Weather!

Hola!

 

Friday afternoon was the first time since we’ve been here that we really had any weather other than clear, blue skies and sunshine.  We have gotten alerts about rain occasionally, but until last night, we hadn’t had any drops at all, and have considered ourselves very, very lucky not having to contend with more!  So now a storm moves in!  Lovely!  From our beautiful apartment, we have windows on three sides of the building – and it was wonderful to watch the rain actually roll in!  Also found that we had an absolutely stunning double rainbow out our bedroom and kitchen windows, which Robert captured in several photos.  My favorite is the photo where the rainbow literally goes right over the Cathedral; wonderful!  At any rate, while it rained a bit, it really didn’t pour, but we enjoyed it nonetheless.  No dinner out, as we noshed on our groceries that we had purchased at Carrefour and were perfectly happy.

 

Rainbows always make me smile!

And now there are two!!

Up about 7:30 am this morning on our 40^th Wedding Anniversary!  And they said it’d never last…HA!  R had some Caltech work to take care of, so I jumped (or walked carefully, rather) into the shower.  Oh!  A note about the apartment:  I may have mentioned that there are nine (9) different doors in the apartment, and each door has a door knob on both sides.  Makes sense, I know.  However, these door ”knobs” are absolute killers!  They are about elbow height high for me, and they are squared off with really sharp corners and I keep running into them!  I am working on some lovely purple bruises at the moment.  I’m trying to walk carefully around them, because it hurts when I run into them … and I am such a klutz!  

 

At any rate, I left you in the shower…well…let’s just say that apparently the drain needed clearing out, as it obviously hasn’t happened lately … I hadn’t even realized it wasn’t draining well (or at all) until I was finished … and came out into a flood all over the bathroom floor and running into the hallway!  I had noticed yesterday that there was a mop on the premises, and Robert did a great job “swabbing” up all the water…He maintains that quite often when we are staying someplace, he ends up dealing with plumbing issues … well, he sure did today, thankfully!  He cleaned the drain and it works much better now.

 

Beautiful roads and stunning scenery!

We had croissants with raspberry jam this morning, which made a nice change from ham, cheese and salami.  And, we were ready to go out about 10 am – unfortunately, as we were heading out the door to the wall walk I’ve been wanting to do, it of course started raining.  So, rather than walking walls, we headed out to El Tiemblo, about an hour away to see some more carved animals!  (But first, we weren’t able to get out of our parking garage, which was exciting in and of itself!  R finally managed to give the agent on the intercom our license plate number and the name of our host, and we were permitted to exit the garage! Yeah!)

 

Love the fact that the carving is still visible!

Our four new friends!

You can see the sculpture lines on his head!

This one was struck by lightning!

We had a truly beautiful drive southeast of Avila, and up into the mountains.  The four “bulls” we went to see are in a small park, with paid admittance (€2 each).  And while they’re not “true” verraco (pigs) they are really lovely – one even has his original carving on him, which was fascinating to see!  Lots of photos!  From El Tiemblo, we headed to the very small town of Santo Domingo de las Posadas – more mountain driving on very small and curvy roads, but there he was at the entrance to town!  So, a total of 5 animals added to our list today, along with one we’re not sure about – R says he thinks he was carved in 2000, I’m saying that he’s more like 2,000 years old – so we’ll have to research, but I will be including him in our photos as well.  

Note Verraco on town crest!

So is he new or old??

 

Driving the back roads south of Avila put us through the Sierra Guadaramma mountains and the scenery is just fantastic.  Even in the valleys, the granite rock outcroppings are everywhere.  Stone seems to be the principal building material, for the houses, barns, field enclosures are all made of granite – built to last.

Waterfall streaming down the mountain!

And yes indeed, that is definitely snow!

 

Finally, back to Avila about 3 pm.  The walls are closed (of course!) for siesta, but are supposed to be opening again about 5 pm – and our dinner reservation at Las Candilesisn’t until 8:45 pm, so I’m sure we can get some wall walking* in – providing it doesn’t rain!

 

And yet another new friend!

So, more later!

m

 

*Ever since I broke my leg a few years ago walking the walls of Aigue Mortes in the south of France (no fault of the wall, just my carelessness), I have regarded wall-walking with more than a bit of reticence.  But – onward, onward! - R