Saturday, June 27, 2015

Day 41 - Beware of Ramadan!

Dubai to Melbourne

With a full day to spend and with the temperature topping 40 degrees we did the only sensible thing and headed for the Dubai Mall - a virtual indoor (air conditioned) world. We bought our tickets to go to to the top of Dubai's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa,


High in Dubai
After checking out the views from the upper levels of the building, we decided it was time for lunch, and having slept in due to the late arrival the previous night, as well as the time difference, we arrived at the mall around 3pm to discover it was Ramadan! How stupid were we, no food or drink to be consumed in public until sunset (around 7.15pm) - not even water! The food courts we saw which might have had food were all covered, so K questioned a security guard what this actually meant, she was told she could eat in her house or her car - a bit tricky for us though. K found a place that was operating and ordered some chips, then headed for the nursing mother's room which consisted of lovely, well furnished private rooms, where she promptly and rapidly scoffed her chips.

After wandering around the mall, killing time until 7:15pm, we found a second food court upstairs - which had been operating all along for people who didn't observe Ramadan .... if only we had found this earlier .... and why didn't the guard we questioned earlier tell us about it??!!!

We watched the water and light show at the mall, then finally had something substantial and quite tasty at a Lebanese restaurant, before heading back to the hotel to pick up our luggage, then heading off to the airport and flying back home to Melbourne.

Friday, June 26, 2015

Day 40 - P'd off

Brussels to Dubai

To everyone's surprise Brussels turned on the sun for our final morning with a glorious day. We visited the famous Mannequin Pis (perhaps the best named statue in the world?).  today he was wearing one of his 200 outfits, the Croatian national dress. 
Malo uriniranje dječak !
We had waffles & croissants for breakfast in the main square, and enjoyed some of Brussels attractive buildings before heading back to the apartment before getting the train to get the airport. Goodbyes were said with A&L and we begrudgingly started our return home with a flight to Dubai.

Once we arrived in Dubai we checked into the lovely Raddison Blu, a step up from our normal style of lodging, but ideal as we were able to get a late checkout of 5pm for the next day.

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Day 39 - In Bruges

Brussels

With Laurence driving we had an early start to our expected hour's drive to the pretty town of Bruges, but with appalling traffic it turned into a two and a half hour drive. Bruges is known for being beautiful and incredibly clean, and on a lovely spring day it lived up to its reputation. We took a lovely boat ride through the canals, and enjoyed Belgian waffles and chocolate (of course).

That's a low bridge, don't forget to duck
We left Bruges and headed to the war cemeteries of Flanders. We visited a number of cemeteries and interesting memorials, including a huge, memorable Canadian memorial of a soldier with his head bowed, and noted with interest the many Australians with graves in the cemeteries. 

We arrived in Ypres in time to see the nightly 8pm memorial service held at the Menin gate. Every night of the year the road is closed to traffic, and a service is held where the Last Post is played by a number of buglers to honour the 55,000 Commonwealth soldiers who died in the area in World War 1 but whose bodies haven't been identified or found. The soldiers' names are engraved on the walls of the gate and removed when their remains are identified. Extraordinary to think that this ceremony occurs every night of every year and has only ever been stopped during the German occupation in 1940-1944.
Lest We Forget
We took the long drive back to Brussels and enjoyed a final drink with L&A at a bar near where we were staying. K&A then decided to stay up all night to continue their catch up - it seemed like a good night idea at the time!

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Day 38 - To the land of french fries and chocolate (not necessarily in that order)

Ibiza to Brussels

We headed to the airport early as we had to claim back some Spanish taxes (21%), and there was also a strange set up where we had to go to the RyanAir office to have our boarding passes verified and stamped. As normal we were way too early - better than being late though, as we hate airport stress - this comes from previously living a long way from the airport and running the risk of unforeseen airport traffic jams.

A sneak peek at tomorrow's exciting scenery
Once arriving in Brussels we caught the bus to the city centre where our English friends Anita and Laurence had spent a horrid day travelling to meet us. They had arrived at the ferry from England to France to find there was a strike on and the French had not only barricaded the port but had also placed debris and burning tyres in the tunnel leaving thousands of people stranded. They were very lucky as they had left incredibly early, around 5.30am, so were part of the few people that managed to catch a ferry from Dunkirk. Later we were to see on TV terrible scenes of illegal immigrants running after stranded trucks and climbing wherever they could to try and get across the border.

