Today involved our first wine tasting, a quick visit to a random ruin, lunch in a town that we will visit again later this week, a quick stop at a very cool castle and a fabulous dinner to end the day. Read on for details… Continue reading
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Today we started off with a hike on the other parcel of land that Joel and Walt own. This parcel of land also has a right of way for a local hiking trail. Luckily, it was only around 85 degrees Fahrenheit and around 50% humidity when we started. Joel and Walt had hiked on this trail before, but not nearly as far as the three of us, Joel, Laura and I had hiked this time. Continue reading
Today was very chill. Walt had some errands to run. So, Joel, Laura and I stayed behind at the house just relaxing before walking down to meet Walt in town. I also took some photos of the house and pool area and a panoramic picture of Ontinyent from the pool deck. We are about a 20-30 minute walk away from town depending how quickly you mosey or about a 5 minute car ride. Continue reading
Today we left for Spain. Specifically, we are shooting for Ontinyent, Spain. But, to get there we are flying from Boston, to Madrid and finally, Alicante, Spain. From there we are being picked up by family (J&W) to our final destination, Ontinyent. Continue reading
We got a start on our drive sometime before 9:00 AM and drove into the city of Orleans. Walt and I sat and enjoyed our cafe au laits while Joel walked around trying to find the office of tourism which ended up being directly across the street from where we were having our coffees. The 4 of us then went and purchased our pastries prior to our walking through the Orleans Cathedrale Sainte-Croix. We really appreciated the two guys standing outside the church with their hats held out begging for money. They fortunately didn’t say or do anthing other than hold out their hats. We walked around the old part of the city down to the river and back up before getting back on the road toward Versailles which was our next stop. Continue reading
We had a nice breakfast, and I was very pleased to finally get to have a bowl of cereal since I hadn’t had any since we left ‘t Hotel in Amsterdam. They have homemade jams/preserves which we sampled a lot of them while chatting with the couple who was also staying there who came from Washington, D.C. We got a somewhat early start to go do some chateau tours. Continue reading
Joel started our morning with his lack of sleep tale from the night before. He heard noises practically as soon as they got into bed. He proceeded to go into the bathroom and stuck his head out the skylight to see something squirrel-like look at him. He said there was a whole family of them sounding like they were throwing the tiles from the roof at each other like there was a revolution happening. Deeb was laughing so hard at this story that he had tears running down his face. Continue reading
Our morning started with a very French style breakfast of coffee, tea, baguette, jams, croissants, and juice. I was seriously jonesing for a bowl of cereal. Deeb and I slept rather well, but Joel had a story of his restless night. He said at one point he felt something crawling on his shoulder and just sort of brushed it off. A little while later he felt something crawling down his leg and proceeded to toss it off and turned on the light to try to fight out what it was because he said it felt rather large. He is pretty sure it was a gecko. Patrice (the owner) helped us by giving some guidance on the best plan of attack for the day. Continue reading
Enjoyed another great breakfast made special for us and had a nice chat with Drew and Lynn (the newlyweds) while we ate. Forgot to mention (once again the memory thing), that we had toured the brewery yesterday with Drew and Lynn at the same time. Joel and Walt left to go pick up our rental car from Europcar. We were all hoping it wasn’t going to be a Smart Car since Joel had told them when reserving it that we needed room for 4 people and our luggage. Continue reading
We enjoyed a very nice breakfast here of pastry selection, fresh fruit, cheeses, bread, eggs made any style we wanted, homemade fruit smoothies, coffee, tea, juice and a chocolate. It was a beautiful set-up. The B&B only has 3 rooms for rent. The other room was being used by a couple who was on their honeymoon who happened to be from Philadelphia. How crazy is that?!? Joel had met them the night before when they returned from watching the soccer game out at a bar. Their names were Drew and Lynn. Ok..so on with our schedule for today… Continue reading