The plan for today was to visit the town of Requena, a small town about 70 km west of Valencia. According to the guidebook, underneath the plaza of the old town is "a network of interlinked cellars, once used as storerooms and, during strife, hideouts." They have guided tours, and Terry and I are always interested in that sort of thing.
A digression on laundry: In Spain, they don't seem to have many laundromats like we have here, with coin-operated machines where you do your own laundry. Instead, you take your clothes to a lavanderia, and they wash and dry them for you. Not just dry cleaning, but regular laundry. In Calpe, there was a lavanderia just around the corner from the Esmerelda Hotel, run by a very nice British lady, who told me that she had lived in Spain for more than twenty years, and would never go back.
So that morning, we dropped off our laundry, had some breakfast, and took off for Requena. Well, it was a long drive, and we got a late start, and we forgot about the Spanish habit of the afternoon siesta. So when we got there, I went into the tourist information office to get directions to the tour, and found that we had missed the last tour of the morning, and the next tour wasn't until late in the afternoon. So we missed out on that.
So instead, we went and had lunch, at the aptly named Meson del Vino:
...where we were greeted as we entered by this mascot:
...and had another paella, much better than the one we had in Altea.
The man at the tourist info office had given me a map of a self-guided walking tour of the old town. After lunch, I set off to take the tour. Terry was tired, and elected to wait for me in the car.
This tower stands at the entrance to the old town:
The old town itself is a maze of narrow, winding streets:
...and plazas:
...and old churches:
Capilla de la Comunion
Iglesia de Santa Maria
Iglesia de San Salvador (the only working church in the old town)
...and fragments of the old city wall:
I was amused to see this street sign:
...because Terry and I know some people at church named Casares. I also took note of this old house:
...which is now used as an office building. I noticed it because of its name:
Terry has a house in Spain! Who knew?
On the intro page, I talked about Spain's age. It was while walking the streets of Old Town Requena that it really hit me. Mind you, this is no Colonial Williamsburg or Old Sturbridge Village. It's not a historical re-creation. This is a real place where real people live and work. I saw houses, offices, hotels and restaurants. Of course, I also saw the trappings of the modern world - cars, satellite dishes, modern electrical wiring, etc. I passed one house with its front door open, and inside I saw a large flat screen TV and modern kitchen appliances. Still, as I walked, I was able to filter that out, and really feel the age of the place. Despite the modern touches, the streets I was walking were essentially the same as they had been for hundreds of years. Incredible.
We drove back to Calpe, and had dinner at a tapas bar with the unlikely name of Dracula!