A less than 10 minute walk to city center. Two big heads in front of the city hall.
A Mercadona next door to the west.
Ducal Palace, home of the Borgia family. €8 with good audioguide.
Nice decorated ceilings, and beautiful parquet floors.
No ticket booth for buses. Asked the passengers in the train station waiting for buses. Bought from Avanza office across the street. Talked to Rosemary from Nicaragua, who carries a Jehovah booklet with many languages. She was waiting for a bus for a town 4Km away. Her husband and 2 sons live here. She wants to go back to Nicaragua.
The bus/train station at Gandia has no wifi. The Alsa bus has.
12:20pm Alsa bus to Calpe. 10 stops and a detour to Dania. €6.3. Arrival 14:25. 17 passengers on this bus.
A long walk to the rock. I'm here to visit Penyal d'Ifac Natual Park. Perfect cloudy day for hiking.
It took ~50 minutes to walk there from the bus station.
Half of it is along the malecon full of highrise condos, and tourists.
Some ruins in the sand by the ocean.
Enter into the park is well signed. The bathrooms were closed, but there was a drinking fountain outside of the bathroom which I could refill water. About 1 hour hike up to the summit. A bit windy today. The rocks are surprisingly slippery. Need proper hiking boots. There are iron chains at times. Many people going at least to the tunnel.
The other side feels completely different, from ugly highrise to rocks, bushes and birds.
The last 1/3, I didn't see anyone. So had the summit all to myself.
Nothing too difficult: I was carrying my luggage all the way to the top.
Great view.
Back in the city earlier than I thought, checking the schedule of the bus. One guy who confirmed that I'm at the correct parada. He recommends tram instead of autobus. We waited for the bus for 25 min. It's a 20 minute ride to the main bus station, which is the same if I just walked. We arrived at 5:30, which I think there is an Alsa bus for Alicante. But I didn't want to risk it. Sat on the city bus to its terminal, the tram station (why is it so far from the city?). There's a tram coming in 10 minutes. The tram has a vending machine towards the end of the train, where I can buy the ticket with card. Another guy who sat next to me on the bus also took the same tram to Benidorm. From there, transfer to another tram to Alicante (every 30min). Each section is €2.8. Slower, but much more frequent. At the town of El Compello, a ticket controller came on board. The guy who sat across from me bought a ticket only then.
Checked into a cheap hotel in Alicante for only €23 close to the market. The bathroom is shared by maybe 3 rooms, but I was the only guest. I found out that when I pulled my power plug out this morning, left the converter in the socket. Oh well. Went out to buy one. Also bought a can of beer. Easy to open.
11/22, Tuesday. Alicante is the largest city in SE of Spain.
The castle is not worth visiting. Too much new construction. They built new walls and new arches. Tacky.
Good view of the ugly city, and the nice looking mountains behind.
I follow a different path down the hill, halfway ran into a closed sign. Beyond, still good new walkway. I continued instead of turning back up hill. Had to climb over a fence to get out. New tall walls prevented me from seeking another way out. Nothing indicated why this fence was put there, but plenty signs of other people going over it.
I didn't do good research. Probably should have visited the Roman ruin Lucentum in the eastern suburb. Maybe also too much reconstruction.
Bought some pastry from the market. Not busy.
What are these mushrooms at the left bottom of this photo?
Then I walked to the train station, continued my journey west. €3.2 to Elche.
Leaving the coast behind. Now hills. Very dry land. All looks like sand and rock. Air is dry and hot here.
Elche is very pleasant (except for the hot weather).
Known for palm trees.
A large city park very close to the station.
Dates were falling. I tried one, and it is sweet.
The city is quiet. Everything is closed, except for the tower of the cathedral.
A photo at the cathedral (closed for siesta) of late 19c shows already large palm groves in the area.
€2 to go up to the tower. It's not very tall, but has a couple of levels to peek out.
Not a bad view of the city and many palm trees beyond.
Continued on the train to Orihuela (€2.7). Security came on board to check face mask.
Orihuela.
The hill-top ruin north of the town is largely disappeared, but mostly un-touched by the modern engineering.
I like this better: feels more wild. It's not Roman but Arab in origin.
Met only one person on the higher slope. 2 guys behind me disappeared near the seminary.
When I got back down to the seminary, saw a couple heading up. Very windy.
The cathedral is mostly without decoration. It's large. The organ pipes look somewhat authentic. Some are horizontal.
