Francine has had the Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias [the City of Arts and Sciences] in Valencia on her hit list for some time. We’ve formerly braved the Spanish trains and travelled in to the city centre but the Arts and Sciences complex lies a little further out on the city’s eastern edge. A cab ride after the train would be possible but our pal who went to La Mancha with us was also up for a visit and offered to drive. There’s a big covered car park on site. Nice one, Jim.

What is the site? Built in an old riverbed (the river was drained and rerouted after a bad flood), it s a collection of six imaginatively and futuristically architected buildings, mostly brilliant white, housing arts centres and a science museum. Five of the buildings are brilliant white. The sixth and last to be built (in 2009), the so-called Agora, is, for some unaccountable reason a rather jarring [personal opinion] dark blue. It also seems to have fallen into disuse and currently stands empty, though works appear to be in progress.

Here’s a shot showing most of the site. immediately over the bridge is L’Hemisfèric (1998), including an IMAX cinema, planetarium and laserium. Behind that is El Museu de les Ciències Príncipe Felipe (2000), the science museum, followed by El Pont de l’Assut de l’Or (2008), a cable-stayed bridge which mercifully somewhat softens L’Àgora (2009). Whoever decided to destroy the otherwise harmonious integrity of the complex should be shot, IMHO. All L’Àgora needs is a coat of Dulux brilliant white. 😀 Just sneaking in on the right of the picture is L’Umbracle (2001), a sort of open, glassless greenhouse structure topping the multi-storey car park and housing palm trees and other plants.

As you see from the above, the buildings are largely surrounded by water which can make for some impressive reflections, given the right conditions, i.e. no wind causing ripples. Regrettably, from a wildlife enthusiast’s viewpoint, all the water is utterly sterile – lifeless. Well, except for the team of men in waders vacuuming the pools clean.

The site itself is freely open to the public but the buildings have entrance fees. We chose to go into the science museum [left of picture] – echoes of childhood visits to London, I suppose. Frankly, I was underwhelmed, though maybe I’d be underwhelmed by the science museum in London, these days. I’m not a great museum fan at the best of times. The exhibits in here seemed to be designed to entertain the younger minds rather than necessarily to educate, though some education would be likely to rub off. There also seemed to be an awful lot of empty space being put to no use whatsoever.

Hidden by L’Àgora is L’Oceanogràfic (2003), an open air oceanographic park, which is more expensive to get into. I now suspect that would be more satisfying, so maybe on another visit.

Behind the viewpoint on that general picture is El Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia (2005), an opera house and performing arts centre.The roof of this structure absolutely amazed me. The building reminded me of a humpback whale porpoising. Seen from one side [front?], the roof, which had the appearance of the whale’s top jaw, seems to hang magically in mid-air, “just the way bricks don’t” [to quote the late, great Douglas Adams],with no visible means of support. When we walked around the other end of the building [back?], the support structure is seen but it is still quite incredible, a single angled anchor point bearing the weight of the entire curved roof structure. Quite staggering; just imagine the cantilever forces acting on that single support point.

Architecturally, we thought the complex very impressive, Not bad for a self-confessed art numbskull, such as myself. One word of warning to would be visitors, though: beware of being run down by the many bicycles as you gawp at the buildings. 😉

We need to go back for some night shots, now we know how to get there.

Prior to becoming somewhat familiar with Spain, we used to say that the Austrians would have a fest [festival] at the drop of hat. On our journey back from camping in Italy many years ago, we crossed the Dolomites into Austria, pitched up and stumbled, somewhat literally because of drink, into their local waldfest [forest festival]. Headaches and falling off bicycles aside, it was jolly good fun.

In a similar fashion, the Spanish are well known for being particular fond of a damn good fiesta. Last year, we suffered at the hands of our neighbouring village, Alcalalí, which chose to end its fiesta on the night before our 800km/500ml drive back to France. Fun though a fiesta might be, the problem with the Spanish approach to the celebrations is that a rock concert tends to wind up the proceedings, typically kicking off shortly before midnight. This one finally finished at 05:00. Most civilized nations would have noise-abatement laws kicking in just as the Spanish are getting warmed up to keep you awake all night and deprive you of the sleep required to do anything constructive on the following day. Well, given that it is now well past midnight, of course, it isn’t actually the following day, it’s today.

