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Archive for the ‘tourism’ Category

As promised in a previous blog, first thing on Friday morning, Maureen and I set off on the just-under-3-hour journey to Capileira, the most northerly of the 3 villages in the gorge of the Poqueira river in the Las Alpujaras district of the province of Granada.

The whole journey is interesting as, once you get past Granada you go through Lanjaron and other villages each with their own unique character and then start up the steep incline up the mountains to Capileira. Note in the map it LOOKS like Orgiva is on-route but actually you have to take a turnoff so that’ll have to wait for another day.

With temperatures rapidly approaching 40 degrees C we only briefly stopped off on the way at a restaurant in Calle de Eras Del Seleco in Lanjaron – you’ll see it in the new built-in street view in Google maps – simply says “restaurant” which we dubbed the “cafe for noisy people” as we couldn’t hear ourselves thing for most of the otherwise excellent lunch.

Once you get past Lanjaron you spend far more time going up and down mountains than travelling in a straight line so that part of the journey takes longer than it might at first seem. We encountered a road-slide where the entire right side of the road had simply dropped off into the valley – fortunately the road-crews had sorted out the mess before we got there.

Heading off it took us the best part of an hour to get up the mountains. Capileira is around 5000ft up but our hotel was even higher and about 1 km above Capileira. 

As we were in no rush we kept on going as I wanted to see just how high up we could go – but in the end, we gave up as the road went from superb to, well, something you might find on the moon perhaps – used only by logging trucks and insane cyclists but even then by the time Maureen finally insisted we turn around (the road at many points is on the edge of the mountain with very little between you and death) we were well in excess of 6,500ft above sea level – and it LOOKED that high. You have to do it once but take good tires with you.

The town is just superb and at multiple levels (as it’s up a mountain!) with lots of shops and restaurants to keep one busy and the whole feel of the place is very clean and of high quality (which is more than can be said of construction you might see elsewhere). One shop we went into had a very old wooden weaving loom in the back room and drink is cheap enough as you can see from the photo on the right. Maureen bought lots of bits and bobs and I bought a new t-shirt… well, you have to, don’t you.

The thing I can’t figure out is the snow on the mountains – we had temperatures of around 40 degrees C and going up to 6,000ft had no effect on that whatsoever – and yet – here’s the photographic evidence – snow – I just don’t see that peak being more than 8,000ft and yet…. there it is. I DID think it was just some kind of calcium but winter shots of the area show that peak being completely white.  If anyone knows the answer to this please do let us know.

The hotel – well, I’ll not say much here as we’ve already displayed our displeasure on the relevant travel website but when we got there after travelling up the only access path which was an assault course, all looked perfect – the pool overlooks the valley, it was wonderfully cool, scenery was great but the pool could have been cleaner and better maintained. A Spanish gentleman guy showed us to our room without giving any other information away.

The room was nice enough but FAR too hot and within seconds of opening the door we had a bunch of flies in there…

We headed off back down to the town and found in a small square a nice pizzeria simply called “La Pizzeria” and had a very pleasant pepperoni pizza – the Spanish aren’t that good generally at making pizza bases so this was most welcome. We spent the evening simply taking in the mountain air and enjoying a nice bottle of rose.

Back at the hotel after an enjoyable evening we got off to a bad start as one of the guests had far too much to drink and kept trying to sing – like us he probably had a room that was too hot and so with his door open we could hear him loud and clear.  After a very unsatisfactory sleeping night which included listening to presumably the same person throwing up in the morning… we got up at 8.30am only to see the very modern, efficient looking dining room empty and devoid of staff with last night’s dinner plates still scattered around, We simply left, vowing next time to go elsewhere – which given the potential is a great shame – maybe they’ll change in the future. We’ve been in touch to pay the bill but they’ve yet to come back to us.

The reason we came here on a Friday night was so we could travel back up through Guadix market which is held on a Saturday and that we did, arriving at Guadix around 11am.  Great market and large but a little short on food options (fried chicken or nothing) – as we’d had no breakfast this was important so we only stayed for an hour before heading off home, but not before Maureen bought a new quilt for the bed.

Note the spelling of “Lennon”….. just because someone CAN print on t-shirts doesn’t mean they SHOULD

and finally just outside of Guadix on the way back… a nice church…

After taking it easy yesterday, mainly due to having no concrete to finish off the road repair that neighbour Richard and I started the day before, Maureen and I spent the evening at home with new friends Angela and Dennis, sitting under the pergola enjoying some tapas and Maureen’s latest trick: elongated burgers to fit in the finger buns normally reserved for hot dogs – good idea! I think we lasted out till somewhat after midnight, not because of the air cooling off but probably more to do with alcohol I should guess.

