So Here's Our Vacation Blog...

Woke up this morning to our last Mediterranean sunrise.  Here’s the view while I was lying in bed looking out through the wrought iron balcony railing.  Very calming, not a ripple on the sea.

The flowering vines covering one wall of the hotel’s second floor were lush - no idea what kind of flowers they were, but I bet I know somebody who does...

They hung down to the terrace entrance on the ground floor - very soothing.

We packed and left, this time noticing how extensive the flood damage was, and spotted a parking lot full of muddy, banged up cars.  I think the city moved them here from other areas of the city.  Some were not too bad, just covered with mud (so flooded on the inside), while others, like this Mercedes, were done for.

As we headed south past Alicante toward Murcia we noticed a large number of greenhouses.  We’d seen them on our last European trip in Italy and eastern France, and knew those were for tomatoes, but weren’t sure about these.  Then as we neared Almeria the entire surface was covered with greenhouses - miles and miles, side-by side!  Every flat surface held them, and they were knocking down hills and terracing mountains to squeeze them in any way possible.  Not the best photo out the car window, but you get the idea.

Turns out Almeria has the highest concentration of greenhouses in the world, totaling about 100,000 acres.  What do they grow?  About half of Europe’s vegetables: peppers, tomatoes, zucchini, and cucumbers.  For a better idea, click on this link, Google Map of Almeria Greenhouses, and turn on satellite view.  Amazing.  We had to stop and have a closer look - drove up to one and pulled back the plastic to see for ourselves what was going on in there.

Looking at all those tomatoes made us hungry, so we stopped in Velilla-Taramay for lunch on the beach.

Very relaxing, since it’s the end of September and nobody’s at the resorts.

We learned something new about tomatoes, or should I saw kumatoes, which were on the menu.  Ever hear of them?  They were found growing on the fringe of a tomato farm in Spain in the 1970s, and finally cultivated and patented in 2006.  They’re a bit sweeter than a regular tomato, and the color is different - greenish brown, with a little reddish color.  Now I’m not a big tomato fan - won’t eat them by themselves, but these were delicious.  Paired with avocados (which I also don’t like) and topped with olive oil, I couldn’t get enough!

Marge had 'grilled seafood’ for lunch because we saw a man cooking on the beach over a wood fire built inside a cement boat; this sounded tasty, but when she got her plate she couldn't believe the pile of food.  Wow!  There were three shrimp (prawns?) on top, each about seven inches long.  Half dozen razor clams, a dozen mussels, a swordfish steak, two complete fish of some kind (bone in), and several other steaks and fillets from fish we couldn’t identify.  To her credit, she ate most of it, but then was done for the day.

Got to Marbella, checked into our luxury hotel in the old district.  We splurged a bit on this one, with a beautiful sitting room on the main floor like you’d find at a mansion in Savannah, a winding staircase with vines hanging down from the fourth floor, a four poster bed, a basket of fruit and goodies on the bed, and on top of the building a private terrace overlooking the shopping / restaurant district below.  Very nice, photos tomorrow.  The walkways of entire ‘old town’ are paved in a pink marble set in small round stones placed on edge.  Never saw this before, and it’s very appealing.

Naturally there’s an old church in town, Our Church of Our Lady of the Incarnation, or “Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Encarnación.”  Built in the mid-seventeen hundreds, it’s not very large but does have a hundred foot tall bell tower with very loud bells that ring through our open balcony window every half hour.  Here’s a photo from our hotel rooftop terrace.

It has several beautiful altars, covered in gold that’s much shinier than any of the others we’ve seen this month, and the side-altar statues are most realistic, lifelike.

I haven’t been to church so much since I was in grade school - can’t just take pictures, you know, have to take the opportunity to pray a little in each one!  So we continued on looking for a restaurant where we could play dress-up tomorrow, spotted some very colorful sights, like this one in the town square,

and this alley with an Italian restaurant, which is right below our balcony.

On a humorous note, we passed a store where there was a sale for not-so-well-endowed women.  Willowy, let’s say.

