Santa Pola coast

It was a great Sunday. Went to Church this morning. Came home and had a friend come over for lunch his name is Antonio (available if anyone is interested :) ). Talked to Jessica. Just got back from the coast with José and Toni. They went for a swim and I enjoyed the sun. For most of Spain today ended summer vacations. School begins tomorrow. :)

Delores for dinner with Jesús Sierra and Maiti

Tonite we went to friends Jesús Sierra and Maiti for dinner. I found myself actually using full sentences in Español. It was a lot of fun but I didn´t take a siesta today so I was really tired by 12:45 when José finally said, vamos (we go). The dinner was great and for dessert, churros and chocolate. Mmmm

Can´t get away from construction.

Still taking it easy on my back. Stayed in today keeping busy getting the place ready for my things to come. They are tearing up our sidewalk and putting in a new water line so no siesta for me today. I guess I´ll just go hang some laundry.

Here is a view straight down from our terrace.And this is looking down the street to the right.

They ripped the sidewalk out in one day and layed the pipe the next. Here they are lining up the walk with the exterior cement border and next came the cement dumped in. I am guessing on Monday they will complete the walk.

Just resting my back

It has been three days now that I have been taking it easy. I threw my back out of wack while lifting some things and have had to take life a bit slower. Jose has been working on a shelf to hold books. Good thing since I have 8 boxes of books almost here. :)

The Beach at night

Spent some quiet time at the beach last night. My back started bothering me so we didn't stay too long. It was 88 degrees at 10 pm last night. Crazy!

Cabo de Palos

Drove around a little today looking for an electric cooler. The ice just melts too darn fast here. The coolers we have are good for about 10 hours and then need a new bag of ice. I think we threw out all the food I packed with the exception of the drinks. Grrrr. Good thing there is a Cafetería and a super market at this Campsite. We are still looking for an electric cooler, but we are watching for the perfect one at the right price. Meanwhile we went into Cabo de Palos. By far the most beautiful of this trip. José could not resist. Off came the clothes and into the water he went. I had dressed for a swim, sun dress over my suit, but I´m not ready for swimming in the open sea yet.

As you can see in the picture the water is very clear and warm. I am trying to put a little color on just in case you see varying tan lines. I require UV protection of 50. :)


The Lighthouse of Cabo de Palos. This is at the farthest Eastern point of Spain.

Couldn´t resist this shot. It reminded me of the photo shoots the girls had when they were on the Drill team. José didn´t want to take the shot. He thought it was too close the the edge of a serious drop off into the sea, but I convinced him I would be safe in front of a big blue post. We sat and watched the sun go down after this shot and José spoke tender words of his love for me. It was precious.

La Manga Caravan

Much better campsite. We left Alcázares camp and found La Manga Caravan. This is by far the largest campsite I ever stayed in. It has a capacity of 6000. They have a supermarket, Sauna, Jaccuzi, Tennis, Pools, Bars, Showers, Laundry and their own medical center complete with pharmacy. The sites were very large with trees to separate each site.

Alcázares / Mar Menor / La Manga

Here is a shot of the Medeteranean Sea with a couple Islands. It was at this point that José learned that April does not generally make a statement she is not completely certain about. He tried to tell me the campsite was in one direction and I told him it was not. A fisherman passing by settled it proving that I was in fact correct. It was one of those things you had to be there to really appreciate. :)

Headed South and Stopped in Alcázares to camp at Mar Menor Camping. Not a very good choice, it smelled very bad, as if everybody woke up that morning stepped out of their tent/cabin and went pee! The water was filthy and it was also situated right next to a military airfield, so the planes were taking off and landing all through the night. Well it can´t all be great. You have to take the bad days to remind you just how great the good days are. :) We decided to check out what was near and drove to La Manga which is a strip of land consisting totally of Hotels and Restarants and beaches. You can see the strip in the left hand horizon of this picture. It has the Sea on the outside of the strip and Mar Menor body of water on the inland side of it.

