On our second day here the sky was a brilliant cloudless blue and the sun shone. The view from the stern across the water to the little green hills is lovely. We were much more encouraged by our choice of location. What John calls the electro thump music had petered out at the end of yesterday afternoon and the clubland acts that replaced it were stilled at midnight, early evening for Spain. The marina here is set on one side of a wide bay, along the front of which runs a long, narrow strand. The marina is very up market, wide concrete pontoons, immaculate facilities at the end of each one and a very classy bar and restaurant with works of art in the lobby. Even the rubbish bins at the end of each pontoon are housed in wooden pods topped with a flowerbed holding a stumpy gnarled olive tree and some spiky ground cover. There are speakers in the sides of these bin housings to provide a wash of music designed to appeal to our age and taste, (which is unnerving), the sound from one being taken up by the next as you walk along. At night warm, white fairy lights glow in the branches of the olive trees. It is all very elegant and restrained.
Walking into town along the harbour is pleasant. There is a wide square, shaded by trees with benches set to look at the arching fountains. From the harbour side the shush of the falling water and hum of the queuing traffic masks the mingled pop music pumped out by various restaurants spilling out onto the pavement into the square on the opposite edge. To walk along this other side of the square is to be bombarded by attractive young people brandishing laminated menus, trying to entice passers by into their particular patch of checked tablecloths. After the square the bay turns onto the beachfront, which is a parade ground for scantily clad youth and the bars leading onto it are a bit basic. Studded along this stretch are the clubs with neon signs and pulsing music, though in the daytime the DJ’s are currently playing to an empty house. John commented on how honed and bronzed the youth of today is, though I think he was selective in his looking as I saw a few flabby ones with tattoos backed by distinctly pink skin. The beach itself has a more mixed population of older couples and families and was not too crowded. All the action was in the walking by, like Top Rank of a Wednesday night, back in the day.
On our first day we walked along, mingling with the parade and overheard young men in search of deep and meaningful relationships speak warm, flattering words to attractive young girls, who gave them short shrift. I myself was accosted by a series of tall black ladies dresses in fabulous floor sweeping prints. They wanted to shake hands as a prelude to braiding my hair. Even in my brief skinny phase with, what Katie calls my “dirty dancing” hair cut, I did not have the face for Bo Derek plaits. I smiled, shook my head and kept moving. It is a fact John would not have stopped had I broken step. Lara’s arrival will be surely be greeted rapturously by them. We walked as far as the old windmill, glanced into the next bay and then turned back, passing through the whole rich panoply again. We ended up at the restaurant opposite the marina for the previously mentioned occasion of the cold beer.
We explored in the other direction around the headland, where a number of up market bars and restaurants salute the sunset over the sea. Each night hoards of people, older folk and families as well as the massed young, assemble there to watch the sun go down. Once the disc falls below the horizon they all flock back, before it becomes too dark to see. On the water a flotilla of varied craft all ply back at the same time, obviously having taken people on sunset cruises. This is definitely the place for sun worshippers.
The Voyages of Lyra 