Our Last Day in Antequera

Our last day in Antequera was Valentine’s Day. We walked around town checking out the Valentine’s decorations but there weren’t many. Flower shops, restaurants and bakeries seemed to be the most interested in advertising this holiday.

The first restaurant that we ate in when we arrived in the city was called LouLu’s. We thought it would be nice to end our time at the same restaurant that we started in but this time for a late Valentine lunch. Good idea. We love their tapas and the atmosphere in this tiny restaurant is great. No matter how busy it is, the servers take excellent care of you.

Before we leave, I wanted to write a little about some of the city’s famous desserts and a few other things we’ve noticed.

Bienmesabe (meaning "tastes good to me") is a sponge-based pudding with almonds and cinnamon. Angelorum is a concoction of sponge, meringue and egg yolk. The little bakery/breakfast restaurant down the street has several flavours of these tempting goodies. By the way, their cake slices are to die for. Mmmn.

Mantecados appeared in the 16th century, as a consequence of an excess of wheat and lard. It is thought that the first recipe was made in Antequera. They are usually eaten at Christmas time and taste like shortbread. Then there are Polvorones, long oval cookies made with less butter, more flour and with almonds.

Other local specialities include Porra Antequerana, a cold dip that's like a thicker version of gazpacho, marinated partridge, rabbit, and spinach-stuffed boquerones (anchovies). We didn’t get around to tasting any of these though.

We wondered what will happen to all the streets with sour orange trees once the oranges start falling. There is a law in Spain stating that people can’t pick the city oranges. So at the appropriate time, workers prune the trees, collect the oranges and then marmalade is made from them.

It is forbidden to cut down an oak tree in Spain without a permit. There are 2 varieties - an acorn producing oak and the cork oak.

Every street corner has a vendor selling lottery tickets. People seem to be hooked on winning money, just like in Ontario. But in Spain, you see all the vendors and people buying tickets.

So we are leaving this little gem of a city tomorrow morning. We’ll wave goodbye to the Indian head mountain overlooking the city and head to Jerez de La Frontera, north of Gibraltar.

First we have to return our Wiber rental car at the Malaga airport (35 minute drive away). Then pick up a small car with Europcar just to take us to Jerez. Sounds odd, but even though Wiber has been good, it won’t let us return a car to a different location. We don’t plan on renting another car while in Spain and the buses and trains take forever to get to Jerez so we went with another company to rent a Fiat for a day.Read more