First snow of the season...

The temperatures have plummeted (the high on Thursday is apparently going to be -4degC) and today we had a bit of the white fluffy stuff falling out of the sky. Not enough to cover the ground, but everything got a light dusting and it looks great. Hopefully if we have a bit more snow there will be pics to follow.

This week Bron is in Joburg for a surprise visit. Her dad has a big birthday coming up in February and apparently he nearly fell over when she arrived at the house.

If you haven't had a chance to read about our time in Spain have a look at the previous two blog posts.

Until next time =)

Southern Spain: Sevilla to Malaga

Time for the second installment on our time in Spain! =)

English is not very big in Spain. Even Spanglish is not very beeg in Spain! It was a bit difficult to get around and especially order food in Spain as not a lot of places cater for English speaking tourists. Generally in the hotels at least one person can speak some English but even this is a problem in the smaller towns! In the bigger more touristy towns it was a bit better but we had to learn a little bit of Spanish just to get by. We can’t really string a sentence together but we learnt quite a few words (we made a list, it’s quite impressive!) to get by and especially to order food! The Spanish will eat anything if it sits still long enough so it was quite important to be able to work out what you are ordering from the menu! The first important words were hola (hello), gracias (thank you), leche (milk), batidos (milkshake), Té (tea), café (coffee), bocadillo (sandwich) and Feliz Navidad (Merry Christmas!). Hopefully we will still remember most of them the next time we visit Spain!

Another thing about Spain was the lovely Christmas and Festive Season everywhere. All the hotels had nice big trees and other decorations up. There were also trees up in cities, often more than one and mostly made up entirely of lights. There were also lots of strings of lights in the streets. In Ronda there was even Christmas music blaring from speakers dotted around the city!

Sevilla to Malaga:

After a very relaxed Christmas day in Sevilla we moved on to Cordoba on Boxing Day. We arrived in the early afternoon so we went for a walk around the old city centre. Cordoba is another one of this cities heavily influenced by the Moorish architecture; there are round arches and colourful tiles everywhere. The main sights in Cordoba are the Puente Romano or Roman Bridge and the Mezquita, a Mosque that was converted into a church after the conquest. Cordoba also has a Plaza de Toros or bull ring which we skipped since we had been to the one in Ronda (we guessed they are all pretty similar inside).  After a bite to eat and a quick look around the leather shops we headed to the Mezquita.

The Mezquita-Catedral or Mezquita-Cathedral was originally built as a mosque and later converted into a church. The building was added to and renovated a number of times. The original building was built by Abd al Rahman I and subsequently extended by his 3 successors. The resulting building is quite large. There is also a courtyard of orange trees with a fountain and some shallow pools where people washed before entering the mosque to pray. Fortunately after the Christian conquest the building was not destroyed but converted into a church instead and kept in the same style. It is a stunning example of Moorish architecture. Highlights include the orange and white arches supported by decorated pillars of jasper, granite and marble which cover the entire inside of the church and the ornately decorated Mihrab or Muslim prayer niche. We really enjoyed exploring the Mezquita and chilling in the orange courtyard. Entry to the orange courtyard is free so we returned a few times just to chill =)

The rest of our time in Cordoba was spent exploring the city, wandering in the gardens, soaking up the sun, leather shopping and we even squeezed in a nap! On our last evening we had a fabulous traditional Arab meal. Justin had a lovely lamb tagine with prunes and almonds and Bron had sole also done with fruits and things. Was really good! We finished off the meal with Arab pastries and traditionally served Arab tea. As we were leaving we discovered that the restaurant is above the traditional Moorish baths! We were leaving the next day so didn’t have time to try out the baths =( But we were soon informed that Granada has traditional baths too! =)

The Puente Romano in Cordoba

The bell tower of the Mezquita

Arches and pillars in the Mezquita 

The Mihrab or prayer niche in the Mezquita 

The old city walls

Christmas tree in Cordoba

The next day we were off to Granada! Granada was the coldest of the cities we visited. Everywhere else was about 20ºC in the day but Granada had a max of about 11ºC in the day with temperatures of around 3ºC in the early morning and in the evening. This is probably due to snow on the Sierra Nevada mountain range which tower over the city. We arrived early afternoon again and headed out into the city for some exploring! We saw the Cathedral and walked up the hill into the Albaycin area and found the Plaza de San Nicolas with a view of the Alhambra. We spent the evening walking around and checking out the touristy shops =)

