I started off late for me today but that was mainly because it isn't really getting light out until 8am. I find that strange since it is later than at home yet I appear to be in a near tropic area. They appear to be on DST also as they are only 6 hours off from us. Either way I chose to get up a bit late and then have the buffet breakfast at the hotel which was basically breads, hams and cheese, a few fruits and a small thing of corn flakes. I just had a ham and cheese sandwich on some form of multigrain bread. I want to toast the bread but there was this old guy getting in my way every step, almost like it was on purpose (maybe it was?) so I just took my stuff to the table and ate it. I had the tiniest plum I've ever had along with orange juice and coffee. The coffee wasn't even terrible if it wasn't really very good either. I will call it passable.
After breakfast it was time to start exploring. I knew I wanted to heard towards the Dalt Vila location and figured I could do so by heading first towards the shoreline then up the hill. It sort of worked out as the shoreline was quite spectacular. It was a series of rocky areas that met the water with some very incredible views and a lot of good hiking around. I walked my way around the shore towards the Vila and took a ton of pictures. It was definitely not hot out but there was a humidity in the air. I'd say it probably got up to about 25C which should be about the mid 80sF. There was however a very nice breeze out there most of the day and the sun kept hiding behind clouds at intervals to make things a little less horrible. Certainly there were people dressed in jackets and sweaters here but fortunately there were also a lot of people in shorts and t-shirts too. I've gotten used to the winter clothes at relatively high temperatures out here in Europe but there were some people I can consider less insane here anyway. I'd say my tour around the shoreline might have taken an hour and a half to 2 hours by the time I turned into the Dalt Vila. The Vila is basically an old castle turned gun fort so far as I can tell. There is a cathedral on the top of the hill. I think if there had been a little effort to preserve the chronological integrity it would be quite stunning indeed. It is still very nice to look at even with the touches of modern sprinkled throughout it. I will forgive the cranes that are being used to help restore some of the buildings at the top as they mean it will probably look even nicer in the future. Basically I wandered through the fort until about noon when I had found my way downhill again. I chose to eat at Cafe Vila which was on the opposite end of the square from the place I ate at the day before. It was a small cafe and like most of them had a very limited menu for around lunch time. I ended up having to Estrella Damm beers and a ham and cheese sandwich which was actually quite good. I know, it repeated breakfast. Such is the breaks but there really weren't a lot of choices. The beer is actually Spanish though I suspect someone of either Dutch or German origin imported it into Spain many years back (it said since 1904 I think). It wasn't bad if a touch sweet. It had 4.8% alcohol.
After lunch I decided I would walk out towards the port area and maybe beyond. The marina and port is gigantic. I don't think I've seen a place with near as many boats as it has. And many of them look very expensive. I walked all the way around the port to the sea wall on the far end of the harbor then turned around and headed back into town. I will say that it is nearly impossible to get lost here. By the way, here is the town of Eivissa. It appears to be the largest city on the island if not the coolest. When I turned back inland I found the downtown area of the city and wandered that for a bit. After I felt I had seen most everything I turned back towards the Vila and wandered around that some more. My intention was to try to locate restaurants for dinner but it was still moderately early by Spanish standards. I did a lot of climbing up and down the hill that the Vila is on and found a lot of places that looked very closed and perhaps like they were closed completely for the off season. It is the off season here which is probably why it is crowded but not overcrowded. I bet it is nuts in the dead of summer. There is no question this island makes all its money on tourism and the other businesses here only exist to sustain the tourism. After quite some time of wandering I decided to have a beer at a cafe near the top of the Vila and kill some time. The brand was named Cruzcampo and it was also Spanish. I can say it wasn't terrible but I definitely liked the Estrella Damm more. The place did leave some to be desired as the service was terribly slow and the glass they gave me was quite dirty to the point I drank out of the bottle as there was no saving it. Still that killed some time for me and then I started wandering around a bit more. It was getting on towards 6pm which is still 2.5 hours too early for dinner here but I was feeling optimistic I could make it to then. That is until it started to spit some rain. I am not really a late eater if I can help it. In fact getting to 6:30 is basically late for me to eat. Once the rain started I chose to cut my losses and walked to the McDonald's to get a quick dinner and then head into the room. I wanted to try something authentically Spanish but I fear that might have to wait until Madrid as I had not spotted a lot of restaurants that might be open out here. In any event, I had a McBacon menu which means a burger with bacon and what tasted like cheese-wiz on it. It was not awful. I followed up with a soft serve ice cream sundae which I ate walking back to the hotel. It had stopped raining while I was in the McDonald's but started to pick up again while I was walking back. Traffic also seemed to be picking up as I was walking to the hotel. It had been relatively normal all day that I had been out but there were definitely more cars out at about 7pm than at any other time I have seen. I assume that is normal for them. It also appeared that some shops that had been closed started to open around 6pm. I realize the island is known for a night life but I figured with it being off season that most of them just weren't going to open at all. In any event with the rain I felt I would just head in and call it a day. It was a pretty full one anyway. Certainly many miles of walking.
Today's pictures can be found here.
No comments:
Post a Comment