Most people know that when I was young my dad sold bushes wholesale to Frank’s nursery, about 10,000 each summer.   I never wanted to see another Golden Vicari after that period ended.  Well, somebody must bought one back from their Detroit vacation long ago, because there it was in a stylish clay planter with a commemorative ceramic plaque.

So there it is, counting down the days before we get back to reality, but still enjoying every minute.  More tomorrow!

Ready?  Set?  Let’s GO!  Walking to the car this morning some of the vendors at the market were setting up.  Remember me mentioning the big paella pan?  Here it is...

And then I commented that I’d include a photo of the silk exchange building.  Here’s that one, except the building which is so huge I had to splice the top onto it (crudely, as I don’t have my good Corel PhotoPaint software with me).  This truly is one gorgeous building.

Off to Los Alcazares, which is just south of Alicante and north of Murcia.  We couldn’t believe that there are so many castle remnants all over, just sitting there, littering the road.

Or that everywhere you looked there were unusual thousand foot tall rock formations jutting out of the ground.

We noticed the influence left by the Moors when the road signs had Islamic titles under the Spanish names.  We’d heard about the centuries old churches that used to be mosques, but didn’t think that influence would be reflected in more contemporary buildings.  Do you think this one was originally a mosque, or was the architect confused?

As we drove along, we still saw huge numbers of orange groves on terraces, interspersed with olive groves, and then all of a sudden the terrain turned to rocky dry red clay and thought it looked rather barren, at least until we rounded a corner and saw a coastline that rivaled the Cote d’Azur.  It was absolutely stunning, and we had never heard of this area before, but evidently Altea is a huge tourist destination.

I think the regulars have a lot of money, because the small boats marina in the bottom of the picture were fifty footers.

Marge humored me and let me stop at a place called ItalClassics, which restores old Italian cars.  I read about them on one of my websites and had to stop.  Glad I did, because I spotted an Alfa Romeo I never knew existed.  I won’t bore you with the photo.  Right next door, though, was my dream come true.  Remember the Mehari I described in Cadaques?  Well, turns out there’s a place called the ‘Mehari Club,’ which I think is Spanish for junk yard.  They had every kind of small Citroen possible in every disassembled state: 2CVs (Deaux Chevauxs), Dyannes, and lots of Meharis.  I was in heaven!  For five minutes.

So we finally hit Los Alcazares and instantly got real, real worried. The streets were empty, covered in dirt, and many of the cars had a thick layer of dust on them.  Were we in some sort of Outer Limits episode?  Where was everybody, why was this place so dirty, and how far was it to the next hotel?!

Turns out two weeks ago there was a massive storm in southeast Spain that we didn’t hear about because we were dining on the beach in Biarritz.  The resulting floods were so severe that a half dozen people lost their lives, including two who were trapped in a flash flood in a tunnel we just drove through!  We looked up video of the disaster and saw cars washed out to sea, and Los Alcazares was ground zero.  While most of it was cleaned up there are some major repairs needed, like this washed-out road next to the boardwalk.

Luckily, our hotel was cleaned and ready to go (Whew!).  They had two feet of water coming in the front door, though the lobby, and out the back door to the sea, but spent three days scrubbing the place down and getting back to business.  Because these places are all stone, there’s no permanent damage like there is to wood studs and drywall.  So Marge was happy.

Our room is the second floor overlooking the Mediterranean.  The boardwalk was a beautiful place for a stroll,

and to stop for a visit to their famous monument to the historic fishermen of the village.

Not sure if I ever saw mermaids riding seahorses before, but they looked good!  Then I spotted a Renault 4 station wagon in perfect condition and had to stop to shoot some photos.  While I was sitting on the sidewalk trying to get the right angle for a nice shot a man came over and asked if I liked the car.  “I LOVE IT!” I exclaimed, at which point he introduced me to the car’s owner, Fernando, who spoke zero English.  He spent ten minutes telling me how much he loved his car, how proud he was of it, how he always kept it in the garage, how it always started the first time, and how it’s never let him down.  Now if you’re wondering how I got all that from a guy who spoke no English you don’t know cars.  We communicate in sign language and noises!

