Holy Barraca!!!

Thursday, 9 April, 2015:

What a great day for a walk!

Murcia is still deeply

into the Fiesta Spirit

Majorettes?

 Nice Tosses

 Flowers on tonight's parade floats

Lots of flowers

Add some more as needed

They should be finished by the

parade's 5:00 p.m. start time

More of Murcia's interesting architecture

Next to the Mercado de las Veronicas

We were in need of some meat and cheese to restock La Hacienda's stores and what better place to do it than at the Mercado de las Veronicas.

 Is that a tail?

Great butchers

These are two of our favorite characters in the Mercado. While we tried a couple of samples of their morcilla and chorizo, they also offered us a couple of glasses of wine to try that were great with their samples.

Of course we bought all of the above before leaving.

From the Mercado, we just went across the street for another tapas based meal at the Peña Huertana La Espartiña barraca.

Old cart licenses

A brake shoe

Things were just picking up

The prettiest girl in the Peña

So many choices,

but let's start with a . . .

. . . Jarra de Vino Tinto . . .

Sure, we'll have a second jarra.

. . . and an order of Zarangollo

and end with . . . 

. . . Matasuegras and . . .

 . . . Café de Olla!

 Our OUTSTANDING waitress!!!

What a great meal!

Between the Zarangollo and the Café de Olla, we also savored the Butifarra, Chorizo a la Plancha, Patatas Asadas and Tortilla Cuña.

It was all so good!

On the way back to La Hacienda we saw two  things of interest.

 The Sardina Falla

Saturday night will witness the last really big event of Murcia's Festivas de Primavera, El Entierro de la Sardina.

The Lenten season that just ended is traditionally highlighted by a meatless Fridays. Thus, the good people of Murcia annually celebrate the return of meat as a food option seven days a week by burying the sardine. This night time party will again include a massive dress up day by the locals in striped costumes.

The big sardine seen in the above picture will be torched at the conclusion of the gala party.

 Men with capes

Not sure why, but we saw several men wearing capes walking around la ciudad today.

I wonder if our brother-in-law,

Dr. David Hicks, has one of these?

David's son, Tim, is currently in Medical School. Maybe we should buy one of these capes for him for graduation.