We Love Mallorca

We are so grateful to have had the opportunity to visit Mallorca. We loved the hiking, the vistas, the quintessential European villages, the mountains, the shops, our little Nissan “race car,” the “petit hotel” where we stayed (including our stone garret with little windows that opened out onto the street), the food, and our time together.

View from our room.

We stayed in Alcudia, in the northern part of the island, which
is less crowded.

Let's buy this house. (Peggy?)

We took a short train ride from Soller to the Port.

Tourist.

Cloud 9.

Photo taken from inside the car.

Hike on our first day led us to this cove where we sat at a table in the sand for lunch.

It was hard to believe it was October. High 70s, low 80s. Just lovely.

Second day of hiking---a little more formidable! We
were headed to Ermita de la Victoria. (Thank goodness for
switchbacks.)

Best of both worlds: Hiking with vistas of  the Mediterranean and mountains.

Reminded us a little of Lagos, Portugal.

Mallorcan wild goat is unique to the Island. They were grazing all over the mountains.

Morning glories, as well as so many other flowers, were
still in full bloom. This area must get more rain and milder
temps than we do because many of the same flowers
where we live are past their prime.

Here's our little hotel--- a renovated 10th century building.
We stayed in the attic. Beautifully renovated.

Last day. Roads were steep and curvy. And driving our little rented Nissan car, which
hugged every turn, was a blast.

More vistas from the car.

We stopped at the village of  Deia for lunch.

Houses were perched on cliffs.

Quintessential European street scene.

A thirty minute walk from town, through the hills, brought us to this out-of-the-way
cafe on a cove. This was the hang-out for "local" Robert Graves and other
literati back in the day.

Our view from the restaurant.

By chance, we arrived in Alcudia on the first day of Feria, which is "the party of
the year." Unlike Andalucia where everyone gets dressed up in traditional garb, here
Feria was more like a county fair. 

We had a romantic meal here.

We only have high praise for Mallorca.
 If you have the chance to go, do it!
Hasta luego, Deb and Jim

Up in the Mountains by the Sea

Hola, friends. We've been lax about posting, but we've had a couple of really
great long weekend road trips. Here's the itinerary of this trip: Started at Point A in El Puerto
and drove 2.5 hours to the Costa del Sol (Point B) for the night. The next day we
drove to El Torcal (Point C), returning to Almunecar (Point D) that evening. The next day
we ventured  into the Alpujjaras mountains (Point E). Returned to Almunecar for
another night and drove home, stopping in Benhalmadena Pueblo (near Point B) for lunch.
Here's what we saw on our travels....

The wonderful thing about the Costa del Sol is that you can spend the night on
the Mediterranean and an hour later you're up in the Sierra Nevadas. 

High up in the mountains is this fabulous area called El Torcal de
Antequera. The landscape has enormous limestone blocks and ravines
and has eroded into an endless land of
whimsical sculptures.

We hiked around this area for a couple of hours in 107 degree temperatures.
Despite the sun and heat, there was a breeze and even some
shade on our route. The rock formations were crazy. 

Sometimes we felt like we were walking on a
lunar landscape.

Other times, we felt like we were in a petrified city that had once had
sacrificial alters at every street corner!

After a day of hiking in the mountains, we headed "home" to Almunecar on the
Mediterranean. This scene was just across the street from our hotel. It was the nicest
two-star hotel you could ever imagine. And the views weren't too shabby, either.

Next day, we headed to  Las Alpujarras, south of the Sierra Nevada, which has a
totally different look. For those of you who have read Driving Over Lemons, this is
the very area that the author was writing about. It's south of Granada, very scenic,
 and remote.

We kept driving up, up, and up. Unbeknownst to us this area is home to
painters, writers and a considerable foreign population.

It was surprising to see such a touristy pueblo blanco up here. But that's what
we found. Pampaneira was lovely. This area was originally populated by
Moors fleeing the Christian Reconquest and Moorish influence is still
evident today.