This weekend is filled with Xalónia, 2017, Xaló being the Valenciana name of our local Spanish town, Jalón.. I’m not sure whether Xalónia is regarded as a fiesta, as such, but it’s a local town celebration that shares much with fiestas, particularly a late night/early morning concert. The concert was last night. We were “treated” to an evening filled with what I think were sound checks, less than rehearsals, prior to the event proper finally kicking off.The speakers were all aimed at our hillside. Fed up with tuneless practice drums, amplification and  and mic checks, Francine and I wandered down at 21:30 to have a squint. The town streets were absolutely heaving. Not wanting any more food or drink in a crush of people, we wandered back and waited for the aural assault to commence.

Commence it did at about 23:45. We tried our anti-Spanish-fiesta earplugs, specially purchased after last year’s Alcalalí experience, for the first time. Almost completely useless, I’d say; I could still hear our almost silent ceiling fan turning languidly above our heads. Furthermore, the ear[lugs are not the most comfortable contraption invented. This didn’t stop Francine who was soon in the land of nod. I unplugged myself. Actually, the concert was not so bad, certainly less intrusive than the closing concert of Alcalalí had been, and I did sleep.

Today we wandered down to take a more active part in day #2 of the festivities. Again, the town was very busy so we must award this event a high success rating. Approaching midday, many were taking advantage of the various local bodegas offering wine, a local butcher with enormous BBQs set up, vendors grilling squid, octopus and cuttlefish, others selling slices tortillas … you name it. Like the parting of the Red Sea, the throngs had to divide to allow a band through.

Whilst the food and drink was very welcome, what had really interested us was a demonstration of Muixeranga. We’d seen this on telly, as practised in Catalonia. This was the Valencian version and we were keen to witness it first hand. The most interesting component, maybe the main component, is groups of people building human pyramids or towers. A bunch of beefy folk form the base of the pyramid, then others climb up to form a second layer, and so on. I think the tallest we saw today was five layers.

It seems to be largely a family affair. Smaller children are used to top off the pyramid; sometimes these children are very small. Crash helmets on the smaller children give a nod to health and safety, though the ground beneath them is very hard should they not land on the human cushion provided by their base layer. The several teams moved around the town, starting in the main town square, where the towers seemed to be kept to a modest three layers.

The teams moved to an area at the end of food and drink alley where they began getting more adventurous and going up to five layers.

Francine was snapping away as I watched. Something very unusual happened, where children are concerned: I was moved to tears as a tiny little girl began climbing up to top off a 5-layer tower when, about half-way up, it all got too much for her and she bottled out and climbed back down. I felt so sorry for her. At least mum consoled her with a cuddle. Doubtless, the stress of several public performances before large crowds became too much for the poor little mite.

The costumes for the beefy support folks included a sort of cummerbund, a lengthy chunk of woven material wrapped firmly around their middles. This, I imagine, is the direct equivalent of the leather belts worn by weightlifters, worn for precisely the same reason, namely to give additional core strength [very Strictly] and to stop your kidneys popping out under the pressure.

Music accompanies the building of the towers. Groups of musicians playing drums, I think called tabals, and wind instruments called dolçainas, fire up. The latter resembles a short oboe, in that it is a twin-reed instrument sounding akin to a the noise that might be made by a ruptured mallard. I remember such a description from schooldays being associated with an oboe when one of the two reeds split. Yes, I flirted (badly) with an orchestra, many years ago.

It was all very congenial rather than competitive, with teams helping each other out as necessary. Quite a spectacle.

Last year, on our car trip over to Spain through Bilbao, on our return journey we chose to stop overnight at Miranda de Ebro. Our chosen hotel was a converted convent or monastery (too many bottles of wine ago) and was within easy walking distance of the main downtown area. After checking in and freshening up, we wandered down in the evening in search of food. Echoing around our heads was a phrase from a neighbour along the lines of, wherever you are in Spain, you can find a decent local establishment selling nosh. It was about 19:00.

