Benalmádena Costa

We started off in Toledo after a good night rest. Inexpensive hotel in the heart of Toledo, exceptionally clean, small room but good bed, friendly staff and a great stay! Also I forgot to note that the streets are incredibly narrow and meander all over. Like Pittsburgh, that’s either going up, down or around a corner. Larger vans have quite a challenge to navigate through. You have to be on continual watch for a vehicle coming and find an alcove to get out of the way or suck in your belly to avoid being hit!! This is a UNESCO world heritage site and they work very hard at keeping it alive as it was in the 16th century!

We took the train back to Madrid because there are no high-speed trains that go directly from Toledo down to the south of Spain. Once in Madrid, we got on a train going to Cordorba. (We cancelled the train tickets to Seville.) However, the Scottish fellow that sat with us was heading down to Málaga. He sang the praises of this city so we decided to extend our ticket while on the train to go all the way down to Málaga instead of stopping in Cordoba. Funny thing was that I had made a suggested schedule on Sunday and it actually had us going down to Málaga today anyways!

The high speed train only took a total of 3 hrs to get all the way down to the south of Spain from Madrid - center of Spain. We passed olive trees, areas where pigs roam free to eat acorns that flavors the meat to make ‘Iberian’ ham. We didn’t see almond trees but they are plentiful here and this southern area all the way from Toledo is known for almonds - marzipan!

Chris, the Scot, retired to Cortes de la Frontera. It’s a village of 1200 several km from Malaga in the mountains. The town was painted all blue for the opening shot of the Smurf movie!! The theatre company offered to paint all buildings back to white but the town decided to leave it blue! Chris has a sister married to a Spaniard and they live in Malaga. He says within their community of 1200, there are expats from many different countries!!

Once in Malaga, we found a catamaran tour that started in 30 mins. We ran down to the pier and had a relaxing cruise around the harbor for an hour. So good to be here at a lower tourist time. Otherwise the boat would have been packed. Next month it starts.

We walked through a park that separates the main roadway from the pier. There were various statues every 100 feet or so. Very nice!

On our way back to the hotel, we wandered through the many interconnected streets. We stopped at an Italian restaurant for dinner. I think they allowed us to dine without reservations due to it being only 6 pm and not later when the real dinner hour starts (8-10pm).

Kelly, our server from Venezuela, started us with fresh bread and a glass of wine. Rod is enjoying the whites this trip. I prefer red. Then instead of a separate plate for the oil for dipping, the plate that had our napkin and utensils was meant for the dual purpose of dipping olive oil. We shared octopus salad and excellent fresh tagliatelle pasta with mushroom sauce. Kelly treated us with some limoncello- my personal favorite!

Feeling quite stuffed and tired from the day we headed back the hotel to relax and watch movie. Around 9 we headed out again.

Also at this time, there are celebrations like Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Small groups of people in matching costumes would pass with some beating on a drum. Each group had its own style of costume. This continued till about midnight. We saw four of them.

We are on the northern edge of the historic section. So there are lots of narrow streets and historic sites near us. Lots of shops, pubs, restaurants and many more English signs than in Madrid. We went back to the Roman amphitheater that we had passed earlier and found a rooftop bar nearby from which to enjoy the view with a final glass of wine.Read more