Spain - Mon & Tues - Day 2 & 3

This might be me getting a little lazy combining posts, but hey it's my vacation. Actually I did this because there isn't a lot to report from Monday. We decided to relax around the resort for most of the day, so there isn't much to report, or many photos. That night we decided to go to Puerto Banus to check out the scene and get some dinner.

There are some of the biggest yachts you will ever see lined up at Puerto Banus. There is lots of money here. We saw several luxury cars while there. The streets were quiet though probably for three reasons. First it was a Monday night, second it was early (were there 7-11ish), and third it is still the slower season. We were told that in the summer it is wall to wall people.

We took some pictures, and then ate dinner at a pizzeria. It was a nice inside/outside restaurant. We met some guy there at the end of our meal who started a conversation with us. He apparanty used to have a Mercedes dealership in LA, and is now semi retired and lives there near the port. Originally he was from Eastern Europe. He was impressed to see Americans there as apparently we don't go there much.

On Tuesday we decided to go to Granada Spain. There is a famous area called Alhambra that we decided to see. We bought our tickets ahead of time. It is a great old castle/palace. Granada was about a 2 hour drive from Marbella, and was a nice drive. We basically spent the entire day at Alhambra from about 11am-6pm. There is so much history in there it is nuts. There is a major Morrish influence, as well as being the old stomping grounds of Christopher Columbus. It was in one of the palace rooms we were in where he was told by the Queen he was approved to go to the new world. Pretty neat.

After walking the palace and grounds, we went into the town of Granada for some of the city scene and dinner. We walked into the old town area, and had a great dinner. Not too much to report here, we then headed back to the car and drove back to the resort.

Ok....now I have to confess. I had started this post while in Spain, and now it is a month later and I still have Day 1 posted! I have determined I am the worst blogger around. I am going to sit here though and try to give an accurate overview of the remaining days.

Spain - Sunday - Day 1

I slept that night like nobody's business. After being up for about 32 hours straight, it wasn't hard to believe I slept for 12 hours that first night. We woke up in the mid morning and slowly got going. I edited some of our pictures from the day before and posted them on Flickr, and everyone else grabbed a cup of coffee and we chatted about what to do today.

We decided we'd start out by grabbing some lunch at ideally a beach side restaurant, then we would head to the grocery store to grab some food for the rest of our trip. We started first by walking around the resort and getting a feel for where everything is. There are a few pools around, and a couple of places to eat. However the pricing was pretty high for the places onsite so we decided to continue on for our lunch spot.

We eventually found up the beach a bit a place called Chiringuito - Carlos y Paula. It had a small outdoor seating area where we grabbed a table, took in the rays, and at some Spanish cuisine. Heather ordered a paella special they had, Maria and Gabor ordered some fish, and I had a pizza. We also ordered a pitcher of Sangria for the table.

View of beach from restaurant

During lunch these guys with fake watches, sunglasses, purses, movies, cds, etc... kept coming by every 10 minutes. They just walked up and down the beach selling their stuff. They weren't rude and would leave with the shake of a head, but after a while it got a little annoying.

After lunch we headed out on our trek for a grocery store. It didn't take us long to realize that would not be possible as all the grocery stores we found were closed on Sunday. We decided to head into Marbella directly thinking as it was a bigger city, there might be something open. However we ran into the same issue with everything being close on Sunday. Eventually we ended up finding a 24/7 convenience type store that had some simple items which would hold us for a little while.

Back to the resort we went to drop off our food and beverages. Once home we relaxed for a bit as we were all still feeling pretty jet lagged. During this rest I thought it might be nice to go to Ronda for dinner, and to try and get some nice evening shots of the Puente Nuevo as I had hoped it would be all lit up at night. After everyone got up and around, we headed that way at about 6:30pm.

Little did we know most of the 70km trek was going to be on winding mountain side roads. It was fun to drive, but took longer than we thought to get there. Those in the back of the car felt a little light headed initially with all the turns, but after a while everyone was used to it.

