Day 7 Alajar and Aracena Castle

We woke leisurely and made coffee and sent the kids out to play. Violet and Davis and Samuel had all slept in our second bedroom in three twin beds laid out like the three bears. So cute. The weather forecast promised lots of rain for the afternoon so we all headed outside to have some fun before it began. The kids played on the grounds and Michael read his kindle and Cheris and Rob and I went for a hike through the mountain paths. Our path was called the Walk of the Watermills and was so beautiful. There was water dripping around us and everything is so lush and green. Little white and yellow and purple flowers dot the path and big white stones and pasture line the path. We examined old water mills and crossed a creek and had a wonderful morning. The sun came out and warmed us while we walked.
We returned about an hour and a half or so after we left and we gathered everyone into the cars to drive down to the little village of Alajar for 2pm lunch. We brought our umbrellas as rain was expected. We found a great restaurant called La Placita that had a big pizza oven and served divine, wafer thin, charred pizzas. We had glasses of vinho verde outside on the plaza with the sun shining. We ate a bowl of amazing green spanish olives as our tapa with wine. After about half an hour our pizzas came out and we fell ravenously upon them.

The place began to fill up and pretty soon a guitarist and singer began performing in the cafe. We moved inside to watch and rain started pouring down. Perfect timing!
We enjoyed a few songs and then made our way back to the car. The rain had eased up and we needed provisions from the big town at the top of the hill and we were intrigued by the castle so we all decided to chance the rain and drive up the mountain to see the castle. We drove up and up until we arrived at the Castle in Aracena. We were able to drive straight up the castle through the gates and park right up in front like we owned the place. We walked all around and took lots of pictures of the views and then got in on a tour which allowed us inside the castle walls. The tour was in Spanish so we didn't get much from it, but we walked all around and the kids had imaginary battles on the castle walls. It started to rain again just as the tour was ending so we ran back to the cars and drove into town for a supermarket.

I love shopping for groceries in a foreign country. We bought provisions and ran through the rain back to the car and drove back to Molino Rio Alajar. It was raining in earnest now so the kids played Loot and I made dinner and we played inside. My back has been getting steadily worse every day and at this point I was in agony. I dosed myself with lots of wine and pretty soon my back no longer hurt anymore. We put the kids in their room with a movie and played catan at our dining room table. It was so fun to play our favorite game with our favorite people drinking copious amounts of rioja and munching fried almonds and manchego cheese and picante potato chips. The cozy fire in the fire place and the rain outside added to ambiance and made for a lovely evening.