Week in Spain

After Daniel's family headed home, Ellie stayed behind to spend the week with us (and Debbie, Charles, Dave) in Malaga, Spain (20-27 January). We hired a van and did quite a few day trips around the place. Lucky for us, Debbie's grandma had secured a week in a resort in Malaga, so the apartment we had was really nice, shame it wasn't quite hot enough to make use of the pools!!!

View from the balcony of our room.

Saturday we checked in and chilled out. On Sunday we drove into Malaga and spent the day. Did a walking tour around the city.

Dave, Debbie and I in Malaga.

Also went to the Picasso museum which was great. He actually came from Malaga so there were heaps of his paintings and sculptures as well as his sketches and stuff. Then in the basement there was an archaelogical digging site, which was kind of weird but oh well.

Daniel and Charles as close to the Picasso Museum as they would get.

We all made the crazy decision to wear shorts and paid the price as it dropped in temperature later, as well as all the weird looks we were getting from the locals. Also had one of the biggest and most repulsive burgers ever that night. Dave models his.

Monday we made the drive to Granada and had a wander around the Alhambra - an arabic fortress from the 9th century. It was located at the top of a hill overlooking the city, pretty spectacular views in parts. We looked through the palace buildings which had stacks of water features and gardens, and the rooms themselves were beautiful. Along with the palace we also climbed the ramparts and towers along the walls.

Gibraltar was our destination for Tuesday. Drove up the Rock nature reserve, checked out the caves as well as the siege tunnels which were both pretty cool. View was great, we could see across to Morrocco from one side and the other across Gibraltar and the airport. This lies just inside the county border, so the traffic has to stop for any incoming planes, we got to watch it while at the tunnels. Highlight was the crazy monkeys just outside the caves, one stole and ate a banana out of a ladies hand as she went to have it.

Wednesday was spent in Morrocco. We had decided to take a ferry from Tarifa to Tangier so that we could tick another continent off our list. A very interesting day. We didn't do much research before arriving so kind of stepped off the boat and got bombarded by the locals wanting to be our guides. Dave managed to ward them off initially, before being sucked in by one telling us about this great restaurant that was cheap and just around the corner. We definitely ended up coming out as the suckers, it wasn't cheap nor close by. Ended up just walking around by ourselves, checked out the markets, the town sites and watched a guy tempt a snake out of a basket with a flute. Also saw the walls dangerously topped with shards of glass (below).

Drove to Ronda on the Thursday. After a brief stop at a strange town on the way, we got to Ronda. The town is split into the old part and the new and is joined together by a huge bridge. We climbed inside the bridge and walked around it, pretty spectacular particularly the views down the valley. Rain then washed us out and after a brief look at the bull fighting ring, we made our way back to Malaga.

Ellie on the bull and the matador.

The journey home was broken up for us when as we were going over the mountain range it started bucketing snow. Looking like a bunch of freaks we stopped off numerous times to "play in the snow". A mini snowman, snowball fight and attempt at a snow angel later we were back on the road.

Last 2 days were pretty relaxed. Ellie left us on Friday for her long journey home. Debbie, Charles and I went to visit the local palace ruins, and checked out the beach and then we headed back to London on Saturday.