Finally went back to the hotel, which, by the way, is an absolutely magnificent place with a two story terrace in the center of the rectangular building, lush foliage all around the second story balcony, and a canopy like an astrodome that they pull over the open center during the day to reduce the heat, but open in the afternoon and let the birds go crazy in the vines!  I'll post photos tomorrow after we’ve eaten breakfast there.  We dined on the seaside terrace, which was very elegant, with long tables set for large groups of people driving in from all over because this is the best restaurant around.

Now the reason for this next photo is not because the sole with champagne sauce was delicious, but because on top of my potatoes were carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower!  These were the first vegetables we’ve had since we’ve been in Europe, except for a few peas in Lisbon.  Excellent!

After dinner we had an extra treat, a Flamenco show!  There was no cover, they just had three excellent dancers there for a couple hours because that’s what they do.  They were very skillful, and thin (all that stomping will do it to you).  Believe it or not, we watched the show, had a glass of wine and two beers, and the bill was $5.40.  This on top of the beautiful room with a sea view and cool breeze that I’m now enjoying, which was a whole $83.00.  Lots to love about this place.

So Marge is having fun relaxing...

and now it’s time for bed.  Buenas Noches!

I thought today was going to be a light day because we were only driving to Valencia and going to Mass after we checked in, eat, and be done.  HAH!  The drive was actually very boring; the road was smooth and relatively flat, not curvy at all, high speed limit, but the scenery was dull.  Lots of scrubby looking bushes and rocky red dirt, nothing but olive trees until we got close to Valencia and then there were massive orange groves.  Makes sense, Valencia oranges probably come from this area - duh!  The mountains/hills were uneventful, but as we approached Valencia we saw some of the largest factories ever - I thought they might be making airplanes because the buildings were so large.  We had to look them up to find out they were all ceramics conglomerates.  I guess that red clay is useful for something.  After checking in we walked around, and quickly realized this city is very different from Barcelona - newer, cleaner, wider streets, better organized (into a touristy shopping district, business district, way high end clothing store district, and such), but the icing on the cake is that architecturally it’s outstanding!  I thought I was going to run out of film (gigabytes, actually).  So let’s start.  There’s a central market as in Barcelona, it’s just not as large or busy.  They have all the same food items, plus kitchen goods (need a 4’ paella pan?), souvenirs, and the outside of it is quite interesting.

This chunk of beef was for sale, with an expiration date of October 12th.  Think you could eat 363 lbs of beef by then?

We had to walked over to La Seu de Valencia (Valencia Cathedral, or officially Metropolitan Cathedral–Basilica of the Assumption of Our Lady of Valencia) to see what time Mass was. found out there’s one every hour from 8:00 am - 8:00 pm (except for 2:00 - 4:00, because even priests need a siesta)!  We had time for a quick paella before 6:00 Mass, right in the city square outside the Cathedral - how convenient.  In case you hadn’t figured it out yet, we’re always going to go for the restaurant or region’s specialties, so today it was paella Valenciana.  Who knew what we’d get?  No description.  Turns out it was very delicious, no seafood, but cut-up green beans on top and for a protein it contained left over chicken and rabbit parts.  I found several pieces of neck and back but they splurged and added a couple wings or something cut in half.  This took a little bit of effort to eat, and it got messy, but it was good.  Love that saffron!

The cathedral was taken over from the Moors in the early 13th century; but parts of it had been built by the Visigoths around the 6th - 8th century (that’d be a good assignment - read how they sacked Rome and took over half of the Roman Empire).  So when the Catholic church re=emerged in Spain, they spent centuries building this cathedral, constantly adding on, which is why the architecture is so diverse.  It’s beautiful - here’s the entrance.

Much more simple inside than the others we’ve seen, except for a magnificent altar,

and completely different colored stone and stained glass.  Check out the thin bricks used for the ceiling - thousands of them!

One neat architectural feature was the way the statues above the altar on the sides were nestled in the corners.  The front and side walls came to a square corner behind them, but above there was a 45 degree angle so the upper chamber became an octagon.  Check this photo against the one of the complete altar.

