Slippery slope…….

Up early, a quick breakfast, then out of the house by 8am, a brisk walk down into the village, where we spotted the coach, yes we are going out with the “oldies” On a coach trip. We have joined the local village club, where they organise trips, today we are off to Lorca.

After we were all checked in, we left the village by 8.30am, everyone is very chatty and friendly which is nice. The weather looks decidedly dodgy today, so we have all taken our raincoats which should guarantee a good day!

We arrived at Lorca 2 hours later, and were told we could wander around the town, get a coffee etc., before we were boarding the local tourist train at 11.30am. We found a lovely coffee place, where we had baguettes with tomato, oil and allioli it was lovely.

Back to the tourist office, we boarded the train, and commenced our journey through the

old part of town, into the new part, before we commenced our journey up to the castle. All the locals were waving at us, not sure why, maybe we were bringing money to the town who knows, but they certainly were a friendly lot.

The town had been hit with an earthquake three years ago, and there were lots of buildings missing, workmen were rebuilding the town, renovating the old buildings, and where they could they were keeping the old fronts, it was good to see that they had not ripped the old,part to pieces, and replaced with modern architecture.

The journey to the castle was slow, very bumpy, and a very steep incline, in fact we

thought at one time we were going to have to get out and push. There was probably about 50 people on this train, and to say it was struggling was an understatement.

We were all relieved to get off, and make our way to the castle, we watched a short video, before following the trail around the castle. Besides having to climb hills, steps, and many slopes, we had a brilliant time.

We went up many steps to the top of the tower, where we could see all the surrounding area, worth the climb, we then went down to the dungeons where the prisons were.
We meandered around the outside, found the bakery, water mill, climbed up to the second tower, to find out, we would have to have a guided tour to do this one, and the next one was at 5pm, so that was a No No then.

Fast approaching lunch, so we headed for the restaurant, where everyone was gathering, Geoff located the bar, so a couple of wines, and a sit down was called for. We then took our seats for lunch, where we managed to confuse the waitress enough to get extra wine, we were only allowed one glass per person, we had about three! Tut tut.

We were supposed to be catching the coach back to town, but everyone was enjoying themselves, we voted to stay at the castle, until 5pm. What a fantastic day.

Just as we are leaving the castle, it started raining, so on with the raincoats, quick walk to the coach, then headed home.

We will be continuing the slippery slope, as we met some lovely people, and we thoroughly enjoyed our day out.