The first real day of our vacation! The overall plan was to spend Monday through Friday of the first week sightseeing around Eastern Spain, using Calpe as our base, Saturday moving from one location to the other, Sunday visiting the Bollens, Monday through Friday of the second week sightseeing around Southern Spain, using Fuengirola as our base, and Saturday going home. All nice and symetrical.
It was the off season, so we just about had Imperial Park to ourselves. As I said, we had some great views of Calpe (w):
In that first picture, you can see the Peñón de Ifach (w), a local landmark.
Here are some pictures of the resort:
This picture was taken from the pool area, looking up at our building. Our room is the one in the middle, the third archway from the left:
Each unit had a rooftop patio:
...accessible via a spiral staircase:
...which looks a lot scarier going down:
Imperial Park was a nice place, not a fleabag by any means, but not exactly five-star, either. One thing was very peculiar - even though there was a bathtub in the bathroom, you couldn't take a bath in it. There was no bath faucet, and no drain plug. The only thing you could do was take a shower. That was all right with me - I take a shower every day, but I rarely take a bath. But Terry likes to take a bath every day (and in cold weather, sometimes two or three), so she was out of luck. And so was I, in a way - the water pressure in the shower was dismally low.
One other unusual feature of the bathroom - although I understand it's not so unusual in Southern Europe, but actually quite common - was that it had a bidet. If you don't know what a bidet is, check this Wikipedia article: (w) - although you may be sorry you asked.
We started the day with breakfast at La Merced, a small cafe just down the road from Imperial Park:
...run by a gentleman who turned out to be Italian. As we ate, I was amused to hear American oldies playing on the radio - not for the last time, either.
Across the street was this interesting church building:
I eventually looked up the scripture reference (John 2:5). It's from the story about Jesus turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana. The verse is the one where Mary tells the servants, "Do whatever He tells you."
While we ate, I took a close look at some of the coins in my pocket. The unit of currency in Spain used to be the peseta, but now it's the Euro (w). I was interested to note that, while all euro coins have the same design on one side, the design on the other side varies from country to country, although all coins are legal tender in any European Union country - similar to the "state quarters" we have here in the U.S.
We spent the morning just driving around aimlessly, exploring Calpe. We parked on a street near the beach:
Those blue lines on the pavement in the first picture indicate parking spaces that have to be paid for. Instead of a parking meter at each space, they have ticket machines at various points on the street. You put in money, get a ticket, and display it on your dashboard.
I spotted this sign, which amused Terry so much that she insisted I take a picture:
We walked down to the beach:
...and took each other's picture:
...and a gentleman passing by offered to take a picture of the two of us:
As you can see, the sun was very bright, and shining right in my eyes.
We then went to a local supermarket:
...to buy some coffee, wine and sodas (necessities of life). We then drove down the road to the town of Benidorm (w) for lunch at La Cava Aragonesa:
...a restaurant recommended in one of our guidebooks. On the way, I took this picture of a side street that looked interesting:
...and this picture of some British pubs across the street:
We walked back along the beach:
...where I was amused to see a little bit of home:
...and was impressed by this sand sculpture:
We then drove to the town of Villajoyosa, to take a tour of the Valor chocolate factory:
The tour guide spoke both Spanish and English, of course, but her accent seemed a bit unusual. It turned out that she was French.
Here are some pictures from the tour:
Warehouse
Cacao Plants
A Cacao Pod
Cacao Beans
Cacao Pod, Seeds and Butter
The Company's Founder
A Display of Mayan Masks
Machinery
Chocolate Sculptures
...following which we went to the store and bought a box of chocolates, and a pouch of ready-to-drink hot chocolate. The chocolates were very good. Here's a link to their website (in English).
We then drove back to Calpe, had dinner at a tapas bar, and that was it for the day. Here's a map of the day's wanderings:
