Bedrock

Archive for the ‘history’ Category

Last night we enjoyed a fabulous dinner with the friends and family of our Spanish neighbours, Cosme & Celia in downtown Galera, in Andalucia, Spain.

We enjoyed wine and tapas in the ancient wine cellars of Celia: a hundreds of years old Spanish house where they make wine in the cellars below the house. It was truly amazing and despite our pigeon Spanish, all the people were very kind and friendly.

How nice it was to be included with locals for their Saturday night dinner! We’ve discovered new foods to take back home including a new cold soup (Sopa de Ajo Blanco). A fantastic and relaxing evening – but more importantly, it was striking how friendly everyone was even though there was a language barrier.

A night to remember indeed. Today we’re off to the Baza market to look for a chair and then a little spot of painting – the hailstones made a bit of a mess of one of one of the walls!! Last night near midnight the temperature was down to a stunning 16c – it’s not been that cool since we got here – and I don’t expect we’ll see that again for a while – sun tanning weather today no doubt as first thing there is not a cloud in the sky.

Having just returned from my first ever trip to Gibraltar, I’m determined to go back there some time this summer – too much to do – not enough time to explore this wonderful place. Excellent food, really friendly people, fine weather and it kind of looks “Spanish”.

Well, put it this way, I think you’ll agree from the picture on the right it doesn’t look like Britain. There is some absolutely fabulous history there and it stares you in the face, as indeed to the Macaques if they’re not stealing your shoes or plastic bags!

These pictures, incidentally were taken in winter, not summer but you’d be hard pushed to tell the difference if you’ve arrived from the UK.

Probably the best part of a visit to Gibraltar is the ski-lift – from the top of the Rock you can see most of the place and it is fantastic. It’s no a lie to say that from one end of the country to the other is walk-able -  a colleague and I managed most of that in 2 separate attempts.

If you get the chance and a good pair of shoes you can pretty much explore the place in a day or two but certainly I would like to spend 3 days there to get a better feel for the place.  The airport is ultra-modern and a delight, the rock is just amazing and I’ve not heard better spoken English back in Blighty.

And the view – turn one way, you see Spain – turn the other – Africa! Incredible.