After the horror of last night I felt I wanted to replace the images in my mind with something more positive. I am not a morning person which is why Spain is such a good country for me in that most people rise late, eat late, got to bed late!
I need to get up early this morning though as I wanted to capture the town in morning light. I set my alarm for a little before sunrise which was not such an effort as that was bit before 8.00am. Initially there was thick low cloud and I thought it would not be worth going out but the cloud started to lift and I could see the yellow light creeping through.
I chucked clothes on and headed out - Colin was not too disappointed to stay behind. The light got better and better, I walked up into the town, past the band playing happy birthday in the Plaza Mayor and continued climbing steps upwards until I was high up by the castelated city walls. The light was perfect and I really enjoyed my time up there with nothing but birdsong… a massive tuba playing and then two very loud rockets!!
Back to the apartment for a shower and later breakfast and then we drove into the nearby town of Teruel - apparently it gets very cold here in the winter but today was in the high twenties. It was nice although not as attractive and old as Albarracin. We had a great lunch although as usual we probably ordered too much and waddled our way around looking at the impressive Mudejar towers.
On the way back (increased with a SatNav detour!), we experienced a violent storm that flooded the road to the extent that we were forced to stop for a while before it subsided. Then we found by chance, a roadside memorial (one of many in the region) to 12 people shot dead in 1936 in the Spanish Civil War by Franco’s soldiers - the very strange thing was that the day they were shot was the 16th of September 1936 - exactly 86 years to the day that we found the memorial. I felt we should mark the date and remember them so I picked some wild flowers and left them in front of the list of men killed ranging in age between 25 and 61 years of age. Very sobering.
