Alicante, Spain

 Our tour today was centered around food.  Michael's knee was bugging him so he elected to stay on board.  First we drove around town a bit.  From what we saw, this city doesn't seem as old as most, but perhaps we just didn't get into the old part of town.  There is a castle on a hill, Castle Santa Barbara, that was initially built by the Moors and then rebuilt or renewed by the Christians.  We didn't really see it except in passing, but supposedly it is the largest by square feet in Europe.  It did seem to cover quite a bit of the hill.

You can just barely see the castle on the top of the hill

Not sure, but it looks like a replica of a pirate ship.

  First stop was at the local Central Market with very fresh meats and fish among other things. Our guide told us why the little dishes are called "tapas".  According to him, long ago you would go to a bar to have a drink and, sanitation being what it was, it wasn't unusual for flying things to end up in your glass.  So bars started putting little plates on top of the glass to protect it.  Those plates were called "tapas" or tops.  Then, they began putting a little something to eat on the plate and so it came to be that those little plates of food became tapas.

There are a lot of shrimp varieties

Then we went to a restaurant where they made lunch for us.  We started with sausages and bread and cooked tuna slices.  The main attraction was a paella-like dish.  We couldn't call it paella because that is a very specific dish made from a particular recipe.  What we had was a Gentleman's Rice which was almost a paella, but didn't have sausage, rabbit or chicken.  It had mussels, shrimp and white fish.  It's called Gentleman's Rice because the shrimp are peeled and the mussels are out of their shells.  It was tasty but a bit too heavy on the rice.  Thye also served wine, beer, or water.

That's one big paella pan!

The chef gets ready to start cooking

And now it's ready to simmer

After our lunch we returned to the ship.  Michael's knee was a bit better but we still spent the afternoon just taking it easy.  Tomorrow is the end of this segment so tonight is a bit different.  They had the show early at 6:15 pm - the violinist who was really good.  Then we had dinner with Sarah Haverstick at Compass Rose and turned in.