Spain and the sun and the wine and the senoritas

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Spain, why not?



My stepdaughter got rid of her boyfriend and is flying free doing things that he did not want to do, she went to Spain and I tagged along a little later, some time together and some time on my own and I’ll rent a motorbike and scoot along in Spain for ten days or so.

I left home in the afternoon for a long wait at the aeropuerto in Gothenburg and a cheap flight later landed in Malaga at midnight.

Of course everything was closed, but Fia had some snacks in the car and that kept me going until breakfast, lunch ended up being a soggy petrolstation sandwich.



The Costa del Sol is best defined by the word ghetto, so many holiday homes wherever the eye roams, not my cup of tea at all.

Being a free ranging old coot with a great deal of wanderlust wanting to come out so thinking about being stuck in some white apartment/semi next to two hundred looking just the same, not to mention coming home home two sheets to the wind at 3 am.

Have not been here for one 30 years or so and nothing remains the same.

It’s low season and I’d hate to be here in high, bloated tourists covered in suntan lotion all over the place and now in low season parking spaces are scare, I’ve seen more snakes with tits than parking space.

Sofie, Fia for short did, an enduro course yesterday and then we went to Ronda , Ronda is nice, Ronda looks and smells like Spain.

Yesterday was Sunday and today, Monday is a holiday so most places will be closed, if worst comes to worst, burgers, yech and double yech.

Any way we found a nice place to eat and a spot of hot food is good for the body and also the soul, after dinner/ a very late lunch we got digs and set forth to infiltrate Ronda aka known as finding a place where they had some tapas and plonk, not very hard to find.

The owner of our restaurant took a shining to me, haha or maybe just possibly Fia and promised us a Ronda tour the next day.

What is this with men and girls?

Anyway Ronda by night on a holiday evening was full with people walking about doing nothing , just having a good time, whole families mooching about, no shouting, no drunks behaving badly, just like it should be.

Some wine and some snacks later saw us in our digs.

A good nights sleep and a morning without a cloud in sight and a temperature of 4C, definitely a little nip in the air as they said about the first Japanese pilot.

A Holiday morning in Spain is a place devoid of people, restaurants are closed until 9.30 so we had to wait for a while.

Coffee and OJ and some things to eat, as we sat there the place started to fill up with hungry natives.

We got our gear from the room and put it in Fia’s car and did some more walking.

Somewhat later Antonio who likes older Swedish males took us around for a while and showed us Ronda from below, Ronda is built on a hill, 749 m in altitude, the hill is divided by a gorge and in old times they built a bridge with is still standing a being used every day, Ronda’s fame is the bridge.

At Antonio’s suggestion we took a trip to Grazamela a little hill town in the sticks, the ride was better than the town.a nice hilly landscape.

Well back in the afternoon it was time to find new digs and seek out some places with wine and tapas and some wine later we met up with Antonio again and had some more wine and tapas.

Antonio apart from being a restaurateur is also a producer of olive oil and Fia knows someone who sells cheese and olive oil and they were talking about doing some business together so she got some samples, 5 litres of oil to take back to Sweden.

After a slow breakfast we went to Torremolinos to pick up my bike and I went off in search of good times in Andalucia,.

I just picked a spot on the map and ended up in Tarifa a little windy port and old village with lots of history, going on backroads only made a 1 hour trip into a 3 hour and some change trip, 19 C and not a cloud.

As many places in Spain there are lots history, war, invasion, castles churches, inquisition.

A lot to look at and liking old places Spain is right up my alley.

Crappy dinner and off to bed.

The next day got me to Gibraltar and the day ended in Jerez de la Frontera, the home of sherry.

The ride over the costal range was great, truly a good ride, a narrow winding road in a nice landscape.

Jerez had a hotel for me but all in all not very interesting, a mighty meal at a Mexican style restaurant filled me to the brim.

A hotel breakfast and some flatland got me to Cadiz, a major port with lots of history, also the city in Europe who has been continuously populated for the longest time.