A lot of places in cities we had been to offer Flamencos shows with or without dinner. We were really keen to see some Flamenco and finally found a nice place to try out in Granada. We had dinner and enjoyed an hour of Flamenco at a really nice restaurant in the Albaycin area on the slope of the hill. Wow, the flamenco was really good! The group consisted of 2 guitar players, a singer guy, a clapper guy, a lady dancer and a guy dancer. They started off nice and slow with just guitar with clapping and singing. The tempo speeded up and then the dancing started! Wow! It was really good. We really enjoyed the show, it was really fun =)

A tea seller advertising goods available

Shopping in the streets

View of the snow capped Sierra Nevada and the Alhambra from Plaza San Nicolas in Granada

Sunset at Plaza San Nicolas

Flamenco!

Early the next day we picked up our friends Martin and Kirsten from Malaga airport! Martin and Justin met at UCT where they went to the same res and after wards shared an apartment for a year. It was so awesome that you guys could join us for a few days!

Back in Granada we re-did the walking tour of the city we did the previous day. We spent lots of time catching up with each other and Justin gave Kirsten some tips on how to use her new SLR camera. Bron and Martin were the non-photographers checking out all the souvenir shops! For dinner we tried out a tapas bar that looked like where locals hangout tapas bar and shared some tapas. Not much English to be had but it was recommended to try a cold and hot board or plate of mixed tapas. Wow, hat a lot of food! Was very yummy though.

The next day we had tickets to the Alhambra! Woohoo! Right on top of Bron’s must-see list. The Alhambra is a city on a hill overlooked by the Sierra Nevada and overlooking the city of Granada. It was built by a series of Moorish monarchs and later added to by some of the Christian rulers after the reconquest. The Alhambra was built with the idea of paradise on earth. There are a number of palaces and gardens in the complex and also places of worship, the traditional baths and also a fortified area where military training took place. The Generalife is also part of the Alhambra complex and is a separate palace where the rulers would take their leisure time. The Gardens of the Generalife are massive and must be amazing in the Summer.

Generally simple materials such as plaster, timber and tiles were used but with such great craftsmanship and with exquisite use of space, light and water. The typical round Moorish arches were used everywhere and water features being the centre of attention with pools in all the courtyards and lots of running water. All the walls and most of the ceilings are covered in highly decorated plasterwork. It is amazingly even and symmetrical considering it was probably all done by hand. Patterns include geometric patterns with many stars but also plants, birds and animals. There was less colourful tiles than the Real Alcazar in Sevilla but it did not feel any less decorated. It is difficult to explain but I hope some of the pictures will show it better =)

We had a great day walking around and exploring the Alhambra complex. There was a little bit of time for some shopping and a cup of Arab tea before we headed off for our appointment at the traditional Moorish baths! At the baths you start with a warm shower and then spend a little bit of time in each of the warm, hot and cold pools, always moving around between them. There was also a steam room and hot stones to lie down on. You could also book a massage but we just went with the bath option. We really enjoyed the refreshing tea available all the time. The hour and a half went by too fast but it was so relaxing! We left feeling very warm and rejuvenated and assured of a good night’s sleep!

Justin, Bronwen, Martin and Kirsten at Plaza San Nicolas

Tapas!

Catching some rays in the Alhambra. Notice the new boots bought in Ubrique!

At the Myrtle Courtyard in the Alhambra

The Alhrambra

Plaster work and round arches

Pools of water and gardens

In the Hammam or baths at the Alhambra

Water feature in the Generalife

View of white washed houses from the Alhambra

At the Arab tea house! 

A street in the Albaycin in Granada 

The next day was New Year’s Eve and time to move on to our final destination for the holiday, Almunecar. We stayed in a really nice hotel right on the beach! It is also right next to a ruined castle on a small hill and a bird park; it was so nice to have the sound of many different birds floating up to us all day.