We went for a walk around the city, shocked at how cold it was. Apparently Belgium is known for being cold, the flight attendant even had a dig as we were landing (it's cold, but you already know that ....). Well, we didn't know that, put that down to lack of research. 

We went to a restaurant recommended by the people who owned the place we were staying, which specialised in traditional Belgian food. Our table was next to an opera singer from New Zealand who was stranded because of the port closure. He was excellent company and was obviously bored on his own, just another example of how many people's plans had been thrown into disarray by the strike action.

Monday, June 22, 2015

Day 37 - and the sun sets on our Spanish trip ....

Ibiza

We went to Playa de Bossa for lunch on the beach and to do some souvenir shopping to prove we had been to the party capital of the world. We then walked back to Figueretes via the beach, it was probably quicker than the taxi or the bus taking into account the one way streets and tourist traffic. 

In the afternoon we caught the bus to Sant Antoni on the other side of the island to watch one of the world's top sunsets (so they say) while enjoying a drink at the renowned Café del Mar. We were quite surprised to arrive and find no beach, just a rocky foreshore, very few boats but lots of people all obviously doing the same as us and paying for overpriced drinks while waiting for the sun to set. Disappointingly there was a bit of cloud about so the sunset wasn't that great, we may be biased but Australian sunsets are better - though this wasn't the best night for it. Once sunset was over the beach area emptied pretty quickly, although there was a busy market place near the middle of town.
Lots of mildly disappointed people ...

Sunday, June 21, 2015

Day 36 - Time for some downtime!

Ibiza

We decided to have a quiet one today and lazed around the beach and cafes of Figueretes, the "suburb" we are staying in. The good thing is that it's relatively quiet and has a nice beach and restaurant strip, but it's walking distance (or a short taxi or bus ride) from the main beach at Playa den Bossa, We just sat in the sun with a drink and tried to forget that we would soon be back in Melbourne's winter!
A nice quiet spot in Ibiza!

Saturday, June 20, 2015

Day 35 - If only the music had been better ....

Ibiza 

In the morning we walked into Ibiza old town, which wasn't far at all, and for a change there was plenty of shade and a nice sea breeze. Ibiza town doesn't have a beach (that we could find) but has the obligatory castle on the hill, narrow roads & pretty houses that you see in pretty much all the old towns of the cities in Southern Spain. A lot of these pretty houses are now tourist and clothing shops or restaurants. The area mainly consists of a large marina/port, but not nearly as many yachts and boats as Mallorca.

As everyone knows Ibiza is all about clubbing and partying so we had to go to a club. The Balinese lady from the restaurant last night recommended Ushuaïa, a hotel with a massive open air night club, at Playa del Bossa, The club was open from 3pm-12pm (our kind of hours - no need to worry about having a nap before hand!).

The club was huge, the area is massive, it was 35 (~$50) each to get in, drinks were extra and very expensive. After walking around Playa del Bossa and having dinner, we arrived around 8pm. The area was very different to where we are staying, the crowd is younger, the beaches and the whole set up geared more towards relaxing on the beach during the day and partying at night. 

Maybe they should call this a dayclub instead of a nightclub
There were girls arriving in bathers, high heel shoes and not much else, lots of people had temporary "Ants" tattoos (the name of the night at the club). Once it got darker the lighting setup was good, the stage was located at one end of the area with pools in the middle. We headed down to the stage for a while and were very close to the front with the "alien" dancing girls on stage and a chubby DJ who looked like he should have been in home in front of the TV with a pizza. The DJ's that play here are world famous and apparently do amazing things, maybe we're showing our age (or maybe we were on the wrong drugs??), but we just couldn't see what the big deal was, though everyone was in a party frame of mind.

As far as night clubs go this was interesting but the music was too samey for us, the show we went to at the Coco Bongo Club in Cancun back in 2007 or thereabouts left this one for dead!

