Big Trip, Part IIIc - Spain

We decided to stick around the villa today and explore the local beaches. It is about a 5 minute drive, with a stop for a look out over the beach right before the final hill down. We stopped and I took this photo of Catherine. I'll do some more processing to it later to help bring out the area of sunlight on the water just over her head to camera right. It started out slightly overcast in the morning, but became a warm, clear day.

Like I said, the sun came out and lit up the water. Too bad the air temperature was in the 60's as I might have braved the water otherwise and taken a dip in the Mediterranean. I didn't mess with saturation in the photo below, that is the true color of the water at our beach.

In the afternoon, Catherine and the kids went for a swim while I went out hiking and climbing. There were some tricky spots that neither Catherine nor the kids could have climbed (up or down). At three points, the "trail" went over a cliff and required a rope to get down - so all those rope climbs in Iraq really paid off! None of the cliffs were terribly high - maybe 15 feet at the tallest, but still a fun climb for a novice.

The trail over the beach where the above shot was taken twists around the mountain and exposes several trees over the Mediterranean, suspended over a very long drop. I processed this first shot in black and white for a different feel. I'm not sure I like it, but it is nice enough.

And this is a different tree on a different hillside. Actually directly above the parking lot for the beach. I left it in color because the blue/aqua color really pops in this one.

We are going to stick around the villa again today and plan on touring Alicante on Saturday. Catherine's great-grandfather came from Alicante, so it will be interesting to see where part of her family comes from.

Cheers!

Marc