Odds and Ends at the End of a Travel Blog

I'm in Pampaneira at this moment, up in the Sierra Nevada mountains of southern Spain. At 5:00 pm a bus comes rolling through town, and I plan to be on it this afternoon, heading to Granada, and then from Granada through the air to Barcelona. On Thursday, I should be headed home to Wisconsin.

Too soon to take stock of the totality of the past eight weeks, best I can do right now is to pick up a few lost pieces. There are important things that slipped through the blog cracks. For example, whatever happened to the rest of the story about Lyon?  Way back in September?

Check out this fine example of Trompe-l'Oeil painting on the side of this building in Croix-Rousse:

 Ha! Zach and I went up to the ATM in the lower right to extract some Euros... from the wall!

I was charmed by this musician, and soon dismayed when he was surrounded by police checking his permit to make music on the street. (He was OK, and played on.)

And here's our cousin, Marie Therese, such a bright light on this planet, showing us around Lyon, her new happy home.

And then, how is it that I totally neglected to note the Wieliczka salt mine in Poland, near Kraków?

All these sculptures are carved out of SALT!

We went down into this salt mine with our cousin, Małgosia.  Back in September!

Time to go home now.  I'm ready.  It's been a phenomenal eight weeks. A big thank you — Mercí, Dziękuje, and Mulƫumesc — to all who were so kind and generous to Zach and to me. You have enriched our lives. Come and visit us in the United States! 

And thank you to all who have responded to this blog, in one way or another, in the last couple of months. You've kept me going! Come travel with me next time!

I leave you with this shot of sunset last night, here in Pampaneira:

Climbing up to Bubión

Yesterday — November 1, the feast of Todos Santos — I climbed from Pampaneira up to the next village, Bubión. This is a relatively “easy” hike, supposed to take about an hour. 

The villages here in Las Alpujarras are all built into the sides of the mountains. The central area of Pampaneira is near the bottom of the village, so it took me quite a while to get to the top of the village, where the trail to Bubión begins. 

Here are a few photos I took in town, as I climbed up the steep stone streets seeking the top of Pampaneira:

Finally, I reach the top of the town and the beginning of the sendero, or hiking trail.

That's Pampaneira, down below.

A sign-post at the beginning of the trail shows you that the portion of the trail from Pampaneira to Bubión is just a small fraction of the hiking trails around here:

The trail itself is a narrow, dirt path, sometimes hardly more than a foot wide. Twice, I passed some happy piggies.

This is exactly the kind of trail that Zach would like.

Notice terraced gardens on the other side of the gorge:

It’s nice having a camera along, as it gives me an excuse to stop for a while and catch my breath.

Finally, I get a glimpse of Bubión, still pretty far up. 

I look back down the mountian. There’s Pampaneira, way down there!

You can barely see Pampaneira but it's there in the distance behind the trees, nestled into the folds of the mountains.

I’m sweating now. Jacket’s been off for some time. Now the scarf comes off, then the hat. By the time I get to Bubión I’m dripping with sweat and panting.

And here it is! Bubión! 

First thing that greets the walker is this lovely fountain:

I’m in Bubión, but the hike is not over, as all restaurants and beer opportunities are at the very top, along the highway. So, I keep climbing within the village. About a quarter of the way up there’s a terrace, with a view of Pampaneira down below.

Finally, I find a restaurant up at the top of Bubión. 

A cold beer comes accompanied by a dish of 25 olives, (yes, I counted the pits,) a lovely little round loaf of excellent white bread, (I ate the entire loaf,) and thin slices of the local sausage. And then the main course, fried trout from the local streams, with thin slices of local ham, potatoes and veggies. Oh, my.

Well fortified, I spend 3€ for a walking stick from a tourist shop across the road, and head back down through pretty, pretty Bubión.

A sign tells me I’m on my way back to Pampaneira:

Another walker agrees to take a photo of me with my walking stick.

That stick makes it possible to go down, always harder for me than going up. It’s a physical crutch, but also psychological. With this stick, I can go anywhere! 

(When I got back to Pampaneira I took a look at a little label stuck near the bottom of the stick. Why, it’s made right here in... China!  Ha!)

Back up here outside my hostel, I sank into a chair on the patio and did nothing at all for the rest of the evening.