The other buildings in town were built over many centuries, their histories too diverse and complicated to note, so just enjoy these photos.  They’re just a small sampling of the many styles and beautiful facades.

This one is of the famous bell tower of Santa Catalina, a Catholic church from the 13th century.

Here’s the National Ceramics Museum, no idea of the building’s history but worth looking up, I’m sure.  The ornamentation on the outside of the entire building is beyond compare.

This one is a bank building now, extremely stunnig.  When the sun is going down you just have to stare at the shape.

And finally, the Post Office!  This one was just built in the early 1900s, but it is quite the sight!

Tomorrow morning I’ll have to get a few shots of the silk exchange.  We walked right by it several times today and it didn’t click that this was one that I really wanted to see, so check back tomorrow for those photos.  In the morning we’ll be driving to Los Alcazares, a former fishing village turned spa, with ‘healing waters.’  Maybe I can get a massage to relieve me of all the stress!

This morning Marge and I did a little last-minute shopping.  Don’t be surprised if you get one of these for Christmas...

Then we went to the Boqueria.  We had been meaning to mill around there, soak up the sights, sounds, and smells, and grab lunch.  Walking around, it’s hard not to want to buy everything in sight.  There were all kinds of ‘fast food’ items - snacks ready to go...

Delicious drinks like this coconut/strawberry/pitahaya combo for one euro...

and plenty of desserts.  Some to eat on the spot,

and some to take home to share - at least that’s what I assume, because these crepes were huge, and there was enough chocolate on top to last a month!  Make sure to read the names...

If you’re still wondering what a pitahaya is, check this out.  I’d never seen them before, but I understand they can be found in Florida.  They come in white, pink, or red inside.

We bought one to try - looks festive, but was kind of bland and grainy.  Too bad.  Moving on we saw some razor clams - I’d had them before in Barcelona and fell in love with them, but couldn’t find them in the USA.  They may be available now on the east coast, with a slight variation in the name, if you find them, try them.  They’re delicious!

Then we walked around the corner and saw the ‘other side of the tracks.’  While the butchers on one side were selling beautiful steaks, this butcher was selling the leftovers.  The price was very low, but that wouldn’t be enough for Marge to cook tripe (veal stomach lining),

or sheep heads.

They kind of remind me of velociraptors.  On the lighter side, the people who founded this bread-products company must not have been bimbos, because their trucks are everywhere - very successful!

Not to get political, but remember two years ago when a group of people in Barcelona (Cataluña, actually) pushed to have a vote for secession from Spain?  It didn’t happen, the government in Madrid stepped in and shut it down, the organizers fled the country and then upon their return were imprisoned.  They’re still sitting in jail, and there are signs hanging on the balconies of every street demanding their freedom.  We walked by the government offices several times this week, and there were always TV crews ready for action and doing live news spots.  I hope they can get this resolved, because the Catalunian people are a proud nationality.  There’s much more Catalunian spoken here than the last time we came in 2012, in fact it’s the primary language on all signs and Spanish is second.

So good bye from Barcelona, and tomorrow we say hello to Valencia! 

This morning we drove to Mount Tibidabo, the highest point in the local mountain range along the Barcelona coast.  Not really a mountain, it rises 512 m (1700 ft) above sea level.  On top of the summit is the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (Templo Expiatorio del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús).  You can easily look up the history of how and why it was built, which took the first 60 years of the 20th century.  This photo is not mine, but I’m using it because it’s very difficult to get a photo of this church in its entirety - it’s huge, and you can’t stand far enough away or you’ll fall off the mountain!

Here’s a photo from right in front,

and one I took from the very top looking up at Jesus’ outstretched arms.

We were able to take an elevator from the main terrace level to the upper landing, which is up 80 ft, then climbed 30 ft up some circular stairs on the outside of that upper structure to get to the next level, then up an inside spiral staircase for the final 100 feet, putting us at 1880 feet up.

