Elche

Last Saturday Libby and I went to Elche, the second largest town in the Alicante province, just about a half hour drive down the coast.  It is home to Europe's largest palm tree grove, over 200,000 trees.  It is also the footwear capitol of Spain, making over 50% of the country's shoes.  We took a bus with a group of students from the university, leaving at 9 in the morning and staying just until the evening.  In Elche, we visited the town park, the archeological museum, the palm garden and spent lunch and the afternoon walking through the center of town, exploring.  

The town itself was very cute, little and clean, with palm trees everywhere.  We went to St. Mary's Basilica while there was a wedding going on.  You pay a euro and can take a tiny winding staircase up to the roof, overlooking the entire palm grove and the rest of the city.  As we were coming back down we stopped to check out the inside of the church and people were just getting married.  (The church was huge and we were all the way in the back...but still.  If tour group of foreign kids walked in on my wedding someday, I would not be very happy.)  It was neat to see, though.  We have visited all of these amazing cathedrals and churches, but I never really thought about people getting married, or baptized or anything inside of them.  

The garden was my favorite part.  There were palm trees everywhere, any type you can imagine.  They also had a very large cactus garden.  Since the climate is so dry and desert-like, those are really the only type of plants that survive well.  There were ponds spread throughout the garden, with ducks and turtles and giant gold fish.  The weather was beautiful, mid-70's, sunny.  It was really nice to see.  The flowers here are just starting to bloom, so pretty.  

On the way out of town we stopped at a shoe factory and museum.  It was interesting, we walked through their displays, then watched a 3-D video showing how they make the shoes by hand.  The tour led conveniently into their showroom and store.  It was awesome to see all the handmade, leather shoes, but I didn't made any purchases.  None of the students did-- they were definitely a little out of our price range.  It was fun to see how they were made, and something we never would have seen had we not been on the tour, so I'm glad we went.

I leave for Dublin on Friday!! SO EXCITED.  I did just realize that I don't have any green clothes with me here--might need to make a purchase.  I'm not sure what would happen to you if you weren't wearing green on St. Patty's Day in Dublin....