19 January ’05, Thursday.
The final week here in Benidorm has just flown by. Fortunately for us, the weather has really been great. We looked at the extended forecast about 10 days ago and it looked like we would have at least 4 days of rain. How lucky can we get, we haven’t had but one night with a little wetness, and the days have been in the mid to high 60’s, sun and…beach weather. One of our neighbors, whom just arrived, heard about our “garage sale” and the fact that we had sold our lounge chairs, so they grabbed two of theirs and offered them to us until we leave on Saturday…that’s great neighbors… We stayed home on Tuesday sitting in our new borrowed lounge chairs and did our laundry. Yesterday we packed up and drove 6 miles down the coast to Calp. From just beyond our campground, we can see the magnificent limestone rock formation called Penyal d’Ifach. This large rock formation sits out at the end of a small peninsula from Calp, and looks like a small Gibraltar. Looking from Benidorm towards Calp, Penyal d’Ifach just seems to rise vertically (1087 feet) out of the sea. On a bright sunny day like today, the Penyal d’Ifach looks like it is on fire…really a pretty site. A point of interest about the rock is it was privately owned until 1987 when it was sold to the government. As Louise and I walked to the base of the rock, and around the marina, we were shocked by the amount of sea birds that have made this rock their home. They put on this little display, when one bird lets out a squawk, they all sound off and bound off the rock ledge and circle by the hundreds above our heads….”let’s see how many tourists we can ____ on”. Driving towards Calp, we went through Altea and Alfas, a couple of other towns that line the shoreline of the Mediterranean. The highway goes right through the middle of both towns, and is a complete bottle neck for both of them. For a “highway” that carries heavy trucks, buses, and a load of other vehicles, the streets are very narrow with the buildings going so high as to block off the sun, stop lights every 50 to 75 yards, and pedestrians coming from everywhere to cross the signed crosswalks…it takes time, so you had just better sit back and enjoy the ride. Once we pulled into Calp, we found a parking place and headed off by foot toward the boardwalk and a coffee con leche. Calp really felt like a place you could spend some “serious” time in. Both of us felt this was a smaller town that not only was clean, had some wonderful beaches, great food and shopping, it just made you feel good to be there. We’ll put this one down in our books to come back. For lunch, we found an outdoor restaurant that had a large display of seafood that we just couldn’t pass up. It was one of the best displays of food we have ever seen, and the prices were very reasonable as well. I had a plate of 4 different fish that were served whole, with fries, a drink, and desert of great tasting melons for $7.40. Louise had a ½ “portion” of extra small squid and a drink for $4.50. When we eat a meal like this, we accept it as our dinner, so anything later is light or nothing at all (except maybe something from our “treat” box). Today (Thursday) we finished breakfast and headed into Benidorm to do some “shopping”. This was a shopping trip for us… things new, things that we will wear home or at home…things to make us feel good…things that were wonderful deals. We know prices have boomed upwards in Spain for years, but they still have some great bargains. Tomorrow being our last day in Benidorm we are just going to stay close…to the beach anyway…
The final week here in Benidorm has just flown by. Fortunately for us, the weather has really been great. We looked at the extended forecast about 10 days ago and it looked like we would have at least 4 days of rain. How lucky can we get, we haven’t had but one night with a little wetness, and the days have been in the mid to high 60’s, sun and…beach weather. One of our neighbors, whom just arrived, heard about our “garage sale” and the fact that we had sold our lounge chairs, so they grabbed two of theirs and offered them to us until we leave on Saturday…that’s great neighbors… We stayed home on Tuesday sitting in our new borrowed lounge chairs and did our laundry. Yesterday we packed up and drove 6 miles down the coast to Calp. From just beyond our campground, we can see the magnificent limestone rock formation called Penyal d’Ifach. This large rock formation sits out at the end of a small peninsula from Calp, and looks like a small Gibraltar. Looking from Benidorm towards Calp, Penyal d’Ifach just seems to rise vertically (1087 feet) out of the sea. On a bright sunny day like today, the Penyal d’Ifach looks like it is on fire…really a pretty site. A point of interest about the rock is it was privately owned until 1987 when it was sold to the government. As Louise and I walked to the base of the rock, and around the marina, we were shocked by the amount of sea birds that have made this rock their home. They put on this little display, when one bird lets out a squawk, they all sound off and bound off the rock ledge and circle by the hundreds above our heads….”let’s see how many tourists we can ____ on”. Driving towards Calp, we went through Altea and Alfas, a couple of other towns that line the shoreline of the Mediterranean. The highway goes right through the middle of both towns, and is a complete bottle neck for both of them. For a “highway” that carries heavy trucks, buses, and a load of other vehicles, the streets are very narrow with the buildings going so high as to block off the sun, stop lights every 50 to 75 yards, and pedestrians coming from everywhere to cross the signed crosswalks…it takes time, so you had just better sit back and enjoy the ride. Once we pulled into Calp, we found a parking place and headed off by foot toward the boardwalk and a coffee con leche. Calp really felt like a place you could spend some “serious” time in. Both of us felt this was a smaller town that not only was clean, had some wonderful beaches, great food and shopping, it just made you feel good to be there. We’ll put this one down in our books to come back. For lunch, we found an outdoor restaurant that had a large display of seafood that we just couldn’t pass up. It was one of the best displays of food we have ever seen, and the prices were very reasonable as well. I had a plate of 4 different fish that were served whole, with fries, a drink, and desert of great tasting melons for $7.40. Louise had a ½ “portion” of extra small squid and a drink for $4.50. When we eat a meal like this, we accept it as our dinner, so anything later is light or nothing at all (except maybe something from our “treat” box). Today (Thursday) we finished breakfast and headed into Benidorm to do some “shopping”. This was a shopping trip for us… things new, things that we will wear home or at home…things to make us feel good…things that were wonderful deals. We know prices have boomed upwards in Spain for years, but they still have some great bargains. Tomorrow being our last day in Benidorm we are just going to stay close…to the beach anyway…