Excursions

Almuñécar
Thurs., March 1, 2018
11:10am
The sea and sky are rippled and marbled shades of grey. Rain drops are bouncing high off the terracotta tiles outside my balcony door. The dry land is thankfully soaking it up, but we holidaymakers feel a bit like children who can't go out to play. However, there is one thing we can do; pile into the car and drive to the Mercadona for food and wine. We feel right at home there now, and our stores need replenishing. We're all checking the weather on our devices regularly. It looks as if there will be rain for the next week. After shopping we'll have to research indoor activities.
A couple of our excursions have required a bit of a reconnoitre. I use a military term because even though there are only five of us, getting washed, dressed and ready to pull out takes some time, especially as our spacious, three bathroom house has the smallest possible gas hot water heater. It takes a couple of minutes to get hot water to any tap and only one shower really works well. Consequently, we left a bit late to visit the castle in town. And then we made the mistake of trying to drive up the narrow hill to where we thought there would be parking. The hairpin turn was too much for our car. The wheel that couldn't get traction started to spin and burn rubber. We all bailed and Albert was finally able to make it to the top alone. But this only put us in an area with even narrower and more twisty roads. We got some help from an older local woman who managed not to show her scorn for tourists too much as she directed us around and out of what is a very lovely old part of town which I will visit on foot some day. As the castle closes at 1:30pm, we missed the visit. We did what we are very good at, found a place to sit down and enjoy tapas and a drink. The visit to the castle and museum was put off for two days because Bill and John were visiting us the next day.






A big, late lunch outside at our house








An opening for shooting through in a turret in the ruins of the Phoenician/Roman fortress/castle in Almuñécar.








The outer wall of the castle

















Fine luminous alabaster vases in the museum in Almuñécar

The next day we drove to meet Bill and John at 1:30pm in Nerja for lunch. We planned to visit the caves on this side of Nerja on the way, but that was another unsuccessful first effort because by the time we got there the tickets being sold were for 1:00 which would make us late for lunch, so that will be for another day. We did again what we do best, found a great place to sit down and have lunch.





Part of my lunch in Nerja, fried eggplant with cane sugar sauce. It was delicious. I ordered it because I like eggplant and had read about the fact that sugar cane had been grown in the area for centuries. We saw quite a bit growing as we drove to Nerja. It reminded me of Nayarit, but much smaller patches of sugar cane.