Taking the Waters

Romans and Arabs used to go for a scrub up in the naturally hot spring water that bubbles out of the ground at Los Baños de Fortuna about 30km from where we live. Maggie and her chum Ros decided to do the same yesterday.

In what we would call Victorian times a husband and wife team recognised the potential for building a small tourist resort around the hot spring. They put in the pool, treatment rooms, hotels, cafeterias and a park. They even threw in a religious shrine for good measure.

Ros and Maggie bathed. They hired sunbeds. They sipped on long drinks and they didn't gossip. Just after 2pm, tired from her exertions, Maggie suggested lunch. She's really got the hang of this Spanish thing that no event is an event unless it involves food.

The intrepid duo eschewed the charms of the Hotel Victoria and the Hotel España and, purely by chance, of the three elegant, but faded, hotels on the site they chose the Hotel Balneario, the oldest hotel in the whole of Murcia. The hotel was built in 1860, luckily for Maggie she wasn't there then or she'd have gone hungry because the restaurant wasn't added till 1910. They were greeted enthusiastically by the waitress who kissed them, announced to the whole restaurant that they were honorary Pinoseros and even introduced them to the cook as well as serving them food and drink.

I think they had a good time.