In the town, we walked up a maze of little streets and found this
old public laundry area (no longer in use).

Water flows down the center of the town through these
channels.

Pretty views.

There are hiking routes all over this area, leading from one pueblo blanco to
another, but we didn't have the time to do any hiking on this trip. This
is definitely a place we'd like to return to---maybe in the fall or spring
when temperatures are cooler.

Next pueblo up the mountain was Bubion. We met a woman, originally from Amsterdam,
 and gave her lift up the mountain. She and
her family had moved to Bubion 12 years ago, trading in
the fast-paced life in Amsterdam for slow, quiet, rural
life. She loved it here. Deb (pictured above) has settled down
to decide on what Moroccan pottery to buy (again).

Next was Capeliera. Both Bubion and Capeliera had a little artisan trade, but not
nearly as much as the more southernly Pampaneira. All three towns were picturesque in
their own way.

Here we are returning home, with a stop-off in Banalmedena-Pueblo. Such
a cute town. Those of you who've visited Mijas---it's closeby and similar.

Pretty little park in town.

This was a surprise. Heading out of town, we saw this unusual structure and
stopped only long enough to take a photo. Found out later that this is
the Suta of the Illumination---the largest Buddhist Temple in western Europe.
It's relatively new (2005) and wasn't mentioned in our (obvioiusly) old guide book.
Definitely would like to return to snoop around more...

Two hours later. Here we are, home sweet home.
(Deb did not leave Jim behind, by the way; he's
taking the picture!). Hasta luego!

Scents of Spain

"The first condition of understanding a country is to smell it."---Rudyard Kipling

We're not sure if we agree with this statement, but it did get us thinking about what we smell in our little corner of Spain. After all, we have chronicled our travels with pictures of what we see. We have focused a lot on what we hear (Spanish conversation, children playing outside til midnight, roosters crowing). But what smells are quintessentially of this place? Smells, that if we ran across them five years from now, would immediately evoke the memory of our time here?

To answer this question, we've spent some time being "odiferously" aware. Here's our top six smelling experiences:

1. Arriving home after a road trip in a closed car with stale, refrigerated AC air, we step out and immediately smell the ocean. We can't see it from our driveway, but we know it is just beyond. The air smells fresh and salty.

2. Honeysuckle. On our walk down the long flight of stairs to the beach, we sniff the sweet scent of honeysuckle that lines the path. Honeysuckle in America smells the same as it does in Spain.

3. Dama de Noche. In our little yard we have two dama de noche trees. Starting in June, they emit this incredibly strong perfume about 9:30 at night when the sun is going down. It's so strong that we smell it upstairs in the bedroom when we go to sleep. Traces of the fragrance linger into the morning when we come downstairs to the living room. (It keeps the mosquitoes away, too!)

4. Fish frying. Especially around 3:00 on Sunday afternoons. The Spanish love their Sunday family meals, and fried seafood is a staple at every restaurant. Bar la Palma is closeby on the beach, and by noon, as we sit on our patio, we get wafts of fish fry coming our way.

5. An occasional whiff of sewer. That may not sound very pleasant, but it really is, in its own way. We wouldn't want a steady diet of it, but the occasional waft reminds us that we are in Europe, not sanitized America. We noticed the same familiar scent in Athens, Istanbul, Germany, and Portugal, too. 

6. The smell of goat hide. We bought a leather pouff in Morocco made of goat skin and it sits in our living room. For the first three months, every time Deb would come down in the early morning, she'd get these subtle wafts of "fresh" hide (this is a different odor than new leather). A lot of sheep, goat and camel skins are sold in Morocco and Spain and if you go into any of these shops, you can't help but notice the scent. The smell in our living room has thankfully faded over time, although every now and then you get a reminder.

So, there's our "aroma round-up" of Andalucia.  By Rudyard Kipling's standards, we've gotten a better understanding of this little part of the world. These scents will be fond souvenirs of our life here! Hasta luego, Deb and Jim