Castles, Castles everywhere

Made a quick stop here to visit this Castle on our way home. It was a holiday today so we did not get to go inside. :(

A day in Teruel

After leaving the campsite we headed for home. We were told not to miss the old city of Teruel. It was a nice. As you can tell, I was not planning on spending so many days touring. I am wearing the same clothes from the hike. I know Jessica, not very flattering. :)
José had looked at the map and wanted to go a couple hours more North and I told him I was getting a little anxious to get back home so he decided home we would go. We will save the Northeast of Spain for another trip. On our way back to Elche one not so great thing happened. I needed to use the servicios (toilet) and we saw a sign for them off the Autovia so we stopped at Hotel Euroruta and inquired about using the servicios. The man said they were for guests only. He mentioned that there was one on the exterior of the building if we needed. So we went to look. The womans side was locked which left me with a urinal on the floor. Grrrr, well I guess it was better than the side of the road. Anyway, when we tried to leave the gate was closed. José went in to see how to get out. The man told him he needed to pay 2 Euro to leave. This was a for the use of the servicios he said. It was the first time I saw José get upset. He couldn ´t believe it would cost 2 Euro to leave. He saw that someone from the Hotel was leaving so he was going to follow this person out, but the door man walked out to the gate and stood in front of our car until the gate closed again. Well, we ended up having to pay to leave and the receipt says for parking. When we left there was a pair of motorcylcles going to come in and we let them know unless they were getting a room there would be a fee to enter and leave. They took off down the road.

Camping in Albarracin

Left the campsite of friends to drive east to an ancient village complete with Castle and to our surprise a Campsite. José takes his guitar everywhere and many people stop when walking by to listen to him play. This was a great spot, but it did get very cold at night. I had no problem but poor José froze during the night.


I have a couple of pamphlets of the history of this city but unfortunately they are all in Spanish. The website listed on the post card I have is www.ediciones-sicilia.com.
It was a great stop and in the evening we were able to see a play with dancers traditional to the area. It was great!!

A walk through nature

I can´t believe I did this hike. We hiked up this mountain for almost 2 hours.


Yes this is really me! This was by far the best and scariest part of the hike. I can´t believe myself that I was brave enough to walk out on this rock, which by the way had some serious drop off on all sides. I was unaware of this shot, as you can tell I was focusing on one foot at a time, and trying hard not to look anywhere but ahead. :)When we reached the top we hopped down a hill and were in the middle of a stream. We then walked for nearly another hour up a stream, yes I was actually walking in the stream with buggies and fishies, but the water was so clear I couldn´t resist. I only wish I had been told to bring my swim suit along. Here the stream is very shallow but at times it was knee to waist high and you had to be careful with some of the slippery rocks.

The landscape was breathtaking. It was sad in some areas because about three weeks earlier there was a fire here and many trees were charred. You could smell the forest thick with burned trees. Let me tell you, my legs were a little sore for a couple days after.

Camping in Poyatos

Left early this morning to meet friends who are camping in Poyatos. This is in the Center of Spain but East of Madrid At Camping Serrania just North of Cuenca. It was a beautiful area. We set up our tent and then José brought out his guitar and played for several of our group who came together to hear him play and sing traditional Spanish songs. The camping area here and in several areas of Spain is more like resort camping. You can set up your tent in any number of spots but it has a bathroom complete with showers and a washing area for dishes or clothes, very nice!

Cantabria day 5 Comillas

We took a metro to Comillas. Below is a sample of the architecture of this city.



Next stop was a home designed by Gaudi called El Capricho. You can´t really tell but this is an amazing building. Each square is a ceramic tile, either brown, green leaf or a sunflower. It was very colorful.Next was a visit to a very old Cemetery, below is the Angel de Llimona which guards over the Cemetery. It was beautiful.You can´t tell very well from this picture, but the view from here in the background was amazing.

