ALICANTE, ALTEA AND ALL POINTS INLAND

Our tour today takes us to Altea and Jalon in Spain. We docked early in the morning in Alicante and got on board a bus after breakfast for a 5 1/2 hour bus tour.

Alicante is in the southern part of the Valenci Community. It is a historic Mediterranean port. The population of the city of Alicante proper was 331,750, estimated as of 2008 ranking as the second-largest Valencian city.
Our bus ride took us through the countryside and our first stop was Altea.

It is located in the Spanish region of Alicante on the Costa Blanca.

This is without doubt one of the most charming towns to be found on Spain's "White Coast". If you want all night clubs and the bright city lights on your holiday this is not the place to go. This town is a holiday haven for the more discerning tourist who will be captivated by its medieval cobbled streets, its picture book old quarter and the delights of its palm-fringed seafront esplanade and cobblestone streets.

We visited old town and wandered through it's narrow streets.

From there we went to Jalon which was inland. Our guide and bus driver got into a lively discussion about the right way to get there, so the driver took our guide's advice and went his way. We ended up having to get help from a local officer since our guide had the wrong information.

As it turned out, the guides way had streets that were much too narrow for our bus to get through, so we had to get off the bus and wait until they solved this challenge. We all lined up and waited for the bus to take another route before we could re-board.

As we were waiting, we came upon this lovely little cafe where most of the people with us stopped for coffee.

Since there were so many of us, we went a little farther down the street and found a place that had just opened it's doors for the day.

The owner was brewing the coffee and Frank started to speak to him in Spanish. We were the only ones there at the time.

It was a charming little place and he and Frank carried on a lengthy conversation in Spanish as I sipped my cappuccino.

Our guide was much happier when this shot of him was taken. This was before the "mistake". No one likes to be proven wrong! From there we were on our way to Jalon.

Jalón Valley, which starts 22 kms inland, is famous for its groves of Citrus and Almond trees and its old Spanish villages where you can find Spanish restaurants, still serving the local food (like paella) cooked over wood fire.

The small town of Jalon is surrounded by the mountains of Sierra Bernia. Alcalali, Benichembla, Jalon, Lliber, Murla and Parcent are the towns that form the Jalon Valley.

The Valley is very famous for its wines. There are several wine bodegas to visit to sample their famous muscatel. There are also lots of cafes, a traditional Catholic church with restored bell tower, plus all the usual Spanish shops like this one.

Here is a photo of Frank posing for me as we took a little break. All this walking is about to wear us out!

There were flowers in window boxes on every corner in this charming little village.

And the doorways had strings of beads in them to keep the bugs out. We learned on our very first trip to Europe that geraniums in the window boxes keep the insects from coming into the houses as most European homes don't have screens. I thought that was interesting.

When we finally returned to the ship, Frank took a little rest. Guess speaking all that Spanish must have taxed his brain and it wore him out.

When we had rested up, we went to the Lido deck and started to play gin. One of the waiters named Ryan came over and taught us how to play a card game that the crew plays in their quarters. He was such a nice young man and really enjoyed teaching us this card game. Wish I could remember the name of it but it has slipped my mind.

Tonight we have another Broadway show to attend in the Vista Lounge. It was very entertaining as they all are.

As you can see, there are more Bob Mackie costumes for us to enjoy.
We had dinner with our new table mates along with John and Cathy. Here they are with our Captain.

This is the end of another wonderful day. We'd better get some rest as tomorrow is Casablanca and it will be a long day!

XOXO, Pcasso