11/13–17–4 days at sea

This is simply a place holder!  We’ve had 4 1/2 relaxing days at sea and don’t have much to say – but figured we’d post something at least.  We are enjoying the crossing.  It has been wonderfully smooth sailing so far – and we are hopeful for our remaining days.  The past 2 days weather has been cloudy and rainy, which we love because that means we can sit on the balcony and not melt in the heat of the strong sun.  We’ve done a ton of reading, written the entire blog, gone to lectures (there are some great lecturers – The White House Visitors Manager for the Clintons, A history and professor who is totally engaging and keeps even me interested in the history of Spain, The Renaissance, The Canaries and today Forensics, Two explorer adventurers, both in the 20’s or early 30’s from Norway and each with different adventures they have accomplished – all totally fascinating) and generally hung out.

We were on deck for the super moon.  News Flash:  it was a moon.  Didn’t even look any bigger or brighter.  Oh well.

Only pictures to share are from sunset last night.

So, nothing to report, nothing mind boggling going on, just good old Farniente. 

Two and a half more days to go – amazing how fast time goes.

11/12–Garachico

The skies begin to clear and the day gets prettier and prettier as we drive toward Garachico.  On the way there are fields and fields of banana or plantain farms.  Everywhere you look, banana plants are stuck in any field, on terraces clinging to the side of cliffs, just about anywhere a tree can be planted – there is a banana tree.  Again, had no idea there was such a big banana business here.

It is entirely too quick of a drive to Garachico, it’s only a little at 10 am when we arrive, so we scope out the parking options on the main ocean road, and then make the decision to continue on to the end of road – to Buenavista del Norte just for the fun of it.

This gives us an opportunity to drive past Garachico and stop at a beautiful viewpoint above the town for photos.

The drive to Buenavista is nice, through little towns and down lanes lined with stone walls and palm trees, always with the impressive granite mountain cliffs in the background. 

As the skies clear, we even see a rainbow over the water.

We reach the end of the road past the golf course, and back track our way into Garachico again.  It is about time for lunch, and we’ve picked out a restaurant on the main square, Aristedes, that gets great reviews and the menu has tons of seafood – octopus, squid and cuttlefish.  We’re ready for food by now!

Parking is now a bit crazier than when we first passed by, as there are more tourists pouring into town.  We make one pass with no luck, but on our 2nd drive by, we find the perfect space right by the little grocery store we want to visit and the road that leads into town.  The grocery store turns out to be a bust – expensive wine and no beer that will work for us.  Back out on the street, we end up taking the long way around to town – following the ocean road along the outside of the walls, then finally turning into town, walking up the stairs… 

…that lead to Plaza de la Libertad, and the two churches that anchor the plaza.

It is here that Aristedes is located, right on the corner of the plaza by the white church.  As we approach the restaurant patio, though, we notice nothing is outside – at all.  Not good.  Then we see the hours of operation sign – NO! Not again! They aren’t open on Friday or Saturday.  Aw, come on! There was nothing about that on their website or in any reviews.  Darn it. We are so disappointed.

Sigh. So now what?  Well, I’ve written down another restaurant, El Caleton, which is right on the water.  It got good reviews, but, right there, above the little lava created pools where you can swim, we’re sure it will be pricier and probably a little more touristy.  Oh well.

We walk back through town and along the coast to El Caleton.  It’s pretty busy, as you would expect for a restaurant with tables and umbrellas on a slate patio overlooking the ocean on a now beautiful sunny day.  We grab a table for two fight on the water and peruse the menu. 

It’s actually quite a good menu, with lots of choices, and surprisingly enough, not that pricey for the location.  We end up with more food than necessary – as usual – but there is Calamares alla plancha (grilled calamari that comes with roasted potatoes) that is calling Ed’s name, local Queso Asado (baked cheese) that is me all the way, and then Pulpo all vinaigrette (octopus vinaigrette) that sounds good to both of us.  The food comes – and – yep – its too much – but it is extremely good, and the presentation is amazing.  Yes, that is cheese there with a round cut out and a sweet hoisin type dipping sauce.  Excellent.