Friday, June 19, 2015

Day 34 - Beginning of the end

Mallorca to Ibiza - Apartamentos Mar y Playa

We we really starting to feel the holiday is winding down now that we are heading to Ibiza, the last Spanish destination of our trip. We could have done with at least another day on Mallorca as we really didn't see the best of it. Nicola picked us up and drove us to the airport, and as the taxis on Mallorca have been expensive we are so grateful to Nicola for seeing us off!

Once again we had originally expected to catch a ferry from Mallorca to Ibiza but flights are cheaper and quicker, only 40 minutes this time.
Up the ramp and into the old town...
Our hotel is right on the boulevard and a stone's throw from the beach so its in great position, though there are two apartment blocks and we are in the block across the road behind the better building on the beach. Even though we have a nice balcony to sit on the view is of the building between us and the beach - I suppose that is what happens when you don't pay for the sea view.

We found a cute little restaurant for dinner run by a Balinese lady, she told us Ibiza is really only open 7 months a year, and she and here husband return to Bali for 5 months and then come back to do it all over again. 

Thursday, June 18, 2015

Day 33 - Hi Nicola!

Mallorca

Every city in Europe has a cathedral and we have seen many of the major ones so unfortunately the interiors are all starting to blend together, the memorable differences really lay in the external. Mallorca's cathedral varies from the others we have seen as rather than being in the middle of the city where you can't quite get the best view of the grandeur and architecture, this cathedral has one of the best views of the city. It is on the major road near the marina and can be seen in its entirety from many areas of the city. 

This cathedral has room to breathe
The marina here has more boats and yachts than we have seen at any other port. The closest beaches to the city centre are pretty average, we didn't have time to go further afield but apparently there are many beautiful coves. The old city was interesting, Spain really excels when it comes to city squares, they are everywhere and well frequented. 

That evening we caught the bus to San Agustin where K's Scottish friend Nicola has been teaching primary school for the past three years. We met Nicola at an Indian restaurant right on the edge of the cove with a view of the beautiful blue of the Mediterranean from the terrace. From there Nicola took us to a bar before we headed home quite late. She is really happy here, Mallorca seems a lovely place to live although the pay could be better and being an island, everything is more expensive.

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Day 32 - New Orleans in Mallorca

Valencia to Mallorca - Catalonia Majorica Hotel

This morning we ventured into the more downtown/commercial area of Valencia and we were very pleasantly surprised. Beautiful, incredible buildings and squares, lots of shops, a real European buzz without the tourist shtick.

We then went back to collect our suitcases and head for the airport to fly to Mallorca. We had never planned on flying as K had thought it was just a short ferry ride away, but when we finally decided to look into it the ferry was very expensive and took all night! The plane from Valencia to Mallorca was quite cheap and only took an hour, so a much better option.

At Valencia airport we were both given a major shakedown, K was given the clothed body search which included the inside band back and front of her pants plus having to take the chap stick put of her pocket and roll it out to prove its inner workings. M had his backpack totally (or so they thought) emptied and every little thing examined, but as normal they missed a pocket. Incredibly they found nothing, except that we are two boring travellers who have travelled enough to know what we are permitted to carry on!

A room with a view
Our hotel is high up overlooking the huge marina with more yachts, boats and cruise ships than we have ever seen - beautiful view. Luckily the hotel has a funicular to transport you to near the bottom of the hill near the marina.

After walking the foreshore & general area we came across what the owner said was "the only authentic New Orleans restaurant in Spain". Yum it was!! Finally decent food with spice and taste - best meal so far!!

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Day 31 - To the beach

Valencia

Another museum this morning, this time the Ceramic Museum. The pottery was kind of interesting, but the outside of the building was more interesting. Then, so we wouldn't be caught out like yesterday, we went to the Central Market to buy some food for lunch before catching the bus to the beach for the afternoon.

Just a standard Spanish ham display
The Valencia beach was quite a surprise as it was unbelievably wide and flat. Valencia had been experiencing a lot of unusual afternoon storms and very heavy rain since we had arrived, the skies were darkening and everyone was leaving the beach as we arrived, fortunately though the threat didn't eventuate. This beach was quite different to the others we had visited in that it didn't have huge ugly sky rise buildings along the foreshore, and the restaurant/cafe strip seemed very small compared to others. It appeared to still be waiting for modernisation and hadn't fallen to ugly development ..... yet.

