I went for a walk this evening. As you know, I have been intrigued and enamored of the harbor that we see below us daily. So I walked deep into it and got to see it from a completely different perspective.
A Study of Rowers
Are these just tourists? Are they members of the yacht club learning to row? We've been watching them from afar for weeks. But this is my first time catching them up close.
Our Apartment - Second from the Top
Study of the Harbor with a Threatening Sky
The Costa Blanca area of Spain goes north and south from Alicante for about 100 kilometers in either direction. There are a ton of small and largish towns along this area. Wife and I fell into one of them, El Campello, without having done a whole bunch of research. But in many, many ways it seems to be the perfect fit for us. However, we wanted to check out another town nearby that is mentioned as another that is worth checking out. La Vilajoiosa.
It is only 16 kilometers, from El Campello. We thought the drive would take us along the coast. But as is often the case, the coast itself is very hilly with a lot of bays and inlets. So road construction to traverse the area is naturally much further inland. We did make the attempt to go off the path but found ourselves in various small communities with nice homes, very hilly environs, and no services to speak of. Not at all what we are seeking.
When we got to La Vilajoiosa we immediately had our usual issues navigating the town and finding the parking lot. Although the town is only supposed to have 5 thousand more in population than El Campello, it seems much larger. Maybe it is serving a bigger population around it. We did finally find the parking lot.
Our lot is right along the beach front. As we could see from driving to it and then walking around, there is a big geographic difference between the beach community and the rest of town. There is a very large drop. And the town is way bigger. There is no way we would be able to secure an apartment with a view and that had walking access to services. Plus we were immediately hit with the beach being way more oriented to tourism than El Campello.
So we aborted most of our planned walking through town to determine its ability to be a place we wanted to stay. That being said, the waterfront and old town of La Vilajoiosa is very picturesque and photography worthy. So that's how we spent our time.
Ah! The Beach.
Espouses Fotograficus
Beach Photography
Wait! I recognize that boat!
Moving into Old Town
This is NOT Medieval though the street layout is.
Lunch
The whole beachfront is tourist/expat oriented. We found a place that served more Spanish-y stuff but clearly adjusted for Brit tastes. For the most part, this combination of flavors familiar to the Anglo-Saxon but cooked Spanish style came out well.
These Fried Chicken wings had a spicy sauce that was inside the breading. A hallmark of this small place was the high quality of its deep frying. Nothing lost its crispness as it sat on our table!
Not Patatas Bravas but good nonetheless. The three sauces were an Asian style, a garlic mayonnaise, and a barbecue style sauce.
Then there were these fried shrimp. The mere fact they were shelled showed this was not a local place. But Wife loved them.
Lastly, a Spanish classic, tortilla, and omelette of potato and egg. It was our least favorite because it was under seasoned.
With our drinks, it was again just about $32 for both of us, all service included.
Wing Foiling
Until we came to El Campello, I had never heard of it or seen anything about it. But our little bay here is evidently a Wing Foil heaven. Because when the wind comes up, they are out in force. I will save the dialog and let the pictures and videos say their thousand worlds. Though if you need more information, go here.
We are getting to the end of our time here in El Campello. We leave next Friday. We have a bunch more on our trip but it will be very family oriented. Our second long-stay to determine our interest in spending extended time out of the United States has been very enlightening. We've identified the things we think we are important to us, the financial aspects, the tradeoffs concerning options, and an optimum path forward. I will be getting into all of that in a future post. For now we are still doing our exploration of the area here around El Campello and the Alicante area in general.
With the exception of our foray to Alcoi, most of our traveling has been hugging the coast (including the coastal oriented cities of Valencia and Elche). But there is much going on in the mountainous interior of the area. On Saturday we headed out to one of the many mountain castle towns, El Castell de Guadalest.
Our decision had been colored by my observation of the Michelin map I bought of the area. The roads to get us to a number of the alternatives were the 'dreaded yellow squiggly line' roads. If you are not an aficionado of European driving and the Michelin map in particular you might not understand the reference. This particular map symbol typically implies a mountainous road with many, many, many, many curves, steep drop-offs (preferably without guard rails), and a requirement for many times more time than the distance would seem to indicate.
However, I am happy to report that at least in this section of Spain, the roads are not too bad. They have shoulders, clear markings, and (for the most part) guard rails. Also, the drivers here are decidedly mellower than in places like Italy or France. So all in all it was not a terribly difficult drive.
We began our visit to El Castell with what is not the totally expected screwy parking experience, In this case, it was our finding this to be a really hot weekend tourist destination with tons of people coming in. Most of the parking lots were closed and all the traffic was being directed into a single lot. That was already full. We, of course, have seen this phenomena looking down at the beach parking from our apartment on Sundays.
Never the less we successfully parked and were on our way.
You know you are not exactly where you want to be as de-I and Wife when you no sooner park but you see the cruise tour buses arrive.
Ah the serene solitude of El Castell de Guadalest
Despite it being very touristy
El Castell is a pretty classy place
For example, this was labeled as the PANDA OF EL CASTELL
Looks just like a Panda. Don't you think?
Despite it all, it was actually a very photogenic place and I took a ton of shots.
You want me to take your picture, I get to take yours!
Going up into the old town in the castle grounds
We made it into the main town area of the old castle
Here we found a small church. Like everything in this part of the world as mentioned previously, the roots go back a long time. But this was very recently renovated. I noticed that the religious artwork was extremely modern. I will confess to being less than enamored with modern art. But, as I focused on it, I realized this was really good stuff. Totally not traditional representations of traditional scenes with a high degree of sensitivity.
The first thing I noticed was this statue of the Virgin Mary
The whole posing was different. And the expression on the face. Notice her right eyebrow (as we look at her) raised. Very subtle.
Then there was this modern representation of a traditional triptych.
Not your usual Virgin and Joseph.
Nor of Jesus' Resurrection
I am always fascinated observing an artist's focus on detail
We interrupt this posting for a paid political advertisement
Back to our regularly scheduled programming
Looking back at the lower town where we started from
And our car!
One last look
It was still pretty early. We decided to try on more place
A look back at El Castell
Down a long yellow squiggly line road we arrive in Callosa d'en Sarria
I may be missing something. Is this some kind of ultra avant-garde art?
We never did figure out what we were to see here. We were tired so we decided to bail head back to El Campello for lunch and rest. But that is for another post.