We could sit here all day actually – it’s that great – atmosphere, weather, food, drink – we’re happy. But, this is not the port at which you want to linger and push the boundaries.   Miss the ship here, and you’re flying back to Fort Lauderdale to meet the ship as she sails in from her 7 day Atlantic crossing. So, reluctantly, we pack it up and make our way back to our car and Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

On the way, we spot a Lidl grocery store (an Aldi competitor), so we dive off the highway and make a supply stop.  Wow – this place is awesome. Total Aldi format, and the prices are insanely cheap.  There  is a whole proscuitto ham leg for 95 Euro – ridiculous.  The beer and wine are dirt cheap, I pick up what turns out to be an awesome bottle of Verdejo for 2.59 Euros (I broke the bank and didn’t choose the .99 euro bottle).  We could go nuts here, but we have learned our lesson with customs and meats in Florida, so we aren’t going to push the envelope and try to smuggle sausage back home.  The best we can do is load up with cacahuetes (peanuts) and more chocolate bars. 

Back on the road, we successfully navigate back to the port parking lot.  I leave Ed with the bags on a bench by the lot and walk back to the rental office to drop the keys in the drop box, then we begin our trek back to the ship for our 7 days at sea

11/12–Tenerife and Icod

Two days at sea fly by – we never ever remember what we did, but we’re never bored!  And here we are in our last port of the cruise.  The weather is not the best today – very overcast and rainy, although it is pleasantly warm.  We’re docked at the new port, which is pretty far from downtown. Once again there is a shuttle, but once again, we have a car and it is in between the ship and where the shuttle drops off. Another morning exercise walk.

At least we know exactly where we are going now – this being our 4th time here.  We follow the blue line around the new terminal and toward the city (the blue line is literally painted on the walkways and is the pedestrian route to get into town).  We don’t go quite as far as town, but stop at the ferry terminal building for the 2nd floor Cicar rental office. Keys in hand, we walk back toward the ship, now following the red line (yes, it is painted on the ground as well) to the parking lot with the rental cars.  We have a cute little brown Seat that we finally find by clicking the lock/unlock buttons on the keys (the lot is packed and our car happens to be in the far back corner).

We are on the road pretty quickly, avoiding the rush of Aida passengers (their ship sailed in after we docked) who are more than likely renting all these cars in the lot (we sincerely doubt there are many Celebrity passengers renting cars – this is the weirdest group of seemingly lightly traveled passengers we’ve seen in a long time).

So, anyway, today we will be heading the to north coast to visit Icod de los Vinos, home of the dragon tree, and Garachico, a neat looking little village on the coast.  The drive out goes smooth enough, although the port roads are new, so you know that throws Alice off – but we make it out of Palma proper and onto TF-5 without any issues.  The car only has half a tank of gas, and we have to return it like that, which is always a pain trying to get the fuel level right. We decide to not bother messing with it, and pull of into one of the gas stations along the side of the road to get 15 euros of fuel. And boy are we surprised – gas is so cheap here.  It is almost as cheap as in the states. Only 85.9 euro cents per liter.  The 15 euros we put in is probably way too much, but at least we don’t have to concern ourselves with gas any longer.

After gassing up, it’s a quick drive out to the other coast, and we are in Icod in no time.  We navigate a couple of new round-abouts and highway exits without Alice, who we’ve had to deactivate because of the new roads, and make it into the heart of town pretty easily.

We luck into a parking deck right off the main square and stuff our little Seat into a spot on the first floor. Out into the cool, wet morning we stroll, walking up the street to the Plaza de San Marcos, where the old church is located, and where there is a perfect viewing point of the Dragon Tree.  You have to pay to go into the garden of the Dragon tree, or, you can come to this Plaza and view the tree for free.  Gee….what should we do?

You know what we do….

…the tree is really cool looking.  It has blood red sap, like dragon’s blood, which gives the tree its name.  The sap was used for healing and dyes for various uses.  Supposedly the tree is 1,000 years old, but it can’t really be dated because the heart of the tree rots away so you can’t count the rings.

We wander around the square a bit, but we can’t visit the church because it is under major reconstruction. (Although we do try, because there is a door that is open, but it is apparently for the workers and a tour of locals – when we go walk up to door, they tell us no – we cannot go in.) So, we meander about, looking at the cool trees (odd looking wrapped trunks – sort of different), interesting fountains and the marvelous wooden balconies for which Icod is famous.

It is still really, really early so we decide to stop at a little cafe located at the head of a pedestrian area for cappuccino. The little pedestrian walk is being set up for some sort of festival (really, a real festival – with tents and tables – not tents and water bottles and tires and barbed wire like in Bangkok that one year), and we sit outside watching the workers erect more tents and tables as we sip on what seems a lot more like mocha than cappuccino.  It’s very tasty, there is a coffee bean in the bottom of the cup and when we go to pay, they charge us for cappuccino – so – guess that’s what we got –  the whipped cream and chocolate stick just made it totally make it very different from the traditional version usually drink.