We were overlooking not just the city of Barcelona, but the entire region.  Unfortunately it was a bit overcast today, so my photos aren’t the greatest, but you get the idea.

Here’s what La Sagrada Famila looks like from up there.  You can see all the spires in the middle.  More on that later.

Coming down the 140 steps was much easier, and we went inside for a peek.  Not nearly as overwhelming as the centuries old churches we’ve been visiting, but very nice artwork on the ceilings...

and the stations of the cross were spectacular, all carved or modeled in 3D.

On the way home we decided to drive by La Sagrada Familia.  If you’re not familiar with it, it’s a very famous minor basilica designed by Antoni Gaudi - yes, that Gaudi.  Construction was begun in 1882 and progressed ever since, with some intermittent stops for revolutions and such.  Marge and I had visited it in 2012, and I had seen it some ten years before that, so it’s very interesting to see the progress.  They say it should be done in another ten years.  I snapped a couple photos out the car window, since it’s probably the most intense traffic in all of Barcelona and you can’t park within a mile.  People wait for hours and hours to get in.  It is truly amazing.

So we got home, wandered about, and spotted a vintage music store with mainly Spanish instruments in it.  The guitars were all classical - wide, flat necks and nylon strings, and very nice.  They’re locally made by Admira, and most of the street musicians play them.

The most interesting items, though were the realization of a running joke back at the office.  You see, I’ve spent the last three years working on a cost-saving idea which is a less costly method of manufacturing an aluminum tube.  That’s right, three years working on a piece of pipe.  There are so many of them laying around the office that Andrey and Bita keep commenting we should make giant wind chimes out of them.  Well I guess some automotive spies heard them, because there they were, hanging in the window!  Your choice, either a six-foot tall single one, or a three foot tall black anodized one with six pipes.  Now that Marge has seen them she’s already talking about hanging one in the giant elm trees out front.

We walked on and saw the unearthed Roman cemetery.  These 2000 year old tombstones were pretty impressive.

Does anyone know how to read ancient Greek?

Then a stop for dinner at a rooftop terrace.  We really enjoyed this place.

In case it rained, they had a clever system of unfurling canopies from two horizontal booms, like what’s used on sailboats.  Very clever.

Onward, then to a place I would not miss - Els Quatre Gats (the four cats).  This place opened in 1897, and closed in 1903.  During that time, many artists used to congregate here and drink absinthe.  Who was the most famous?  Pablo Picasso, who was a regular while only a teenager and still developing his style.  We enjoyed their special house drink, a gin and tonic with extra juices and a mint leaf.  You can look up the interesting background of this painting, ‘Ramon Casas and Pere Romeu on a Tandem,’ but it’s been hanging there since 1897!

If you ever go, make sure to carve out time for dinner, as that’s the only way you get to sit in the main dining room or upstairs.

From here we strolled back to El Raval, because we needed to visit Barcelona’s oldest bar, named ‘Bar Marsella.’  Why, do you ask?  Because aside from the incredible history, noting regulars like Dali, Picasso, Gaudi, and even Papa Ernest Hemingway, it’s probably Barcelona’s most famous absinthe bar.  You know what that is, a highly alcoholic (~150 proof) liquor made from anise, fennel, and wormwood.  It’s the wormwood that gives it its hallucinogenic properties, but that’s only if you drink enough of them, so I’m told.  There’s a certain way the drink has to be made - pour the absinthe in a wine glass, lay a fork over the top with a sugar cube on top of it, then pour water through a tiny hole over the cube until it’s dissolved.  Voila.  Did it right the first time.  I think Dali probably didn’t use bottled water with a plastic cap, but times change.

On the way out we spotted some bottles on the shelf that were there when the place opened.  Luckily, our glasses were not stored right underneath.

So that’s it.  A long day, and tomorrow will be our last in Barcelona so we’ll do a little last minute shopping, see a couple more items on our list, but I may not write much.  From now on we’re doing short stops in each location, and we need to completely repack four large suitcases so we don’t need to lug all of them into the hotel each night.  Pardon me in advance if I keep it short tomorrow.  So good night everyone - thanks for reading!