Sun and sightseeing in Spain COMPLETE - Page 4 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
As of January 1, 2019, we have closed our forums. This is a decision we did not come to lightly, but it is necessary. The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk. The server software itself must be updated, and it cannot be without removing the forums.
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There are other changes as well.
Why? Well, the world has changed. And change with it, we must. The lyrics to "We Go On" for IllumiNations say it best:
We go on to the joy and through the tears
We go on to discover new frontiers
Moving on with the current of the years.
We go on
Moving forward now as one
Moving on with a spirit born to run
Ever on with each rising sun.
To a new day, we go on.
It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
But eventually, we must move on and move forward. It is the right thing to do.
So we are retiring this newsletter, as we simply cannot keep up with it. Many thanks to Mouse Fan Travel who supported it all these years, to All Ears and MousePlanet who helped us with news, to our many article contributors, and -- most importantly -- to Sara Varney who edited our newsletter so wonderfully for years and years.
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Thank you, thank you, thank you for your amazing support over the years. Without you, there's no way us little guys could have made something like this happen and given the "big guys" a run for their money. PassPorter was consistently the #3 guidebook after the Unofficial and Official guides, which was really unheard of for such a small company to do. We ROCKED it thanks to you and your support and love!
If you miss us, you can still find some of us online. Sara started a new blog at DisneyParkPrincess.com -- I strongly urge you to visit and get on her mailing list. She IS the Disney park princess and knows Disney backward and forward. And I am blogging as well at JenniferMaker.com, which is a little craft blog I started a couple of years ago to make ends meet. You can see and hear me in my craft show at https://www.youtube.com/c/jennifermaker . Many PassPorter readers and fans are on Facebook, in groups they formed like the PassPorter Trip Reports and PassPorter Crafting Challenge (if you join, just let them know you read about it in the newsletter). And some of our most devoted community members started a forum of their own at Pixie Dust Lane and all are invited over.
So we encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!
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I saw your new sig pic (which is just great!) on another thread and noticed the link. I just got caught up. All your pictures are so beautiful! The villa is lovely.
I'm glad I found this TR! Thanks for sharing, Cheryl!
Love the Russian Orthodox church ~ just gorgeous. The place with all the clocks looks interesting. Pretty scenery!
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Monday 15 September – part two: you’d never know that was here! :
We carried on walking, into the main square, and from there, you could suddenly see the huge reservoir behind Guadalest and some of the mountain outcrops that they used to use as outlooks. This place has a history as a castle – and a highly fortified one at that. I certainly wouldn’t have liked to have been in the attacking forces, as anyone up there was in a good position to see people coming for miles around and deal with them.
The weird thing was that there was a school in session there, which just somehow didn’t fit in with the touristy image. It was almost as if you’d walked into people’s home village and it just felt at odds, although the children didn’t seem to mind at all. They just kept happily playing while we were there.
A few postcards and some stamps purchased, using some of my (very rusty!) Spanish, and we headed back down again to re-join Barb. Trust me, learning Japanese when you go to Spain really does screw you up! The amount of times I went to say something and realised it was Japanese, but I guess it shows that at least my learning of that language is finally going into my brain!
We stopped to browse a few more shops on the way back to the car, getting the obligatory fridge magnet and also had a look in the Lladro and Swarovski shop. You never expect to see a shop of that size with such a superb selection of both ranges in a mountain village like this. I have never seen that range of items before anywhere, although I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised, as it turns out that Lladro is manufactured only about 80 miles away in Valencia, where we had flown into the day before. Unfortunately, everything we saw was pretty expensive, compared to the prices back home. Probably something to do with the fact that the pound has sadly crashed against the Euro in recent months.
We got back in the car and wound our way back down the narrow roads, this time meeting a number of cars coming upwards, some on the other side of the road, which was pretty heart stopping at times. I certainly wouldn’t have liked to have been driving and I felt very glad I was sitting behind the driver, when I saw some of those people heading almost straight for us!
We took a detour to go and see the Fonts d’Algar, waterfalls in the mountains, but unfortunately, they were closed, which was a great shame. A number of the museums at Guadalest, particularly the museums of miniscule items, where you can apparently see things like the Eiffel Tower on a pinhead, were also closed, which was a great shame. I found this really surprising, bearing in mind that places weren’t exactly quiet. There were still a lot of tourists around and, let’s be honest, the British school holidays had only finished two weeks earlier, so I was expecting things to still be in full swing. I wasn’t the only one. Both Dave and Barb thought the tourist season ran through until the end of October. It’s unfortunate, as with our holiday plans for next year, there is no way I can see us returning here any earlier than September 2009.
