Malaga, Spain

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Our first stop in Spain (after we passed the infamous Rock of Gibraltar) was the coastal city of Malaga. A city rich in history and culture having been inhabited by many cultures prior to the Spanish including the Moors, Romans, and Portuguese. Like many coastal cities on the Mediterranean, Malaga utilized the high cliffs and hills to build fortified living areas. Typically our mission, or I should say Barb's is to climb the highest peak, usually where the fortress is located, and admire the surrounding views.

This castle, like many we'll see in the future I'm sure, was high atop the hill and filled with "castle like stuff", including canons, turrets, and porticoes. It did, as promised afford us a great view of the city of Malaga, including the iconic Bull Fighting Arena. The beaches are also quite popular and well populated on the sunny days, which seems to be the norm here in Spain this time of year. We have arrived here just ahead of the true tourist season (something we planned) so while there always seems to be a crowd wherever we go it's not a real detriment to our enjoying and exploring.

In past posts I have mentioned little about our actual 14 day cruise on the Royal Caribbean Splendour of the Seas. This ship is one of the older in the fleet, a Vision Class ship comparable to the ship Barb and I sailed back home from England 2 years ago. We knew in advance the ship would be 90% Brazilians speaking Portuguese and we English speakers would be the minority. I must say that overall the ship and crew did a fairly good job making sure we understood everything that was happening. After about a week however I think Barb and I as well as our travel companions, the Ingrahams, were a bit done with the Latin American overtones. The Brazilians are a passionate people and we enjoyed their energy, dancing till the wee hours of the morning, and their cuisine...but let's just say that we've had our fill for awhile...haha. The only real negative experience we had was that our toilet stopped working on about day 9 and was out of commission for 1 and half days. The way the ship handled the issue wasn't as professional as we expected, but we survived and were rewarded with the typical "discount" on a future cruise. Not sure if we'll cash that chip in as our overall experience with RCI hasn't been as great as NCL or Cunard

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