Cantabria day 4 Cuevas de Altamira

Short walk from where we were staying we visited a museum of Altamira Caves. One of the most important monuments of prehistoric art in the world. Cave paintings of exceptional artistic quality, depicting, with extraordinary charm and realism, figures of horses, bisdon, deer, wild boars and other animals, in red clay, white and black tones. According to experts, the paintings on the ceiling of the large cave is considered to be the Sistine Chapel of art, and was exec uted some 13,800 years before Christ. Sorry no photos allowed, but be sure to google it and see. It was well worth the 2 kilometer walk to visit.

Cantabria day 3 Picos de Europa and more

Picos de Europa-
There is a cable car that will take you from where I was standing to take this picture all the way to the top of the distant peak. Unfortunately or perhaps fortunately there was too long of a line to go up for our bus to wait so we were only able to walk around the local camping area. It reminded me of Washington. The weather was even a cooler 82 degrees.



We happened on this quiet little path that was a quick 15 minute walk while we were waiting for the others to finish their lunch. It was along a stream, very peaceful. We were a little rushed though when we heard the bus honking it´s horn we had to hurry back. I think I may have brushed against some nettles on the way back because me elbow was stinging. Oh well it was worth it. Below is a small town of Potes, wonderful scenery. We saw two or three fish jumping in the water while we sat and rested. Here we stopped on our bus route to visit Castle San Vicente de la Barquera. On the way to the Castle I stopped to rest on this wall. I was sitting with my back to the water, José said let me take your picture so I slowly turned and pulled my feet up. Then after the picture José walked over to me and realized that there was a 20 foot drop on the other side. He said very seriously, come away from there now. How would I be able to explain to the Children if anything happened to you. It was cute. Final stop on this day was to Santo Toribio de Liébana. It is a monestary that claims to have one of the largest pieces of the Cross that Christ was crucified on. It has been enclosed very elaborately with gold and glass into of course a Cross with only the smallest of windows at the bottom of it so that you might touch it. After we sat in a very old chapel a prayer was said for all those that were there and we were allowed to come up one by one and touch. Yes another prayer was said for my loved ones. It was actually very spiritual.
We chose to do an excursion today. I can´t get over how old everything is and yet still funtioning. They really knew how to build things back in the mediaeval times. It was a fantastic day, but very long on the bus. José says next time we go on our own!

Cantabria day 2 Santillana del Mar

We walked into the heart of Santillana del Mar. On our way we passed this Convent for nuns.

This is ¨Collegiate Church¨12th CenturyInside the Church we entered into the Courtyard. Rooms along the side contained old tombs and an ancient baptismal font decorated with a carving of Daniel surrounded by lions. The Columns each had differant carvings. It was amazing.

I couldn´t help but wonder what the town would have been like to live in during the mediaeval times. Santillana is a town of hidalgos (noblemen) and retain to this day many stately homes with coats of arms on their exterior. The town´s historical importance is that of the Santillana Monastery, later converted into a Collegiate Church. The buildings and surrounding area have bveen declared a National Monument. The courtyard adjacent to the Church is very interesting. There are several tombs of unidentified persons. Visitors may feal as if surrounded by spirits of Santillana´s hidalgo inhabitants. We entered the chapel, no cameras allowed, and I couldn´t resist the urge to sit in the ancient pew and say a prayer for my loved ones. Somehow in this ancient place I felt as if my prayers would somehow be heard loud and clear from here.

Busride to Cantabria

We had to get up early to catch the bus in Elche that would take us to the Northern Spain. All together it was 11 hours to get there. José reminded me that it was about the same amount of time to fly to Washington. On the bus was a variety of people.
You can´t really tell but I am standing in the open window of our Hotel room. From our window looking out the view was complete with Cows which you can´t see too well but we could sure hear them. Each of them wearing a clinking cow bell. Good thing our room had insulated windows.


We saw some great looking Castles passing through Segovia but unfortunately didn´t stop. We arrived in a little medieval town called Santillana del Mar and stayed in the Hotel Salldemar.