For dinner we made our third trip to an Argentinian steak restaurant. We had tried to get to this place twice before (last night in very heavy rain) only to find it was closed both times. This time though it was open, third time lucky!

Monday, June 15, 2015

Day 30 - Come on Valencia, open up, we're hungry!

Valencia

Today we visited the incredible buildings of the Ciudad de Las Artes y Las Ciences. It's an amazing complex, a series of massive buildings, gardens and pools all built in the old river. In 1957 the river in Valencia flooded and badly damaged much of the city so a decision was made to divert the river, this led to a massive green area around the edge of the city. It has now been turned into gardens, walking and riding trails, sporting grounds and these massive buildings.

We are a bit partial to a good science museum especially after visiting the massive and inspiring one in Munich. This didn't live up to that standard but still had plenty of interesting hands on experiences to keep us occupied for a few hours. 
Some space age looking buildings - for when you're sick of cathedrals
We also visited the Fallas museum nearby - Fallas are giant papier mache figures that are paraded through the streets during one of Valencia's major festivals, they are normally burnt afterwards but they keep the best one every year and put it in this museum. 

By the time we finished there we thought we would head for the Central Market as it is one of the oldest European markets still operating and buy something for a late lunch. However we were a bit late and it was closed, so we walked the streets trying to find something that was open, finally finding a place that sold us a roll and a tomato  - will we ever get used to the fact that everything is closed in the afternoon? You really have to plan ahead in the morning if you feel like eating something in the afternoon!

Sunday, June 14, 2015

Day 29 - Popemobile

Valencia

We joined our normal "free" walking tour as we find it gives us a good overview of the city when you first arrive. This tour leader was a bit of a lecturing type but her information, stories and explanations were good. They also help you find things that you wouldn't normally notice, we had visited the cathedral the night before but how had we missed the mummified arm of St Vincent in a glass case and a room that supposedly had the Holy Grail from the last supper?

There's the narrowest building in the world
After the tour we took advantage of the fact that entrance fees are free on a Sunday and visited the Archaeological Centre built over part of the original Roman city. After that we found ourselves watching the arrival of a huge statue of the Virgin of the Helpless in something resembling the Popemobile. People were not only touching and kissing the clothing but also the sticker of the statue on the door of the transport vehicle.

There are lots of little girls around the cities dressed in beautiful communion dresses and lots of weddings that if you can't see you can hear by all the fireworks. Today, especially this morning there were lots of people dressed in their Sunday best, people here dress very elegantly on their days off.

Saturday, June 13, 2015

Day 28 - What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?

Alicante to Valencia via Costa Blanca - airbnb apartment 

We headed off at 10am to start our drive north and the city was quiet, hardly surprising when the square outside our room, which looks pretty much deserted most of the time, was packed to the brim with people when we went to bed at 1am.

We decided we should take the coastal route to Valencia. Our first stop for breakfast was Benidorm, we had only been there 5 minutes when K said "can we go now, I've seen too much". The beach is lovely, incredibly long and unbelievably wide with beautiful soft, clean sand & in the distance jutting out of the water like a half sunken ship is a huge rock island. The issue was with the people the esplanade was full of oldish men walking with their tops off with these massive guts, it really makes your eyes water, who needs to see that? The bay is full of ugly, old high rise apartments, which is a shame when the beach is so nice. And there they were again, heaps of people baking in full sun, with the sun lounges turned to face the sun, cooking, roasting, burning.

Now that's a great spot for a library ... on the beach!
Next stop for lunch was Gandia. We were rather bewildered on the road to Gandia (which seemed like a normal country road, not much in the way of buildings) by coming across women in the middle of nowhere either sitting on a chair or standing by the side of the road - we wondered what they doing? A bit of googling and we found out, they were prostitutes - that explains the girl in the pink bikini and high heel shoes. We were struck at how vulnerable they were, with not a soul in sight for miles, how horribly desperate they must be.

We arrived at Gandia to find more of the same, that is ugly high rise on the foreshore & an abundance of retirees. We were beginning to wonder if we'd done the wrong thing by booking 4 nights in Valencia?

