Spain 2016 - Plaza Laguna and Punta del Moral

After a bit of a mishap last night with a flooded kitchen (dishwasher overflow?) we needed to get some assistance from the rental office. We then headed into Ayamonte to check out the town square that is depicted in much of the advertising for the town.

It is quite charming, surrounded by banks, restaurants, palm trees and

benches covered with painted tiles (decorative but not that comfortable)

The label says that the original of this painting is in the Hispanic Museum in New York.

Practicing for a bullfight. There is a bullring marked on the maps, I will have to find it.

You'd look a little put out too, with a pigeon on your head.

On a side street from the square is a church up some steep steps. Mum and I went inside and found it surprisingly bright, painted white inside.

An intricate wooden ceiling

Many of the statues were clothed and not in dusty old stuff but in rich velvets and bright colours. A group of people were clothing one of the statues in new material being very careful about the draping and taking pictures (with their phones) during the process.

I don't think I had seen a sculpture depicting Christ being taken down from the cross, before.

There was a beautiful painted ceiling above it.

After checking out all the restaurants we settled at one and ordered drinks and tapas. We decided that we would, over the course of the 2 months, try each restaurant in the square and determine the best for tapas. We need something to replace the "best croissant" search that we had in Ceret last year.

This is the Queso Parmesano and Pate, half eaten. We also ordered salmon and cheese, jamon  and tomato ensalada.

That with 3 wines and 3 coffees cost about 30 Euro, $45 Can.

Part of the clean up crew. He handles below the table.

He handles on the table.

We came back to the apartment after lunch and I went to explore more of Punta del Moral, the little fishing village across the marina from us.

Commercial fishing boats are now rafted 3 deep on the dock, perhaps home for the weekend.

Crested lark on the beach.

Across the river, over Isla Christina, a motorized hang glider (not sure if it can be called a glider if it's motorized)

Punta del Moral is a neat little village with clean streets and tidy houses painted in white, cream, pink and blue. There is a small supermarket and about 6 restaurants. There is however no mistaking that it is a fishing village.

Fishing buoys leaning up against a house.

Nets spread out to dry. There were 2 men repairing the holes in them. How many 100's of years have fishermen been doing that?

The stained glass in the window above the church door depicted an anchor.

We decided, on consulting the bird book, that this was a Kentish Plover.

I got home to find that Mum had gone for a walk in a different direction. It was warm enough so we had a drink on the terrace and embraced the Spanish habit of baguette with herbed olive oil and olives to go with it.

There was one piece of bread left. Mum and I were leaning on the railing and Dad had gone inside when our resident seagull, Johnathon (of course) swooped onto the table and stole it. We watched and laughed as another seagull stole it from him!