The Road to Barcelona - Nov 4, 2012

We drove from Valencia to Barcelona, along the AP 7 (hate paying tolls but needed to get to Barcelona before dark!) Beautiful scenery, lots of cool castles on hills, amazing churches and sweet little villages. Orange groves and vineyards as far as you could see in every direction. Photos are a bit blurry because once again Gary was ZOOMING!!!

 Cool castle on the hill along the coast

 Another castle,

  Pretty cathedral in the center of town

 Another cool castle

 And another cool cathedral

Little church on hill overlooking sea

 

 Fun hotel in Barcelona

Valencia, Spain

We arrived in Valencia in the late afternoon so there was still time to check out the city.  Valencia is one of the most beautiful cities we visited in Spain.  So much to see!  Our hotel was close to the city center so we walked in the direction of the train station, which was an amazingly beautiful building itself!

Directly across from the train station is the Plaza de Tores, or bullring, and it totally dominates the downtown plaza.

This is the red door where they send the bulls into the ring to fight.

We headed further into the city, which was filled with huge, gorgeous buildings dating from the early 1800's back to the 1400's.

 We arrived at the Plaza de Reina, which opened into a huge park area with restaurants and street cafes, and the cathedral toward the back of the plaza.

 We thought perhaps the cathedral was being restored because there was scaffolding set up all around one corner.  turns out there was a huge music festival going on and they were setting up a stage and light show.

The doors to the cathedral were HUGE and very ornately carved.

 Behind the cathedral was another small plaza, and the street directly behind the cathedral had a walkway from the priest's residence over to the cathedral.

 The plaza behind the cathedral also had a museum filled with relics that had been discovered inside the cathedral when they were doing renovations.

 Another shot of the front of the cathedral.

Gary ran into his cheering section behind the cathedral...

 The Plaza de Reina was a great place to hang out because there was so much to see.  Lots of gorgeous buildings...

 all painted and spruced up...

 fountains filled with water...

 and even the sidewalks are marble!

 Best of all, we stopped at a little street cafe for hot chocolate and churros.  This is NOT your basic Nestle's Quik!  This stuff is thick, rich, hot and totally addictive.  Dunking the hot churros into the hot chocolate is sheer perfection as far as treats go!

 We ended our evening with some friends of Gary's from his mission.  Mari and Antonio Sanchez and their son Jeiro invited us to their apartment for dinner, which was amazing.  Mari is the younger sister of Pepe (we went to church with him and his family in Granada) and Mari had been baptized as a teenager just before Gary left the Granada area.  Gary also knew Antonio back then - he was an investigator.  So Antonio joined the church just after Gary moved from Granada, and after his mission he and Mari got married. They have an older son serving a mission in Northern Spain, a daughter living in Washington DC and another daughter living in Granada, as well as Jeiro, who is 14.  What a sweet and wonderful family.

 It was such a treat to spend the evening with this family!  This entire trip has been amazing, especially meeting all these great people who have remained strong in their faith and in the Church.

The Road to Valencia

We left Alicante and headed north to Valencia. One of the first things we saw as we left Alicante was a mountain just north of the city.  Raphael had told us a story about the mountain. He said a giant lived on the other side of the mountain and he fell in love with a girl from Alicante.  He wanted to take her to meet his family on the other side of the mountain, but she changed her mind and water to go home.  So he got so made he kicked a chunk out of the mountain...

 and it landed in the bay near Benidorm, forming a small island:

We decided to take the coast road north, instead of the tollway, because we wanted to be able to take our time and enjoy the scenery.  There were so many gorgeous little villages and towns along the way, built right up into the hills.

There were great views out to the sea as well, with little ancient lookout towers and crumbling castles everywhere we looked.

We even came across an impromptu Tour de Espana bike race down the winding coast road.  Everyone driving cars just pulls to the side to let the bikes go past.  Totally different than in the US, where they try to run them off the road!

We also found a really cool church/monastery on the coast road.  It was painted so brightly and had gold all over it.  It was shining in the sun from miles away so we stopped to check it out.  Of course, it was closed.

We continued along the coast - more gorgeous cities, houses, churches and castles!

And eventually, a McDonald's!

There were also acres and acres of orange groves - Valencia oranges!  They were planted in such straight lines, all up and down the hills as far as the eye could see, and clear down to the beaches.

It was an absolutely gorgeous drive all along the coast!  So much beauty in Spain and it always surprises me to come around a corner and see another castle perched on a hill.

Castillo de Santa Barbara, Alicante Spain

We spent the day again with Raphael and Pepi and their family - we went to the Castillo de Santa Barbara, which is a castle fortress located on the hill high above the city of Alicanta and provides a view of the entire bay of Alicante, which is exactly what you need in a castle fortress. Here is our group at the Castillo.

 The castle dates back to the 9th century, when it was controlled my the Moors, as was much of Spain.

Above are the ruins of the chapel area of the castle.  The arches that held the dome are still standing.

Check out this view along the top of one of the fortress walls, which are incredibly thick - 12 feet in some places.

 The castillo has changed hands many times over the years, depending on who had conquered the area most recently.  There are Moorish, Spanish and Roman influences  in the remaining buildings. Much of it has disintegrated and fallen down, but it is easy to see where everything once stood.

There is even a dungeon area that is now open to the sun and air, pictured above with Gary and Raphael standing on the dungeon floor There were what looked like carved graffiti in the stones of the floor.  Turns out that's exactly what it was, and it was carved by the prisoners held in the dungeon over hundreds of years.

The views from the castillo are incredible!  You can see 360 degrees - the entire city of Alicante, the city of Benidorm to the north, the entire bay of Alicante and out to the mountains on the west.

You can also see the Plaza de Tores, or bullring in the center of Alicante.

After we left the Castillo we went back to Raphael and Pepi's apartment by the beach for a family birthday party.  They had all their kids and grandkids who were in the area come for a big dinner and a party to celebrate five different birthdays coming up in the family.

 Luis, who is married to Raphael's daughter Raquel, cooked an ENORMOUS paella!  It took two men to lift the paella pan from the special stove that it cooks on.

We had great food, great company (several of the kids and grandkids speak English so I had someone to talk to) and a really fun  time.  After the Feliz Cumpleaneos were sung, the candles blown out and the cake eaten they had a pinata for the kids.  They don't smack it with a stick the way we do, they have little strings attached to the bottom of the pinata and each kid pulls hard on the string and it opens the bottom of the pinata and the candy falls out

Alex, one of Raphael's grandkids dove onto a pile of candy and wouldn't move!

After the party, several of the family members had to go home, but a bunch of us went down to the Alicante port and walked around the beachfront area.  We saw an amazing cathedral there