Ronda Gorge – Wow!

Daily Drena: Adapting and Planning.

Maria provides us with a typical Andalucian breakfast, which consists of a danish, white bread, olive oil and a tomato spread, cured meat and cheese, homemade jelly, and a glass of fresh-queezed OJ that is worth every penny.

The B&B is clean and tastefully decorated, but it’s just hard to feel comfortable. Maria is nice, but the language barrier is hard. Before we booked the room we asked to make sure we could use the kitchen and the fridge, but it is clearly Maria’s domain and we can’t decide if she is very type-A with things needing to be exactly how she does them, if she doesn’t trust us, or if it’s just normal Spanish culture. There’s a couch and a tv in the kitchen too, and she spends all day here. Again, we’re not sure if she’s trying to allow us to have the rest of the house or this is where she wants to be. So much gets left unsaid.

We retreat to our bedroom and work in bed like a grandma and grandpa. We have a lot of planning to do for our time in Ronda, where we will go during the rest of our trip, and also for our wedding. We now appreciate why travel agents are handy, and one of the reasons we enjoyed Portugal so much. It was all planned for us and we just went.

We are rethinking our original travel itinerary, cutting out towns and travel time, and are deciding to stay in places for longer periods. We loved Granada because we were able to establish a routine and actually do some normal living versus always being in travel mode with planning and exploring. And we are excited for what we find…so stay tuned!

The old part of town is lovely, and just look at the photos of the amazing views from the town (then multiply by 4 for what it actually looks like in real life). The puente nuevo (new bridge), completed in 1793, is a masterpiece of architecture.

Rolling to Ronda

Daily Drena: Out of the city!

We are headed to Ronda for the week, because many people have told us it’s a beautiful place with lots of hiking around. We decided to rent a car because even though there is a train to get there, a car is the only way to get to trailheads. So we take the bus to the Malaga airport and spend all morning dealing with that. Eventually we exit with a little black Hyundai i30 and immediately get lost trying to get out of the city. However, lost is always a relative term nowadays (there really needs to be a new word for this modern lost), because we know where we are on the gps, we just can’t get to where we want to go. No streets allow a left turn, a lie told multiple times by the gps.

Once we are out of Malaga, our smiles return. The drive is a pretty one. We arrive at our B&B with excitement, but find it’s a quite a bit different than we were expecting. Even though we secured the place through email with Maria in English, she doesn’t actually speak it, so we bumble around as much as we can. It is really just like renting a room in a house. Our room, her room, and her son’s room (who is in college in Malaga) is upstairs in the same area. She gives us the bathroom and they use the one downstairs. It’s in a modern row house area, about a 15-20 min walk to the cool parts of town. This is going to be interesting for an entire week. We debate about bailing out early and finding a more private place, but decide to embrace it (or just adjust to it).

 

 

Home of Picasso

Daily Drena: Let’s get out of this city quickly!

Malaga is a big city, and we immediately have a strong distaste for it. It’s noisy and busy, and doesn’t have the old charm like other cities and towns we’ve visited. There are some cool sights, but overall it just feels dirty. It doesn’t help that this weekend is a big party weekend because of the holiday. It also doesn’t help that I couldn’t sleep because of all the noise outside our hostel most of the night.

We walk to the beach through cruise ship commercialism, and then find a cool trail in the woods up to the Gibralfaro castle. However, the real reason we came to this town is for the Picasso museum and it doesn’t disappoint. After experiencing dirty, loud streets all day, Drew and I separate. Drew finds an Italian restaurant and a soccer game to watch while I enter the most pristine, white-walled quiet building to take in Picasso almost all to myself. Apparently from 6-8p on Sunday’s, the museum is free, and I arrived at 4:45 so everyone was waiting to go later. It was worth the 7 euros to have my own private viewing. When I left, the line was wrapped around the building.