We set off and soon crossed the Ebro river into the main town area. We found a pedestrian street, the way I imagine Las Ramblas in Barcelona to be (I’ve not actually been there), where there were lots of other local people promenading. We found several bars with outside tables selling drinks, glasses of wine were typically 1€ each. We lashed out and indulged. What we did not notice were any restaurants of any description. We indulged again.

Wandering further we continued not to find anything resembling a restaurant. Time wore on and after 20:30-ish we began getting concerned – dinner began to appear to be an impossibility. Eventually, noticing a supermarket still trading, we went on a raid and bought a bagful of supplies that could serve as a picnic in our hotel room.

We were at a loss. Mranda de Ebro was a sizable, lively town; there were many people on the streets. There were surely eating establishments here but could we find one? No.

Now, here we were in Alcazar de San Juan. Having been cheapskates on our first evening here, so as to make an evening visit to a windmill installation possible, for our second evening, we thought we’d push the boat out on a proper restaurant meal. The town centre was only about a kilometre away so the three of us  set off on foot in search of a likely looking restaurant.

We hit town at about 19:30. Our first area was quiet but we did notice some sort of establishment … firmly closed. Nothing else being obvious, Jim resorted once again to 3G technology. We followed directions and ended up in what was clearly the main town square. Spotting the supposed restaurant we had been seeking proved difficult. One establishment looked like more of a wine bar full of bright young things, another looked like a real restaurant but was, yes, closed. Further exploration revealed little. We decided to head further out of the centre to a restaurant which Jim had found earlier and which had good reviews.

We passed another apparent restaurant (shut) and, after 15 minutes or so, found the 3G establishment. It was by now 20:30. This establishment appeared to be shut but a man was carrying seats out from the building to the pavement area. We questioned him as to whether it was open. “At 21:00”, was his jaunty reply. Actually, at first he said 22:00 but amended it to 21:00. Either he had made a genuine mistake or he saw a desperate look on our faces and took pity on us, changing his response to 21:00.

Either way, “Screw this”, we thought, collectively.

First of all, we’d have to kill another 30 minutes with no bar in sight. Then, once the place had deigned to open, we wouldn’t be ordering until almost 21:30. By the time we’d finished eating it’d be pressing 23:00 and then we’d have a 20-30 minute walk back to our hotel. We’d be collapsing into bed at 23:30-ish.

We couldn’t be arsed. We jointly decided to return to our trusty, excellent value hotel for another 9.50€ three course meal with wine and coffee included. At least it wasn’t just us; now we’d more or less repeated our Miranda de Ebro experience with someone who lives full time in Spain. Gracias a 3G, we may now have known more, though.

Here, in Alcazar de San Juan, was a restaurant just beginning to show signs of life at almost 21:00. Maybe in Miranda de Ebro last year, Francine and I had simply been looking for signs of restaurant life too early. I know the Spanish have a reputation for eating late but in Jalón, restaurants do at least open their doors for business earlier than that. Both Miranda de Ebro and Alcazar de San Juan, though, are real back-roads Spain, not towns filled with expats from other European countries. Here, they do things the Spanish way. The fact is, though, that we simply don’t want to be starting to eat as late as 22:00. 22:00 is my bed time. 😀

How different the world is. Many years ago, in New England, Francine and I had just managed to get into an American restaurant that was looking to lock its doors to any further customers at 19:30. That surprised us, too.

No wonder I like eating at home in the evening.

You really cannot move in La Mancha without being confronted by Don Quixote and his faithful servant, Sancho Panza: every wall of every hotel is adorned with Quixotic images; entrance ways feature statues; fountains in town squares are covered in ceramic representations; we even visited a cafe with curtains depicting the Don. That really is all there is.

