El Castell de Guadalest

We went on the most grand adventure on Saturday!  To a place that I had never read about in a guide book or on the internet, and a place that our GPS refused to acknowledge even existed.  Last week while we were romping on the beach a nice couple from Yorkshire stopped to chat for a bit.  They started showing us pictures from some of their little excursions, but the only name we could remember by the time we got home and could look things up was this one.  They mentioned some others, but we'll never know how awesome they were!  It took about two hours to get there -- through the desert, over some rivers, along the coast, and up some very windy roads into the mountains.  We had a wonderful time exploring a little village, a grand house, and the ruins of a castle that was first built in the 1100s!  I love to think about how much time has passed, how many feet have walked along the paths, how many loves and losses, the stories embedded in the walls.  I took so many pictures -- I haven't mentioned how I bought a new camera last summer especially for this trip, packed it very carefully in a padded bag, and somehow it was broken on the journey to Spain, so I just have my phone which kept telling me was too full so I was having to edit every time I wanted to take a picture and then somehow I ended up losing over half of the pictures that I took!  I didn't realize until a day later so they're completely irretrievable and I spent quite a bit of time ranting and pouting about it.  We might have to go back.  Oh well, here are some, actually more than plenty, to give you an idea of the amazing-ness.

I had taken some great pictures of the little boys playing on a playground with the castle jutting up behind them in the distance, and some fun photos of the boys running down the middle of the street in the village, and us eating some tapas in a cute little restaurant... you'll just have to use your imagination for those I suppose.  The weather was gorgeous and can you believe the cherry blossoms???  It's January for Pete's sake!