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Published: December 21st 2016
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We arrived in Tarifa, Spain at around 9pm local time. The ferry from Morocco took around an hour. Within a few minutes, the free FRS shuttle bus (included in the price of our 35 Euro ferry ticket) took us to Algeciras where we checked into the nearest, cheapest accommodation.
We quickly realised that whilst Tarifa (through the bus window) had appeared a modern surf town, Algeciras was undoubtedly its industrial, port-town cousin with an obvious Moroccan/Algerian feel – hence the name! It was clear that it would not be worth hanging around and so the next morning we quickly moved on to Mijas, where we were planning to Couchsurf for the first time.
Costa Del Sol (Marbella/Mijas/Fuengirola/Malaga) It was my first experience of Couchsurfing. Kate had done it a couple of times before, but I was dubious and had the common concerns of safety and ‘what’s in it for them?’. Meeting Lukas and Zdenka was therefore a great surprise and rewarding experience. We stayed with them in their beautiful two-bed home in Campo Mijas with a pool in landscaped gardens, and two dogs that were real characters: Ushaak and Mina. Ushaak the cunning podenco, and Mina, the naïve
yet loyal staffie-bull cross.
It was endearing how Lukas and Zdenka took us into their home for four nights, picked us up, dropped us off and showed us the beautiful surroundings of their home.
Mijas Peubla (old town) was so picturesque up in the mountains with its whitewashed walls, blue flower pots adorning the windows of every home and the winding cobbled streets. Fuengirola is an interesting place too; the 7km walk along the coast is the largest seaside walk in Spain – the bars and restaurants spanning the full spectrum of Blackpool to St Tropez. On a walk with the dogs at Cala de Mijas, Lukas informed us that a project is currently underway to create a 50km boardwark hugging the coastline of the Costa del Sol, from Mijas to Manilva. There is even talk of extending this to connect the whole of the Costa del Sol: Nerja to Manilva at an impressive 180km in total. This will be constructed on Spanish time however, so expect completion to be ‘manana, manana’.
Our final experience with Lukas and Zdenka was visiting the annual Feria de Malaga, which is a big festival held in the streets of Malaga
city, which we both found amazing.
Malaga is a beautiful, modern coastal city with a castle, bullring, hundreds of bars and restaurants (making it easy for us Brits to settle in!), beaches and a La Liga football team – Kate and I both agreed that we could easily live there!! It also benefits from a regular train system linking Malaga Airport and Malaga city with the other well-known resorts of Belamadena, Torremolinos and Fuengirola/Mijas. The Feria itself was a spectacular occasion, the streets packed with people dancing and drinking beer and ‘fino’ – a sweet sherry drink that was strangely popular.
Our visit to Malaga and the Feria had coincided completely by chance, and it was great to experience it with locals. That brought our time in the Costa Del Sol to an end, but we will definitely return to Malaga and Mijas in the future. Our hosts were so welcoming to us, and I have really started to experience and understand the selflessness and interest of the traveller community.
Seville Blablacar is, quite simply, a brilliant idea. We have only seen it used in Spain so far, but it’s an ingenious car-sharing platform where you
can book a seat (or two) in someone’s car as they drive from place to place. Normally better suited to longer distances, it brings the cost of travel down, whilst reducing the number of cars on the road and giving you a chance to meet new people – all arranged as easily as booking an Uber. We used it twice during our time in Spain, firstly to get from Mijas to Seville (gracias Dan). Seville was a blisteringly hot city – think Clint Eastwood arriving into a desert town gasping for a pint of something cool and refreshing – especially in August, which in hindsight was not the best month to visit.
We still had a good time though, and our Air BnB apartment (a small, air conditioned cupboard above a small local bar) was well located for exploring. We stayed at Alameda de Hercules, which is to the north of the main town, but is a hub of nightlife, with outdoor cheap eats and numerous pubs with outdoor football screens! Obviously I couldn’t resist. One good thing we noticed about all of the outdoor bars had mist spray, which was great to sneakily cool off when passing by.
There were also loads of water features built into the pavement, where all the local dogs tended to congregate!
The city has an array of beautiful architecture, but it is the cathedral which dominates the city centre. As the world’s biggest gothic cathedral, and the third largest church in the world behind the Vatican and St Paul’s, it was impressive. It also contained the remains of Christopher Columbus (supposedly) as well as the Giralda Tower, dating back to 1184, which could be scaled internally for views across Seville.
On our arrival, we had tried to get tickets for the Sevilla vs Barcelona match but to no avail. Despite the sell-out, the city was very quiet when we arrived– we were aware that many locals holidayed during the hottest month of August, but still did not expect the ghost town that greeted us on our arrival (Kate wanting to move on immediately!). We later realised the reason for the empty streets was the Spanish ritual of siesta is still going strong here. The streets tended to empty between 1-7pm as many shops, bars and restaurants completely closed.
We found this quite strange and wondered whether this was an
older-generation habit, or whether children, teenagers and students really have siestas as well. Another unusual, but pleasant oddity was the number of OAPs enjoying cervezas and sangrias late at night in the plaza next to our hotel. We’d also previously learnt from Lukas in Mijas that every town in Spain has a community centre for the elderly so that there are things for them to do and an easy way of socialising. Kate and I both thought it would be nice if it was more like this in England.
The second main sight we visited was the Plaza de Espana, which is a palace-like building set in a semi-circle around fountains and a moat. I later learnt that it was built in 1929 and was subsequently used as a film set for various classics such as Lawrence of Arabia and Star Wars Episode 2 – Attack of the Clones.
Overall, we were pleasantly surprised by the prices in Seville (despite the Euro/Brexit currency crash) and found it to be inexpensive, especially considering that it is one of Spain’s major cities.
At this time of year, we found Seville to be a relatively sleepy city, but attractive nonetheless
(particularly around the Cathedral and the Barrio Santa Cruz district) and well worth the visit.
Viv & Wes’ Apartment in La Zenia, Murcia After all the tiring travel to date (a whole two weeks or so into our trip) we Blablacar’d (adios Jeronmino!) to Kate’s aunt and uncle’s apartment in La Zenia, Murcia for 9 days of R&R. Time to top up the tan on the beach and around the pool and have a real holiday before the serious backpacking starts in Central and South America. We enjoyed a few indulgent meals at the Papaya Tree (Thai) and went on a night out with Larry O’Connor and his wife Eileen who Kate and I know from our days as building surveyors. Larry and Eileen were kind enough to host some drinks at their villa, which was beautiful and showed off Larry’s design flair! Apart from that, we tried to be sensible and resist the holiday temptations as we knew there would be more treats to come! It was great to have a proper holiday and some sun, so thank you A Viv and U Wes – now onto Copenhagen!
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Spain
Beautiful.