Another nice airbnb apartment in Valencia, and as Valencia is the home of paella we were looking forward to another nice one after the one we had in Granada. After checking out some reviews on Tripadvisor we headed out with great anticipation to a place very close to us. Oh the disappointment, it was woeful, Four tiny pieces of pork rib no bigger than your thumb, four thin slices of tomato on undercooked rice, and not all of the ingredients listed on the menu! Not only was it tasteless we were both still hungry afterwards .... now we are top scared/scarred to try paella in Spain again!

Friday, June 12, 2015

Day 27 - Is it that obvious?

Alicante

This morning we walked the short walk down the hill from the old town to the esplanade and the marina. Some of the boats there were amazing, real high end, massive and we presume luxurious inside. Then we got to the beach and what a shock! We stood their amazed by a couple of things - firstly there were so many people, the beach and the water were so crowded (though not quite as bad as Ipanema in Brazil). The other was that all these people were baking with very few using any shade let alone hats! You can pick the Aussies when you are overseas as they are the only ones that wear hats, the sun smart campaign hasn't made it to Europe. It appears possible to stay out all afternoon here in 30 degrees without sunscreen and not get burnt, though it's still hot. The other surprising thing was that so many people were drinking beer at 11am - Alicante looks too touristy for us.

We continued along the esplanade until we found the lift to take us up to the Santa Barbara Castle. It is perched high on a hill will amazing views of Alicante and the beaches. We then visited the Volvo Ocean Race Museum which explains what it is like to be on these boats when they are at sea, its a shame the simulator only operates on the weekend as it is meant to be a great experience.

A beach and a fort - not like home at all
It must be really obvious we speak English, without even opening our mouths everyone speaks to us in English, even the beggars ask us for money in English!

Thursday, June 11, 2015

Day 26 - Do these people ever sleep?

San Jose de Los Terreros to Alicante - Santa Barbara Guesthouse

We were woken up early to the sound of a thunderstorm and heavy rain, and we were also surprised to find it quite cool as well, apparently the storm was all over Spain. 

The rain in Spain falls mainly on us ...
We first drove to Murcia to meet up with another Spanish friend, Alicia. Alicia took us on a tour of Murcia on foot in the rain. We visited the normal sites in the town centre (cathedral, etc.) and finished off with lunch before driving on to Alicante.

The hotel was quite tricky to find as we traipsed on foot back and forth and up and down the narrow winding streets, eventually the hotel manager found us, coming up to us on the street and asking our name. We tried some Italian for dinner, as we were so close to Italy surely the food would be OK? Wrong again, last time for us, we will wait until we get home!

We headed back to our hotel only to find that we still haven't adjusted as well as we thought to Spanish time, since as we were heading off to sleep about 12.30am the place was just starting to wake up. People chatting in the street, a 2 year old playing on play equipment in the middle of the night outside our window - the noise went on for hours! 

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Day 25 - Dipping into the Mediterranean

Almería to San Jose de Los Terreros - Calypso Hotel

We walked to the Alcazaba this morning, having breakfast on the way. Unlike the others we had visited entry was free, the man at the ticket counter asked us where were from and when we said Australia he waved us through. It was also different because it was quiet and less touristy, but like all of them it had amazing views of the city, which makes sense as they were the city's fortresses.

We then jumped in the car and headed to Carboneras, then continued following the coastal road through Mojácar before stopping at the tiny village of El Calon for lunch. El Calon was interesting, just a tiny settlement of mainly holiday homes, and an abandoned half built holiday complex at the back. 

Love that view!
Our destination for the day was San Jose de Los Terreros. Our hotel was right on the beach, and this time the beach was a bit different to the others we've seen in that the sand was quite fine, more like the beaches at home. However it was also dirty, with cigarette butts in the sand, plastic washed up on the shore line etc. It's surprising Spain is so litter filled as we don't believe we have visited any other country with so many rubbish bins, every time you want one there is one within 20 metres. 

We took a walk along the beach and then came back for a swim in the Mediterranean right on our hotel's doorstep.
We drove to the town of Aguilas to see what it was like, but ended up just doing some grocery shopping before heading back to enjoy our veranda overlooking the beach, before having a lovely dinner of sea bream cooked on hot coals inside a boat right before our eyes.

