Month: January 2016

Monday, January 25

About 4:20 this morning we woke up to a long rolling earthquake. Our room was on the 9th floor of the hotel. I’m sure that intensified the effect. I looked up the earthquake on the USGS earthquake site. They say it was a 6.1 centered about 75 miles south west of us out in the Mediterranean.

We left the hotel at 8:30 to take the subway to Málaga and then the train to Ronda. The train ride went through some particularly scenic areas. We went though the Garganta del Chorro, a 4 km long gorge. There were several tunnels including one long one but we still got to see some great vistas. The gorge is particularly well known for the Camino del Rey, a one meter wide path that hugs the canyon wall 100 meters above the ground. It was closed in 2000 because it had fallen into disrepair and a couple of tourists died. It reopened last year. It looks like something we should do on a future trip. In the picture taken from the train window you can kind of see the path. The link above has more information.

In Ronda there is another gorge that divides the town in half. There are three bridges that span the gorge. They are called Puente Nuevo (the New Bridge), the old bridge and the Roman bridge. The new bridge was completed in the 1790s we are staying at the Parado that overlooks the new bridge. That’s our Parador in the picture below.

After checking in we walked down to see the other two bridges and to explore the town. We stopped for a tapas snack and then had our free beer on the terrace of our Parador overlooking the Puente Nuevo. We had Spanish guitar music playing in the background. It was perfect.

Later we went for a walk to enjoy the sunset. The bull fighting ring is the first purpose built ring in Spain. Apparently it is a classic.

Tonight we are eating in the Parador restaurant.

Tuesday January 26, 2016

This morning after our coffee and toast and a walk to the bus station to see if we could pre-purchase our tickets for the bus ride today (we couldn’t – the ticket window appears to be permanently closed.). We paid a couple of Euros to go down inside the Puente Nuevo to see the exhibits and views.

Then we checked out of our room and left our bags behind the front desk. We visited the Museo Lara. It is one man’s very eclectic collection of everything from inquisition instruments, to typewriters, to Roman coins. It was fun and fascinating to explore.

At 3:45 we caught the bus to Arcos de la Frontera another white hill town where we are staying tonight. The taxi that took us to the top of the hill and our small hotel drove through the narrowest streets I have ever seen. This is our hotel. Right now I am sitting by the fire working on this blog.

We had really great tapas for dinner.

Bull tail croquettes.

Warm Goat cheese with plum preserves.

This is part of the road our taxi took us on to get to our hotel.

Today was our last day in Torremolinos. So we took it easy. We did a lot of reading. The weather was absolutely perfect. We went for a long walk along the beech. Since it is Sunday and such a nice day it seemed like everyone else was out too.

For dinner we went back to the place we ate last night and had sangria and the seafood platter.

Tomorrow we get a relatively early train to Ronda. But first we need to climb the 173 steps with our luggage up to take the subway to the train station in Málaga.

Our hotel in Torremolinos is on the beech. To get up to the town and the train station we climb a lot of steps. Excellent exercise!!

Today we climbed up to the train station and caught the train into Málaga to go to to the Málaga Picasso Museum. Picasso was born Málago and lived the first twenty years of his life here. The museum has more than 200 of Picasso’s works.

In the basement are the Phoenician, Roman, Islamic and Renaissance archaeological findings from when they built the museum.

I missed it but while we were in the Picasso Museum Duke saw an older gentleman bringing his glasses to his eyes while his cane was still in his hand. He almost put his cane through a 400 year old painting that was being displayed because it influenced Picasso. One of the guards threw herself between the painting and the cane and barely saved the painting. Afterwards she tried to tell him to be careful but who knows if he understood. The guard was still recovering when we moved on.

We left the museum and took a break for some coffee

Then we went to the Picasso birth place museum which was also excellent.

Then we took the train back to Torremolinos and had a great dinner near our hotel.

This morning before leaving our hotel we went out to get a bit of breakfast. Something different to us that is always offered everywhere we’ve been so far in Spain is toast with crushed fresh tomato. I tried it this morning. It was pretty good.

After breakfast we walked to the bus stop and caught a bus to Málaga. From Malaga we caught a subway to Torremolinos and the walked down to the coast where our hotel is.

For dinner we climbed the hill back into town and had a tomato salad and another great fresh fish dinner.