With a passing irreverent thought, my mind drew a parallel between La Mancha and Belgium: it struck me that both places’ claim to fame is entirely fictitious. This, of course, is unfair to Belgium which did, at least, produce the extraordinarily successful cyclist, Eddy Merckx. However, to resume …

We enjoyed a much more adequate and cheaper breakfast than that provided by our Cuenca hotel – very edible croissants – before heading for our second dose of windmills at Consuegra. As we approached the windmill-topped hill, we could see that a couple of coaches had also headed there and a third was winding its way up the road. Here, there are 12 windmills with a photogenic castle roughly in the centre. That is, it would be photogenic were it not for the almost inevitable crane adorning it. At least now there was only a single crane; Google Earth had shown two when I was getting a sneak preview prior to our trip. We parked and studied the potential line-ups.

There was a biting wind, again. Our first job was to wait ~30 minutes for one of the busloads of tourists to clear our favoured scene. Being Japanese, they were all intent on having their pictures taken adopting strange poses slap bang in front of the windmills. One strange pose involved a skirt flying over a head in the wind, Marilyn Monroe fashion. Selfie stick [arghh!] after selfie stick [I hate the narcissistic contraptions] wandered slowly back to the bus, together with the occasional real camera, slightly down hill. Just as busload #1 was almost clear, busload #2 swarmed across the windmills with their chosen digital technology. Eventually patience paid off and we got our chance. Click, click, click!

Our friend Jim, armed with his on the road 3G, discovered that the Japanese are keen on the chivalrous Don Quixote because they think of him as a samurai. Go figure!

We wandered around looking for alternative angles. At the end of the run looking north, the castle could be made small enough to have the crane effectively removed. Digital darkroom rules, OK!

La Mancha is actually one large plain sitting at an elevation of 610m/2000ft. It is the largest plain in Spain. Presumably, this is the very plain upon which most of the rain in Spain stays. You get a good view of the plain from any of the windmill topped hills. Remembering the main importance of Wales in the world as a size comparand – you know the sort of thing: an area of jungle the size of Wales is felled in the Amazon basin every year – we dug out the size from the Rough Guide, in useless square kilometre units, and calculated that the plain of La Mancha is 10 times the size of Wales. Much more understandable; all was well. This kept us amused as we drove past an ironing board flat countryside filled largely with grapevines.

After two days tilting, La Mancha may have had us Don Qixoted and windmilled out but it did prove very hospitable. All our drink stops were accompanied by substantial tapas given gratis, just with your drink. Order three drinks (~1.50€ each) and you get a couple of tapas to accompany each. At a selection of establishments, we had been presented with pork scratchings, roast potatoes, wedges of tortilla, bread topped with ham and manchego cheese (from La Mancha), hard-boiled eggs topped with sardines, croquettes of various flavours … and so on. It felt as though we could actually have skipped ordering meals entirely and just kept drinking, which would also have filled our stomachs. We’re not used to this back in Jalón, where we’re lucky to get a bowl of peanuts, and that comes with or after the third round. I prefer the La Mancha approach, though not necessarily the pan-flat land.

After the windmills, we did drop into a wetland area, Las Tablas de Daimiel, which proved a pleasant walk, though a little slow on the entertainment front – too early at this altitude, I think. Most interesting here was several busloads of small Spanish schoolchildren who were both well controlled by their teachers and very polite, muttering “hola” or “buenos días”  to us as we came across them. Now there’s something that would never happen in the UK. They were walking along perfectly calmly in groups of three linked by their hands.Take note, Britain: it IS possible to transform your rugrats into pleasant children despite doing so being unfashionable currently. What a delight to see.

We called into another bar (there’s a surprise) in Daimiel itself for refreshment before returning to the hotel: two beers and a red wine. The waiter eventually returned with two beers and a whole unopened bottle of wine. He was at pains to explain the label to Francine, waxing lyrically in Spanish about how good this local La Mancha, ecological wine was. He then went through a delightful piece of theatre uncorking the bottle, turning aside and giving the withdrawn cork a darn good sniff, a look of intense concentration on his face. Apparently all was well. Satisfied that the wine was drinkable, he poured Francine a glass. I began wondering, firstly, if we’d be buying the whole bottle, and secondly, how much this apparently very special bottle might cost. Mr Waiter shortly returned with “un tapito” [a little tapa – new word for us] consisting of a plate of hand-carved jamon. It was excellent ham, too. More euro signs rolled around. Ching!

