Two Museum Friday

Friday, 13 February, 2015:

Before we get into Friday's explorations, I need to mention that as of Thursday, I think that I've officially become a "local."

 The Don Gomez III y IV

This is our friendly neighborhood bar/café specializing in sea food. The Don Gomez has a Cheers-meets-Murcia feel to it thanks to its bartender Paco.

You may recall that in previous outings to this fine establishment, Paco has been unable to listen to what we order and/or how to count as he usually just continues to bring more beverages and delicious plates fish regardless of what we have ordered.

On Thursday morning I dropped for just a simple café con leche. Paco took my order, handed me my café con leche but with three soft, sweet, spongy dessert delicacies and a slab of moist pound cake.

Suddenly, a plate of fresh calamari with a fantastic tomato based sauce and succulent huerta grown vegetables. 

This dish was accompanied by an Estrella Levante beer and a loaf of bread.

Once finished, Paco then asked if I wanted anything else so I asked for a second café con leche.

When Paco brought me the cuenta, it was a whopping FIVE Euros. That's about $5.69 USD in  today's exchange rate.

Spain is a great place for travelers for many reasons and Paco at the Don Gomez is one of them.

Our local bakery

Belén, who owns the Los Siscas, is a daily ray of sunshine with her warm, outgoing and funny attitude.

When I stopped in for my daily ration of empanadas and croissants, she said that the tab was three Euros. I gave her a five Euro note but she informed me that she was woefully low on change and could not break the note.

Her instruction was to take the food, keep the money and just pay her the three Euros the next time I was in the bakery.

Yep, I'm definitely a local!!!

Friday was a gorgeous day so I went for a six plus mile stroll around Murcia, just a wee stretch of the legs. 

Wonderful Murcia architecture

Shoppers in the streets

Watching over the 
Street of the Silversmiths

Nice touch

The old Molinos hard by the
Rio Segura which now houses . . .

The Water Museum

Lile my guide

Millstones to first grind wheat
and later peppers

Cog Wheels

Pimenton was ground in these
molinos many years ago

Pimenton is the Spanish word for paprika I believe.

El Cid brand is a MUST

The Lady of the Pimenton

One of 24 mill stones that were
driven by the Rio Segura's water

Hand driven mill stones

Lots of cog wheels

Small water wheel

This was a fascinating museum that gave you a great feel for the economic base that was Murcia's reason for being since the days of the Moors.

Iglesia del Carmen

Nice window in the Murcia
Ayuntamiento or City Hall

Crest on the Palacio Episcopal

Nice Bikes

Museo de Santa Clara

A monastery of cloistered nuns took over this building about 700 years ago. It was originally a palace for a Moorish king but when the nuns took it over then spent great efforts to cover over all signs of the Moorish architecture.

Fortunately, they did not destroy it, just covered it as I said. After 40 or 50 years, people forgot that the Moorish palace was underneath the new façade until about 20 years ago when a routine renovation discovered what still lay beneath the monastery walls including this pond that the nuns simply covered with lots of dirt.

The nuns still live in the part of the building that you see behind this pond.

Let's see what else they discovered . . .

Blue

Beautiful

Archways

Two different museums but both wonderful in their own ways.

Is that the roof of our local church
or a helipad?

Cadet game at home

We have two games this weekend as the Cobra Cadets will play a five man, full contact game against the Cehegin Wolves on Saturday night.

As for the 1-1 Cobra Seniors . . . 

We host the 2-0 Reus Imperials

on Sunday

The Imperials are a good football team, we are going to have to play extremely well in order to compete.

More days and counting . . .