White Villages of Andalucia

To get to Poland, we decided to leave from Málaga, Spain.  We rented a car and Jason got to drive through his second country.  He was very happy to drive on the right side of the road again.  Poor Spencer though seems to have taken up getting car sick.  Just like in England, he starting throwing up within 30 minutes of getting on the road.  I think it has to do with the roundabouts.  Although he seems fine when he's watching something on his kindle.  I wonder if this is a plot to get more kindle time....Also, note to self, I will need to steal more barf bags from the airplane.  That is when we need to start flying someone other than Ryanair, who is too cheap to provide them or even a magazine holder on the seat to hold them.

From Seville we took a non-direct route to Málaga so we could see some of the white villages of Andalucia.  We first stopped in El Gasto, which is quite a small town.  The people were friendly though, more so than in Seville; I guess it was that small town hospitality.  Driving through tiny streets and looking for parking is quite difficult.  We finally did a big loop and ended up back at the start.  Then we just wandered aimlessly through the streets.  All of the buildings are white, not a single other color.  This makes the colors of the flowers stand out spectacularly.  All of the homes have bright geraniums hanging from pots on the walls.  Huge flower pots with ferns and gigantic succulents line the walkways.  It was beautiful.  It makes me long to live in a warmer climate where I can grow the beautiful plants year around.

After El Gastor, we made our way to Ronda, which is known as the must-see and most popular white village destination.  It showed too.   This was without a doubt the most touristy area we visited in Spain.  Amidst all of the over-priced tourist restaurants, we happened upon a hole-in-the-wall tapas place filled with locals.  We stopped there and tried some delicious tapas.  We loved doing this. You can try so many more foods this way.  All the small plates are between 1-3 euros.

We found the main attraction Puente Nuevo, the new bridge, which is about 300+ years old.  From the top we saw people taking a trail down the hillside to go underneath the bridge.  We had no idea how to get down there, but we managed to wind our way to the trail and started the trek down.  We saw a waterfall and an aquaduct carrying water along the side of the cliffs.  There was a very sketchy staircase and a narrow walkway under the bridge.  It was pretty cool and had some awesome views of the bridge and cliffs.

The town is fairly small, so we were able to do a walking loop around it.  We found a church with beautiful tilework, lots of cobblestone roads and old buildings.

We found one of the old bridges too and walked through a rose garden.  This wore out the kids, so we stopped for gelato before heading out of town for Málaga.  We really enjoyed the large parks in Spain, they have wide spaces for the kids to run around and ride bikes, fountains, arbors and of course more pretty flowers, plants and trees.

In Málaga, we spent our official last day in Spain.  Lucky for me, this was also Mother's Day!  I'm sure there were some wonderful sights in Málaga, but we opted to spend the entire day sitting/playing by the pool and swimming.  It was AMAZING.  We had yummy waffles for breakfast and the most delicous ox tail paella for dinner.  We did take a short walk to the beach to see the Mediterranean Sea. 

Spain, you were enjoyed immensely.  We didn't even begin to scratch the surface.  There is so much more we would love to see.  Jason was doing great with his Spanish, I have no doubt that he would be able to become fairly fluent with more time and practice.  We day-dreamed about coming back just the two of us when we're retired.

Onward to Poland!