La Roda

 La Roda

The day started well with a peaceful night under the watchful eye of Mountie Jack purchsed for the purpose in Canada. He stayed on duty all night and kept us safe.



La Roda is a small city with a population of 15500 and has a church dating from the 15th Century. It's most famous inhabitants are a tennis player called Guillermo García López and a triathlon runner called David Castro. Neither name means much to me.

It is a fairly standard Spanish town with an extensive park area. It had beach volleyball courts, a BMX track and there was a driving range come small golf course. All well maintained but with nobody using them. There was a rather lavish selection of fountains splashing agua despite the fact that Spain is struggling for a water supply in many areas.

The Church is OLD and you can tell that from the blocks from which it is constructed. We got there via a quick trip to the bank. When I was paying for fuel I could not remember the PIN numer for my new card. I told Sheila I was going for something different this time because for a while I have used the same number. So choosing a different number is a great idea as long as you can remember it!

Sheila came to the rescue and used her card to pay and I tried to leave the garage as surreptitiously as possible. The nice man in the bank understood my valiant efforts at increased security and reset the card so that I could try again for by now I had remembered the number. It worked and I hope that this means I don't forget it again.

So back to the church, the old one I told you about. We got some amazing views and you may recall I said that there was no one using the sporting facilities? Well there was also nobody near the church. We got loads of photos without the usual paparazzi of tourists snapping away taking hundreds of photos that will never be looked at again. It was only us doing that


Another fine door example

Pope Juan Pablo II (John Paul II I think - looks like him anyway)


There was a building on the way to the church that looked especially interesting and also very old. On the side the was a plaque and I'll try to trabslate it for you as best I can. "From the town hall of La Roda in homage, gratitude and admiration of the intrepid aviator and son of the land (I guess Spain or La Roda) Manuel Sánchez Grande 'Picolo' Flight sub-lieutenant. Completed on the 75th anniversary of his death in an aeroplane accident on Saturday 30th March 1935 in Albecete (nearby City) dedicated (by/to) his countrymen of La Roda his final and brilliant exhibition of aerobatics. La Roda 18 April 2010.

Sounds like his last display was less brilliant than the rest! Must have been a fine dude though. Here's the plaque. Its not clear if he lived in that house maybe. Clarification of the translation welcome by any of my Spanish speaking chums.
The house has a rather splendid door which I thought worthy of its own photo. Lots of people seem to droll over pictures of doors for some reason. I think this is a fine example of something.

Those of you who have seen some of our earlier adventures may have seen that we like to try to get our picture beside the town name. Today was no exception.


A final glimpse of one of the street art things. I can only describe it as a thing because it rather escapes me as to what it is meant to represent (if anything) It is probably called Cosa roja (red thing)
OK that's it for day 2. Tomorrow I have some work to do in the morning then we are moving on in the afternoon. Who can guess the next stop. Answers on the back of a twenty pound note please. We are planning to move 124 km to the next stop. Now that is a big clue. Night night all.












Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Arjuzanx and other places and more wetness!!!

Image
Ok apologies for the radio silence for a few days. Some of us have to work you know. Let's get you caught up without any further ado. I promised you pictures of Arjuzanx and I am going to have to modify that slightly to say picture, singular. I only took one of the war memorial. It is not the best picture of what I thought was one of the nicest war memorial's I have seen. The guy on the top was all painted beautifully and it was really striking. We stayed a couple of nights in Arjuzanx but the weather was awful. I was working and Sheila was confined to book reading and cooking. I must say the food on this trip has been pretty awesome. We often think let's eat out and so we go to the local restaurant. We look at the menu and the prices and think, sod it, we're not paying that. Sheila makes something ten times better for a tenth of the price. It is a no brainer really. Pork teryaki (or however you spell it) tonight. Might just open a bottle of my favourite 2 euro a bottle...
Read more

The leaning tower of .....

Image
Zaragoza of course, the leaning tower of Zaragoza. I have to confess that in the photos it does not look like it is leaning that much but it is enough to notice. This image is taken from the end of the magnificent square, well rectangle really outside of the big fancy church place. There is a fairly modern water feature in the front and then the tower in the back OK it's time to admit it, you thought that the leaning tower was the one on the extreme left. No. That apparent lean of that one is an optical illusion caused by the angle of the picture. The actual leaning tower is the one in distance in the middle of the picture. It is called the  Church of San Juan de los Panetes  How Much Does It Lean? It's not dramatic, but definitely visible — locals joke that the tower is "slightly tipsy" 🍷. Fun Fact There’s a popular myth in Zaragoza that the tower leans because the monks who built it drank too much wine while laying the foundations. 😄 Remember I mentioned a big fan...
Read more

Fenny Compton or bust

Image
  After a few days of "radio silence" we are back. I had a very busy few days of work there and we were camped by the side of a fishing lake although there was not much actual fishing going on and we never saw any fish getting caught so maybe we should just call it a lake. Oh and on that front I guess it was really pretty small so maybe a pond would be better so all in all I think Seighford Fishing Lakes might be better to be called Seighford Ponds. Mind you it did have quite a selection of birds including a fine flock of Canada Geese. A tad noisy but otherwise they were good neighbours. It was, as previously indicated, a busy work spell and so we did not manage to do that much except work but it was notable that our journey from Banbury to Stafford took us (deliberately) through Fenny Compton. Now here is a test for you, where do you know that name from. Fenny Compton. It is a tiny village in the middle of England with not much happening. I can hear you know thinking, I know...
Read more