I had hoped we could time it just right to get the lights on in the city, and a sunset sky that would be full of colors, or at least some dark blues. However the car ride took longer than expected, so it was mostly dark when we arrived. We found a parking garage and started to walk around the city. Ronda had an older feel to it than Marbella which we liked. There were several old buildings, and plenty of places for only foot traffic. However the signs weren't very good to point us to the Puente Nuevo, so we had to ask someone for directions. It turns out we were very close.

The tricky thing about getting a good picture of something is that standing on it, is generally not the best place to take that picture. There were a couple of side areas we were able to see the bridge from above, but these were not the photos I wanted to get. I then led everyone down a side street that I hoped would have a lookout somewhere. Eventually we hit a park with a slight view, but from the park I caught a stone path below which went off into the darkness, but looked like it had promise.

I told the team I was going to check it out, and if there was a view I'd call up. I walked down this path, which was only illuminated by ambient light from the city, and the further I went down the path the darker it got. The city of Ronda is split in the middle by a huge gorge. This bridge spans the gorge, which is what makes it so cool. This path I was going down, basically went down into the gorge. After a little while, I realized I was pretty far from everyone and still not getting a good view of the bridge. I then told myself, "after this turn if I don't see promise I'm heading up". Right when I was thinking that making the turn I saw what looked like a gate. There weren't any do not enter signs, so I'm not sure if I was allowed in or not, but I went in anyway (there was obviously no one around to say otherwise). As I walked passed this gate the bridge starting coming into better view. I then walked a dirt path around for a bit and found a great view! I had brought a small tripod with me so I set it up and grabbed some pictures.

Puente Nuevo, I finally got the view I was looking for!

I'm sure it was probably a good thing that it was at night and it was completed dark around me as I'm guessing I was standing on the side of a cliff and didn't realize it. Don't worry, I stayed far from any edges, but for all I know it was a 5 or 500 ft drop down whatever I was standing on. After taking some pictures I heard Heather, and she found another cool spot which was near me. I headed up to her and took this picture.

Another view of the Puente Nuevo

After the picture taking, we headed up the path to meet Maria and Gabor as they had stayed up. It was a lot easier going down then up, by the time I reached the top I felt like I ran a mile, however the pictures were worth it.

We then went on back into town for dinner. We found a restaurant with a bull fighting theme. It was full of matador gear and posters, but nicely done. We each had a different meal which was all good. Heather had some chicken, which tastes nothing like US store chicken. This chicken had flavor in the meat, and was cooked very tender. Gabor had oxtail, Maria had a leg of lamb, and I had a small steak. We also shared a plate of meats and cheese with some great wine.

Gabor, Maria, Heather, and Jeremy at Dinner in Ronda

After dinner we headed back the winding road to our resort. That night we had some wine, chatted about the day, watched a little tv, then headed to bed. We stayed up too late though, not turning in until 2-3am. We weren't completely on Spain time yet, it was going to be hard to get up in the morning.

Spain - Arriving

I know, I know, I am way behind in keeping this thing up to date. Since things were over my house, Heather and I have been to Bowling Green, KY for Thanksgiving, to Seattle, WA to visit Sam and Laura, to Indianapolis and DC over Christmas, and for work I've been to Ixtapa Mexico, Vegas, and Hershey, PA. Any pictures taken from these trips have been posted on our Flickr page, so feel free to take a look. However for now...onto Spain!

Heather and I took separate flights to get to Spain. This was mostly due to not having enough miles for two tickets, so we bought one. I left a bit earlier in the day (11am) and had three legs to my flights. O'Hare to Newark, Newark to Lisbon, Lisbon to Malaga. Heather's flights were more straight forward. She went from O'Hare to Munich, then Munich to Malaga.

My flights were pretty long when all said and done. I left the house at 11am to catch my flight. No problems there, made it to Newark without any issue. I had about a 3 hour layover in Newark, so I grabbed some food, and some snacks for my next leg which would be the longest. We took off from Newark on TAP air at about 7:30pm. That flight wasn't bad. I was a bit worried as I got the feeling that TAP was a bit of a budget airline. However each headrest had a video display, the seat had enough room, they fed us a couple of times, and did a few rounds of drinks. I can't complain in all, I thought the people were nice, and it was a smooth flight. I also got lucky enough to have the seat next to me open.