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Day 24 - It seems we don't eat enough

Almería

We decided to collect our hire car a day early so that we could drive around the surrounding hills and towns as it seemed we would be struggling to spend the whole day in Almería. We picked the car up from the airport and headed for the ceramic town of Nijar. You couldn't quibble with the quantity of pottery, but the style wasn't to K's taste, so all we bought was two little trinkets.

We then drove to Sorbas, this is in the area where a great many Hollywood westerns were made - there is even a Mini Hollywood theme park where they reenact the saloon shoot downs that were filmed there, but in the town itself there wasn't much to see.


From there we headed to the coast, lunching on the beach at a place called Cabo de Gata. We decided to share a dish of snapper, though the waiter wasn't impressed and said it was too small to share. We looked around and everyone else had huge meals to themselves - of course the Spanish eat their main meal in the middle of the day, for us it it was just a snack to tide us over until our next ice cream!


Nice place for a seafood lunch

From there we drove to San Jose where we found that ice cream, then to Las Negras, then bypassed Almería and checked out Roquetas de Mar, finally returning to Almeria and stopping at the far end of the beach we walked along yesterday for drink.

By then it was 9pm, too early to be thinking of dinner so we parked the car, then wandered the streets until we found another place that served free tapas with a drink - dinner was sorted!

Monday, June 8, 2015

Day 23 - Don't go exploring in the early afternoon

Granada to Almería - Apartamentos de Torreluz

Today we caught the bus to the seaside city of Almería. The landscape on the bus journey was interesting, it was like passing through a dry and dusty desert, and we later found out that the area was used to film Westerns.

On arrival we checked in to our inner city hotel.  As spacious as our room was, it wasn't easy to move to a hotel room when we'd been staying at airbnb's. Even when the bed isn't hotel standard and there isn't any service a hotel just can't match the space and convenience. 

We decided to take a walk down to the beach and check out the town. It was a bit dismal, the promenade and beach was long but there was little shade and it was pretty quiet, nearly everything was closed and the buildings lining the seafront were tall and ugly. Of course, they do say that only mad dogs and and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.
This beach is overcrowded

Have we mentioned how many people smoke - lots of young girls too, it's when you're overseas that you realise that the sun smart and smoking lobbies have really worked in Australia but not in other places.

That evening we enjoyed the free tapas that comes with each drink and didn't need dinner at all - it seems that different towns have different ways of doing tapas. For example, in Sevilla the tapas was selected for us, whereas in Almeria we were asked to choose from a list (we definitely prefer the latter way of doing it).

Sunday, June 7, 2015

Day 22 - I didn't know they did that!

Granada

Our apartment is a bit noisy, and last night was Saturday night so it was worse than usual. It sounded like we had an army of drunks right outside our window, the narrow streets seem to amplify the noise, K was woken by the sound of someone weeing on the cobblestones!. 

We found ourselves with an unexpected extra day and on a Sunday as well - so the only stuff that was open was the tourist places, everything else was totally shut down.

After a sleep in (yeah, being on holidays is tough) we decided to head for a picturesque square by the river on the way to the Alhambra. We should have learnt our lesson by now, and that we'd be smart enough to spot a tourist trap by now, but no  - we fell into the poor quality food trap again!

I'd get out of there too
After an easy afternoon we headed off to the bullring. K wanted to see the bullfighting with the horses and we had front row seats. Unfortunately the seats were narrow concrete steps, with someone's legs behind you and elbow to elbow with your neighbour. We had mixed feelings about attending this especially as K has an aversion to gore and any form of violence but as she is also a country girl she is quite pragmatic about such things. 

So, starting with the good stuff, the horses were amazing! Their movements were top dressage standard, amazing passage and two other movements K had never seen before, brilliant! The not so good side ... is that it's all about killing the bulls  - all 6 of them, right in front of you. 

The bulls seemed to spend a good part of the time looking up at the crowd totally bewildered at what was going on. After teasing them mercilessly, they crowd rejoices when they eventually collapse from blood loss and exhaustion. To finish things, a matador dressed in black drives a knife into their poll and cuts their spinal cord, they then cut off an ear and parade around with it as heroes - the bulls never have a chance. To finish it all off, they chain the dead bull to some big strong horses and drag it out. It was all quite hideous - don't need to see that again!.

