The literal translation is Coast of the Sun, and let me tell you that this beautiful area lives up to it's name and is the northern neighbor to Tangiers, Morocco Africa! Talk about culture!
Welcome to Part II of our most recent trip!
We flew out of Barcelona and landed in Malaga, Spain. Malaga is the Capital city of the Province of Malaga, it has the largest airport in Southern Spain and connects the Costa del Sol by train and bus. We were feeling a little exhausted from a late night in Barcelona so we opted for the taxi to head down the coast to our town called Fuengirola. A short 35 minutes later we were meeting Monica, the owner and checking into our beach side apartment, another great Airbnb find. We have been very impressed with Airbnb as we have both saved a lot of money and also we have had accomodations with kitchens which allows us to cook our own food. Always a nice feature when you are travelling in areas with amazing produce, seafood and meats such as Southern Spain. If you are new to Airbnb send us a note and we would be happy to walk you through our experiences and give you some pointers that we have picked up.
Since we were a little tired we quickly went for a nap on the beach, aahhh yes, that sure does charge the batteries! It was great to be back on a beach and the subtropical Mediterranean climate was warm and welcoming. I think we are going to like this place!
Welcome to Part II of our most recent trip!
We flew out of Barcelona and landed in Malaga, Spain. Malaga is the Capital city of the Province of Malaga, it has the largest airport in Southern Spain and connects the Costa del Sol by train and bus. We were feeling a little exhausted from a late night in Barcelona so we opted for the taxi to head down the coast to our town called Fuengirola. A short 35 minutes later we were meeting Monica, the owner and checking into our beach side apartment, another great Airbnb find. We have been very impressed with Airbnb as we have both saved a lot of money and also we have had accomodations with kitchens which allows us to cook our own food. Always a nice feature when you are travelling in areas with amazing produce, seafood and meats such as Southern Spain. If you are new to Airbnb send us a note and we would be happy to walk you through our experiences and give you some pointers that we have picked up.
Since we were a little tired we quickly went for a nap on the beach, aahhh yes, that sure does charge the batteries! It was great to be back on a beach and the subtropical Mediterranean climate was warm and welcoming. I think we are going to like this place!
Another great aspect to this trip was our timing, the last 2 weeks of September had us in the shoulder season so there weren't any crowds, very few tour buses, perfect weather with nights dropping to 17c with afternoons at 27c and a service industry that was hungry for our business. Oh, and it didn't hurt that I could stammer my way through a Spanish conversation either, which only got better with the more wine I drank!
Check out this very true Palm Tree!
After a day of rest and leisure we had plenty of energy to check out the local market and procure supplies for the week. The produce at this time of year is abundant and very affordable, the seafood on the other hand was quite expensive but we have learned that seafood is expensive everywhere. The result of depleating stocks and high global demand is my assumption. Regardless, we did treat ourselves to the local produce, meats and the famous spanish Jamon Iberico, so delicious! We were also amazed by the quality of the red wines and the olive oils. I know I may upset my Italian friends but you guys have some serious competition in Spain! Good eats and drinks for sure! We were thrilled to discover that a good bottle of red wine (vino tinto) was less that $5 CDN. I know, it is hard to believe that we behaved ourselves... or did we?!
We love markets and we were fortunate to have been shopping for produce on Tuesday as that is the weekly market day, lucky us! Markets are similar everywhere in the world with similar and unique products, trinkets, scarfs, bags and the local specialties and produce. A warm and welcoming environment that we have learned to enjoy, appreciate and look forward to exploring each one. We learn a lot about the culture and diet by visiting the markets which the locals frequent and we make a big effort to find those places and not just visit the tourist markets. This market was a nice combination of both local and tourist stuff.
Seafood may be considered expensive but it is still a significant part of the Spanish culture and daily diet. The fishing boats can be seen all day and night as they troll the blue Mediterranean waters just off shore. I thought it was funny how many birds could be seen following these trollers and wondered if those fishermen ever thought about grilled seagull on those non-produvctive days. There were lots of them!
We didn't eat much seafood but the meals we did were very good and I can see why the Spanish hold onto this part of their diet so dearly. I found the seafood even better when made with their world famous dish Paella and a bottle of local Tempranillo wine.
The locals are very proud of their weather and this is one of the main reasons why there are so many elderly British retiring in the Costa del Sol region. The area averages only 40 gray days per year! That leaves 325 days of sunshine. Incredible! That makes less than one gray day per week so the odds were pretty good that we would have a gray day, and we did. Fortunately we checked the weather the day before so we started researching what we could do for our Gray Day Activity...
How about Tangiers, Morocco?!?!?!
Yeah baby! We were walking past a small travel agency and we saw a sign advertising 1 day excursions to Morocco, Africa. How could we say no to this? So we went inside, paid the lad and got our tickets to Africa for 7 AM the next morning. We were given a quick speach and warnings regarding the Muslim religion, dress requirements for women and a stern warning about using discretion while taking photos. So, that's my excuse for the blurry, sketchy shots. Needless to say we were quite excited about the prospect of visiting Africa and adding a third country to this trip. The schedule was quite easy, up at 6, meet the bus at 7, drive 2 hours south while picking up more tourists along the way and then finally a 1 hour ferry to Morocco.
We were up bright and early and donwstairs by 6:45 to meet the tour bus. This is where I should mention that this was the first organized tour we have ever done, in any country that we have travelled to. We were quite relieved to find the majority of people on the tour were under 90 and not one oxygen bottle and we were call "kids" all day long! It was a great group and we made our guides earn their money as we refused to stay with the group and had to look into the shops and nose around until we were found, chastised and hurried back to the Gray Day Gray Gang.
Well, the ancient city of Tangiers was everything we could have hoped for! It was busy, loud, smells of spice, curry, roasting nuts, bread, bread and more bread! Leather goods, tapestries, lanterns, metal works, everything you could imagine we were inundated with for 5 hours straight! And, they were open for business!!! Any currency, any credit card, any language including English, Arabic, Spanish, German, Dutch, Swedish, Portuguese and I am sure the list goes on. Very impressive for each and every salesman!
We had a great day, made new friends, we also negotiated hard and purchased a handmade Morrocan rug and a camel skin bag to carry the rug home along with a few smaller items. Everything worked out great and we were able to bring these items home quite easily. We calculated that we saved about 70% from what we would have paid in Canada for comparable items. I suspect we will be adding some Moroccan items to the Champa Clothing site at some point.
It was nice to have survived the Gray Day as the sun burned through for our ferry ride back to Spain giving us the most beautiful farewell.
I loved this city and have promised myself to return and explore more of Morocco, can't wait to keep that promise! We will likely combine our return trip into a Northern Africa tour to include Egypt and then Portugal so would likely need 3 to 4 weeks. Sure hope my employer understands my need to venture beyond : )
Well, that was Part II of our most recent trip.
Now onto Munich, Germany!!
It was nice to have survived the Gray Day as the sun burned through for our ferry ride back to Spain giving us the most beautiful farewell.
I loved this city and have promised myself to return and explore more of Morocco, can't wait to keep that promise! We will likely combine our return trip into a Northern Africa tour to include Egypt and then Portugal so would likely need 3 to 4 weeks. Sure hope my employer understands my need to venture beyond : )
Well, that was Part II of our most recent trip.
Now onto Munich, Germany!!