Costa del Sol - Thursday

The best day of the week so far - barely a cloud in the sky. We had all agreed to get up fairly promptly and head off to the market in "Marbella". It transpired that this referred to the district, not the town of Marbella. The market itself was an indoor one in San Pedro de Alcantara - and it was disappointingly small.

Having paid for 2 hours of parking, we took a wander round the town, which turned out to be a very pleasant one. The coffee stop we chose was a lovely little cafe called Tomate. Here's Jo heading to the loo - the main reason for our stop:

Ross had coffee - of course - but Jo and I chose juices - Freshco for Jo and Zinger for me:

Oh - you want a translation of the ingredients? Here you go:

Even the bill was presented in a novel way:

That was the extent of our off-site activity today. We headed back to our resort and had lunch from the various bits and bobs in our fridge, then we swam and sunbathed this afternoon. Jo did 150 (albeit short) lengths of the pool!

I finished my book - Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman, the follow-up - half a century later - to To Kill a Mockingbird. The event - she said she would never write another book after Mockingbird - was the publishing sensation of the year. Every time Atticus Finch was mentioned in the book, all I could see was this image of Gregory Peck. There's no word of them making a film from Watchman however.

Now I have nothing to read. Might go browsing tomorrow. Missing my phone as well.

Lazy Wednesday

We'd done enough driving and decided we wanted to stay fairly local today. A wander down to the beach to sit in the sun was followed by refreshment at Chill Bar:

Next stop was the adult outdoor pool:

Now it was time for treats. We had seen a nice ice cream shop in Puerto Banus so we headed there. Jo had Creme Brulee, Ross a frozen yoghurt and I mixed Kit-Kat and Pistachio - lovely. We wandered round the port for a while:

Soon it was time to head for the Craft Beer bar, but we took a slight detour to look at the hotel where I'm staying next week for my golf holiday.

That was yesterday. This morning (Thursday), we're all up and the sun's shining so we're heading to the market in Marbella.

Ronda

Jo and I last made the trip over the mountains to the visually spectacular town of Ronda as long ago as 1997. We were so impressed then that we even bought a large poster of the town and got it framed when we got home. It hung in our bedroom for years.

Yesterday's return visit did not disappoint. We left the warm sunshine of the coast behind and drove up to the cloud level and beyond to the high plains. Our first stop was Atrium cafe, adjacent to the tourist office, for a bite of lunch - and to use their facilities.

Then it was onward towards the great gorge and the "new" and old bridges:

I posed outside the bullring - on the same spot as 18 years ago:

Then it was back down the hill again. Back down on the coast our drive was taking us past the craft beer bar that we'd checked out on Sunday, only to discover that it only opens Wed to Sun, from 6 pm. Thwarted again!

Back at the resort, we went for a quick swim and met on the roof terrace bar for a beer before heading back to the apartment to sweep up some of the food in our fridge. For Jo and I, it was a very late meal - but it was normal time for Ross.

It's Wednesday morning now and it looks like being a bit of a down day.

Monday on Costa del Sol

It looked a bit more promising when we awoke but there were still some clouds around so we opted for a short trip to Mijas, detouring via Fuengirola to try out a specialist coffee shop for Ross. We found a small parking space for our Micra and walked round to the coffee shop, but it was shut!:

Across the road was another establishment and we had coffee and croissants on the street corner there, basking in the hot sun.

The drive to the pretty, whitewashed touristy mountain village of Mijas was up a narrow, winding road and finding a parking spot was again a struggle until we happened upon a multi-storey. Parking on the 2nd floor, we took the lift up to the 10th floor, which conveniently was the level of the touristy bits of the town. The views down to the coast are spectacular and my camera doesn't really do it justice. On a clear day, apparently you can see all the way to Gibraltar and across the Med to the Moroccan coast:

Walking round the bullring, we headed up the hill through the narrow streets to the highest viewpoint:

We had lunch in a little cafe on a side street. the King Prawns had the dirtiest alimentary canals we'd ever seen and we were a little nervous about digesting them - but we did.

