Day 12. Wednesday 19 March. ‘How to be dumb tourists in Jaen’

We weren’t tempted into that swimming pool! Our unit is part of a renovated old building – the exterior walls are about a meter thick. It seems to have been done very recently, and as well as being modernized has retained some of the old fittings, like the solid external doors.

Our apartment is on the very narrow Callejon Pilar de la Imprenta – it’s on the left side in the first picture. The second picture is the turn to get into the street that we did make, and the third picture is the turn that Google maps ‘suggested’ we try – there was no way.

Set off to explore, sans maps & (later discovery, no phone charger backup).

But taken by the narrow streets and interesting buildings, including churches pretty regularly. We also got an idea of how the city is located, on one of the many hills in this area. There were plantings citrus trees scattered regularly throughout plazas in the city, and mostly they were bearing fruit. Unfortunately the ones that were within reach had already been cropped: after later fossicking through one near our apartment for a lemon, T had to buy one (37 cents) in the end.

All was fine for a couple of hours of meandering using google maps (albeit with some backtracking when we surely on a different planet from google). Observations of ‘older folk Wednesday’…beers & tapas prevailed while we had only got to coffee stage (we did eventually realize it was 1330). Groups of older men occupied small bars & couples sat at laneway tables. So different from the bold & beautiful youngsters in Madrid. 

Arrived at the cathedral to see that it needed tickets, so, figuring that some kind of multi- museum pass would be a good idea.

Dr Google consulted for directions to the tourist office. Tracked, then back tracked to find that of course it had moved, so more re-tracing; then at last we found it tucked away!!!!! But it’s closed till 1700 (like many businesses). At 1500 we were too footsore, so a retreat to home would be sensible. But, where were we?  A rough idea and we set off to realize that we were off course (in Army terms: ‘geographically embarrassed’). By now phone power was running low. D marched ahead (yes, we had been going in the wrong direction) T dragged a chain further back & wondered what we would do when battery totally failed. Somehow, D found enough power to locate find ‘parked car’ & all was good. We’ll get the hang of cultural differences & the ‘carry-essentials’ soon. 

A welcome beer, left by our hosts as part of the greeting package, didn’t touch the sides. Quite foot sore we ventured out again later to grab some supplies for dinner, relishing pretending to be like the locals doing the same thing.

Dinner. Pasta and atun salad, (with egg, potato, oregano, lemon) accompanied by an Otonal Rioja Seleccion Especial Crianza 2021.