We had a really relaxed afternoon walking on beach and just chilling. We decided to have a nap and then head out into the small city centre in the evening for some dinner and then to enjoy the evening’s festivities! However, there wasn’t a single restaurant or pub open! Apparently people have dinner at home, celebrate New Year’s at midnight and then head out after 12:30 or 1 am to party. After walking around for a few hours and having a drink in the English pub, the only thing that was open!, we settled for a random Turkish take-away, the only place that was serving meals! We quietly ate our take-aways on the balcony of our room and saw in the New Year. A bit of a disappointment as we were so keen for a party. It was too weird. We didn’t go out again but we didn’t hear any raucous parties either. It is probably the quietest New Year’s we have ever had! Lol. Apparently the Dutch go so crazy with fireworks that you are limited to buying ‘only’ 10 kg of fireworks and sales only start a few days before. Apparently Rotterdam was the second loudest city on New Year’s eve. Too crazy!

We had a really nice New Year’s day exploring Malaga though. We drove through in the morning and spent some time walking on the beach, around the harbor and around the city. We found a hill with a pathway and stairs leading to great vies over the harbor and city and up to an old castle. We were also able to walk around the castle and watched the sun go down with great views over the city.

Back in Almunecar it was time for our last dinner with Martin and Kirsten. We had another shared tapas meal and an early night. We dropped Martin and Kirsten off at the airport early in the morning and spent our last afternoon walking around the city and on the beach trying ot soak up as much sun as possible! Our last meal was in the restaurant of the hotel and was superb! We both had the Dorada and were served a whole fish each, head and tail and all! It was grilled but tasted like it came off the braai fire. It was too amazing! We highly recommend this hotel and restaurant!

The next day we had time for one more walk in the sun and then it was time to head back to the airport =( We had such a lovely holiday and had one day at home in Rotterdam to get organized before starting work again on the Thursday. However, the Netherlands and Northern Europe were in the throes of a storm when we tried to land and it was not pretty! The wind was so hectic we couldn’t land on our designated runway and had to circle for half an hour before we could land. Bron and a lot of other passengers felt so sea sick it was really awful. But we finally landed and got home in one piece =) And so ends our time in Andalusia.

The beach in Almunecar 

The boys skimming stones into the ocean

The beach at sunset. An escaped resident of the bird park? 

The fish we ate was caught right on this beach! =)

On the beach in Malaga!

At the harbour in Malaga

View of the Bull Ring from the winding alkway 

Malaga at sunset from the castle

In other news we went ten-pin bowling on Friday night with some friends from Justin’s work. Was really fun! The rest of the weekend was spent chilling and catching up on the never ending amounts of home admin!

Welcome back to the Northern Hemisphere Graham and Michelle! I've heard your trip was epic! Looking forward to hearing more and seeing some of the 6000 Japanese Tourist photos! Sterkte for the first week back! Don't worry, you will acclimatize to the cold again. All the best for back to work this week! Thinking of you guys. x

Hope you are well! Have a good week! Till next time,

x

Southern Spain: Malaga to Seville

As Marph already said, we spent 16 wonderful days exploring Andalusia, the most Southern province of Spain. We started in Malaga and made a round trip in our rented Ford Fiesta. This blog will focus on the route from Malaga to Seville and the next blog post will focus on the return route from Seville back to Malaga.

First things first, we had 16 days of constant sunshine! Too amazing. It is the most consecutive days of sun we have had since leaving SA a year ago! It was about 18-20ºC everyday except for Granada which had a max of about 11ºC due to snow on the Sierra Nevada mountains. We managed to catch a few rays and have had so many comments on our ‘tan’ since our return to the Netherlands. We were thinking you would probably lose your tan if it was only 20ºC for a few weeks in SA! Lol. It made a really nice change to the 6ºC, epically windy and very wet weather we have been (and still are!) having in the Netherlands. And we still keep being told that it this is unusually warm for this time of year… The other nice thing was the sun sets about an hour later in Southern Spain in the Netherlands which really makes a difference to the day. But it rises at about the same time or so.

