About 20 minutes south of Valencia, rice paddies stretch as far as the eye can see. They're resting now - the harvest was in the fall - but they are part of a large natural preserve called The Albufera. Albufera is a lovely park - for lack of a better word - full of paddy fields, migratory birdlands, a wild bramble of a forest, tons of hiking and biking trails, and a large lake. It snuggles right up to the Mediterranean, separated by a sandbar that two rivers created over millions of years.
The little house in the background is called a barraca. It's basically a fisherman's cottage, typical to the region. We look like American Gothic, but with orange trees.
Lots of little canalways pushing through the wetlands.
Cormorant
That's the Med in the distance.
Saw this house - looks like the background on this blog.
In this one small village, El Palmar, there are 50 restaurants...all touting the best paella.
There's a lot of culture here. Quaint little towns dot the shores of the lake, their main purpose: to offer locals and tourists, alike, a pot of gold. Well, a pot of golden rice...paella. This is the birthplace of that marvelous dish.
\Look at those pinchers!
Tomorrow is a travel day - we're taking the train to Cordoba. We have to go by way of Madrid, so it'll take most of the day. Joe was just getting ready to pack his suitcase and the lock broke - he couldn't get it open! He was rattling around the room threatening to break it, ranting about what we ought to do (we? I mean, my suitcase is perfectly fine...). I finally got up from working on this post, grabbed my cuticle scissors, and calmly picked the lock. You'd think I'd saved the world. Sigh.
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