None of which stopped me getting up at 6am this morning and installing a brand new module into my new “hobby” the next set of online forums for the FSB…  I’m learning about this system at a great rate of knots – which is handy as the minute I get back to the UK I’ve promised a PowerPoint on the subject.  I think I lasted a couple of hours before retiring until 11am at which point we’d promised our friends we’d go see their cave and drop off their laptop which I’d been updating. That was great – every cave in the area is unique and so it’s always nice to see what others have done. Next stop we popped into see “Galera Phil” and his wife to see their cave, also for the first time, collecting even more ideas on the way.

After a brief stop-off back at our place we headed off to Cullar. There’s a church up in the hills – you can see it as you’re coming into Cullar from the Huescar end… and for some time I’ve been promising myself to go take a look. After a couple of false starts we found the (patently obvious) entrance to the long and windy path up the hill to the church – with a sign “torreon arabe”, a quite magnificent affair with an equally magnificent view of (the rather lacklustre) Cullar. The very welcome breeze at the top of the hill made up for the 39 degrees C summer heat.

Culture out of the way we popped into Cullar for a coffee and a little relaxation before heading off back to Galera, but not before a trip to “Restaurante Montecarlo” in Cullar for a late Sunday lunch (4pm) comprising lasagne as a starter and Magra con Tomate which I have to say was superb. The restaurant is very popular and quite reasonably priced, I think we spend 32 euros between the two of us and that’s only because Maureen ordered a steak!!!

Before the sun set we headed off home and I had a quick dip in the (rather cool) Jacuzzi which gave me enough energy to write this blog… but it’s fading fast – I can see a very lazy evening coming along.

If only every day could be as nice… tomorrow – I’ve promised Richard we’ll do a spot of concreting!

A lovely day for tiling? Well, actually it’s VERY hot out there but I gave it my best shot, bearing in mind it’s Sunday and if I run out of materials, well, tough. Today’s job was to tile the BBQ area which started off looking beautiful a couple of years ago when first built but which is looking a little ill now since the winter took it’s toll on the stone surface.

I gave up – the BBQ is no-where near square so I’m seeking advice. Meanwhile we went off to a local ancient market…

and ended up at the bar in Galera for drinks… I recall ordering a glass of wine and receiving an ice-bucket with a full bottle… what service… we came back to the cave and spent a little while star-gazing as it’s an incredibly clear night in which the edge of our galaxy is VERY clear indeed…. and once you grab the binoculars, what looks like a thin cloud… is actually jam-packed full of stars… super.

Tomorrow the girls are off shopping in BATHA, I plan to stop in bed as long as is humanly possible and then do some more work on my new hobby, the FSB FORUMS… so much to do, so few resources…

Other than that, all seems well today, no walls falling apart, no dire emergency calls from the UK (but then, it is Sunday).  Strangely I’m missing my cat – how sad is that… hoping he’s happy with whatever cats do… but not missing him enough to pay the horrendous cost of bringing animals over here…

As if there was such a thing as an ordinary day.. I started my day yesterday experimenting.. the night before I’d been on a hunt of the web for new photo toys for my iPhone and I hit pay dirt. Remember the ad for the Sony camera I think it is where they simply scan the camera across the landscape – and it captures a panorama – as against the more normal nightmare of taking individual shots and either manually or automatically stitching them together?  Well, now this is on the iPhone and I’ve been having great fun ever since. Above is a sweep across the front of the cave. Anyway, that was the start of my day, the rest was a series of comedy errors- but still fun and interesting along the way.

The plan was to head off to St Javier to pick up our friend Alison who’s staying with us for a few days and we figured we’d perhaps go spend some time on the beach down there as she wasn’t coming in till 9pm.

We set off at lunchtime and along the way we happened to go by a small town where some solar cells caught my eye. If you’ve read my blogs, most of the time in Spain the photovoltaic (electricity-generating) cells are rectangular and motorized and each one is no more than, say 6ft square of thereabouts…. just lots of them.

WELL!! This lot blew me away. It’s difficult to see here as there was an alarmed fence in the way but to the left you’re looking at rows of cells, perhaps 8ft high (at a guess) and I would not like to guess how long but you can see if you look carefully each array is MASSIVE in length, following the curve of the land. These are fixed in place.

I would not be surprised it this lot were intended to supply electricity for the entire nearby town.If anyone wants to pursue this further the factory was called CERO GRADOS SUR (Energia Solar) and it’s maybe half way between Puebla De Don Fadrique and Murcia though I could be miles out.