Something else that deserves a mention before we get started is driving on the right hand side of the road! Justin did a really great job of getting us around in our little Ford Fiesta rental. Well done Boib! It took a while to adjust to getting in the other side of the car, doing gears with the right hand and remembering to drive on the right hand side of the road! You also need to remember that turning right is easier than turning left etc. Road rules in Spain also seem to be more guidelines, people seemed to do their own thing anyway and also park anywhere. One thing we certainly would not have survived without is our recently acquired GPS. Thanks Kate! Justin did really well to get us around but some narrow roads and too many one-way roads can be problematic! Kate was great except for the few times she mixed up her lefts and rights. But now that we have hired a car and driven around we will be more confident to do it again and maybe around here which will make day or weekend trips much easier =)

Malaga to Seville:

We landed in Malaga quite late on Sunday 19 December 2011 and so decided to spend our first night close by in Torremolinos. After picking up some car snacks the next day we were ready to start exploring! Our first stop was Ronda in the Publeos Blancos region. These are small towns with white-washed houses that were built in the mountains so that people could get away from the bandits that roamed the plains; there was even a bandit’s museum in Ronda!

We headed out for walk around the town after checking into our hotel and were surprised to find everything closed! We thought ok, maybe it’s holidays or things are closed on a Monday. But after 5pm everything opened and the town became alive and very vibey. Our first taste of Siesta time! We did not find Siesta time to be very big when we were in Barcelona and Madrid last March but in the Southern parts of Spain Siesta is very beeg. In every town we visited everything was closed from 2-5pm. So you would think that things opened early in the morning. Nope. Shops only opened at 10am. General opening times were 10am-2pm and 5pm-8:30pm with some variations. We had to learn to plan our day around Siesta time! 

Ronda is a lovely quaint old town that bridges a deep valley. Sights include the Puente Nuevo or new bridge and the bull ring. The bridge starts at the very bottom of the valley and goes all the way up to the town, about 100m; an impressive feat of engineering for the early 18^th century. Ronda’s bull ring, or Plaza de Toros, is the oldest and first purpose built bull ring in Spain. Although we are not fans of bull fights it was still interesting to walk around the inside of the ring and see the holding pens, the equestrian arena and other livestock areas.

On one of our days in Ronda we did a road trip through some of the other white washes towns. We enjoyed the leather shopping in Ubrique, the views of Gibraltar in Gaucin and being rock rabbits around a ruined Moorish castle in Jimena de la Fronteria. Driving around the narrow streets in these towns is not for the feint hearted! It was really nice driving around the mountain areas and seeing white-washed towns pop up around corners, it is very scenic. We also saw many wild cork trees with the bark stripped off to a certain height and also many wild olive trees. Green olives are a favourite tapas in many areas.

The most cloud we had the whole holiday! Having breakfast on the beach in Torremolinos.

LBJs sharing our crumbs =)

Our little Ford Fiesta Rental! We didn't realise how many windmills Spain has! But we didn't see any of the old style ones like you get in the Netherlands, only the new turbine types. Fortunately we didn't have a lot of wind, only on the last two days. 

View of the valley and white-washed houses in Ronda

The Puente Nuevo in Ronda 

View of the valley from the top of Puente Nuevo in Ronda

Boibs at Ronda

Bull outside the Plaza de Toros Ronda

Plaza de Toros Ronda

Stairs in the bull ring

Ruined Moorish castle at Jimena de la Fronteria

Typical round Moorish arches in the Mudejar style

From Ronda we headed to Jerez de la Fronteria which is close to Cadiz and is in the Sherry producing area. We stayed at a really nice hotel on a sherry farm or bodega a little out of town. It was so peaceful and quiet and with beautiful landscapes especially with the colours at sunrise or sunset. Jerez was a great place for chilling and reading our books. The restaurant at the hotel was also kewl except for the lack of English… but they tried really hard =)

We drove through to Cadiz and spent the day exploring! Cadiz has a very North African feel with its narrow streets and flat roofed houses. We visited the Cathedral with its golden dome of yellow tiles and enjoyed panoramic views of the city from Torre or Tower de Poniente adjacent to the Cathedral. The rest of the day was spent exploring the narrow streets, walking along the seafront promenade, trying to get into very closed old castles and walking in the parks.

