Dinner in Almunecar

We walked along the coast until we found a wonderful restaurant right on the beach that served "bucherones a la plancha" and "calamaros a la romana".

We had a wonderful evening although the children were tired walking back home so Diego had a ride on his father's back.

Fun at the pool

The Alhambra

We spent the afternoon in Antonio's town of birth, Granada, an hour's drive north. The drive was dramatic taking us through the valleys of the Sierra Nevada.

Our first stop was the Alhambra which was a breath of fresh air after the heat of the queue to get in.









Diego and Juliette enjoyed sitting in the seat of power.

One of the lions of the famous fountain in the palace.

 The roof of the alcove had been carved to show balconies and sky.

 The bathhouse had star shaped holes in the roof so star forms danced over the waters from the light of the moon or sun.

 The sun created beautiful effects over the writings through the stained glass.

 We found someone to take a family photograph outside the smaller palace next to the fountains.

 A self-taken family photograph next to the fountains

After the Alhambra, we walked the streets known as the Albaicin where Juliette had a beautiful Henna tattoo

Caves of Nerja and the Castle of San Miguel

We visited a beautiful cave at the nearby town of Nerja.














The stalactites and stalagmites had joined with the most beautiful haunting shapes.

We all saw shapes in the rock, from dragons to dwarves working the stone.

 It was cold but magical under the earth listening to the water dripping making more strange stalagmites.

Almunecar has a rich history and has been ruled by Phoenecians, Romans, Visigoths, Muslims and Christians as can be seen in its crest.

We visited its castle and looked at the sea from the battlements













It was quite a climb to get to the castle at the top and we enjoyed a well-deserved ice cream on the way down

The water park

As breakfast on our terrace included a view of the slides of the waterpark, it wasn't long before we gave in to the children's enthusiasm to brave the "black hole" and the "twister".











The children collected inflatable rafts then climbed the stairs to zoom down the covered pitch black slide holding on tight to the handles.

There was lots of screaming and shouts of joy!














There was also a steep slide that flew you into the air on the second bump.

Les Mirages

Almunecar is a village between Motril and Malaga an hour south of Granada. The authenticity seems to have been stripped from the place so it's hard to know what it was like before it was made tourist-friendly.

It is hard to get used to the daily schedule differences as flexible as we try to be:

• No shops open on Saturday afternoons, all cultural attractions closed in the afternoons until 6.30pm. 
• They don't start serving food in the 'Spanish' cafés until 9pm. 
• You see Spanish families eating their tea-time snacks of ice-cream and patisseries at 7pm while we are sipping our apéritif drinks dreaming of olives and fried fish.

Les Mirages is located at the top of a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean and a water park called Aqua Tropic.



It has a an 8 metre long "infinity" pool looking over the sea and apparently there are only thirty days in the year here when the sun does not shine.

The children have been watching a show in Spanish on TV called Violetta and every now and then they will call out "what does "benga" mean?".
"Come!" we call back. But they don't, they are praying to the temple of Disney.

The journey to Spain

After a grueling eight hour drive, not helped by missing motorway exits, in the early evening, we arrived in Lot in southern France.

Delphine and Bernard welcomed us with beer cooled in the cellar and we slept in the open air (children and Alexandra under the mosquito net and Paola and Nathan exposed to the elements)

Following  a leisurely breakfast and a game of boules with Bernard (the pétanque king), we headed for the Spanish basque country to spend a night
at Mikel's holiday apartment in Pikupe.

We had a swim in the pool, a beer on the beach and an early night for a 6AM start.

Nathan set the alarm clock wrong and so we left an hour late so we needed to make good time crossing Madrid. No problems on the way but the children were getting very excited about diving into the swimming pool. Next post, the arrival!