That was a good start to the day which then went downhill – the sat-nav insisted on taking us on a back-route to St Javier and we noticed we were going past a sign that said in Spanish “no access, residents only” – well, we ignored that and went sailing down a partially completed road until miles later as we approached a motorway, the road came to a grinding halt and we realised there was no way to actually GET to the road! That ended that.

After much backtracking we arrived at the airport around teatime and decided to play safe and visit Los Alcazarez – which is just down from the airport and is a British holiday trap. Non-the-less we had a pleasant pizza and beer and then headed off to the airport. Alison’s plane was late and by now the sun was going down. I took the opportunity to try another of the new toys for my phone, an App that combines two successive shots taken at different exposures, to produce photos that are normally impossible. You’ll know that most of the time, photos are a compromise as the lens can’t be selective like our eyes, so often either the sky gets bleached or dark areas have no detail due to the fact that the camera sensors simply cannot handle the “dynamic range”. iPhone to the rescue… 2 shots and a bit of processing later… night-time photos of the airport complete with street lighting AND the night-time sky – and these really do capture the atmosphere at “Murcia Airport” though in fact it’s no-where near Murcia.

And so around 9.30pm we picked up our friend and headed off home to Galera. Sadly that didn’t work either… we tried telling our Sat-Navs to head off to Puebla De Don Fadrique  so we could take advantage of the shortcut straight across the country… nope, neither the iPhone nor Android Sat-Navs were having it and the iPhone kept insisting as we sped along the wrong motorway that we were in a field!!

Eventually we ended up cutting straight through the centre of Murcia, never a good idea on a Saturday night… and off we went home. We figured as we were now going the long way we’d take Alison through Velez Rubio and Velez Blanco to show her the sights. There’s a castle at Velez Blanco that’s really nice during the day and so off we headed through the town of Velez Blanco – BAD mistake. At or near MIDNIGHT there was a wedding still going on and cars and drunks were littered all over the place. At one point we ended up at the end of a narrow street with road works blocking further access, barely able to turn around as another car came up behind us. “Pissed as a newt” as we used to say, the driver simply could not handle the fact that he’d have to back up all the way up a narrow street and promptly switched off like a Stepford Wife. You’d think his batteries had run out – he simply sat there in the middle of the road, not looking at anyone, not doing anything. We had one HELL of a time squeezing past him and I’ve yet to look at the bodywork on the car as we heard some strange squealing noises while trying to get between him and a steel fencing panel!

We eventually arrived home well after midnight and I recall giving up around 4am this morning. It’s now mid-day and I’ve been up long enough to do this blog – well, it is Sunday after all.

With Maureen called away to America to go see her dad (who is not at all well)… and having already booked tickets for the Alhambra Palace, rather than sit around, Jonathan, Suzanne and I on Friday took the long drive down to Granada. Most of the way the weather was warm at around 25c or so and our first stop was a brief trip to Carrefour (well, you can’t go to Granada without at least calling in).  We then went off in search of Alhambra.

You would think in this day and age it would be a simple matter of plugging the name into the Sat Nav – but no, TomTom wanted us to go the wrong way up nearly every one-way backstreet in the city so we soon gave up and started to follow the street signs. Just as these were getting us no-where, a complete stranger on a motorbike knocked on the window.. “Alhambra?” he said?  We nodded – and off we went.

A couple of times we took a wrong turn or had doubts about some amazingly narrow street – he patiently waited and on one occasion backtracked to help us out.  Of course none of this was out of generosity – he wanted paying for the service – but compared to driving around Granada for hours getting lost, we figured this was a decent trade-off.

At this point things started to go REALLY wrong as Maureen had booked the tickets on an online service and I recall she’d had difficulty getting the final payment page. When the attendant at Alhambra Palace could find no trace of Scargill in the computer, we knew we’d had that. A big sign said “FULL” and indeed no tickets were available.

Not ones to give up we popped over to a cafe I know from old across the street and had a nice lunch in the shade before hopping on the tour bus for a nice long tour of the city. GREAT idea. Some day I’ll bother to look up Alhambra because it’s used for everything from the name of the Palace to my favourite beer when I’m over there. The sign on the right is advertising the latter.

Apart from one episode sitting waiting for the bus to move, on the open-top top floor at 40 degrees which wasn’t a lot of fun, the whole trip was excellent and gave us a good view of the city. I recommend this to anyone on their first trip. I’ve been to Granada several times partly because the best hardware store I’ve been able to find “Brico Depot” is there and is, handily near Carrefour and a load of other large stores but the bus tour with audio gave insights to the city that you’d never get in a million years by driving around in the car.

Very nice – a shame Maureen could not be with us.