My fears were groundless, la cuenta [the bill] for three of us came to 5.10€. Ya gotta love it.

We’ve arrived in La Mancha, where Cervantes created Don Quixote’s adventures. There are several known episodes of the Don’s imagined chivalry but the most well known must be his tilting at windmills episode. Francine’s research had shown two main locations of collections of windmills, one at Consuegra and another at Campo de Criptana. The two towns are about 40kms apart. Hoping for the chance of morning and/or evening light, Francine decided to position us in between the two to make both reasonably accessible. We’d be staying at Alcázar de San Juan.

Our route in from Cuenca took us very close to Campo de Criptana so we called in en route at ~15:00. Our route was a good one, avoiding the tangle of the town and dropping us straight on to the field of windmills on the northern edge of town. I must say, they were an immediately impressive sight and conditions were very favourable with a mixture of sun, blue sky and cloud.

We parked in an area not favoured by anyone else thinking we’d lucked out even more. Then we spotted the busier parking area right on top of the windmills. In this now tourist-ridden world armed with all manner of digital photographic equipment, we wandered around the collection of 10 restored windmills, looking for appealing line-ups sans Joe Public armed with his selfie sticks, mobile phones, iPads, proper cameras and … wait for it …a swarm of 12 or so Italian motorcycles turned up whereupon one rider launched one of those accursed drone contraptions. For Darwin’s sake! Touring on a motorcycle with a drone in the side panniers? Maybe changes of clothing were seen as superfluous. It’s a good step from Italy to the middle of Spain.

We spent an enjoyable hour or so, drones aside, wandering in the sun and snapping various combinations of windmills, before threading our way through the town of Campo de Criptana towards our hotel at Alcázar de San Juan. One of the Italian motorcyclists, now also back on the road, had threaded his way into a Spanish couple’s car and was engaged in slightly animated discussions surrounded by broken red glass from the car’s rear light. That would’ve been interesting to overhear.

Francine had spotted a hill with a further four windmills. As we neared our destination, these proved to be a mere 2kms from our target. That’d make a good evening spot and, not being one of the main collections, would surely be quieter. We checked in, discovered that dinner at the hotel was cheap and served between 20:00 and 23:00 (mas o menos) [more or less] and went for an evening shoot.

Atop the hill it was blowing a gale. Francine put her tripod down, legs splayed but not extended, and it blew over. Furthermore, locals were up there picnicking and engaged in trysts inside cars. Cyclists kept popping up on the road over the hill; runners jogged around the windmills dressed in fluorescent clothing. At least there were no drones – in that wind, they’d have ended up back in Cuenca. There wasn’t any light to speak of, either, there being a collar of murk along the western horizon into which the sun had descended. We did take a couple of handheld shots to see what could be made of them in post-processing, though. Francine discovered something called direct positive that at least stuffed some blue into an otherwise bland sky. Useful.

We enjoyed a basic three course meal with coffee and wine for the princely sum of 9.50€ each.

Our ultimate goal on this road trip of four days is to go tilting at Don Quixote’s windmills in La Mancha. Given our relative locations, the town of Cuenca made a logical intermediate stopping point. There is a reason, of course: Cuenca is famous for its Casas Colgadas [Hanging Houses].

We checked in late afternoon yesterday. The hotel staff seemed friendly and the accommodation perfectly adequate, in a basic sort of way. Our hostess provided a map upon which she indicated the hotel, the main town area where we might find restaurants, and the old town area where we’d find the tourist sights of the hanging houses. After freshening up, we set off in search of sustenance.

We are travelling with a friend from our valley. After failing to spot any restaurants ourselves, Jim resorted to 3G technology to locate restaurants in relation to where we were. It was Monday. Most restaurants seem to close on Monday. Eventually, he found one that claimed to be open. We wandered to it as the rain began. It was firmly shut. Jim found another restaurant up in the old town. The rain increased in strength so we repaired to a bar to see how things developed. I wasn’t equipped with a waterproof of any description. The barman gave us some gherkins with our drinks; at least we wouldn’t starve.

