there. Much of the motorway system we took were toll roads and that meant that there wasn’t much traffic on them. It was immediately noticeable when we went on to ordinary motorway, as the amount of traffic would increase pretty dramatically. We knew that there were two sets of tolls – one for 8 Euros 20 and one for 20 Euros and both of those seemed to be good value for money, as we went quite a distance on those. What we weren’t anticipating though were the other three sets of tolls later on. Each of those weren’t more than 5 Euros, but they just weren’t for very long stretches of road and seemed to come one after the other. By the time we made it, we estimated that we’d spent almost 40 Euros, which we hadn’t necessarily budgeted on.

Now when I say we made it, this was just the start of our adventures that then took up the rest of the day – and I am not joking. We arrived in Barcelona at around 1.30pm and I guess the first thing I should’ve been suspicious of was the fact that the sat nav was taking us through to the south of the city and I was sure that the hotel was in the west of the city. However, I hadn’t printed off directions to it from the official website and I hadn’t really been able to confirm exactly where the place was on Mapquest before I left home, so I didn’t know for certain.

We got to the street that the sat nav had sent us to and I’d seen it on the map before, but was pretty sure that it wasn’t the right place. After all, the hotel we’d be staying at was 20 minutes from the city centre on a tram system and this street was in the middle of the city. There was no hotel in sight and we drove round the block twice, just checking and I even got out and asked a couple of people in my pigeon Spanish. The second person I spoke to confirmed my fear – that it was on the edge of the city. OK, so we were in the wrong place. The only thing that confused us was that the sat nav had our exact hotel programmed in for this location, so maybe it was here. It took us a while to fathom out it wasn’t.

So the next problem was trying to get back to the outskirts of the city and it was siesta time. For those who don’t know about siesta, Spain still has an afternoon break from around 2pm to 4pm. Shops and businesses are open in the morning, then close for a couple of hours to allow workers to head home and have a sleep during the hottest hours of the day, then they head back to work for the final couple of hours. Of course, everyone was now leaving the city, so trying to get across the city took forever. We literally found a red traffic light at every junction. It was almost funny, were it not for the fact that we were crawling along.


The sign for some of the complexes used in the 1992 Olympics






Next: are we ever going to find the hotel?

[Kenny]

Originally Posted by chezp

– no offence to anyone – nowhere near as dull as we’ve found driving in the States, where you just don’t seem to see anything to break up the monotony of either trees or dessert.

Well, when you're right, you're right! I should know all about that one! We do have many beautiful drives, but most of them are on the roads less traveled. Things are a bit spread out here in the States, too, and that doesn't help. Our interstate highway system is good for getting from point A to point B in the fastest time, but not much of it was built for beauty!

After my DW got me my sat/nav for Christmas last year, she couldn't understand why I still needed a map.... I think you just proved one reason why!

More beautiful pictures, and a great update, Cheryl!

[lauren-roxy]

Sorry you were having such a terrible time finding the hotel.