Back at our resort, we did a bit of reading, snoozing and, in my case, a quick visit to the adult indoor pool before dinner at the onsite El Med restaurant.

It's now Tuesday morning and the sun is shining again so we're heading a little further afield today - up to the spectacular mountain village of Ronda. All we need is Ross to wake up.

Marbella - damp Sunday

We awoke to find a pool of water on our balcony. They are designed with escape outlets but the water doesn't run towards them so there was a bit of mopping up to be done.

Ross was up first and had made coffee and gone to the store to get fresh bread. After breakfast, we decided we didn't want to travel far - there was no point heading to the mountains as visibility was poor - so Marbella was the chosen town.

I was aware of a relatively new craft beer bar - http://lacatarinacraft.com/ - and programmed its address in to our Sat Nav, believing it to be in Marbella. We soon discovered that Marbella seemed to be the district rather than just the town. We found La Catarina in the middle of a partly industrial estate, which probably had aspirations to be gentrified. We knew it didn't open until 6 pm on a Sunday but wanted to check it out anyway:

Puerto Banus was nearby. It was dull with an occasional light drizzle, but reasonably mild so we parked there and took a stroll around, checking out the expensive boats:

We stopped for coffee then headed back towards Marbella town for a wander along the prom there. A 4 day walking competition was just ending and each participant was handed a stem of gladioli for finishing, so it was a bit weird seeing all these apparent Morrissey impersonators wandering around.

Finally, the sun broke through:

We were getting thirsty by now so it was back to the apartment for beers on the balcony, taking in the late afternoon/early evening rays before dinner.

It's now Monday morning and it's been raining again. Don't think we'll be going far today either.

Marbella - Saturday travel

Friday night/Saturday morning was a little fraught for us all, but eventually all 3 of us - 4 including Gary, who was taking my car away - made it to the airport in good time. In fact we were a bit too early, particularly as the seats were all pre-assigned anyway.

There was a bit of panic on the drive between Gary's office and the airport - all of a sudden, my car lost its traction control and warning lights started flashing. We turned off the software and it seemed to be ok after that. Whether my car is going through its death throes or whether it's just a temporary blip, we don't know.

This - and the early morning start - had distracted me a little and I forgot to unhook my phone from its charging unit in my car before Gary drove off.

Check-in was easy but there was a bit of a temporary panic in security as my laptop seemed to have disappeared. I always get stopped and scanned and body searched since my metal knee was put in, and I try to keep an eye on my belongings as they go along the belt whilst I am searched, but it's not always easy to monitor them. I think it's too easy for thieves to make off with other peoples' belongings at airports and I wish there was a better way of doing this. My backpack was OK and so was my jacket, but one of the security guards insisted on putting my laptop in a tray of its own. It's a Sony Vaio and the outer cover is dark grey - the same as the trays used in security. Somebody in security had been tidying up whilst I was being searched and hadn't noticed the laptop in the bottom of the tray and had put a pile of other trays on top. What a relief when we eventually found it - I had assumed the worst.

Having recovered from this particular panic with my laptop, I sat down and went through my belongings, only to finally realise that my phone was missing. Too late. We contacted Gary to let him know and hopefully he'll get it over to Banchory this week and one of the golfing group will bring it out with them on Saturday.

Otherwise, the flight was fine and although there was a slight delay at the other end with the baggage, we were on our way with our rental car well before lunch. In fact, we were too early when we arrived at Marriott's Marbella Beach Club - our very first timeshare, where we'd only been once before in 1999. It's matured a huge amount since then - a really nice resort. We had lunch at the new (to us) restaurant down by the beach:

By the time we had finished, our apartment was ready. Second floor, west facing - ideal for the afternoon/evening sun - and we had a (slightly distant) sea view as well:

After unpacking, Jo and Ross had a nap, whilst I watch Scotand's rugby team's match against Samoa on the laptop. We then drove to Puerto Banus and did some grocery shopping at El Corte Ingles. Prawns and chorizos were the order of the day and Ross did an excellent job of cooking them for dinner back at our apartment - even though the chilli content was perhaps a fraction high!

G & T's and red wine ensured we were ready for bed after a long day.