I did not sleep at all on the flight from Newark when I should have been. We landed at about 5:30am in Lisbon, and it was pitch dark. Lisbon was a different airport in that the planes did not taxi directly up to a gate, instead there was a big plane parking lot area that they brought stairs up to, then bussed you to the terminals. I had to go through customs there in Lisbon, I was caught behind some high school music group in line, it was entertaining watching them all interact which helped pass the time.

Once in Lisbon I had about 3 more hours to kill until my last flight. I was starting to get tired now. I headed over to a food court area and got a small bite to eat for breakfast, afterwhich I headed over to my gate. I ended up being the only person at my gate for several hours, so I fired up the laptop and watched a movie I had rented for the trip. When the movie was over it was about the time of my scheduled flight, however right when I was taking off my headphones they announced my flight would be delayed about an hour. I then put the laptop away and grabbed my iphone and set the alarm on it for an hour away, and leaned my head back and took a small nap.

Shortly after waking back up I was on my way again. We got bussed back out to the next plane, only this time it was a really small plane. Really small. It wasn't a scary flight, or anything like that, it was just a small plane. From my seat, I could easily see everything that was going on in the cockpit, and could look out the front windshield of the plane. Inside the plane there was an isle, and one seat on either side for about 6 rows.

Inside my tiny plane

After landing in Malaga, I had about an hour to chew up before Heather arrived. I headed to baggage claim to get my suitcase, and waited. After waiting for my bag for about 20-30 minutes, I started to get worried. The belt had brought a few bags out, but it looked like half the plane was missing their bags. One guy (actually pictured above on the left) thought the airline lost his family's bags and went to go talk with someone. I waited a bit longer, then realized no more bags were coming. Out of the corner of my eye though I caught this one area that was glassed in that had bags going around its belt. I headed over to it and on the glass was a sign that said "Bags checked in non-European countries". There on the belt was my bag. I grabbed it and went back over to the family and told them their bags might be in their (as they were American).

I ended up hanging in the baggage claim until Heather's flight arrived. She made it with no issues, and we went over to the glassed in baggage claim for her bag. Her flight was a larger flight so it took a while for her bag to show. While waiting our friends Maria and Gabor's plane landed as well (or so we thought). We waited by their baggage claim for a while and didn't see them. It made us wonder if they had an issue getting on their flight as they had stayed overnight in London. I turned on my cell phone, and after it sync'd up to the network it showed I had some voicemails. Turns out they missed their flight and were on the next flight over, which was going to land in about an hour.

Heather and I left baggage claim and went to our predetermined meeting area at the airport called the Golf Bar. We each ordered a beer (it was about 3pm by now), and a small snack. We read some magazines, I played with my new camera a bit, and before we knew it Maria and Gabor where there! All people accounted for, now off to the resort!

We had a rental car, and the drive from Malaga to Marbella was only about 30 minutes. We are staying at the Marriott Marbella Beach Resort. Check in was quick, and we then got situated in the apartment. It is a really nice place with two bedrooms, big balcony with full size table, and a nice sized kitchen, dining room, living room area.

Main living area of our apartment

That night we decided to go into Marbella for dinner. After driving around a little bit we found a parking garage, and started walking. It wasn't long before we found a liquor/wine shop so we decided to take a look at what good Spanish wines we could get at a good price. While in there Maria then started talking to the man behind the counter (who was the owner, Mario) to get some dinner suggestions. He showed her on a map where the old downtown district was and a nice Tappas restaurant called Estrecho.

Mario giving Maria directions

It was almost impossible finding this restaurant. We would get close, then ask someone, and they would say "it's just over there down that next street". Then we'd go to that next street and ask someone and they would point us back the other direction saying it was just around the corner. One person told us to look out for the shoe store on the corner, and it would be there. Along the way between these two blocks we passed 3 shoe stores, all on the corner. Finally someone got us pointed in the right direction and we found the place! It was a really nice meal, with some great house wine.

The ellusive Estrecho

After dinner our eyelids were really started weigh heavy, so we headed back to the resort. That night we all crashed at around 10pm for some long needed rest.