So now, what about those
transport cards? Is all lost? Let’s take a look…
Back
to the tram station yet again, just to ask.
Hope of ever getting our tram cards in time was fading, but we needed to
put in the effort. This time, though, our cards were there! Yah!
And
that set what we’d do for the afternoon: ride the tram!
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| Ultra modern tram station, downtown Alicante |
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| Ultra modern tram |
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| The Cards! |
We’ve been up and down the
coast several times now; we’ve been all the way to Benidorm. This is a heavily
built-up city. While the whole coast is full of high-rises, Benidorm is a real
forest of some very tall structures. Paula read the other day that its 153
skyscrapers are second in number only to New York City. Not really our kind of
place! We didn’t stay long, since on this occasion the journey was the
destination. Someday we will mount an expedition and explore the city further,
and take the next tram line that runs even further north up the coast.
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| A view of Benidorm from the tram (not its best side) |
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| Another view of Benidorm. |
Meanwhile, we’ve become regulars at the
Tuesday afternoon boules* game organized by and for the Brits** in El Campello,
another beach community.
* The French game played with heavy steel
balls about the size of tennis balls; we’ve played in France, and have spent
many hours watching others play.
** Well, most of them are Scots, actually.
Does that matter?
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| The boules pitch. Or court. Or... whatever. |
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| No, I think mine is closer! |
We’ve learned that there is
a large community of people from the British Isles here. One of the many
regrets we have leaving – and there are always many regrets, when leaving – is that
we won’t have more time to spend with these potential new friends!
We’ll just have to come
back and stay longer…
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| And after a hard-fought game, nothing like a little cervesa or uno tinto. |
I’d like to give a special
tip o’ the hat to our boule partner Mike, a Glaswegian (that is, someone from
Glasgow). Since we will be traveling in Scotland in a few months, we’ve been
bugging him to teach us some Scots slang. He’s been trying, but I feel the fault
is with us; you have to be born there! The rest of us just can’t twist up those
vowels and consonants in quite the same way.
* * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
And then there is the wine
museum. Not far from the boule-playing beach in El Campello is a truly amazing
collection of Spanish wine. First Saturday of the month the proprietor puts on
a wine tasting. We went, of course. I can’t say I was impressed by many of the wines,
but it was surely worthwhile to wander through room after room of floor to
ceiling bottles! And we met some of our boule-playing friends there, so the
conversation was great, too.
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| One of many rooms... |
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| How does he keep track of all those bottles??? |
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| Things got crowded, fer sure! |
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| Your classic dust-covered bottle (one of many!) |
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| Paula enjoying a glass with one of our new friends from the UK |
Another addition to the
list of things to do when we’re back in Alicante. And I do expect we’ll be back.
However, Wednesday will be our last day in Alicante this time around. Early
Thursday morning we will be boarding a flight to Bergen, Norway, famed for its
rain (and its cod, I must note). In the three months Paula has been tracking
the weather there, it’s been sunny, oh, several times. This week the weather is
actually very nice (i.e., warm and dry). We’ll let you know what we find in our
next report.
My my, back in Alicante I see we have some unexplored photos...
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| Castle of Santa Bárbara rising above the town; how did we get this far without a photo of Alicante's icon? |
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| The jacaranda are in bloom! All over the city... |
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| The palm trees are in bloom! Well, no. But there are a lot of them. |
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| Paula inspects "our" beach |
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| Roof-top view at night |
The Beach
I have finally discovered
the beach here in Alicante. What? Isn’t that why people come to Alicante, for the
beach? How come it took four weeks for me to “discover” it? Probably because I
come from California. Hey, I grew up on a beach! (Not quite true.) My earliest
memory is being tumbled in a wave on a Southern California beach (Very much true!)
So, don’t tell me about beaches.
Yeah, I’m a beach snob. Too
bad! I missed out on four weeks of beach going! It’s only been a week I’ve been
swimming in the ocean, and I like it. It makes my body feel good. My skin has a
glow after being in the salt water and lying in the sun. Today I made it
out and around the swimming buoy with no trouble (a week ago that seemed a formidable
task.) And now we’re leaving. Oh well.
We’ll be back in November. (Will it be beach weather, here in Alicante?) ‘Till then, we’ll say “see you later” with these photos,
taken in the evening from the seventh floor of a beach-front high-rise.
Our last day; tomorrow we will be up and out before 04:00 AM to catch our 06:00 flight. We have the usual feelings: regret at leaving, anticipation of arriving moderated by concern with what we'll find, with excitement and anxiety looking very much alike. And then there's that 4AM thing!
In any event, the next blog will come from another country, another latitude. Hasta pronto!.
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