\nBut I start with a random evening image of Alicante’s marina and waterfront. Most of these fancy boats belong to wealthy people from Madrid (for whom Alicante is the closest beach resort) and from abroad:
\n
![\"DSF0441\"](\"uploads\/2018\/7_1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n7_2<\/strong> 7_3<\/strong> 7_4<\/strong> 7_5<\/strong> 7_6<\/strong> 7_7<\/strong> 7_8<\/strong> 7_9<\/strong> 7_10<\/strong> 7_11<\/strong> 7_12<\/strong> 7_13<\/strong> 7_14<\/strong> 7_15<\/strong> 7_16<\/strong> 7_17<\/strong> 7_18<\/strong> 7_19<\/strong> 7_20<\/strong> 7_21<\/strong> And so ended a quiet week. I am posting this from the lounge in Madrid airport, on my way home from Bulgaria. So the following weekly blog will be very different–from a place I had never visited before.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Yet another week with lots of work and too little time for cycling and photography during the working week–spinning at the gym at the office helps maintain me in shape for the weekend but is not particularly photogenic. So with the exception of the fire department exercise at our office, most of this week’s images […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":2074,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2112"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2112"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2114,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2112\/revisions\/2114"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nI went for a ride south on the Sunday starting the week, wanting a break from the mountains. But instead, the first 30 km of the 75 km ride were in fairly strong headwind, so it was quite vigorous nonetheless. I stopped at the Urbanova beach, almost entirely deserted:
\n![\"R003279\"](\"uploads\/2018\/7_2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nAlong the road to Elche, an elaborate memorial, apparently from long ago. I have cycled on this road many times but had not noticed it before:
\n![\"R003282\"](\"uploads\/2018\/7_3.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nAfter about 48 km, I took the only real break of the ride, on the beach just north of Santa Pola. The weather was not cold but not warm either (by our standards) so the beach itself was largely empty:
\n![\"R003291\"](\"uploads\/2018\/7_4.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nThe air was clear, and the island of Tabarca was visible in the distance:
\n![\"R003286\"](\"uploads\/2018\/7_5.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nLater that day, my daughter and I had lunch at Baobab, the African restaurant, and as always, the food was a treat for the palate and for the eye:
\n![\"R003293\"](\"uploads\/2018\/7_6.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n![\"R003294\"](\"uploads\/2018\/7_7.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nAnd while walking to the restaurant, we saw this amusing fuel cap on a parked car:
\n![\"R003292\"](\"uploads\/2018\/7_8.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nSometimes, when I arrive at the office in the morning, the harsh sunshine coming through the window treats me to sights like this:
\n![\"DSF0495\"](\"uploads\/2018\/7_9.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nOn Thursday, the Alicante fire department came to visit our office in order to conduct an exercise, simulating entering the building through a 2nd floor window to rescue someone. There is a bike path\/service road around the building which provides good access for the fire engines:
\n![\"DSF0499\"](\"uploads\/2018\/7_10.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nThe two bomberos<\/em> getting ready:
\n![\"DSF0502\"](\"uploads\/2018\/7_11.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nGoing up:
\n![\"DSF0505\"](\"uploads\/2018\/7_12.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nThe sea and Alicante in the background. Our office is about 5 km south of the city:
\n![\"DSF0534\"](\"uploads\/2018\/7_13.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nThe main challenge for the firemen was to open the exterior decorative tubing:
\n![\"DSF0518\"](\"uploads\/2018\/7_14.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n![\"DSF0510\"](\"uploads\/2018\/7_15.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nThey did manage after a few minutes; better to learn how do it in an exercise than in a real emergency:
\n![\"DSF0526\"](\"uploads\/2018\/7_16.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nThey are in, and the exercise concludes:
\n![\"DSF0532\"](\"uploads\/2018\/7_17.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nOn Thursday evening I stopped by the Corte Ingl\u00c3\u00a9s department store to pick up the photos from our group exhibition that had hung there for 3 weeks. Now it was a local painter’s turn, and later in the evening they were going to have the vernissage. But this young woman was already having a look:
\n![\"R003296\"](\"uploads\/2018\/7_18.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nAnd these two older women made sure they had front row seats for the talk:
\n![\"R003298\"](\"uploads\/2018\/7_19.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nOn Friday, I had to stay in the office until about 7:15, and as I was leaving, the remnants of the sunset were still visible:
\n![\"DSF0538\"](\"uploads\/2018\/7_20.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nOn Saturday I cycled to Jijona, passing this new sight, a large field of lettuce. This is the first serious agriculture I have seen in this area:
\n![\"R003303\"](\"uploads\/2018\/7_21.jpg\")
<\/p>\n