Saturday, June 6, 2015

Day 21 - Spending time with the locals

Granada

This morning we had arranged to meet Manny's aunt Isabel in front of the cathedral at 10.30 as she had purchased (don't judge, yet) bullfighting tickets for us for that evening. We met Isabel and had breakfast with her. At one point we explained that we needed to buy bus tickets for Saturday as we were travelling to Almería, and Isabel couldn't understand why. We eventually dicovered our error, the bullfighting tickets were for tomorrow evening - just a little spanner in the works there! Isabel phoned our hotel in Almería and changed our booking, and we managed to extend our Airbnb apartment for another night so it all worked out, we just had to spend an extra day in Granada. 

No idea who's getting married here
After wandering through the city with Isobel we went back to her apartment to collect her car, where we met her middle daughter also called Isabel. This was really interesting to us as up until now we had just been doing tourist things, so it was good to see the other side, the normal suburban apartment living.

Isabel drove us to a beautiful mosque that was now converted to a  church, where one of her daughter's was married. At the time there was a wedding in progress so the church was closed, but this didn't faze Isobel, she just went in, came out a minute or so later and beckoned us in, so we managed to witness a few minutes of someone's wedding ceremony! 

After that Isobel drove us to the bus station to buy our tickets, and then past the bullring and back to our apartment - she was so lovely and delightful!

Friday, June 5, 2015

Day 20 - All toured out

Granada

For people who "don't do tours", we certainly made an exception today! We started off with our standard free walking tour of the city. This one had amazing reviews so we expected great things, unfortunately the guide wasn't that great. He was certainly qualified, with a PhD in history, in fact it's quite sad that there seems to be an entire generation of very qualified people who by necessity end up in basic jobs. Unfortunately our guide was a bit on the dry side, such a shame, however he dangled the carrot of a flamenco evening that was promised to be pure and original so we signed up for that for about 7:30pm. 

Before that though we had the Alhambra to tackle. All you hear about the south of Spain is "you have to go to the Alhambra" - so of course we went to the Alhambra. We had left it quite late to buy tickets, so they were all supposedly sold out. However we were able to book a guided tour at 55 each (normal entrance fee is €15), we decided we had no option but to pay the money as we may never be in Granada again. We have since realized that the reason the tickets are sold out so far in advance is probably that the tour companies buy them up leaving very few normal tickets left for sale.  

We decided to walk to the entrance of the Alhambra as it wasn't meant to be very far..... unfortunately google maps took us on a 30 minute climb up a hill via some steps and then down the other side, great short cut! At least we're able to justify our daily ice cream!

We arrived just in time for the call for English speakers, we joined the masses with their microphones and finally entered the Alhambra. The microphones are actually a good idea, the guide can talk while we are walking and everyone can hear him. This guide had exceptional English, all the others apart from our guide in Málaga haven't been that great, and sometimes  difficult to understand. We spent the next 2 1/2 hours touring the massive, Alhambra complex and learning interesting facts like, how to tell the difference between a Muslim fountain and a Christian one. A Muslim fountain has a low soft bubble up of water, a Christian one springs in arches.  

The trip back to the city after the Alhambra was a speedy 10 minute downhill trek, so we made it in time to join our flamenco evening tour. We started off with a drink at a roof top bar while being given a history lesson of the dance before arriving at the tiny venue. There were two dancers, unfortunately it looked like a tired middle aged mother paired with her 30-something son. He was very passionate and she did her best, a little disappointing, but still worthwhile.

By then it was around 11pm - perfect time to do what the Spanish do and go have dinner - more Moroccan this time.

Thursday, June 4, 2015

Day 19 - "Free" tour?

Málaga to Granada - Airbnb apartment

We caught a morning bus to Granada, we are putting off hiring a car for as long as we can as some of the roads are very narrow and cars aren't permitted too close to the old parts of the cities, so you have to park well out of town. 

After arriving in Granada we caught a taxi to our next airbnb apartment. After doing some washing we went for a walk and tried to join up with a free walking tour, to be told when we arrived that it was only in Spanish. We though this would be fine, seeing as it's free, but we were then told it wasn't free, it was €12, so we grabbed one of their maps and tried to follow the path on our own. 