The rain abated and we went outside. Francine spotted what looked like a restaurant down a side street. I investigated. It was. There was also another taberna nearby, which looked open but the outside menu implied no food on a Monday. We asked and were welcomed in. The meal was great.

This morning it was raining again. We sat watching the rain to the accompaniment of the worst breakfast I have ever experienced. There was a toast machine with, it appeared, tailor-made bread exactly matching its heating elements. I swear to a non-existent god that a 1×4 plank of balsa wood would’ve had more flavour and more texture. At least I got something resembling coffee. Advice: if anyone stops at the Buenavista Hotel in Cuenca, avoid their meagre morning offering and breakfast in town.

The rain eased off, though. We returned on foot to the old town and its hanging houses. It started raining again but a helpful local lady came out from her umbrella long enough to direct us to the best viewpoint. The Spanish are a generally friendly lot. Pants grey skies aside, here they are.

With a few dying spits, the rain eased off … mainly. We crossed that rather unattractive metal bridge to get a closer look. Personally, I was a little underwhelmed. It isn’t really the houses that are hanging, it’s their balconies, as this shot shows. The houses are certainly teetering on the edge of a precipice, though. The old town of Cuenca seems have been well protected, being essentially triangular with gorges on two of its sides. The second photograph gives an idea of one of the gorges.

My being underwhelmed by a tourist attraction is not an unusual state. In this case, given the weather, I wasn’t seeing the sight in the best light, though. In fact, there wasn’t a lot of light at all, and precious little colour. Personally, I found some of the other precipitously positioned more modern buildings more impressive visually.

Leaving the houses and their hanging balconies, we investigated the old town further. Francine began trying to make the most of the conditions by trying to get reflections and saturated colours from a saturated Cuenca. None of the locals appeared to be enjoying the conditions much, either.

Spits continued on and off. We found a very pleasant little bar for a better coffee, together with an edible pastry to fill some of the gap left by our inedible breakfast.

“Come to sunny Spain”, they said. Let’s hope we get better meteorological fortune at the Windmills, which is where we were heading next.

We’re on the road exploring for a few days, splashing out on some hotels. Francine has come up with a 4-day itinerary and our first overnight stop is Cuenca, where there are some famous so-called “hanging houses”. Before checking in for the night, though, our first stop en route was the nearby Ciudad Encantada [Enchanted City].

After a journey of 5 hours culminating in winding our way up about 30kms of mountain road – a better mountain road than most of our main roads, it must be said – we arrived at the entrance car park which appeared to be quite busy. Being 1:00 PM, as well as being thirsty, our worms were biting so we repaired initially to the bar beside the car park for beer and calamares. Their idea of a ración [portion] of calamares was just that, fried calamari rings; no adornment, no mayonnaise, from which it certainly would have benefitted. OK, though. Thirst and worms sated.

Our neighbours had told us about this place. They reported having seen loads of butterflies so I mounted my 300mm wildlife lens leaving Francine to deal with the landscapes. We crossed the road to pay our 5€ entrance fees.

OK, so just what is Ciudad Encantada [Enchanted City]? Well, according to the information boards it is a karst landscape. From what I can make out, as someone disinterested in geology, this involves the gradual dissolution by water of soluble rocks such as limestone. In the case of Ciudad Encantada, this process has resulted in several “whimsical shapes”. [Not my words; I don’t think I do whimsy.] We began our wander.

At this point, I’ll congratulate the organizers on their decision to make the circuit a one way walk. The main advantage of this is that, though there were many cars in car park, along with a few coaches, all having disgorged many people, since everyone is made to walk in the same direction, the place never felt crowded. Had it been a free for all, I suspect it might have been a different matter.

Naturally, the various formations have been given names. Some of the names are obvious enough and translate well into English, whilst others stretch the imagination a little. “What were they smoking when they named that?”, kind of thing. The most impressive shape in my view is at the beginning of the route, Tormo Alta, and is the one that troubles translation: just what a “High Tormo” might be, I know not.  Neither does my dictionary.

