Author: marionvermazen

I am a traveler, hiker, avid reader, Sun alumnus, computer geek, Spanish and French language student, knitter and genealogist. I am retired after working for almost 30 years in the Computer Industry. I live in Reno, Nevada with my husband Duke.

Ronda to Arcos de la Frontera

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.

 

 

Taking it Easy

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.

 

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.

 

 

Nerja to Torremolinos

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.

 

Lonely planet describes Torremolino as “cheesy” and says “Torremolinos’ reputation precede it…… Yet, despite being the butt of everything from Monty Python jokes to hysterical holiday exposés, ‘Terrible Torrie’ refuses to die”. Torremolinos does seem touristy and is certainly full of English people but you can’t beat the setting.
We walked down the beech and stopped for beer and a snack.

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

 

 

Nerja

Today we spent a wonderful day relaxing on the coast in Nerja at the east end of the Costa del Sol. We walked down to a lookout called Balcón de Europa. Apparently the King of Spain called it this in the early 20th century. Hence Duke’s picture with the King.

 

Below us on the beech was a fisherman fixing his net and next to us on the lookout was a harp musician busking. The temperature was in the low 60s and it was a perfect day to just stroll and enjoy the view.

 

We went back to our room to read and rest and then we felt an earthquake!! It was a magnitude 5.1 and apparently it was 25 miles off the coast of Morocco due south of us. http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us10004g3i

It gave us a pretty good jolt. I thought we might even see a small tsunami but if there was one we missed it.

Later on we went for a walk on the beech to see if a beach front paella place that I read about in the guide book was open. They have seating on the beach for what looks like several hundred people but since this is the off season there were only about a dozen people around. Nerja must be packed in the summer!

 

 

Tonight we had dinner at a tavern not far from our hotel. The owner told us the fish was very fresh so I had dorado and Duke had salmon. It was divine! With a bottle of wine, dessert, and coffee the total bill was $54.

 

Tomorrow we are off to a town called Torremolinos near Málagaalso on the coast.