Rocio and Matalascana

The weather has just been too nice not to take a trip to the beach.  We knew that it would be too cold to get in the water for too long, but we wanted to just go enjoy the sound of the ocean and the sun. We took the back road instead of the freeway to get to the beach.  On the way we drove by the town Rocio, we've been by it a few times but this time we stopped.

Rocio is a charming town, it has a big lake out in the front where flamingos and wild mustangs live.  This town has the Spanish charm with white wall buildings and yellow terracotta shingles on the roofs.

Of course no Spanish town is complete with out a nice Catholic Church. We walked through this beautiful church. Discovering that the Virgin Mary statue that they have is one of the most famous and well traveled here in Spain. (She's not as famous as La Macarena). People come around from all over to do a pilgramige, hiking miles and miles by foot and horse and buggy to come and worship and celebrate this statue. Every 10 years the people take her out of the town by foot and take her 17 Km's away to the next town over Almonte. She stays there for a year before they go and bring her back.

We then took a horse and carriage ride around the town and the kids got a free pony ride at the end. They were pretty excited.
We are enjoying learning about all these little traditions each town has, it's so facinating.

Wild Flamingos and Mustangs

(We're in a drought this year, the lake is rather low)

A beautiful view of the church and town.

A close up of the bell tower.

If you look close you can see Emma and Jimmy.

A view of the inside of the church.

This is the first church we've been inside that was all white

every where (except where the statue is that's always in gold).

It was beautiful.

Emma was really excited to go on the carriage ride.

She even sat up front with the guy for most of the ride.

Dad and Landon on the carriage ride.

After the fun of the nice little town we drove a little further to the beach.

It was a bit cold in the water, but the sun was nice and warm. 

Perfect day on the beach.