Almeria (pronounced Al maRIA)

We had a great week just out of Almeria, staying in Fidel and Susana’s summer house. It was close to the beach and nice and sunny – again! Friday looked like rain but it didn’t happen. Maybe Friday is the rainy day in Spain. We stayed home this Friday, not like the last rainy Friday when we went to Gibraltar.

We talked about all the things we enjoyed this week over breakfast this morning, so here’s our list:

  • number 1 – having lunch with Fidel and Susana and their girls, Ana and Susanna (Eva was at a party). Susana cooked us a real Spanish Paella and we sat outside and ate and chatted. They eat lunch at 3.00 normally. We eat lunch at 1.00, so we had lunch at 2.00 after a walk together along the beach. It was a great afternoon.
  • EvaSusanaFidelAnnaSusana    danandpaella paella
  • Going to Granada. The driving in the city was awful, the Alhambra was fantastic! Pete and I are planning to come back one day (on our kids have left home world trip) and stay in the city for a few days so we can really experience it (without driving!)
  • Eating pastries outside in the sun. Discovering donuts with chocolate inside!Pastries
  • Walking along the beach while Pete went for a run (which he says he enjoyed, weird as that is). There are some cool stones on the beach, the kids loved picking them up, taking them home and ‘polishing ‘ them, then selling them to us. Quite a good deal for them I think. We had to throw them out come Saturday cos there’s no room for stones in the backpack!AmyAtBeachAlmeria
  • We visited our first Cathedral (in Almeria) which was surprising – the outside was built like a fortress in the 1500s I think (it served two purposes) and the inside was magnificent!

AlmeriaCatheralInside

  • Walking around Almeria city itself. The things they do to their trees is quite fun. We tried to visit the castle there but it was shut. Never mind, we saw the Alhambra.

AlmeriaLions Almeria_Castle_Closed AlmeriaTrees

  • No castle, but we had pastries. Pastry shops are busy at 5.00. Carol W, the Spanish do 5’ees, just like you. Gotta have something to keep them going till dinner time at 9.00 or 10.00. Susana says they have yoghurt and fruit at 5.00, but I think a pastry is a better idea.
  • Late dinners. The kids loved having at dinner at 10.00pm (we kept getting home late). They are starting to feel Spanish.
  • Discovering wine for 1euro, really!
  • Bought a cheese sample pack to try. Daniel and I really liked it, Peter and Amy not so impressed
  • Watching a movie on DVD. Sadly, we tried to watch TV at Fidels, but only managed to turn his TV screen into a jumble of colours and no picture (sorry about that Fidel). So Friday night we watched a movie on DVD – thanks Michael for the DVD. Made us all feel a little like normal, watching TV on a Friday night.

So there was a lot of good things about our week.

With regards to the house, here are some things I’d like to remember about it:

  1. it had a great kitchen, lovely and big and so much of everything, but I’ve noticed that kitchens, and supermarket for that reason, don’t have potato peelers. Also noticed that the potatoes at the supermarket and washed, (obviously have to change my ideas on needing to peel potatoes!)almeriaKitchen
  2. the tiles were all made out of marble and looked great. Fidel said there is a marble quarry nearby, so all houses in that area have marble floors.
  3. The tiles in the bathroom had a brown wood-like trim half way up. Would have really suited our bathroom when we had dark wood-strip vinyl.
  4. Sunny courtyard for eating outside. Really nice