There were a few butterflies but just a few and those that I spotted kept flying through. Mind you, we were earlier in the year and there really wasn’t a great deal in the way of nectar to encourage them to stop. Having said that, I did amuse myself snagging a few plants, including this delightful little Angel’s Tears (Narcissus triandrus), which required a little dedication to snap.

Francine snapped away at the various formations around the circuit. She was also very happy to find a few examples of Early Purple Orchid lurking about. In the mountains and with some floral and butterfly interest – I did spot two Cleopatras (Gonepteryx cleopatra) fly through – It is a very pleasant walk no matter what one makes of the named rock formations. Here’s three of the formations that seem clear enough: Los Barcos [The Ships], La Cara Del Hombre [The Man’s Face] and Los Osos [The Bears].

In the “what were they smoking?” category, I’d put this, La Luche Entre El Elefante Y El Cocodrilo [Fight Between An Elephant And A Crocodile]. Well, OK, I suppose but decidedly complicated.

Ciudad Encantada was definitely worth a visit.

Elche lies a spit south-west of Alicante. In fact, the airport there is known as the Alicante-Elche Airport. Touristically, much is made of the Palmeral de Elche, the Elche Palm Grove. We fancied being tourists and going to investigate. Elche is close to the El Hondo nature reserve so our plan was to give Francine  some botanical interest in the morning, while nature was warming up, then move on to Hondo for some odonatology.

What we didn’t know was where to go to start. My investigations became quickly confused. I found that descriptions existed but precious few maps. Life became a little clearer when I read

The Palmeral de Elche is the generic name used to designate a system of date palm orchards in the city of Elche …in the urban area of Elche there are a total of 97 different orchards containing about 70,000 date palms.

Small wonder that I was having trouble finding a specific target with a dedicated parking place. Eventually I found a walk outlined, with a rudimentary map, so we headed for that.Francine took over from Sally Satnav and got us there. Our car park was beside a park. We wandered through that and picked up the designated walking route part way around and followed it backwards. 🙂

What we saw was not what we expected. Certainly there were very tall date palms but they appeared to be planted largely around rectangles of, well, drab soil devoid of anything else. This seemed curious. I suppose we were expecting something more ornamental  However, the lack of ornament MAY be explained by the fact that the female palms are actually a cash-generating crop producing dates, which we didn’t realize at the time of our visit. Maybe the empty gaps are needed for harvesting? Maybe it’s nothing to do with that at all? 🙂

A little underwhelmed, we left our initial track, which we discovered was actually a road as a car went past, and began trying to follow one of several footpaths through this particular plantation. This soon became quite difficult and the interest in the soil surrounding the palms changed not one jot – still bland. The palm trees were undoubtedly impressive, though.

We thought we were still on the designated footpath but we seemed to have come to a dead end. At least, without stepping over a low wall into a play area, it was a dead end. Stepping over the wall was no problem for either of us but it felt a little weird; surely not the intended route. However, we were now back on the main walking route that we’d originally joined. Tis took us past one of the palms that bears a name, in this case, the corkscrew, for obvious reasons.

The corkscrew looks a bit bedraggled at the top. Spain is suffering from a voracious invading red weevil which attacks palms and kills them. Regular large doses of insecticide are needed to keep the pest in check. Could it be that this poor old palm is suffering, Francine wondered? The Elche plantation is both a cash crop and a world heritage site so it could have devastating results. Worrying.

Towards the end of or walk, we came across what probably should have been our original target, a more formal garden called  Huerto del Cura, “a beautifully landscaped private garden” [according to the Rough Guide to Spain].

Coffee and Hondo called; we must return to Elche to look again. We must also remember to consult the Rough Guide in a more timely fashion next time destination confusion arises. Educational, though.

We have a couple of friends in the valley who enjoy going out to lunch. Lunches in Spain tend to be significant affairs with the local fondness of Menu del Día, consisting of at least two courses, and often running to three or even four. Our preference tends to be for light lunches with a main meal in the evening. However, when invited to join in today, we’d rather have socialized than not so we adjusted our normal eating habits accordingly.