We were pretty successful we walked up lots of steps going through Albaicín and Sacromonte, and from there we had amazing views of the city and the Alhambra. At the Mirador de San Nicolás we sat down for a drink whilst enjoying the beautiful vista. We walked back to the centro through the Arab sector, eventually having dinner just around the corner from where we were staying at a paella restaurant. This is our first paella in Spain, we are very aware that they are tourist dishes as they are really only eaten in Valencia, but this place had very good reviews. We weren't disappointed, it was lovely, cooked to perfection and very tasty.

The Alhambra


Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Day 18 - Number 1? Seriously?!!

Málaga 

This is our final full day in Malaga so we decided to go to the number one tourist attraction in Málaga (according to Tripadvisor) - The Museum of Glass and Crystal. It was a privately owned house with a furniture and glass exhibition, run by some older English gentlemen who had decided to make their inherited and privately purchased collection into a museum. K quite enjoyed it but M thought the overly positive and sickly Tripadvisor reviews were only there because no one wanted to offend the nice old gentlemen. Also at the museum were some Australian and English people who were teaching in the local schools, apparently to get a teaching position all you need is a University degree in anything and to be a native English speaker. 

After leaving there we toured the small and uninspiring Contemporary Art Centre, then headed to the roof top bar at the Marriot. It was a lovely view of the harbour but it was a bit hot and there was no shade, so we only stayed for one drink, then it was off to the marina for our daily dose of icecream.

Overall we have enjoyed Málaga, it has a good mixture of old and new Spain plus it's close to the beach! 

Look familiar?

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Day 17 - To Ronda and beyonda

Malaga

Today we hired a car and headed for the fabled Ronda, and it didn't disappoint. Amazing bridge, architecture and views only spoiled slightly by the thousands of tourists that have headed up from the Costa del Sol for the day - read that as the English people that fly into Gibraltar on cheap fares and stay at Queensland type resorts (the best people stay in Malaga of course!). 

Wouldn't want to fall off that
We decided to take the scenic route back through the lovely town of Grazalema. Not so many tourists here, and along with the whitewashed buildings, there was a guy in the the main square who had a number of birds of prey, including a massive owl. We could have our photo taken with a bird on our arm (for a price) but decided to give that a miss. 

There were many small artisans shops but being between 2pm and 6pm they were disappointingly all closed. This area of Spain has huge unemployment problems .... we had been told that the only thing keeping the economy going was tourism, so you'd think they could stay at least stay open when there were tourists in town!

From there we drove through Ubrique and the Serrania de Ronda Mountains joining the coast at Estepona. The road was very winding and narrow until we reached the coast, we then decided to take the Costa del Sol beach route back to Malaga to see exactly what this area that attracts so many Brits was like ... all we found was lots of high rise and apartment blocks and beaches of gritty grey sand. 

What really annoyed us as we drove into Malaga was all the double parking - people just leaving their car on the road with hazard lights on while they went shopping! They were everywhere, in the street some or on street corners, the whole thing was bizarre.

Monday, June 1, 2015

Day 16 - Best walking tour ever?


Málaga

We have decided we quite like Málaga, it seems to have a bit of everything, modern shops, history, old buildings and the beach.

We join our fourth walking tour of the trip and find its the best we have done - they really come down to the quality of the guide. Firstly the guide's English was so much better than the others, some have been a little difficult to understand. He was also pleasantly funny but best of all he was really interesting. Rather that rattling off names and dates, he told some really interesting stories about the city and its history. We have done these tours in a lot of European countries and many could learn how to do it from Luís! We now look at the cathedral totally differently, even though we have a fantastic view from our apartment we hadn't noticed that it wasn't finished. According to Luís originally it wasn't finished because of a lack of funding, but when funding became available the people of Málaga decided they would rather be different and have an unfinished cathedral, than be like every other city!
Spot the bullring
We headed to the railway station where the car hire companies had offices to book a car for the next day, only to be told that the rate for booking in person was nearly double what we would get online - so of course we headed back to the "penthouse" and booked it online.

After that we did a self guided tour of yet another Alcázar, this one had nice, though small gardens, great views of the harbour, and an interesting ceramic exhibition depicting the wares of the era.