Today we woke up around 9am, just in time to grab our breakfast before the 10am cut off. Afterwards, I stopped by the front desk to schedule my massage at 1pm. We then came back to our hotel room and got changed into our swimsuits so we could go to the spa and use the hydro-massage circuit. This was quite a unique experience! They have various showers where you stand and wait for the water to come spraying out at you. The water changes from warm to cold, pretty invigorating…okay, more like shocking. But the pool area has some nice Jacuzzi jets where you either lay down on them, or go to a station where each one hits a different part of your body. But the fun part was the different spouts! The high pressure water comes out in various shapes; each one feels a little different. You really have to brace yourself or they will knock you over. But they do give you quite a good massage. I was rubbery even before my massage!
When it was time for my regular massage, I went in while Joey went down to the regular pool and waited for me. The massage was very nice, and very relaxing! After my massage, I met Joey down at the pool where we spent most of the day relaxing some more. This is my favorite part of the vacation! We even went down to the beach for a bit; we had to at least get into the ocean for a bit, right? But it was quite chilly and very rocky. It was hard to walk into the water, not so easy on the feet. We then went back up to the pool where we stayed until probably 6pm as it stays hot and light out until quite late. There was also a private party going on down below so we had the added bonus of some real funky disco music to listen to! We eventually headed back to our room where we showered and got ready for our last dinner here at this beautiful place. We arrived for dinner at 8:30pm, the first to arrive, and were given the most beautiful spot in the restaurant. It was a corner spot with glass windows all around overlooking the ocean. VERY pretty! For dinner we had the mushroom soup, a nice salad, and fish and steak….once again, very tasty. Then, we rolled ourselves back to our room for the night…wondering if anything will fit us tomorrow for the last couple days of our trip!
Thursday, May 24th we woke up and got packed up and ready to leave Sevilla. We had to catch a 12:15pm flight to Valencia. Our flight was delayed about an hour, but it gave me time to catch up on some blogging at the airport. When we arrived in Valencia, we rented a car for our drive down the coast to our hotel stay at the beach in Villajoyosa, just outside of Alicante. The drive was nice enough, it reminded us of California for the most part. When we finally got near the coast, it was kind of hard to find our hotel. Our directions weren’t too clear so we stopped at a tourist office and the lady helped us out with a better map of the area. When we finally arrived at hour hotel, we were a bit surprised by how nice everything was. I mean I knew it was gonna be a nice place, but was pleasantly surprised by just how nice it was. It is a beautiful hotel situated on the bluffs overlooking the Mediterranean with rooms on various levels all the way down to the beach area. We were shown to our room and I immediately walked out to the large balcony to admire the view. Amazing! The water below is such a pretty color of turquoise, especially against the all over tan nude bodies on the beach below as well, lol. As it turns out the beach to the left of us is a “naturist” beach, while the beach to the right is just a “normal” topless beach…if you are so inclined. There were also dogs on the beach once again. One even swam around for us, sooo cute!
So this first day we pretty much just lay low, snuggling up in our hotel provided robes and slippers and just sit in awe of the view before us for the rest of the night. After such an action packed week in Sevilla, I wanted to do nothing else! So Joey went into town to pick us up some snacks and some to-go salads that we ate while sitting out on our balcony, feet kicked up and resting our tired bodies.
Friday, May 25th, we wake up in time to catch a late breakfast at the hotel restaurant. I was expecting the typical European fare of breads, meats, cheese, fruit and coffee…maybe some yogurt. But luckily this breakfast buffet had all that and more! They even had eggs! I have been dying for some eggs since I eat them quite a bit at home so this was a real treat for me. They also had champagne too. What I didn’t know when I booked this room is that the breakfast was free! How cool is that? And to make it even better, the dining room has a wall of windows so you still get to enjoy your morning looking out at the amazing views!
After breakfast we came back and changed into our swimsuits and then took a walk around the hotel grounds, finding all the little bars and lounges tucked away here or there. We also spotted the spa where I am hoping for a massage tomorrow. They have a whole circuit of hydro-therapy type massage things so we’ll probably partake in that as well. It’s pretty interesting… the spa pool which otherwise looks like a regular swimming pool, has all these little private Jacuzzi stations around the outside, as well as a reclining area with jets too. That makes for a pretty warm pool overall, which will be nice since I like my pool water warm. But I’ve never seen anything like that before! Pretty cool! We also walked down to the “non-nude” beach to see how cold the water is. It’s chilly, but not unbearable. The beaches here don’t really have sand; they’re more like small river rocks of varying sizes. Not too easy to walk on! We eventually made our way to the pool because the views from the lounge chairs are stunning! They are positioned right at the edge of the cliff and you pretty much get a full 180 degree view of the coastline. The pool water is a bit chilly too, but then again, I like my pool more like bath water :).
After our day at the pool we stopped at one of the bars at the top of the cliff and had a drink. AND I got to Skype with Claudia again :). We then went back to our room for a shower before going into town for dinner. We could have dinner here at the hotel, and we will tomorrow, but we just thought it would be more fun to see what’s out in the town. It’s not really a tourist town, but rather a small beach town where the locals live so there weren’t a lot of options. We stopped into the market and picked up a few things for the beach tomorrow, and also got some dessert for later. Its fun seeing all the different foods they eat here. As it “should” be, the cereal isle is the smallest, doesn’t even take up a full isle. And there are minimal packaged foods too. They have all kinds of odd seafood as well. We finally ended up deciding on a Chinese food place of all things, but figured what the heck, we’ve had our fill of Spanish food…for now. Still saving our big diet splurge on paella in Valencia since that’s what Valencia is known for…”paella a la valenciana”, which is a seafood paella. Anyway, our Chinese food place was an interesting little oddity, a mix of Asian and Spanish décor… but the food was excellent. The hot n’ sour soup was HOT, spicy hot! But oooh so tasty. Everything else was cooked fresh and done really well. We were the only ones in there other than one local man. Overall, just a pretty funny experience that we both got a kick out of. We then came back to our rooms with stuffed tummy’s so we stripped off our clothes and got back into our hotel robes and slippers and sat on the balcony until it was dark before retiring to our wispy netted bed, ha ha.
What A Wonderful World... 