Food fair & Golf

This morning, we headed out to a local park where the town was hosting a food fair.  It is called the “FIRA DE LES COQUES” or coca in English.  These are like little pizzas.  They can be sweet or savory.  They can be served open face or closed like an empanada.  Many ingredients are used as topping/fillings.  The sold tickets for 1.25 euro and that would cover the cost of one.  About 5 inches round or so.  We tried a couple of different ones. They also had some other typical food for sale as well.  Sausage, paella, we had to try these as well and for the grand finale, chocolate cheese cakes (we think anyway).  The area where they held the event was around a building where they used to dry grapes to make raisins. They also had ladies in traditional costume preparing cocas and baking them in a wood fired oven.  Other ladies were there doing lace.  I know I would not have that patience not matter how much wine that you gave me.  The details on this work was amazing.  Some of them had up to 50 treads going at once.  Others were crocheting and needlepointing.  The local band was on and played a few tunes.  One of songs Wendy recognized from Easter when we were in Cuenca. Some young ladies were in very detailed dresses and paraded down one alley.  Not sure if it represented anything or not.  The work that went into making the dresses was incredible, especially after seeing the ladies working on the lace.

Set up for wine tasting competition

 

Anchovy and Onion Coca

Different options, open face or rolled up

Lace making, the color pins are all straight pins to hold in place!  You can see the finished product rolled up on top

Tables of lace making, grouped by clubs it looked like

Beautiful dresses all hand made, including the petticoats!

Local band at the fair

On the way back to the car we decided to head to another part of Old Town to see if the church was open.  They were part way through the service, but we still went in.  It was right before communion, I remember leaving church when communion was starting, but I never remember getting into church when communion was starting, times change as you get older.  Made for a very quick service, which is fine since we understand so little anyway.  They had a choir, and a beautiful organ, and since we were so late it was free since we missed the offering.  

Back home and we really didn’t need anything for lunch since we done so many samples at the food fair.   We called the golf course and got a 3:20 tee time.  There is no such thing as twilight rates here, it is the same no matter what time of day.  We were just the 2 of is, on a nice little 9 hole course that you play twice, with the tees in different places on most holes depending on whether you are playing the front or back nine.  Some beautiful views of the mountains, and very different aiming over on olive tree, or a palm tree.  It was a pretty long course, 6600 yds. for me, 5600 for Wendy.  Another challenge is everything is measured in metres, and to the front of the green, very different.  A few times I wished I had my sky caddie with me. Another funny thing was we had to buy insurance 1.50 Euro per person.  So along with buying tees, balls, rental clubs, pull carts, and green fees, and insurance about 80.00 cdn per person, for a really fun afternoon.  It was quite quiet so we were done in around 4 hours. I managed to get my first birdie of the year, and my first bogie, double bogie and triple bogie.  You had to have a handicap of 36 for a woman or 28 for a man to be able to play here, could all our friends have played?  Wendy duffed about her first 5 shots, if they would have been watching they may have pulled her off the course.  I hit the par 3 first hole first shot, but then 3 putted.  I finished with 95, Wendy with 105, so we got our money’s worth in shots. 

Beautiful views on the golf course

Old club house, just like Pine Needles they now have a new one

Did I make this putt, no....

Wendys new shoes, she asked me to make sure they were in a picture, not sure if they needed to be this close

Don't you hate it when there is a palm tree between you and the green

Or an olive tree in the way

Grape fields lined the course on some holes

For supper we decide to take the owners of the apartment recommendation and go to the restaurant called Tosca,  It is the one closest to our place, just before the beach starts.  We had a lovely meal.  The meal of the day was a bit more expensive than what most places charge but since we are winding down here we decided to splurge.  We started off with a tiny bowl of gazpacho soup.  Followed by calamari for me and a nice salad for Wendy.  We were served a nice refreshing orange sorbet before our main course.  I had a delicious lamb for my main and Wendy had baked sea bream in salt.  The waiter fileted it at table side.  We finished the meal with a mascarpone cheese pudding and a meringue.  The 2 desserts were delicious. The meal came with a nice bottle of red wine.  The bill came with a glass of something to finish our meal, not that we needed anymore to drink.  The bill was about $60 Canadian.  All in all is was one of the best meals we had since we got here or anywhere.

Calamari app

Sea bream baked in salt

Delicious lamb shoulder and sea bream for Wendy.