Mom and Dad come visit (week 2)

Continuing.

Wednesday found us on the road to Granada. We had called our hostel and they advised us to arrive as soon as possible as some streets would be blocked off for the holy week processions in the evening. We stopped in Nerja on the way to Granada just so Mom and Dad could see the balcony of Europe. Our hostal in Granada was on the street leading up to the Alhambra (very central). We walked around a bit that evening and saw a procession. The different churches have different floats with statues of Mary or Jesus and the participants dress in robes with hats (resembling the KKK) and bands. The streets fill up with spectators who move around seeing the different processions. It was interesting watching them attempt to cover the floats with plastic in the light rain. Oh yeah, we ate dinner in a teteria (although Dad was the only one who had a tea).

Thursday we visited the cathedral and the chapel (where Ferdinand and Isabel) are buried. In the evening we had guided tours of Alhambra, Amy and I went on a Spanish tour and Mom and Dad went on an English one. The views were dampened some by the rain. For dinner we went to a flamenco dinner show. After the food, we ran into some of the processions coming out of the cathedral. The music is the best part, the sound of the brass and drums in the crisp night air is exceptional. We decided to try to see the procession they call El Silencio. As it approaches the street lights are turned off, the people hush, and a crucifix carried by blackrobed participants followed by a single drum passes through. Very eerie with the candles providing the only light on a street packed full of people in complete silence save the lonely drum beating.

Friday we left Granada and passed through Gaudix stopping to see the cave neighborhoods. The next stop was the Cabo de Gata coast in Almería. We had pizza for lunch in San Jose and then took a little walk on a nude beach (to look at the weird rock formations). Parts of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade were filmed here. We drove on up the coast and decided to drive through a natural park in the mountains of Murcia. It turned out to be a very small road but luckily we didn´t have to backtrack and came down a mountainside with a plethora of switchbacks. You could look down as you went and see switchbacks falling like a leaf as far as you could see. Our hotel this night was outside of Murcia capital a ways and proved a little difficult to find. It was an apartment hotel so we could have actually cooked but we were too tired so we went to a Chinese place around the corner (everything else was closed being Good Friday).

Saturday we headed into Murcia and headed to the old mill which is now a very interesting museum. The water mill shares the location with a long history of mills and has 24 water wheels. They could be rented out to individual millers who would have use of the water wheels to turn their millstones. If you want to know more check out this link http://www.waterhistory.org/histories/murcia/murcia.pdf Next we walked around Murcia central and stepped inside the cathedral which was adjoined by a museum. It had a giant carving from Roman times which they had found adorning the tomb of some catholic noble. We went down to Cartagena next just to drive through, then we headed up the coast. There is a peculiar strand out in the sea here with all kinds of hotels appearing to be sitting in the sea. We didn´t take the time to drive out on the strand but we did check out the salt flats on the other end. We continued up the coast and arrived in Calpe. It is a big rock similiar to Gibralter. Amy and I hiked up (we didn´t have the rockclimbing gear with). Our hotel was in Pego that night. We barely found it period. Then we drove into town center for dinner and had a great meal in a typical noisy Spanish restaurant (once we eventually found the restaurant district). When we left we couldn´t find the hotel again until we had driven around forever. This town was just not making sense to us.

Sunday we drove into Valencia and eventually found the English speaking church. After the service we drove to the city of arts and sciences and admired the architecture. Next we went and found our hotel and ate lunch. We spent the afternoon in Segunto exploring the ruins of a city fortress.

Monday we turned towards home. With a detour to Cuenca. Cuenca is a cliff top city famous for the hanging houses built right on the cliff among other things. There was a little bit of snow on the ground up in the hills around Cuenca. On our way back to Valdepeñas we stopped at Belmonte but the castle was closed. So we backtracked to a different castle which we had seen out in the fields and I tried to drive the rental car up the steep dirt track leading to it but to no avail (front wheel drive). We had to walk up to see the locked doors. Back to Valdepeñas.

Tuesday was a take it easy day. We visited the wine museum here in Valdepeñas and went out for pastries and coffee. That evening we took a winery tour of which we were plesently suprised to have an English speaking tour guide.

Wednesday it was up early and to the Madrid airport. Amy is still working on adding photos (computer issues) (now that the writing is done maybe I´ll add them myself).