The chosen venue was to be an establishment called Verdi Vent at Maserof, which is about half way up the road to the Sierra de Bernia, one of Francine’s orchid patches. A cunning plan developed; we could spend 90 minutes or so orchid hunting before a lunch that would be almost guaranteed to stop much further movement for the day. Lunch was set for 13:00 so we shot up the Bernia for 11:30, passing the restaurant on the way which didn’t look as if it was about to open. Faith, Franco. 🙂

Abandoning the car, we began combing the roadsides beneath the towering Bernia for orchids. Francine worked one side while I worked the other. We found three old faithfuls plus a new one for this site. Actually, this was only our second ever encounter with a Yellow Ophrys (Ophrys lutea). With the other three – Dull Ophrys (Ophrys fusca); Woodcock Ophrys (Ophrys scolopax); Mirror Ophrys (Ophrys speculum) – Francine could be described as a happy camper.

After a successful morning we meandered our way back down the long and winding road to the restaurant which was magically now open and absolutely heaving. Our friends were already there and shepherded us in through the door to a table at the rear beside a group of 19 birthday-celebrating Germans.

As we set about working our way through four courses, wine continually being topped up, an English group arrived and took up the one remaining empty table. Both the German group and the smaller English group were accompanied by a young girl. A musical trio fired up. [Oh joy! Actually, it wasn’t too bad but if I wanted music I’d go to …] The two girls soon began playing contentedly together, with absolutely no sign of any language barrier or self-consciousness. Now why can’t we adults do likewise?

My main event was duck, Francine’s main was lamb. Jim, our friend, waxed lyrical about his fillet steak declaring it the best he’d ever had. It was all very convivial.

We just about managed enough limb movement to get back to the cars and meander our way back down the mountain road to Jalón where we could continue digesting.

Just a bite of cheese in the evening, then.

Butterflies, some species at least, indulge in hill-topping; individuals tend to aggregate at the tops of hills. It is apparently a mate location behaviour.

A couple of kilometres down our Spanish valley is the village of Senija overlooking which is a decent hill topped by a cross (as is the habit here). First of all it provides a decent leg-loosening walk of about two hours up and down. Secondly, it is often typed by two species of Swallowtail butterfly, so I like going up there. Thirdly, Francine has seen orchids on the way up so she likes going there, too. The weather was clear and the temperature was reasonable, so off we set.

I should point out that we had a little trouble finding the correct route for this walk on our first attempt, several years ago now. Those responsible had chosen to mark the route with blobs of yellow paint. The paint inevitably gets somewhat weathered. You may also be aware that there are several species of lichen which tend to grow on rocks in a circular shapes, some of which are yellow in colour. I will leave you to draw your own confusion. 🙂

We know the way now. On the lower slopes was a tiny blue butterfly that I’m now used to seeing over here. Not being something we see in the UK, It’s always nice to try and get another picture of the flighty little creature, though. Not a perfect pose with a bit of leaf somewhat in the way but worth a few pixels: it’s the diminutive Panoptes Blue (Pseudophilotes panoptes).

Moving further up, Francine began spotting orchid stems. I say stems because several had gone over. She did, though find this lovely example of a Woodcock Orchid (Ophrys scolopax) which kept her knees and camera occupied for a while. While Francine was playing with her orchid, I was rather taken by some Rosy Garlic showing well against a nice dark background, so I joined the ranks of amateur flower photographers for a while. Flowers flap in the breeze but they don’t fly away. 😉

We gently continued our way to the top of the hill. Here, life was decidedly breezy but, as we’d hoped, there were indeed two species of Swallowtail zooming about, the [Common] Swallowtail (Papilio machaon) itself and the Iberian Swallowtail (Iphiclides feisthamelii). In these windy conditions, they weren’t settling much and I only managed to get a half-way decent shot of P. machaon.

As is usual here, there were also several Wall Browns (Lasiommata megera) settling on rocks. They have a frustrating habit of settling with their wings slightly open then, just as you acquire focus, snapping them shut. Such was the case today.

We made our way gradually back down again. Hopefully we’ll get a chance of a re[eat visit in slightly calmer conditions.