Ubeda & Baeza

A quick breakfast & packing for the weekend and we are out the door by 8AM.  We decided to go to Ubeda first and then return to Baeza for the night and some visiting and finish visiting Baeza in the morning if needed.

The drive to Ubeda took about 3 hours with a stop at a gas station to use the facilities and pick up a bag of spicy Doritos.   We had done part of this drive when we went to Granada but it is still a lovely scenic route.  After Granada we hit olive country.  That was all we saw for miles in all directions.  It is hard to imagine that many olive trees.  Someone told me it takes 5 kg of olives to make 1 litre of olive oil.  Not sure how many kilos of olives an olive tree produces.

After Ganada, this was prety much what we saw for the rest of the drive

A good part of the reason why it was smoggy looking

We first had planned on stopping in Jaen at the parador which has beautiful views of the town.  But the farmers were doing lots of burning and it was kinda smoggy, so we skipped that part.  The other reason is we would have to back track somewhat to go there.  Earlier in our travels we had also spoken to someone that worked at one of the Paradors and they told us to just give Juan a skip and to move on, so we did.

We got to Ubeda no problem and found underground parking on the edge of old town.  We headed into old town to find the information center.  It was now misty and foggy but not too cold and not too wet, so we are happy.  It kinda made for a strange feeling walking in these streets under these conditions, and should make for some good pictures if they turn out.  Felt like we were back in old times a little.

Love these book stalls in the squares

Not very useful when there is no sun

We found the world least friendly tourist person.  We asked her what we should do. She pointed out the things, gave us maps and then returns to her computer.  We might have interrupted her game of candy land or something.

We headed to the Cathedral that she recommended.   It was 4€ for a visit and we spent about 1 hour.  This church had almost all the styles imaginable, Gothic, Renaissance and everything in between.  Well worth a visit.  We had audiphones that told us what each important part of the church was, sometimes a little too much detail, but maybe we absorbed something on architecture.  One thing these audio tours do is get you to look at the details more, so many things we would have never noticed had they not been pointed out to us.

When we got out the fog had lifted. We went to the lookouts at the end of town to take in some views. We then followed the suggested streets in search for a restaurant to have lunch while admiring all the beautiful building & churches.  

For my Mother in Law, I hope I get brownie points for this

We came across a convent that you can buy I think mostly desserts from.  You don’t see anyone, you ring a bell, place your order and it is given to you through a little swinging revolving door/lazy susan.  I so wish we understood Spanish, there was quite a few selections, no pictures and we had no idea what to order.  In hindsight we should have just picked something and tried to order.  We have seen this once before, I think it was in Portugal, in a convent, and someone was there ordering and helped us out.

We found an Italian place to eat that had a menu of the dia for 10€ including a drink.  I had rice Cuban style which was rice with a tomato sauce followed by cod and ice cream with caramel sauce.  For dessert I had about 5 choices but all I understood from the waitress was caramelo something so that is what I picked.  Not much English in these towns.  Wendy had lasagna which was very good. I asked for vino tinto and Wendy asked for Aqua.  We got a 1 litre bottle of water and I got a ½ litre of red wine.  He says I can choose either with my menu.  The different thing about my meal is rice and cod were served with the same tomato sauce on top, cold.  Wendy thinks they forgot to turn on the burner, I think it is served this way purposely, but not sure.  The bill came to 21€ with tip.  We got there around 1:45 and there was only 1 table in the restaurant.  By the time we left 1 hour later, it was almost full.

My first course was bigger that my main course

After lunch we explored the town some more, just walked the small street and looking at the palaces,   churches and old buildings.  The palaces are more like noble homes dating back to the 1600s & 1700s when this town was in full economic boom.  It seemed like every time you turned a corner there was another palace to see.

The Cathedral

Little bar, love it

One of the gates into old town

We headed back to Baeza to find out hotel for the night.  It is only about 10 minutes’ drive between the 2 towns.  No problem finding the hotel. We rested until about 5:30 and then went out exploring.

The view from our room

The clerk told us we wee in room 3.4

Turned left instead of right coming out of the hotel and ended up on the edge of town with great views of the olive trees again.  There was a great walkway around this side of town which we followed back to old town.

Found the Cathedral and we were just in time to get in to view it before it closes.  They gave us headset to listen to the main point of the church.  We just finished in time before they were closing.  We did not have time to go up the bell tower and were given tickets to return tomorrow to do it. They had some beautiful old bibles & books on display.  The whole church was beautiful.

Book binding

Ceiling with beautiful chandelier

It was now time to eat, so we wandered the streets looking for suitable restaurants.  Not too many here.  We ended walking around a main plaza the hotel said we could get something to eat.  At the end of the square there was a store that sold olive oil and local food stuff.  We went in and a man helped us pick a good olive oil.  This area around Jaen province is famous for the quality and production of Olive oil.   We asked him for a restaurant recommendation and he gave us 2 on the square.  It was now almost 8, the first place was just opening and we looked at it and decided to go see the next.   The staffs were outside since it was not 8 yet but they said come in, we are open.  We decided to stay there.  They had daily specials on a blackboard, all in Spanish which we knew some of it.  The regular menu was available in English.  I chose pork cheeks and Wendy had chicken something in the oven.  The waitress said both choices were very good.  Wendy’s ended up being slow cooked chicken wings with lots of spices.  Both were very good but I think Wendy would have liked crispy chicken wings better.  2 small glasses of wine each and the bill came to 33€ with tips.  We got a slice of bread with a tomato sauce topped with a Spanish omelette each to start free.

We then walked around town to take some nighttime pictures.  A beautiful moon tonight and lots of stars to hopefully it is going to be a nice day tomorrow.  

Pointing to the moon

 It is very quiet in this town as well as Ubeda,    not many tourists at all day even for a Saturday.  We saw 1 busload on a tour and a few other ones walking with maps like us.  Most of them were Spanish.  I guess we are a little off the main tourist area.