It starts to rain again, and we decide it is the perfect time to head further up the coast to Garachico.  We retrieve our car from the garage – which is now filling up quite quickly – and head back through the little streets to the coast road and Garachico.

11/9–Soller

Back out on the road, we retrace our steps and head back to Soller.  The maps we have show a couple of parking areas, but they aren’t the best in the world and we end up driving around sort of aimlessly looking for them.  We think we find one area, but it seems far from the center of town – at least on the bad map I have.  It is packed full too, so we head off in the direction of “centre” and stumble upon another lot that does have some empty spaces.  We’re still unsure how far it is to the main square, but we figure we’ll take our chances.

After paying for an hour and a half of parking, we start walking down more narrow streets to what we think will be the main square.  Already Soller is shaping up to be much larger than Fornalutx and much more commercial.  The streets are lined with retail shops and cafes, and there is much more traffic and many more people here. The town grew up, getting rich, on oranges, although we’ve not seen so many orange orchards as olive orchards, so it obviously developed far more commercially than Fornalutx. 

Our navigational skills are rewarded as we round a corner and catch sight of the church of Saint Bartholomew towering over the town square. Now that’s magnificent.

The square is quite pretty, surrounded by cafes, with a lovely fountain in the middle and the interesting looking old bank building standing guard.

But, honestly?  We like Fornalutx better – it’s small and sweet and so medieval.  Soller is busier and for us at least, not the prettiest town in Palma.

We spend a few minutes on the square, then decide we’re ready to go back.  As we head to the car, we find a cute little cafe with Almond cake advertised on their chalkboard.  I’m in!  Ed orders a cappuccino and we share the cake.  So good – I’m definitely looking this recipe up when we get home.  An excellent little local dessert to finish off our day.

Back in the car, we head inland again, going through the toll tunnel (4.95 euros now) and avoiding the free road over the mountains that supposedly has 57 hairpin turns. 

We hit the major thoroughfares, get turned around at a round about because Alice told us to turn at the exit for Valldemossa and, as usual,  I didn’t trust her and told Ed to go straight toward Palma.  After a u-turn a few kilometers later, we end up on the road that leads us straight back to the port and our little car rental.  Totally great! So glad we found this little place, since now its an incredibly easy walk right back onto the ship and canapes on our balcony as we prepare for our first 2 days at sea.

11/9–Fornalutx

The drive from Valledmossa to Fornalutx is lovely, if not a little harrowing with narrow lanes, sharp turns and rocks sticking out of the hillside making clearance an issue.  It is sort of like Amalfi, only less traveled. 

We follow the coast, winding around the hillsides with the pounding surf way down below us.  We pass through the adorable little town of Deia, where we stop to take pictures of the gorgeous terraced hillsides and the old stone buildings perched all above the sea.

The road towards inland, curving along in between those typical stone walls and up into the mountains where there are acres and acres of olive trees. Everywhere you look, olive trees flourish. We didn’t really realize there were so many olive orchards here.

The drive to Fornalutx takes us through the outskirts of Soller so we get a taste of what our afternoon will look like. Soller is a larger town than Fornalutx and they both vie for the title of “prettiest town” in Palma.  We’ll be the judge!  Ten more minutes and we arrive in the teeny hamlet of Fornalutx. And teeny it is.  We drive right through the tiny, one car width main street, passing the main square and then down the hill and poof  - we are out of Fornalutx.  It is tiny. 

Ed expertly manages a u-turn and we head back through the tiny, one car width main street (with the blind hair pin curve at the main square, btw) and find parking in a little lot above the square.  This place is adorable!  Gorgeous old buildings with ivy creeping up their walls and flowering plants everywhere.

Meandering about  here takes about 2 minutes!  We were getting pretty hungry by this point, and decided to give up on restaurant on the hillside and just eat here.

We end up on the main square at one of the few cafes open.  Sitting on the square, we order tapas to share – a mixed grill platter with egg (Ed is in heaven), mixed vegetables and beef ( a local specialty) and pork tongue.  Yes, pork tongue – after all my years of eating beef tongue, this was a first – and it was totally yummy. Atmosphere and great food – what more could you want?