Tuesday 18^th March – Chipiona

36:44.764N 6:25.723W

We slept in late and had a lazy breakfast.  We then went on a tour of Chipiona to see the highlights from the brochure we were given in the tourist information yesterday.

We went to ‘Our Lady of O’ Church but it was not open; I checked with the lovely lady in the tourist information and she gave me the times - this church would be opening at around 7.20pm ready for mass at 8pm.  The lighthouse only opens on Thursdays for visits inside but we wandered up to see it from the outside.  The other attraction was ‘Our Lady of Regla’ Shrine at the church further down the beach which we wandered down to see but already knew was not opening until 5.30pm. 

This was not a bad thing in the end as on the way back we found a small Bodega, filled with a handful of locals and selling the local Muscatel wine – so, after partaking of a small sample just before it closed, we came back to Pyxis for lunch.

This evening we set off again to see the sights, taking the bikes to make sure that we could get to the various places in time.  We arrived at the ‘Our Lady of Regla’ Shrine church and went in to see the famous statue dated 300 AD and then cycled up to ‘Our Lady of O’ Church – we were a touch early and were lucky to find that they were opening the small church opposite and we were able to get a preview of the floats to be paraded on Thursday for Semana Santa.  Inside ‘Our Lady of O’ Church we saw the 16^th and 17^th century paintings and the elaborate alter.

After this we met Peter and Carola at the Bodega and we sat drinking Muscatel until late.  We then headed back for dinner and sleep.

All in all, I really like Chipiona; truly Spanish; and the Tourist Information gets full marks for letting me use the bathroom even though they were closed!