Mountain Castles tours

Saturday, Wendy is very happy.  This weekend we will be exploring the area south of us.  We packed our small suitcase not knowing where we will be when it gets dark and driving home from some of these small back country roads are not something you want to do.

The plan is to visit the Vinalopo Castles along the upper and middle section of the so named river which we did not really see much off.  The drive to get to the start of the route was about 2 hours and about 120KM.  No speed records were done on this section as you can imagine averaging about 60 km an hour.  The road on this journey was twisty and up and down. Wendy commented that this is the first time she felt car sick while driving, it was that windy. Two things that the roads lack here in Spain compared to Canada are potholes and bumps in the roads. They are nice and smooth.  We drove thru a few small towns/villages some probably with no more than 15 houses.  Some of them were quite small.  You could almost see the entering and leaving wherever this was signs at the same time.  One area had lots of cherry trees.  That was the first time we saw much of them this vacation.  Also lots of areas on the side of the hills were terraced.  In one spot, we saw a sign for the Penella castle that was not on our list, so we turned down a narrow road.  There was a small ruin fenced in behind a house.  Good opportunity for a washroom break as there was no action happening here.  During our travels we have seen many bikers as well.  These guys must be in great shape going up the hills.

example of a little town we drove through today

Another small town we drove through on our castle and church tour day

Example of the many terraces

Lots of bikers out, I wouldn't have enjoyed it with no shoulders and very windy roads

We're not sure, but maybe snow in the mountains, it was cold up here today

Penella castle

Our first scheduled stop on our plan tour was Biar. 

We stopped outside town to visit to visit the Parish Church of the Assumption of the Virgin. It dates back to the 15th century.  Not a large church but beautiful.  From there you can see the Biar castle.

Biar Castle in Biar!!

Beautiful church in Biar

 The castle sits at the highest point in town so we stopped at the tourist information to make sure it was open and to see if there was anything else open.  The nice church in town only opens at 6, oh well there will be some more along the way I am sure.  We walked up to the castle where we pay 1 euro each to go to the top.  I can just imagine if Canada or the US had castles, how much we would have to pay.  The views of the valleys and the town below were very impressive.  On the way down back to the car, I noticed that one of the church doors was slightly open.  I peek in and there was 3 or 4 people in it.  I think one of the ladies was just there either just to check on it or something, so Wendy and I did a quick 5 minutes tour as the other people were also leaving and she was closing up.  Lucky us to be able to visit the church.  It dates  back to the 15^th century.  The carvings outside doorway looked like it was still original, very weathered.

View from Castle in Biar

Big steps have been redone in this tower

Church in town

Small chapel off main sanctuary

Church in town

Our next stop was in Villena.  It has a beautiful tower protected by a set of double walls.  It became the prototype for all the regions walled cities. We were not so lucky here as it is under major renovation and it was closed.  We stopped at the information center and did a virtual tour.  Looked impressive but not the same.  Bathroom break and we move on.

Anyone know a roofer?

Castle in Villena, closed for renovations :(

Next possible stop was Sax.  We saw the castle from a distance and it was perched high on a cliff.  We decided to pass as it looked pretty high up and we still had a few more stops to do as well.

In Novelda, outside town, there is a small modern church like the one Gaudi started building in Barcelona. It took 30 years to build.  This town is famous for its marble and the entrance of the church had some beautiful red marble arches.  It is now 2:05 and the church closes at 2 until 4 for siesta.  Lucky for us 2 couples are finishing their visit and we can go in for 2 minutes to visit.  We missed the organ that is being built in red marble but otherwise the outside of the church is by far the most impressive part.

Church outside Novelda

Outside of Church outside Novelda

Red marble

Outside of church was so impressive.

From there we head to town which is about 5-10 minutes from where the church is.  We ask a local where to go eat as most everything looks closed.  She recommends a place down a pedestrian walkway and proceed to tell us how good it is in Spanish and not very expensive.  We find the place and with the Spanish we know, we order lunch.  They started with serving us some lightly toasted crusty bread drizzled with olive oil.  Wendy started her meal with a rice soup with Sepia (fish similar to squid) and I had some type of tortilla.  This is a Spanish typical dish similar to an omelet.   Mine was had multiple layers, zucchinis, tuna, cheese and spinach with layers of eggs between each.  Wendy had a leg of chicken with a wonderful sauce and I had 2 fried fish similar to smelts.  Dessert was melon and I had cream caramel which is one of my favorite and is very typical here.  Meal came with a drink each, beer for me and water for Wendy.  The beer was so good; I had to have another one.  The bill came to about $30 Canadian.  We left the restaurant after 4 pm and there was still about 20 locals having lunch.  I think we were the only 2 tourists in the whole place which when we came in there were only 3 empty tables.  I think this is maybe the "Cheers" place of this town, everyone seemed to know each other.  We went to see if the info center or the main church were open but no luck this time.

City hall

Restaurant for lunch when we left

  

From there we headed towards Elche.  This town is famous for its palm trees which date back to from the times of the Moors controlled the city in the 10^th century.  There are over 200,000 of them.  We had a bit of a hard time to find where we should go to view them.  I figured there would be a specific area that might be prettier and organized for walking.  Not the case as they cover a large part of the city.  We park on the side of a street and found a nice pedestrian walkway with palm trees everywhere.  Quite a unique thing to see. 

Palm trees in Elche, they are everywhere in this city, especially in this park

At this point we were about a 90 minutes’ drive from home.  We decide to go home instead of staying the night as the skies were getting darker and rain was in the forecast which we got on the drive home.

Sign means no passing

Many of the beach towns we passed have these huge highrises, we are so happy to be staying in a town that did not allow this type of development

Not sure what this is, or if it is finished.

  We decided to go for pizza for supper in the beach area of town since neither one of us were very hungry after a big and late lunch.  We ordered the house special.  It was prosciutto ham, rocket salad and wild mushroom with some yummy cheese which I can`t remember.  The pizza was cooked in a wood fire oven and was delicious.  Will need to do this again.  There were so many tables of large family and friends that arrived about the same time we did around 9 pm.  Many of them had young kids.  Liam would not do well here.  Pizza and a couple of glasses of wine, a perfect end to the day.

Tomorrow we plan to visit some beaches.