We visit the house where John Lennon lived.

25/1/13

It was a full day today. Our first stop was Casa del Cine. Unfortunately it was closed and didn't open again til five pm. No problem, we'll go and find somewhere to have lunch then come back.

We had a little sightseeing ride around town for a while. We were actually trying to find the shopping centre that had a Desigual shop in it, but had no luck whatsoever and gave up. Luckily we spotted some more graffiti that Suzanne liked...

What the?

We then stopped at a nice looking cafe. With a bit of sign language, and our limited Spanish (very limited), we spoke to the waiter and ordered Paella for lunch. It was very enjoyable and we managed to eat it all, even though they were large serves. Then our waiter friend appeared with two more plates. These had three slices of crumbed veal and chips, on each one. We obviously need to work on our Spanish. We had a bit of a nibble, and packed the rest away for a late night snack back at the hotel.

Weighing a little bit more than we did this morning, we made out way to Alcazaba de Almeria fortress. I'm so glad we did. We could have easily written it off as just another castle, but it was really interesting. Here's a link to a web site about it:

http://www.spain.info/en/conoce/monumentos/almeria/alcazaba_de_almeria.html

 Me at the entrance, probably thinking "Hurry up Suzanne".

The gardens were amazing, and well tended.

 Wouldn't this make a great backyard?

 This reminded me of Fishladder Falls

near Harvey in Western Australia.

 As you can see, we had the place almost to ourselves.

 Another part we couldn't explore.

 Suzanne reckoned this sign meant No Zombies"

and demonstrated.

 The bell of Santa Maria la Mayor church,

cast in 1763.

 The older part of the fortress.

 For some reason I just liked these doors.

 What a great barbecue area.

 Stonemason's art.

 These were pointed inland. Obviously they were more worried about attack by land than by sea.

 A little bit of creative paving.

The fortress offered a good vista of the city.

We spent hours wandering around here and it was a very peaceful place. Mind you, there were more cats there than people while we were there. So many cats I thought we might have been in a "cat"acombe. Chuckle, chuckle. At first I thought the cats were wild, but when we got close to one I could see it was very healthy and in good condition. Then it came over for a pat. Definitely not wild.

 Security cat.

"Yes, you can come in."

 This guy followed us around and was our best mate.

 Nice set of book ends.

When we walked into the cafe to get a drink all the cats came running in after us. I'm guessing people with food give them treats when they are in the cafe, so the cats know that cafe, plus people, equals food.

 At one point Suzanne had seven cats around her feet.

I told you he became our best mate.

Fanta cat.

It was now time to make our second attempt at visiting Casa del Cine. Off we went. It wasn't long before we found another distraction. The Desigual shop we were looking for earlier. In we went. For those of you that don't know Desigual it's a Spanish fashion label, and they make some awesome, quirky stuff. We've already sent one jacket home for Suzanne, but a girl can never have too many jackets can she? We didn't have much joy though. There was only one jacket we really liked, but the didn't have Suzanne's size. We did find a bangle though...

Finally we made it to Casa del Cine. After a few communication problems we were let in and met a very helpful Spanish girl. From what I could gather, I think they have group visits, and change the audio visual presentations to suit different language groups. This girl (I feel so bad that I didn't get her name. If you read this please email us.) was so pleasant. She basically gave us our own private tour, setting up the English audio along the way, and filling us in on some of the details about the house. It was great.

You might recognise one or two of the people

 who have worked in Almeria.

Part of an art exhibition by Antonio Lorente

This is computer generated.

Suzie got a kick out of standing in John Lennon's bathroom.

It's still as it was when he was there.

John's bedroom.

The gates to Santa Isabel, now the Casa del Cine. These gates reminded John of Strawberry Field where he used to play as a child. 

Good night John. Sleep well.

You can read about Casa del Cine here; http://www.ineedspain.com/article/272/?detail=true

We decided that the Taverna downstairs was such good value we'd go there for dinner again. They didn't let us down and we trundled off to bed exhausted from a full day, and with full bellies.

Sleeeeeeeeeeep.