Fiestas de San Jose at La Herradura

Woke up before the sun this morning, so I went and sat on the balcony and watch the sunrise.  A slight breeze compared to the last few days.

This morning, we walk/jog into town towards the balcon and the far beach on the edge of town.  We stretched our route by making a loop further up in the back of town.  Not as pretty as the other ways.  Will need to explore some more options when we go jogging that way.

We had our typical breakfast of corn flakes with bananas and strawberries for me and oatmeal for Wendy with a glass of freshly squeezed OJ each.

After breakfast, I walked up to the bus station and bought a ticket to go to the town La Herradura.  Lima might recognize the name as it means Horseshoe and that is one of the tequila she likes.  They are having a fiesta for the patron saint San Jose this week and today is the last day.  It is not very far from here, about a 15-20 minutes ride.  I find the information center but  it is not open because of the fiestas  today (this week?).

Old aqueduct - taking from teh bus

I walk down to the beach which is beautiful.  All along the main street, the fair is setup with all kinds of carnival rides.  Would be fun to have the grandkids here with me to go on the rides.

All over the place,  must be nice at nightime

The grandkids would have loved this place

Just missing a cold beverage

I walk to the far left side of the beach and climb up the hill to see if I can find a nice lookout to take some pictures.   Most of the street that goes up on the left side of the bay is built up with condo complex or nice homes blocking the view.  On the way down I see a little path leading down towards the bay and voila.  What a beautiful spot.

On the way up

From lookout spot

Flowering tree/bush

At noon, there was a church service in honour of San Jose.  The church was super full.  Standing room only,  I gave up my seat to an elderly couple that came in late as I was sitting at the back in case I decided to do an early exit.  They had 5 priests doing the service and most were younger than I was.  I guess not the same problem as in Canada where all the priests are over 65.  They also had a wonderful choir.

Before service

The band and all the locals except for me

Loved the reflection of the church in the tuba

After the service, the town band played outside in the church plaza.  A good group, probably 25 musicians.  They played for about 45 minutes.  With my musical talent, I think I could be in that band.  Just have to beat the guys holding the banner for the band. Otherwise no luck in joining them.

I think I could mange to be in the band if I can get his spot

Next on my list is food as it is now past 1PM.  I had noticed earlier that a food stalls area was set up, so I headed that way.  After checking all the stalls, I saw one place had sardines, so I ordered that.  I also ordered a glass of wine to go with it.  I got a free tapas, a thick slice of bacon on a piece of bread, 4.50 euros.  At another stall I got a beer and the free tapas was a ½ of a baked potato with garlic sour cream/mayo type sauce. 

Real sardines

Got on the 2:30 bus home and stopped for a little bit of groceries as I was walking by one of the groceries stores.

At lunch time, Wendy went for a walk along the beach on the right of us.  She says club Europa was good numbers.

After Wendy was done work, we changed our plans where we are going to stay next weekend.  It is a town about 1 hour from Ronda.   We were planning to go visit this area on Sunday.  Instead we will visit Ronda on Sunday and drive home from there.  We are staying at a Parador which is the state run hotels.   This one is in Arcos de la Fontera.   Usually they are historic properties of some kind or another but a few are just plain hotel like the one in our town where we are renting the apartment.  If so, they usually have fantastic views.  The one here overlooks the main beach in Nerja.

Before supper we walked around town for almost 1 hour.  Took some of the back streets and looped all around back to our apartment.

Sunset on our walk

We decided to go for paella at the restaurant in our building.  It was recommended by the apartment owners.  We started off with a glass of wine each and tapas.   We got tiny little fishes and mini eggrolls.  We have small fishes like these in Valencia last year with James & Karen.  These were not as good as they were already cooked and reheated for us.  I still liked them, Wendy not so much.  The paella was not the best I ever had.  It was too wet for me.  It was still good, especially since we had a second glass of wine.

Our free tapas

Paella

We played 2 game of crib which I won the first game. Wendy managed to do a big comeback and skunked me in the second game.  A bit of TV an off to bed we went.