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Off tomorrow through Castille-La Mancha, back to Madrid.
Sad to leave but looking forward to getting back, we fly home Monday.

¿Me puede decir cómo llegar de aquí para allá?

Can you tell me how to get from here to there?

Bill has been practicing Spanish off and on for years. And it has paid off many times while we’ve been in Spain. But it is still only one step away from pigeon English…. In one of many times he was insisting on getting directions from a non-English speaking woman. He hung in there long after weaker men would give in but when they actually figured out what he wanted, we all shouted in triumph!! Not a common word between them but good will and laughter worked wonders. 

However this morning Bill summed it up. As he left the cafe, he said “Au revoir!” to our waitress and to her “Huh?” he turned to me and said, “So many languages, so few grey cells…”

Dinner in Spain

Dinner last night in a little water-front cafe filled with Spaniards summed up our experience here. We were jammed in tight on the balcony and had a table of men right behind us. They were nursing their one cup of coffee (7:00 pm - way too early for dinner!) as they sat there for two hours and talked and talked and talked. Their staccato Spanish was a tongue-twisting phenomenon and their ability to all talk at the same time and have fun doing it made me think of the Monk Parrots in the trees outside the cafe: constant chatter occasionally interrupted by excitement and increased volume followed by more talk. Oh how Bill wished all his hard work with Spanish had been more successful, We would have loved to know just what they were saying - possibly talking about those foreigners who eat so early and talk so little….. 

View from our table

Christmas in Spain

So tomorrow is December. And the Christmas decorations are up and ready in every hotel, store, and street of every town we’ve visited lately. I expect that tomorrow night all of Spain will light up! In fact, one of the reasons for one of our fiascos with directions in the obscure white town of Benaojan was the fact that a truck with a cherry picker was blocking the most unlikely one-way steep narrow street - putting up Xmas lights. 

Poinsettias in pots - probably geraniums in the summer

Watch your step!

The streets of old towns in Portugal and Andalucia in Spain are often cobbled. Some in mosaic patterns. This tradition was brought to the Iberian peninsula from Rome and originally used round stones from rivers.  They are beautiful to look at, romantic to listen to when horses trot over them, and murder to bike over….

Toledo

Tevira, Portugal

Tevira - waiting repair

Very old pattern from Jewish Quarter, Seville

Main street of Arcos de la Frontera old town

Arcos de la Frontera

Mosaics all through Frigiliani old town

Hands ward off evil

We have noticed door knockers on old doors in Portugal and Spain shaped like hands. Turns out they are from Moorish tradition and represent the hands of Fatima, daughter of Mohammed, used to ward off evil and protect the house. 

Más cuentos de comida ...

More about food....

One of our favourite stops for food was in Toledo. We asked a local where to go for traditional food and after skirting down many narrow streets, asking for help with directions more than once, we entered a different world. Locals crowded around the bar - seats were ignored, people used tables to set their beer and food on and the noise hit the ceiling. We watched two guys behind the bar manage everything with no apparent order. But it all worked. We returned a couple of times while in Toledo.

Gaspacho with jamon and cheese

Restaurant hidden behind curtain

carcamusa toledanas - a pork stew, specialty of Toledo

Ludena.

¿Qué te gustaría para el desayuno?

"What would you like for breakfast?" Because we tend to go to the neighbourhood cafes for breakfast, we often found the waiters had very little English. Cafe con leche was easy to figure out. The rest took a bit more time. Because these little cafes always seemed more like bakeries to me, it was easy to just point to a fresh croissant. After watching the locals for a while, we tried fat slices of bread with sides of crushed tomatoes, jamon, olive oil and salt. Recently Bill figured out how to say butter and jam (mantequilla y mermelada) so I most often skip the jamon now.

Spanish omelette - mostly potato with some sort of bread on the side. 

Jamon and bread - the tomato is more often crushed on the side. 

Our neighbourhood cafe in Barcelona

Crushed tomato - this time came with melted cheese

We would watch locals pour olive oil on thick slices of toast and then sprinkle salt. We tried it - it 's okay but maybe not for breakfast? 

My "usual" for the first while. 

Frigiliani - A visual and taste treat.

Nerja, where we are staying, has only been a thriving tourist town for about 20 years. It was a small fishing village before that. Its counterpart is Frigiliana (Free gee lee ana) a historic town built by the Moors further inland for protection. Its winding streets of white-washed buildings hug the hills and are charming and picturesque.
The white wash apparently was lime at first and used to disinfect buildings during a plague in the 17th Century. It turned out that the white buildings were cooler and thus the trend continues. In fact, buildings in Frigiliani are now required to be white but allowed to have different coloured trim (most choose blue).
Here the Mediterranean climate is at its best - neither cold in the winter nor too hot in the summer. Plants thrive and homeowners are house-proud. The town is immaculate.
We took a handy bus from Nerja to Frigiliani - about a 15 minute drive and Bill could sit back and relax as our bus navigated the tiny roads into town.
We found a beautiful restaurant with a view and had a wonderful lunch full of taste treats.

Chorizo sausage with Kalamata Humus and pickled eggplant

Usual starter: Bread with olive oil and salt, olives. 

Tomato salad with pomegranate molasses, black garlic. sumac, mint and olive oil 

Dessert: Medjool dates soaked in coffee, orange, cinnamon, and cardamon,  with labneh (yogurt cheese) and pine nuts

View from the restaurant patio

The Mediterranean in off-season

We are in Nerja on the Costa del Sol. We are staying in a waterfront hotel looking out at the Mediterranean. This is the big advantage of going to Spain in November! The temperature rose 10 degrees as we drove from Ronda to Nerja. It was 23 degrees here mid-afternoon which is what we can expect for the five days we stay here and apparently too cold for most of the usual tourists.
We walked down to the beach when we arrived and spent time dipping our toes in the water (surprisingly warm), beachcombing (lovely smooth pebbles) and then had the fun experience of having a flamingo drop by. We were surprised to see him but we felt he might have been even more surprised to be there. It is late for him to be coming through but maybe he flies to a different beat..
We are staying here for five days and doing day trips until Sunday when we drive all day to Madrid to leave the next day for home. How lucky are we?

Monk parorts which ironically were brought to Spain from the "new world" and are now everywhere. 

View out of our window

Costa del Sol 

Our hotel

Stranger in a strange land

Yellow eyes!

Just dipping his toes in like us

Might try to catch a few waves

Beautiful smooth pebbles. 

Ronda and surroundings - the Gorge

The "New Bridge" has three parts - starting with a Roman base. 

From old town side of gorge

More of the valley below. Low cloud today.