Cadiz, not a city where you want to have a vehicle to park, narrow winding streets all one way and not one going where I wanted it to go.

Finally I found a place to stay and then a walkabout, relatively nice and warm, rain was forecast for 3 o’clock and it was punctual and also brought the temperature down, quite a lot.

Some more walking, some food and lo and behold, some wine, very strange, how did that happen?

Bedtime breakfast and off to Sevilla, a cool ride but the temperature had the good grace of rising once in Sevilla, from 13C to 20 something.

One can say the Google maps driving directions leave somewhat to be desired, but i got there in the end,

I spent the remainder of the day just walking around enjoying Sevillan architecture, watching people and having some little bit to eat and drink here and there.

The Spanish kitchen does not open until, at best 8 pm and normally sometime before 9 pm

And there’s only so much plonk and tapas that you can have, so it was time to go back to my Boutique hotel and rest my weary liver, what is a boutique hotel any way, apart from not being cheap?

Sevilla kept on giving and I kept on enjoying, Plaza Espana is magnificent, and a testimony to when you king gives you a writ to loot a whole continent and a half, you can build a lot of nice places.

The poor buggers got catholicism in exchange, a very very shoddy deal.

The locals were out in force, not a table to be had, tapas and drinks by the tonne, every minute.

I walked down a street in the evening and met a horde of lemmings going to evening mass and o bit later they all went back to bars and restaurants, maybe some after communion nigthcap wine?

So with Sevilla done it was time for Cordoba, nice enough but not even a runner up to Sevilla.

One positive thing about Cordoba was a nice dinner served by some very nice women, coincitendentally the whole staff were women but for the cook.

Sevilla is vibrant with brazillions of people about, music, tap dancing, Spanish style, I’ll be back.

My plan was to go to Granada tomorrow but after having checked out the weather report, sleet for lunch.

Intercourse no!

10C in the morning, that I can take, but snow no way.

So down to the coast again, and I’ll do my best to avoid the ghettos.

The plan was to spend the night In Mijas, whence I arrived chilled to the marrow, the ring finger on my right hand was white down to the second joint,

I did leave Sweden to escape the cold, no such luck, even a spot of rain as i approached the coastal range.

Mijas has turned from a nice little village into another ghetto, so i doubled back to Coin, a little way back inland, but it was not a tourist delight, at all.

Doubled back some more and Booking .com got me to some place outside Pizarra, a bit of a dump, the room was cold as a witches tit and then some.

The owner was nice and the food ok and the Rioja good.

The bed was a bit lumpy so the night was not restful.

Breakfast and off to the coast, a very nice mountain road including nice spots with 8C chilly but a nice run all the same.

Hardly any pics of the arid Spanish country side, that being due to my e freezing and trying to keep my fingers above zero

One of Maria’s ex slaves and his partner have a little hotel in Nerja and my kitbag was there and during the night I decided to cut my trip short, the weather forecast left a lot to desired for the remainder of my days.

Once back in the ghetto the temps went up but I this not where I want to be, the whole Mediterranean coast is not Spain anymore, just a big expat colony.

According to the olive oil guy in Ronda the lingua franca in Torremolinos is English.

Monty Python made a very good skit called ; Travel agent.

AnywayI picked up my kit and went on the motorway to Malaga.the coastal road has more than enough roundabouts and sleeping policemen and RVs and general traffic to keep the speed down to a snails pace.

The hotel In Malaga had incontinence sheets under the normal sheet, so I had to remake the bed.

The old part of Malaga was ok but but as in many places like that, mostly souvenir shops and restaurants and some nice buildings, not even close to Cordoba.

A long boring day waiting to go home aka the fat lady sang yet again.

Sadly no landscape pics but I was more interested in keeping what warmth remaining in my fingers, however little, to take of my gloves.

Spain is in the midst of a nasty drought having got only 25 % or so of the normal rainfall.

PS

The bird watching was good and would probably have been great with some more sun.

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Photos

20220309_093726
combined drinking fountain for man and beast, the run off goes into a bowl at the base.
Crafty buggers!