Both slept soundly until 7:30 and felt somewhat restored. Downstairs to a huge buffet featuring a large ham sitting in a saddle. Ham slivers on toast drizzled with olive oil: world’s best breakfast! After carefully consulting maps we tried to figure out how to get to town without getting trapped in a tiny alleyway ending in steps, as has happened before. Actually we did OK, found an underground parking lot near the 2000-yr old Roman aqueduct and climbed up the hill into town, past an amazing carousel with large beetles, T-rexes, and models of the Titanic instead of simple horses! We followed Fodor’s walking route past churches, nunneries, around plazas to the main Cathedral and onto the Alcazar on the edge of town. Decided to leave the tourists pouring into the Castle and made our way back along the city wall. The views from the wall to the S, E, & W are of endless green plains stretching to mountains on the horizon. No slurbs or Wal-Mart’s mar the view from this treasure of a town! We stopped at a sidewalk café for pistachio ice cream and coffee and then returned to the car park and figured out how to extract our Golf successfully. Found the perimeter road and circled the town, slipping into one of the tiny parking areas and taking a short hike among brilliant wild flowers before returning to the Parador at 3:30 for a nap.
Anxious to get on line, I checked at the desk to see if they have wee-fee, as they call it here, and they actually did! Signed up for 24 hrs. Dashed back to the room and went through the usual computer frustration of having things not work…no sign of a wireless network@#$$#$ Meanwhile RRZ sat on the terrace logging in birds. There are more raptors flying around than he’s seen elsewhere; must be a very healthy ecosystem here…maybe the farmers don’t poison all the rodents and just let the hawks and eagles eat them? Also have seen many storks flying by and building huge stick nests on rooftops and chimneys.
We went down to the bar for Campari and soda and RRZ suggested maybe my wireless problem was due to distance, so ran back to the room for my computer and voila! On line in the bar! Went to dinner when the restaurant opened at 8:30..still broad daylight! I think the Spanish have skewed their clock to agree with the rest of Europe as the sun doesn’t rise until 7:30 and sets around 9:30, so eating at 10 PM isn’t really as exotic as it sounds, more like eating at 8 at home. Anyway found out that last night I had lamb sweetbreads with caramelized onions. Tonight we were handed English menus and I ordered rice with pork which came as very good risotto in a smoky ham broth with chunks of something fatty with a strange skin that I figured was pork tongue, but on glancing at the Spanish menu turned out to be boletes and morels. Pretty bizarre! Fig and chocolate soufflé for dessert.
Being Saturday night there was rock and roll blasting from the city plaza until midnight and mucho alegria!
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