Baeza and driving home

A room with a vew

We went down for breakfast around 8:30 which was included in our room rate.  I was ok for breakfast as enough to get us going.  They had toast, yogurts, fruits, cereal, cheese, ham, bread, cake and juice/coffee/tea.

We left the room around 9:00 to  explore the monuments that we had not seen yesterday here in Baeza.  We ended up walking to the bull ring which was built in the late 1800s. Not open to the public at this time of the day and not sure if it is ever except for events.  We then walked a little bit further from the center to town to see a few more palaces.  Along the way we found a nice little park.  Parks are usually not found in the old section of towns and this one was a couple of blocks away from there.  Very lovely place and quiet this time of the day.  I can imagine it is busy in the summer when it is 40 degrees.  There was also a swimming pool in the park which I am sure it is well used when it gets warmer.

Statue near our hotel

Much clearer this morning

A bit of fog in the eastern mountains

Another beautiful home

Very quiet streets at this time of the morning

Baeza bull ring

Seniors home. All the trees were done like this

These 2 were fighting

 We then walked back to the cathedral via some streets we had not been on yet to look at some of the majestic homes.  One of them had been converted into a hotel which I invited myself him.  I asked the clerk if we could go see the courtyard and he said yes.  Looked very nice and I am sure a few more $$$$ that what we paid to stay at our hotel.

Palace which has been converted into a hotel

entrance of the hotel

People here in Spain keep their places clean

From there we headed to the cathedral for 10:30 when it opened so we could climb the bell tower.  It is between 116 and 170 steps.  We counted on the way down and then stopped to talk to 3 Dutch people who were looking at going up.  By that time I was thinking it was 170 steps and Wendy was thinking 116.  Not sure who was right.  Either way it is many steps up and down.  The views from the top were amazing.  Today the sky is clear and you can see much better. I think the Dutch people decided not to go up.  I am so happy we are doing things now and not waiting until later in life.

                                                                                                                

We are going where. To the top.

This is the easy part

View from the top

There is a warning that it is loud at noon.

Love these old rooftop

Many more than what you see

Practicing for Easter

                                                          

Returned back to the hotel and packed up and checked out.  Wendy tells the clerk who only speaks Spanish to us that we were in room trois quarte.  I tell her tres quarto. Once we are all paid I pull out my map hoping for her to tell me some stops we should stop on the way home.  I should have known better that this was not going to work out. (Joey I walked away when Andre told me he was going to ask this poor front desk clerk who spoke 0 English where we should stop on the back roads going home, I walked away laughing so thinking of you!)

We had decided not to take the road back to Granada via Jaen.  Instead we were going to take the back from to Granada via Ubeda and then south.    The first bit was very nice, once again lots of olive trees with views of the mountains.  We took one side road to a town that was about 3KM to find a castle.  The road leading up to the town was very narrow and twisty.  We did not see what road to take to go up to the castle so we just drove thru the town and headed back to the main road. If the road leading to town was that bad, it was probably a good thing we did not find the road to the castle which was about 3 KM behind the town.

View of Ubeda

For sale, low price, drive by shhoting

The sign says it all

We then got to a town where we had 2 options which one would take us thru the mountains or a direct route to Granada.  We choose the later.  We drove about 3 km on paved road and then it turned into gravel with a sign saying it was a 16 million € EU project.  We figured it would turned back to paved road shortly.  Our assumptions proved wrong and we ended up driving for about 25 km on gravel roads.  I guess the EU project got put on hold.  We did not see another car during this time.  I guess all the local knew about it.  We did see a few odd farmers tending to their olive trees.  We kinda wished we had taken the pass thru the mountains but were afraid that there might have been snow at higher altitudes as the top of the mountains were all white, we will never know.

The end of gravel

Some beautiful scenery along the way

We saw lots of magpies along the way as well

Once we got back to paved road, we were in outside Granada in no time.  The mountains behind Granada were pure white.  Since the sky was clear, you were able to even see the chair lifts.  We saw one car pass us with skis which I imagine were heading to the hills.  It was much clearer today than when we went to Granada and there was a lot more snow on the mountains. This is probably the rain we got Wednesday & Thursday which would have fallen as snow on the mountains.

The ski hill behind Granada.  The Sierra Nevada

From Granada it was all highways to Motril.  We decided to stop at one town the owners had recommended.  Unfortunately we missed a turn and instead of turning around, we decided to go home.  It was about 2:30 now and we had not had lunch yet.  Back in Nerja, all the parking spots were taken on our street, so we waited on top of the street and a car left within 5 minutes.  Yahoo.  Wendy saw the apartment owner on Vicente outdoor patio, so we dropped our bags in the apartment and headed over.  They offered to buy is a drink which was much needed by this time.  We chatted about our adventures that we did so far. They told us about a video of the Balcon that was on YouTube film by a helicopter that I had already seen. We spent about 1 hour with them and we parted ways. 

It was now 4PM and we were really ready for lunch.  We walked to a Mexican restaurant at the end of our street where we had the menu of the day.  Quesadilla & soup to start with followed by burrito & chimichanga plus dessert & a glass of red wine each.  We sat outside in the full sun and had to go in for dessert as it was too hot.  It is much busier as there was a steady flow of people walking by our table while we had lunch.

We then walked to the Balcon to see what was happening.   Once again, tons of people in the main square and on the Balcon.  We saw one couple with a helicopter and I told Wendy that he might fly it to record it with a small camera.  It took him a few minutes to get set up and then he launched his helicopter.  He had a remote control with a pair of 3D looking glasses.  He must have gone about 1 KM along the beaches before returning back to the Balcon.  Here is the link to the one I had seen.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPp-oX6dHAc

Lots of people today, everywhere in town

No wind and hot today

I want one of these, please Wendy

Pretty High Tech

Off we go

The ice cream stores had lineups, probably nothing compared to summer time

We headed back to the apartment for some R&R.  I worked on the pictures & blog and Wendy enjoyed a siesta.  It was a beautiful day here today with no wind at all and probably around 22 to 25 degrees.  We saw quite a few people that had way too much sun today.  They will be paying the price tomorrow.

We headed into town around 8PM for drinks and tapas.  We headed up one street and as we are looking into the round bar, this man starts talking to us.  Ok, I figure we have that friendly looking faces that people can’t get enough. No. He recognized us from our blog.  We had a lovely chat with him, his wife and daughter.  They were the UK.  We moved on and eventually got back to the main plaza where we finally stopped at a bar.  We both had red wine and Wendy had paella & curry chicken for me.  We then walked to little Italy hoping to get a table and share a pizza.  There were 2 or 3 groups waiting for a table so we decided to move on.  We ended up at the round bar for another glass of red wine, Wendy had a small stuffed red pepper and I had pork in a tomato sauce.  Both places were very good but the round bar being the busiest.  It was also 1€ cheaper, it was only 4€ for a drink each and a tapas compared to 5€ at the first place