Wanderung 19

Meandering the Mediterranean

Transatlantic Cruise

April - May 2009

Tuesday, April 15th, 2009, Almira, Spain

Bob:

Lois and Phyllis hied themselves off to Granada to see the Alhambra Palace while Monika and I wandered about the port city of Almira, Spain, for the day. In the morning we walked up a small hill at the edge of town to the Alcazaba fortress on top. The Alcazaba is really quite a decent sized complex, and the huge stone wall running down the hill, across the valley, and up the other side to another fortress, is quite impressive.

We walked around inside the Alcazaba for a couple of hours, exploring it thoroughly. The gardens that lead uphill to the main complex are quite pretty and spring flowers were already blooming even though it was cool and very windy on the day we visited. Of course, everything in the gardens was irrigated as this area of Spain seems to be semi-desert. Similar to the Generalife gardens of the Alhambra, water was flowing through channels and bubbling up through fountains located at several beautiful nooks in the garden complex.


 

Much of the Alcazaba is still being archaeologically excavated and is therefore off limits to us tourists, but still there were a lot of the reconstructed areas that we could wander at will in. As Americans, we were surprised at the lack of railings or guardrails on the steep and often somewhat treacherous staircases, but Spain (and possibly Europe in general) appears to be a less litigious culture compared to the U.S.

The vistas from the top of the towers were well worth the climb. Down in the port we could see the Noordam docked in the harbor right next to the center of the city. Looking inland we could see other parts of the Alcazaba complex and the dry, dusty, brown hills beyond. In the valley below was an animal sanctuary for endangered species native to North Africa, if I understood the Spanish correctly. Speaking of which, all the signs were in Spanish only, and I did wish that I could have purchased a brochure with the English translation for each of those descriptive and historical signs.

We had our snack in the main courtyard of the Alcazaba while being entertained by watching a group of school children have lunch. Besides eating, they ran around the central pool (boys), watched the fish (both sexes), chased the cat (girls), splashed water on each other (girls), played patty-cake (girls) and came over to try to chat with the Strange Americans (both sexes) asking for our names. They giggled and chattered and in general made the rather staid old ruin of a place quite lively with all their surplus energy.

After lunch we came back down the hill and followed the map and GPS through the streets to the main shopping street in Almira. We were looking for beer, candy and hats to protect my (balding) head in particular from the very strong sunshine. Beer and candy we found in a Carrefours store, but no hats. Nearby was the old Mercado building, still an active food market, and we stopped in there just to smell the smells and see what all was for sale. The fresh vegetables, fruits, meat, and fish I had all expected, but I was surprised to see the decapitated heads of pigs also for sale, including one that was half-stripped of its ears and cheeks. To me, it was gruesome, but for some Spanish folks I expect it was just "dinner".

After four hours of walking, I was getting weary so we headed back for the ship, keeping an eye our for an Internet cafe on the way. Fortunately, we did find one a couple blocks from the Information Center right across the street from the dock. In stark contrast to the ship's internet system, the computers in the cyber cafe only cost us 1 Euro to work on our email for an hour, which was just enough time to catch up.

Bob:

I staggered back to the ship to lie down for a nap, but Monika picked up some nachos from the Lido deck to go with her beer, and then charged off for another hour of walking around town looking for some hats. Her persistence paid off and she found two nice baseball caps in a light and dark blue color for 2.50 Euro each, about 1/4 of what a similar hat on the ship would have cost.

At dinner we were reunited with Ralph and Joyce, who had mostly recovered from her illness, as well as Bob and Darleen, so we all had a grand time chatting about the different things we had each done during the day. The evening show was a trio of flamenco dancers, two female and one male, who gave quite a performance. And so to bed.

Monika:

The days walk and climb in the sun had made it clear to me, that we needed new hats, since we had forgotten our Charging Charly hats. I was not willing to spend $10 the ship charged (even on sale), so after having a light snack (nachos and beer) I went back into town. I had at least an hour left before the "All Aboard", so I walked along the harbor hoping to find a tacky T-shirt shop of the type that would grace any self-respecting American tourist area. But none such was to be found. Finally I was almost at the end of the harbor and about ready to turn around, when I saw a little dollar type store. I looked all over, until I saw a large selection of hats at 3 Euros each. I picked out two of the less garish ones (a light blue and a dark blue one) and was charged only 5 Euros.

I was happy with my purchases but it was getting late. I hurried back to the ship and was glad to see that the excursion folks were still waiting for the last bus to come in, of course the one from Granada with my sisters-in-law. So I waited another 5 minutes until the bus pulled up and I saw Phyllis and Lois waving at the window. I was glad they made it, but did not want to slow down anything so I went back to our room to dress for dinner and left the chatting until we all were together at the dinner table. They enjoyed seeing the Alhambra but had been cold and miserable because it had rained the whole time, whereas we had enjoyed sunshine on our visit last year.

Copyright 2009 by R. W. Holt and E. M. Holt
Index
Prolog Map of Transatlantic Cruise Map of Northern Italian Bus Trip Map of Eastern Mediterranean Cruise Epilog

April 2009
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8 9 10 11
12 13 14 15 16 17 18

Return to the Wanderungs Homepage.
Sign the Guestbook or Read the Guestbook.
Comments about this site? Email the Webmaster.
Contact Bob and Monika at bob_monika@hotmail.com.