June 16 –
22, 2014
GANDIA
We are
met at the bus station in Gandia, a few hours up the coast, by Estaban, a
dapper gentleman with white hair and a pipe. We have a short ride through the
city with him and his wife, Francesca. Neither speaks much English, but we
manage. It’s Francesca who is in charge of the apartment, evidenced by the
assortment of brochures and instructions waiting for us, all very organized,
and which she talks us through with enthusiastic gestures and phrases. It’s a
very nice place, a real home, much like Alicante,
with heavy furniture and full sets of china and silverware.
Gandia is
two cities. We are in the old city, the commercial center where few tourists
venture. Then, the beach city, a collection of hotels and restaurants gathered
along a spectacular sandy beach. The two are connected by a strip of roadway
with a bike path and some neighborhoods of townhouse developments. We have a
bus stop right near the apartment, so we try out the bus ride to the beach. It turns out that they are red-flagged because of the waves, and
completely empty, which seems pretty strange. We’d expect to see people out on
the beach even if there’s no swimming. But the facilities are very nice, with
lounge rentals, snack stands, beach showers and restrooms. We stroll the
promenade a ways, passing a few packs of college kids coming in for a holiday.
All the girls are hauling gigantic suitcases. They’re also all wearing
flip-flops, tiny shorts and tank tops. They must also need a few hundred
outfits on hand. Farther along, we find a massive bonfire under construction.
There’s a festival Saturday, Solstice and all, so by then it should be really,
really big. Impressive.
Our
balcony overlooks a big city park with high trees and a water garden, and…a skateboard park! We can’t see anyone, but we can hear loud
smashing and banging noises, “like a construction site, where they throw boards around,” says Bob.
We take
an afternoon to visit the Ducal
Palace of the Borgias
(Yes, THEM), the city’s main tourist site - very elegant - but we spend most of
the week here at the beach. Conditions have improved and the water is lovely.
We see lots of very large fish swimming right at our feet. Bob can’t believe no
one is surf fishing here. The beach vendors tote bags of bikinis, cover-ups and sunglasses,
leather braided wrist bracelets and weird apple-shaped cutting boards that
splay into a basket, always handy to have at the beach. One young Spanish woman
has great success with a popular item, a silky, long vest-like garment that
comes in florescent rainbow of color choices. She’s wearing one, and
demonstrates for her customers the dozens of ways it can be worn with the use
of a little belt loop. “Like this, a halter dress! Like this, a wrap dress!
Like this, bandeau style!” She moves through several more styles, flipping the
fabric around, over her head, arms in, arms out, pulling it through the belt
loop. Her customers are mesmerized, and fork over the ten Euros, to spend the
rest of the day trying to figure out exactly how she did she do that???
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