{"id":3303,"date":"2021-07-07T19:21:28","date_gmt":"2021-07-07T18:21:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/?page_id=3303"},"modified":"2021-07-07T19:21:28","modified_gmt":"2021-07-07T18:21:28","slug":"week-25-cycling-antaninas-visit-orxeta","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/?page_id=3303","title":{"rendered":"Week 25: cycling, Antanina’s visit, Orxeta"},"content":{"rendered":"

A week with lots of nice bike rides, also a walk in the city, and a visit by my Lithuanian ex-trainee Antanina.<\/p>\n

25_1<\/strong>
\nThe beach continued to provide me with beautiful cloudscapes in the early morning. Later in the day it is boring blue sky, but in the morning it is often a different picture:
\n\"1010368\"<\/p>\n

25_2<\/strong>
\nOne morning I rode my bike to Maigm\u00c3\u00b3, a semi-hard ride with significant climbing. There is a stretch of about 20 km where the route is a combination of bike path and a service road running along the A7 motorway. At a certain point the bike path forks, and there was always a sign indicating where cyclists should go. But apparently enough of them ignored the sign, continuing on the left towards a dead end, so since my last ride here a few weeks ago, the authorities decided to provide a more forceful hint:
\n\"1010358\"<\/p>\n

25_3<\/strong>
\nYellow and blue:
\n\"1010360\"<\/p>\n

25_4<\/strong>
\nThe road between Maigm\u00c3\u00b3 and Agost, 11 km, is a beautiful, curvy mountain road, beloved by both cyclists and motorcyclists. Unfortunately, some of the latter ride the road too aggressively and end up injured or dead. So the authorities have recently put up signs like this:
\n\"1010362\"<\/p>\n

25_5<\/strong>
\nA place I often pass on my bicycle is a newly built solar power plant on the road between Busot and Jijona. Some people complain that such plants spoil the landscape but I have no time for such NIMBYism. We need wind and solar power to save the planet, and I find these views beautiful (there was a barren field there before):
\n\"1010379\"<\/p>\n

25_6<\/strong>
\n\"1010384\"<\/p>\n

25_7<\/strong>
\nThis view, from the national road N332 that connects Alicante with Valencia, illustrates the two sides of Spain in my part of this country, the sheep and goat farm in the foreground and the vacation homes for madrile\u00c3\u00b1os<\/em> and foreigners in the background:
\n\"1010372\"<\/p>\n

25_8<\/strong>
\nThe Sunday market in Busot, such as it is:
\n\"1010376\"<\/p>\n

25_9<\/strong>
\nA couple of brief walks in the city. A rare spot of rain on Plaza Seneca:
\n\"DSF7899\"<\/p>\n

25_10<\/strong>
\nThe big midsummer festivities culminating with the burning of the large statues, called hogueras<\/em>, on June 24th were cancelled this year (as was the case in 2020). A few mini-hogueras were installed around the city to at least mark the occasion in some manner:
\n\"DSF7902\"<\/p>\n

25_11<\/strong>
\nAnother mini-hoguera in the same neighbourhood:
\n\"1050590\"<\/p>\n

25_12<\/strong>
\nRelief in the centre, connected to the Santa Faz holiday in the spring:
\n\"1050593\"<\/p>\n

25_13<\/strong>
\nSunday afternoon, the usual lunch with friends:
\n\"1050581\"<\/p>\n

25_14<\/strong>
\nMonica and Alejandra:
\n\"1050582\"<\/p>\n

25_15<\/strong>
\nLucas:
\n\"1050583\"<\/p>\n

25_16<\/strong>
\nBalu wants to play:
\n\"1050585\"<\/p>\n

25_17<\/strong>
\n\"1050589\"<\/p>\n

25_18<\/strong>
\nAntanina is my poster child for the new Europe that has emerged after the fall of Communism in 1989. She was born a year or two after that, in the newly independent Lithuania. As a young student, she went to study at an Italian university under the Erasmus programme, and later, about 6 years ago, she was a trainee in my department. I have kept in touch with her since, including during her PhD studies at the University of Padova and subsequently. She is now back in Lithuania and was visiting Alicante for a few days. We went for dinner with her at a restaurant in the centre, at a newly “discovered” place, La Casa de Leo, a great little restaurant:
\n\"1050596\"<\/p>\n

25_19<\/strong>
\nMy main dish, tuna tartare:
\n\"1050598\"<\/p>\n

25_20<\/strong>
\nAfter dinner, we walked to a bar for a late drink. I enjoyed walking through the centre, looking at other people enjoying themselves at outside tables:
\n\"1050602\"<\/p>\n

25_21<\/strong>
\nOur current trainee Alejandra, with our former trainee Antanina:
\n\"1050604\"<\/p>\n

25_22<\/strong>
\nCarolina with a lovely smile:
\n\"1050605\"<\/p>\n

25_23<\/strong>
\nThe remaining pictures are from two different bike rides, one to Relleu, during which I pass through some lovely landscapes. I always stop to photograph this grand country house:
\n\"1010395\"<\/p>\n

25_24<\/strong>
\nAnother house in beautiful surroundings, but a lot less grand than the previous one:
\n\"1010397\"<\/p>\n

25_25<\/strong>
\nSome 10 km after Relleu, I came to a town called Orxeta. Like much of Alicante province, this is wine country, as evidenced by this mural extolling the “drops of life”:
\n\"1010405\"<\/p>\n

25_26<\/strong>
\nThe road descends to the Amadorio river which runs into the sea in Villajoyosa:
\n\"1010408\"<\/p>\n

25_27<\/strong>
\n\"1010411\"<\/p>\n

25_28<\/strong>
\nAway from the river, there are some nice subdivisions on the hillsides:
\n\"1010412\"<\/p>\n

25_29<\/strong>
\nAnd some nice views of the inland mountains:
\n\"1010414\"<\/p>\n

25_30<\/strong>
\nI wrote above that the river runs into the sea at Villajoyosa. Except that it doesn’t, because it is dammed here in Orxeta to create a huge reservoir:
\n\"1010415\"<\/p>\n

25_31<\/strong>
\nThe river and the banks of the reservoir are a picnic spot for the locals:
\n\"1010418\"<\/p>\n

25_32<\/strong>
\nMy last ride of the week went to Maigm\u00c3\u00b3 via Agost, another frequent mountain route for me. Near the village of Verdeg\u00c3\u00a1s, I saw some other people having fun on two wheels:
\n\"1010423\"<\/p>\n

25_33<\/strong>
\nThe church in Agost, a town where I always take a Coke break:
\n\"1010427\"<\/p>\n

25_34<\/strong>
\nEleven km later, I was at the top of the V\u00c3\u00ada Verde del Maigm\u00c3\u00b3 where there is a parking lot and a small picnic area where I took a much needed breather:
\n\"1010429\"<\/p>\n

25_35<\/strong>
\nFrom that point, I had 30 km or so to get home; I was at an elevation of around 650 meters, and since I live at sea level, I could let gravity do much of the work, cycling on a local road along the motorway:
\n\"1010435\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A week with lots of nice bike rides, also a walk in the city, and a visit by my Lithuanian ex-trainee Antanina. 25_1 The beach continued to provide me with beautiful cloudscapes in the early morning. Later in the day it is boring blue sky, but in the morning it is often a different picture: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":3141,"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\/3303"}],"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=3303"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3311,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3303\/revisions\/3311"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}