We didn’t explore the town of Jerez that much but we did make a stop at the internationally known Royal Equestrian School. Think university for dressage riders, carriage riders and saddle makers. Since we visited on a Friday we missed the Lipizzaner show which happens on a Tuesday and Thursday. But we did get to watch the training session, check out the leather saddle and equipment studio and walk around the grounds and old manor house. It was a little quiet being holidays & two days before Christmas but one friendly security guy took the two of us around the stables and showed us the tack room. It was really nice of him to show us and be so friendly. We met one of the 5 Spanish horses going to the Olympics in London later this year. Keep an eye out for the Spanish horses in the dressage category!

Bull cut outs dot the country side. As do fields of solar panels. 

View of Cadiz Cathedral from the promenade

Bron at the top of Torre de Poniente 

View of Cadiz from the tower

Tower bells

Boibs at the top of the tower

From Jerez we moved onto Sevilla! We really enjoyed exploring Seville although we didn’t get to go into too many things since we were there over Christmas and most things either closed early or weren’t open on the 24^th, 25^th & 26^th. We only really had the morning of the 24^th to do touristy things. But we really enjoyed exploring the streets of the city. Sights we saw include the Torro del Oro, the Plaza del Toros, Plaza Nueva, Plaza Duque de la Victoria, the Cathedral, the Real Alcazar, Plaza de Espana and the old city walls (our hotel was right by the city walls and we had a view of them from our room). We loved how the Moorish architecture was integrated into the city and many buildings had the round Moorish arches. We also loved the orange trees full or ripe oranges that lined the streets in Seville and in many of the other cities we went to.

We really wanted to go into the Cathedral but it wasn’t open any time we were able to go. We did however hear the bells doing a special peal for Christmas. Wow! Super loud! We did however go into the Real Alcazar which is the old Moorish Palace. We really enjoyed the Real Alcazar! We loved the mix of the different Moorish arches, the running water, the colourful tiles, the fancy carved plaster work everywhere, the fancy ceilings and the excellent use of water, space and light. There was also a massive garden which we explored a bit. It was a little taste of what we expected the Alhambra in Granada to be like so it whet the appetite a little.

On Christmas eve the hotel put on a special dinner for out-of-towners who didn’t have any family around which we went to. It was a really good deal for a 6 course meal including wine and champagne. For starters we were served Iberian cured ham with hard cheese followed by 6 loungostines each (!) and soup. Mains was fish done in a mussel sauce with veg etc. Dessert was a wicked chocolate torte and a big plate of chocolates and other goodies. Was hectic! The barman also kept our glasses well topped up with white wine. We felt like we had a good session of the usual Christmas over feeding =)

Christmas day itself was very quiet. Not much was open but we did have a nice walk through the quiet city. We also enjoyed a seasonal Starbucks coffee, one of the only things that was open, lol.

And on the 26^th it was time to move onto Cordoba! Watch this space for the second installment on Southern Spain: Seville to Malaga =)

Seville's Cathedral

Random building in Seville with typical Moorish architecture

Nativity scene in Seville. Most towns we went to were really festive with strings of lights in the streets, Christmas trees, trees made up of lights and the hotels also generally made a lot of effort and had lots of decorations up. Was nice and festive =)

The Real Alcazar

Plaster work and tiles in the Real Alcazar

Some of the gardens at the Real Alcazar

Plaza de Espana

Bron at Plaza de Espana

Orange tree lined streets! 

Our favourite pose, chilling in the sun in the park =)

In other news the Netherlands is still as windy and gloomy as when we left. We were back at work on Thursday so it was a nice slow two day week to ease back into things. This week will be way more hectic! Justin had his first cricket practice of the season yesterday and is feeling very stiff today! Lol. So it is back to smelly sweaty cricket gear on the balcony, oh yay. Also Bron’s contract at the TU Delft ends at the end of January but she has been offered another year contract in the same department. The lady who went on maternity leave (Susanne) is back on the 16^th of Jan and in Feb we both go to a 4 day week. Yay, can’t wait! =) So that was good news to hear just before we went on holiday. Super glad that we will both still have a job in this current economic climate.

Today, Sunday, we had one of Bron’s work colleagues Marijn and his wife around for lunch and board games. Was a fun afternoon =)

Until next time! Hope you are all well and have a good week!

x