We stopped at a viewpoint on the way back to get some shots towards Moraira. As we did, we watched a woman drop off a guy, who we assumed was her husband, to go fishing. Dave, as a fishing enthusiast, was fascinated to see where he went. The rest of us were just fascinated that he headed for a very rocky cove, where no-one else was around. What would happen if he fell? No-one would ever know. Not my idea of a good plan somehow….
On the way back, we stopped off at one of the local supermarkets, Masymas. I immediately took this place to my heart, with its great selection of cheeses, jams (I remembered how good the Spanish jams were from holidays in my youth!), fish and wines and, best of all, sangria. There was no way I was leaving this store without a bottle of sangria and I found a very reasonably priced one for just 2.90 Euros (about £2.30), so that went into the basket, along with a similarly priced bottle of rose wine. Sometimes, you just have to try some cheap booze to see if you like it!
Shopping complete, it was back to the villa for lunch, which consisted of salad, some cheese (including what we’d just bought), fresh baguette and meat for the others. Perfect. We opened up the bottle of sangria and ended up polishing it off between the four of us. My goodness, that stuff was good. Very drinkable and not too strong. In fact, it was almost too easy to drink!
Then it was time for some more serious time outside in the heat and sun and some swimming. It was hot, but there was a nice breeze to take the edge off the temperatures. Without that, I think it would’ve been unbearable outside.
A couple of hours later, after showers and getting ready, it was time to head out for dinner. We headed back along the coast to Calpe and parked up. Then it was off for a quick stroll about the harbour, which is home to a huge fishing fleet – and most of it appeared to be in dock that night, judging by the number of boats we could see. We got plenty of photos with the Penyon d’Ifach in the background. The lighting, with the sun about to set behind the nearby hills, was stunning.
Then we walked towards the restaurants, lined up along the seafront, stopping to get some photos of the beach there.
We settled on a restaurant overlooking the beach, which was new to all of us – and very good it was too. Our waitress didn’t speak a lot of English – and for a town that seems to live on tourism, mainly from the British market, that did surprise me. I tried my hand at ordering the various items in Spanish and just about managed to get what I wanted for everyone, so that was a result! Mark had the mussels for starters and there was a huge amount of them! Then Barb and I shared the seafood paella, as they would only serve that for a minimum of two people. It was a pleasant treat for me to be able to have paella, as so often, there’s usually meat in it of some kind. Mark went for the lamb chops, while Dave had the pork chops. Let’s just say that they didn’t fare as well – their chops didn’t have much meat on them!
We failed to get photos of the chops, as they arrived afterwards, but just imagine very narrow strips of meat and you’ll get the idea! We got the dessert menus, but half of them appeared to be off, including the tiramisu, which I fancied, and the crème brulee, which apparently Dave had set his heart on. Trust me, we knew about that one, as he bemoaned the lack of crème brulee several times later that evening! I decided on a double chocolate ice cream to make up for the lack of tiramisu and was happy. The bill came to 65 Euros for the four of us (about £50) and while they settled up, I headed back to the beach to take some shots of it after dark. I’d been taking photos of it throughout our meal from the sun just starting to set to it being fully gone. The beach ended up with a very strange colour to it in the later shots – something to do with the floodlights that illuminated it, I think.
We headed back to the car and, on the way back to the villa, stopped at the same overlook point that we’d been to earlier in the day when we’d seen the fisherman. This time there was an RV parked there, with only a woman on her own inside. Very odd. The reason we stopped was to get some shots of the moon over the sea. It was a beautifully clear night, but for some reason, only Mark’s camera really captured it, as mine seemed to make the moon very hazy. I don’t know why.
Then it was back to the villa and, not long afterwards, off to bed.
Today we walked 2.86 miles. The weather today was sunny and in high 80’s. The best thing today was visiting Guadelest. The worst thing today was the museums and the waterfalls being closed. Today we tried dinner by the beach in Calpe And the result was it was very good food and good value, with a nice view. The most magical moment today was seeing Guadalest for the first time, as we drove towards it.
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We got the dessert menus, but half of them appeared to be off, including the tiramisu, which I fancied, and the crème brulee, which apparently Dave had set his heart on. Trust me, we knew about that one, as he bemoaned the lack of crème brulee several times later that evening! I decided on a double chocolate ice cream to make up for the lack of tiramisu and was happy. The bill came to 65 Euros for the four of us (about £50) and while they settled up, I headed back to the beach to take some shots of it after dark. I’d been taking photos of it throughout our meal from the sun just starting to set to it being fully gone. The beach ended up with a very strange colour to it in the later shots – something to do with the floodlights that illuminated it, I think. 
The reason we stopped was to get some shots of the moon over the sea. It was a beautifully clear night, but for some reason, only Mark’s camera really captured it, as mine seemed to make the moon very hazy. I don’t know why. 
More fantastic pictures!! 
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