Back to the train station. The ticket office was closed for siesta. It is supposed to open at 4:30pm, when there'd be a train arriving. But the guy didn't show up for 5 minutes. Brought a ticket from a machine. Got to the platform as my train left. The next one is at 5:56pm (and of course it's late). Asked around the buses. No one goes to Murcia. The guy at the train ticket office felt sorry for me, looked up schedule on his phone for Guadix, where I wanted to go. No public options. One listed on Google Map is Bla Bla Car.
Murcia €2. 20 min ride. Also the end of the train. Saw a bus going to Lorca. Asked to get on. But the ticket checker and the driver don't sell the ticket. I wasn't able to buy a ticket from the machine in time. The town ia big. The bus station is 1 mile NW. Walked there, caught a random (the first I asked) bus to Lorca at 7pm. This bus has no Wifi. €6. Too cheap, probably stops at every town along the way.
With 20/20 hindsight, I probably should have stayed overnight in Murcia, the capital of the province, more hotels and maybe something to see. But I was eager to get as close to Granada as possible.
Lorca's train station and bus station are in 2 separate buildings next to the train track. But no more trains heading west. Even to Murcia (east), Renfe sends bus. The train station has a counter with an employee. The bus station has 4 ticket counters, but no one working. Only a machine to buy tickets.
Lorca is small. Easy to walk around. Walking around at 8:30pm, it was bustling. Lots of lights. A crowd was gathering in front of Teatro Guerra. Lots of diners in the nearby alleys. But I couldn't find a hotel. Walked to two on Google Map, but couldn't find them. Checked into Jadines de Lorca on the outskirt. Nice hotel. €74. The lady at the front desk told me I took the very last room. There's festival here. No wonder the busy streets.
After checked into my room (with a nice balcony), I realized that I didn't ask for WiFi password.
Went downstairs, forgot to put face mask on, thought that it would only be a minute.
It turned out, this hotel uses some software to generate one-time use passcodes.
The lady gave me some code she generated earlier, I tried, and didn't work.
So we both tried, maybe 10 codes. None worked.
She then generated a sheet of new ones. The very first one worked.
Meanwhile, she was sneezing all the time. I hope I don't catch her germs.
Researched how to get to La Calahorra. Its Moorish Castillo de La Calahorra opens on Wednesdays, and according to Google: 10-13:00 and 16-18:00. The first bus to Guadix is at 11:20, and won't arrive until 2:15pm, not only serving all the towns, but also stops for half an hour at a rest stop, just before Guadix. So I created an account at BlaBlaCar. Messaged 2 drivers who are leaving early tomorrow. Too bad, the website delists the trip at some cutoff time, so both I failed.
11/23. Very quiet morning. Everything is closed. The Lorca castle opens at 11. Too late. It also looks very reconstructed.
I only have time to walk around the town center.
Placa España is the prettiest here. Saw more black people here than other Spanish towns on this trip.
No one at the ticket counter, at least never anyone when I was there. The bus came late. It's from Cartagena to Seville. Its very slow. No wonder a rest stop is built into the schedule. Cartagena is another town I was interested in visit. Maybe next time.
Arrived at Guadix (913 m, 2995 ft) around 2:30. Today is Wednesday, and it's supposed the only day of the week to be open to public. Only 2 buses to Calahorra per day: 12:30 and 19:00. Neither are useful. Only one return. Inquired at the cafe at the bus stop. One lady called a taxi for me. The driver didn't think the castle would be open. We set a time for him to take me back. He dropped me off where the pavement ends.
Walking up the hill. The castle is very imposing. Thick walls. Great view of the mountains around.
2 German tourists came. We waited for 4pm - the alleged afternoon opening. It was windy here. Chilly. I'm getting sick. Around 4:30, a jeep with 3 passengers arrived. It turns out, they are tourist too. They are also heading south to Almeria. So not ride for me.
Walked down to wait for my taxi. The town is quite dead. Didn't see any business running. On the main road to the town, there's a nice looking hotel. I asked an employee there to call my taxi. On the way back, the driver told me that in earlier days, it would snow in November, and everything was white. Now it's much warmer and drier.
Back in Guadix, walked to the mirador for the caves. It's not near, but not too far.
On the way, walled by many cave homes (an attraction here), and a lot of trash.
Just in time for sunset.
Took the 18:45 bus to Granada.
Note: initially I was upset of all the time wasted for waiting for these buses. 20/20 hindsight, it was actually not a bad thing. I got into Bla Bla Car, and later used it to my advantage.
