Bustling Little City

How is it possible that this little town with population of 50,000 can be so noisy? There is a constant traffic noise that relentlessly goes on day and night. No, I am not talking about the near highway experience here: it is Grau, a suburb Gandia. I can understand in the summer there are many tourists and night life, but in the winter time, with what are these people busy? Doesn't this town ever sleep? I will really appreciate the quietness of our surrounding when we go back home.

Some early morning sky scenes from our home - time: around 7:30 - 8:00 am.

Note the Mediterranean Sea

A Day at the Playa del Norte

Today is Sunday the January 13th. We went for a walk at the North Beach of Gandia. This beach is only 10-minute walking distance away from our apartment. The Gandia Beach is about 5.8 km long and includes five separate beaches: Naturist Beach (an extension of A'huir), Platja A'huir, Platja del Nord, Platja de Venecia, Platja de Rafalcaid. During our summer visit, we saw beach volleyball, windsurfing, kitesurfing and body surfing activities at this beach.

Here is what you encounter on a day in January between 4 and 6 o'clock in the afternoon!

The Royal Nautical Club of Gandia (remember the open water swim event?) located at the southern end of Platja del Nord. The city website tells that this club is considered one of the most important clubs in the Valencian District after Valencia. The boat storage capacity of the club is apparently 400 (both wet and dry).

The Pier

Must be a foreigner! Just joking, there were few of these fishermen right behind the sign read "fishing is prohibited in this area!"

Que? Kiero? Not Quiero? Dime en SMS - This way we learn the lingo, too!

The Lighthouse

It is quite interesting: these boulders are man-made and placed around the pier.

Platja del Nord

Gandia Port

Is this a rock formation?

I think I have high-anxiety. I was pretty shaky walking on this strip without any railing.

The cleaning truck tracks on the beach sand. They clean these beaches everyday, summer or winter, rain or shine. The beaches and water are extremely clean - despite the human abuse!

Elderly people stroll on this Maritime Walkway everyday. It is so cute to observe them coiffed and sparked...

I will not tell what they are eating but after two hours of walking, a little bit of junk food is OK.

Pop bottle art - a creative way of recycling them.

Practicing for the opening.

Geraniums - don't we start planting these in Coeur d'Alene around May?

I would say the Gandians are ready for spring!

A tree specimen which we do not know anything about - a question for our friend Miguel.

One of the few remaining small houses on the beach. The Promenade is filled with apartment buildings. More are built as you can see behind this little one (I imagine this one might not be existing very long either).

Entrance to one of the restaurants on our way.

Los Gatos de las Cavernas

Within my three months spent in Gandia, I hardly noticed any street cats. I was quite impressed with the efficiency of Gandia Animal Control. However, Gandia might owe this animal control success to the cats themselves. During our beach stroll today, we discovered a klan of cats at the pier by the Playa del Nord. About 4-5 meters of the long pier wall was left as a pile of rocks. In the grooves of these rock piles, cats were laying and sunbathing. Apparently, these cats had chosen the caves behind these boulders as their homes - don't know whether this strip of the wall was purposefully left undeveloped. I would call these cats pretty smart (must be all the 3-omega fatty acids they eat!). What better place to locate yourself: a constant supply of fish by either the fishermen or the dead fish ashore! Either way, they all looked pretty chubby and healthy.

Old people seem to love these cats and they love them back - the cats follow them everywhere.

What do you mean siesta is over?

Camouflaged!

Hide and seek.

Some variety in diet is healthy, right? Obviously no lack of fresh water, too.

I go...I come back!